Miles in Love

by Lois McMaster Bujold

  And so Ivan found himself not with a private opportunity to make time with Olivia, but rather, trapped with her, Dono, Szabo, and two other Vorrutyer Armsmen in the back of the late Count Pierre's official car. Pierre's was one of the few vehicles Ivan had ever encountered that could beat Miles's Regency relic for both fusty luxury and a paranoid armoring that made its best progress a sort of lumbering wallow. Not that it wasn't comfortable; Ivan had slept in space station hostel rooms that were smaller than this rear compartment. But Olivia had somehow ended up seated between Dono and Szabo, while Ivan shared body heat with a couple of Armsmen.

  They were two-thirds of the way to Vorsmythe House when Dono, who had been staring out the canopy with little vertical lines scored between his brows, suddenly leaned forward and spoke into the intercom to his driver. "Joris, swing around by Count Vorfolse's again. We'll give him one more try."

  The car lumbered around the next corner, and began to backtrack. In a couple of minutes, the apartment building containing Vorfolse's flat loomed into view.

  The Vorfolse family had a remarkable record for picking the losers in every Barrayaran war of the last century, including choosing to collaborate with the Cetagandans and backing the wrong side in Vordarian's Pretendership. The somewhat morose present heir, oppressed by his ancestors' many defeats, eked out his life in the capital by renting the drafty old Vorfolