"I trust she has a sense of humor. Well, what's a little character assassination among friends?"
"Better than the real thing."
"Urgh. Anyway, I don't have my flask. Are we ready?"
"I guess. No, hold it—" Another aircar was dropping down. Civilian, but the police guard at the main tower entrance went to meet it. An older man got out, and they hurried back to the tower together. "Now."
Ivan took Quinn's shoulders and Mark took her feet. Miles stepped carefully over the stunned body of the policeman who had been guarding this exit, and they all double-timed it across the pavement toward cover.
"God, Miles," panted Ivan as they paused in the greenery to scan the next leg, "why don't you go in for little petite women? It'd make more sense . . ."
"Now, now. She only weighs about double a full field pack. You can make it." No shouting from behind, no hurrying pursuers. The area closest to the tower was actually probably the safest. It would have been scanned and swept before now, and pronounced clean of intruders. Police attention would be concentrated at the park's border. Which they would have to cross, to reach the city and escape.
Miles stared into the shadows. With all the artificial lighting about, his eyes were not dark-adapting as well as he'd like.
Ivan stared too. "I can't spot any coppers in the bushes," he muttered.
"I'm not looking for police," Miles whispered back.
"What, then?"
"Mark said a man wearing face paint fired at him. Have you seen anybody wearing face paint yet?"
"Ah . . . maybe the police nabbed him first, before we saw the others." But Ivan looked over his shoulder.
"Maybe. Mark—what color was the face? What pattern?"
"Mostly blue. With white and yellow and black kind of swirling slashes. A ghem-lord of middle rank, right?"
"A century-captain. If you were supposed to be me you should be able to read ghem-markings forward and backward."
"There was so much to learn. . . ."
"Anyway, Ivan—do you really want to just assume a century-captain, highly trained, sent from headquarters, formally sworn to his hunt, really let some London constable sneak up and stun him? The others were just ordinary soldiers. The Cetagandans will bail 'em out later. A ghem-lord'd die before he'd let himself be so embarrassed. He'll be a persistent bugger, too."
Ivan rolled his eyes. "Wonderful."
They wound through a couple hundred meters of trees, shrubbery and shadows. The hiss and hum of traffic on the main coastal highway came faintly now. The pedestrian underpasses were doubtless guarded. The high-speed highway was fenced and strictly forbidden to foot traffic.
A synthacrete kiosk cloaked with bushes and vines hopeful of concealing its blunt utility squatted near the main path to the pedestrian underpass. At first Miles took it for a public latrine, but a closer look revealed only one blank locked door. The spotlights that should have illuminated that side were knocked out. As Miles watched, the door began to slide slowly aside. A weapon in a pale hand glittered faintly in the blackness. Miles aimed his stunner and held his breath. The dark shape of a man slipped out.
Miles exhaled. "Captain Galeni!" he hissed.
Galeni jerked as though shot, crouched, and scurried toward them, joining them in their concealment on hands and knees. He swore under his breath, discovering, as Miles had, that this grouping of ornamental shrubs had thorns. His eyes took instant inventory of the ragged little group, Miles and Mark, Ivan and Elli. "I'll be damned. You're still alive."
"I'd sort of been wondering about you, too," Miles admitted.
Galeni looked—Galeni looked bizarre, Miles decided. Gone was the blank witnessing stillness that had absorbed Ser Galen's death without comment. He was almost grinning, electric with a slightly off-center exhilaration, as if he'd overdone some stimulant drug. He was breathing heavily; his face was bruised, mouth bloody. His swollen hand flexed on his weapon—last seen weaponless, he was now carrying a Cetagandan military-issue plasma arc. A knife hilt stuck out of his boot top.
"Have you, ah, run into a guy wearing blue face paint yet?" Miles inquired.
"Oh yes," said Galeni in a tone of some satisfaction.
"What the hell happened to you? Sir."
Galeni spoke in a rapid whisper. "I couldn't find an entrance in the Barrier near where I'd left you. I spotted that utilities access over there," he jerked his head toward the kiosk, "and thought there might be some power optic or water line tunnels back to the Barrier. I was half-right. There are utility tunnels all under this park. But I got turned around underground, and instead of coming out in the Barrier, I ended up coming out a port in the pedestrian crossing under the Channel Highway. Where I found guess who?"
Miles shook his head. "Police? Cetagandans? Barrayarans?"
"Close. It was my old friend and opposite number from the Cetagandan Embassy, Ghem-lieutenant Tabor. It actually took me a couple of minutes to realize what he was doing there. Playing outer-perimeter backup to the experts from HQ. Same as I would have been doing if I hadn't been," Galeni snickered, "confined to quarters.
"He was not happy to see me," Galeni went on. "He couldn't figure what the hell I was doing there either. We both pretended to be out viewing the moon, while I got a look at the equipment he had packed in his groundcar. He may have actually believed me; I think he thought I was drunk or drugged."
Miles politely refrained from remarking, I can see why.
"But then he started getting signals from his team, and had to get rid of me in a hurry. He pulled a stunner on me—I ducked—he didn't hit me square on, but I lay low pretending to be more disabled than I was, listening to his half of the conversation with the squad in the tower and hoping for a chance to reverse the situation.
"The feeling was just coming back to the left half of my body when your blue friend showed up. His arrival distracted Tabor, and I jumped them both."
Miles's brows rose. "How the devil did you manage that?"
Galeni's hands were flexing as he spoke. "I don't . . . quite know," he admitted. "I remember hitting them. . . ." He glanced at Mark. "It was nice to have a clearly defined enemy for a change."
Upon whom, Miles guessed, Galeni had just unloaded all the accumulated tensions of the last impossible week and this mad night. Miles had witnessed berserkers before. "Are they still alive?"
"Oh yes."
Miles decided he would believe that when he'd had a chance to check for himself. Galeni's smile was alarming, all those long teeth gleaming in the darkness.
"Their car," said Ivan urgently.
"Their car," agreed Miles. "Is it still there? Can we get to it?"
"Maybe," said Galeni. "There is at least one police squad in the tunnels now. I could hear them."
"We'll have to chance it."
"Easy for you to say," muttered Mark truculently. "You have diplomatic immunity."
Miles stared at him, seized by berserker inspiration. His finger traced over an inner pocket in his gray jacket. "Mark," he breathed, "how would you like to earn that hundred-thousand Betan dollar credit chit?"
"There isn't any credit chit."
"That's what Ser Galen said. You might reflect on what else he was wrong about tonight." Miles glanced up to check what effect mention of his father's name had on Galeni. A cooling one, apparently; some of the drawn and inward look returned to his eyes even as Miles watched. "Captain Galeni. Are those two Cetagandans conscious, or can they be brought to consciousness?"
"At least one is. They may both be by now. Why?"
"Witnesses. Two witnesses, ideal."
"I thought the whole point of sneaking off instead of surrendering was to avoid witnesses?" said Ivan plaintively.
"I think," Miles overrode him, "I had better be Admiral Naismith. No offense, Mark, but you don't have your Betan accent quite right. You don't hit your terminal R's quite hard enough or something. Besides, you've practiced Lord Vorkosigan more."
Galeni's eyebrows were going up, as he grasped the i
dea. He nodded thoughtfully, though his face as he turned his gaze on Mark was unreadable enough to make Mark flinch. "Indeed. You owe us your cooperation, I think." He added even more softly, "You owe me."
This was not the moment to point out how much Galeni owed Mark in return, though a brief meeting of their eyes convinced Miles that Galeni, at least, was perfectly conscious of the two-way flow of that grim debt. But Galeni would not fumble this opportunity.
Sure of his alliance, Admiral Naismith said, "Into the tunnel, then. Lead on, Captain."
* * *
The Cetagandan groundcar was parked in a shadowy spot under a tree, a few meters to their left as they rose up out of the lift tube from the pedestrian subway to the Barrier park. Still no police guard on this end; the end toward the park, Galeni had informed them, had a two-man squad, though they had not risked themselves rechecking that fact. The scurry through the tunnels had been hectic enough, barely dodging a police bomb squad.
The spreading plane tree shielded the car from view of most of the (closed, at this hour) shops and apartments lining the other side of the narrow city street. No insomniac peeping out an upper window could have witnessed Galeni's encounter, Miles hoped. The highway above and behind them was walled and blind. Miles still felt exposed.
The groundcar bore no embassy identification, nor any other unusual features to draw attention; bland, neither old nor new, a little dirty. Definitely covert ops. Miles raised his brows and whistled silently at the fresh dents in the side, about the size of a man's head, and the blood spattered on the pavement. In the dimness the red color was fortunately subdued.
"Wasn't that a bit noisy?" Miles inquired of Galeni, pointing to the dents.
"Mm? Not really. Dull thumps. Nobody yelled." Galeni, after a quick look up and down the street and a pause for a lone groundcar to whisper past, raised the mirrored bubble canopy.
Two shapes huddled in the back seat, hitched up with their own equipment. Lieutenant Tabor, in civilian clothes, blinked over his gag. The man with the blue face paint sat slumped next to him. Miles checked one eyelid, and found the eye still rolled back. He rummaged in the front for a medkit. Ivan loaded and settled Elli and took the controls. Mark slid in beside Tabor, and Galeni sandwiched their captives from the other side. At a touch from Ivan the canopy sighed down and locked itself, jamming them all in. Seven was a crowd.
Miles leaned over the back of the front seat and pressed a hypospray of synergine, first aid for shock, against the century-captain's neck. It might bring him around, and certainly would not harm him. At this present peculiar moment, Miles's would-be killer's life and continued health was a most precious commodity. As an afterthought, Miles gave Elli a dose too. She emitted a heartening moan.
The groundcar rose on its skirts and hissed forward. Miles exhaled with relief as they put the coast behind them, turning into the maze of the city. He keyed his wrist comm, and said in his flattest Betan accent, "Nim?"
"Yes, sir."
"Take a fix on my comm. Follow along. We're all done here."
"We have you, sir."
"Naismith out."
He settled Elli's head in his lap and turned to watch Tabor over the seat back. Tabor was staring back and fourth from Miles to Mark, beside him.
"Hello, Tabor," said Mark, carefully coached, in his best Barrayaran Vor tones—did it really sound that snide?—"How's your bonsai?"
Tabor recoiled slightly. The century-captain stirred, staring through slitted but focusing eyes. He tried to move, discovered his bonds, and settled back—not relaxed, but not wasting energy on futile struggle.
Galeni reached over him and loosed Tabor's gag. "Sorry, Tabor. But you can't have Admiral Naismith. Not here on Earth, anyway. You can pass the word up your chain of command. He's under our protection until his fleet leaves orbit. Part of the agreed price for his helping the Barrayaran Embassy find the Komarrans who had lately kidnapped some of our personnel. So back off."
Tabor's eyes shifted, back and forth, as he spat out his gag, worked his jaw, and swallowed. He croaked, "You're working together?"
"Unfortunately," growled Mark.
"A mercenary," caroled Miles, "gets it where he can."
"You made a mistake," hissed the century-captain, focusing on the admiral, "when you took contract against us at Dagoola."
"You can say that again," agreed Miles cheerily. "After we rescued their damned army, the Underground stiffed us. Did us out of half our promised pay. I don't suppose Cetaganda would like to hire us to go after them in turn, eh? No? Unfortunately, I cannot afford personal vengeance. At present, anyway. Or I would not have taken employment with," he bared his teeth in an unfriendly smile at Mark, who sneered back, "these old friends."
"So you really are a clone," breathed Tabor, staring at the legendary mercenary commander. "We thought . . ." He fell silent.
"We thought he was yours, for years," said Mark-as-Lord-Vorkosigan.
Ours! mouthed Tabor in astonishment.
"But the present operation confirmed his Komarran origin," Mark finished.
"We have an agreement," Miles spoke up as if unsettled by Mark's tone, glaring from Mark to Galeni. "You cover me till I leave Earth."
"We have an agreement," said Mark, "as long as you never come any closer to Barrayar."
"You can have bloody Barrayar. I'll take the rest of the galaxy, thanks."
The century-captain was blurring out again, but fighting it, squeezing his eyes shut and breathing in a controlled pattern. Concussion, Miles judged. In his lap, Elli's eyes popped open. He stroked her curls. She emitted a ladylike burp, saved by the synergine from the more usual post-stun vomiting. She sat up, looked around, saw Mark, the Cetagandans, Ivan, and shut her jaw with a snap, concealing her disorientation. Miles squeezed her hand. I'll explain later, his smile promised. She lowered her brows at him in exasperation, You'd better. She lifted her chin, poised before the enemy even in the teeth of her own bewilderment.
Ivan turned his head, inquiring out of the side of his mouth of Galeni, "So what do we do with these Cetagandans, sir? Drop them off somewhere? From how high up?"
"There is, I think, no need for an interplanetary incident." Galeni was wolfishly cheerful, taking his tone from Miles. "Is there, Lieutenant Tabor? Or do you wish the local authorities to be told what the ghem-comrade was really trying to do in the Barrier last night? No? I thought not. Very well. They both need medical treatment, Ivan. Lieutenant Tabor unfortunately broke his arm, and I believe his, ah, friend has a concussion. Among other things. Your choice, Tabor. Shall we drop you off at a hospital, or would you prefer treatment at your own embassy?"
"Embassy," croaked Tabor, clearly cognizant of possible legal complications. "Unless you want to try to talk your way out of an attempted murder charge," he counter-threatened.
"Only assault, surely." Galeni's eyes glittered.
Tabor smiled most uneasily, looking as if he'd like to edge away if only there were room. "Whatever. Neither of our ambassadors would be pleased."
"Quite."
It was getting near dawn. Traffic was beginning to increase. Ivan circled a couple of streets before spotting a deserted auto-cab stand that did not have a queue of waiting patrons. This seaside suburb was far from the embassy district. Galeni was quite solicitous, helping unload their passengers—but he didn't toss the code-key to the century-captain's hand and foot bonds to Tabor until Ivan began to accelerate back into the street. "I'll have one of my staff return your car this afternoon," Galeni called back as they sped off. He settled in his seat with a snort as Ivan sealed the canopy and added under his breath, "After we go over it."
"Think that charade'll work?" asked Ivan.
"In the short range—convincing the Cetagandans that Barrayar had nothing to do with Dagoola—maybe, maybe not," sighed Miles. "But for the main security issue—there go two loyal officers who will swear under chemohypnotics that Admiral Naismith and Lord Vorkosigan are without question two separate men. That's goin
g to be worth a great deal to us."
"But will Destang think so?" asked Ivan.
"I do not believe," said Galeni distantly, staring out the canopy, "that I give a good goddamn what Destang thinks."
Miles found himself in mental agreement with that sentiment. But then, they were all very tired. But they were all here: he looked around, savoring the faces, Elli and Ivan, Galeni and Mark; all alive, all brought through the night to this moment of survival.
Almost all.
"Where do you want to be dropped off, Mark?" Miles asked. He glanced through his lashes at Galeni, expecting an objection, but Galeni offered none. With the jettisoning of the Cetagandans Galeni had lost the hyper-adrenal edge that had been carrying him; he looked drained. He looked old. Miles did not solicit an objection. Be careful what you ask for, you might get it.
"A tube station," said Mark. "Any tube station."
"Very well." Miles called up a map on the car's console. "Up three streets and over two, Ivan."
He got out with Mark as the car settled to the pavement in the drop-off zone. "Back in a minute." They walked together to the entrance to the DOWN lift tube. It was still night-quiet here in this district, only a trickle of people flowing past, but morning rush would be starting soon.
Miles opened his jacket and drew out the coded card. From the tense look on Mark's face he was anticipating a nerve disruptor, in the style of Ser Galen, right to the last. Mark took the card and turned it over in wonder and suspicion.
"There you go," said Miles. "If you, with your background and this bankroll, can't disappear on Earth, it can't be done. Good luck."
"But . . . what do you want of me?"
"Nothing. Nothing at all. You're a free man, for as long as you can keep so. We will certainly not be reporting Galen's, ah, semi-accidental death."
Mark slipped the chit into his trouser pocket. "You wanted more."
"When you can't get what you want, you take what you can get. As you are finding." He nodded toward Mark's pocket; Mark's hand closed over it protectively.
"What is it that you want me to do?" Mark demanded. "What are you setting me up for? Did you really take that Jackson's Whole garbage seriously? What do you expect me to do?"
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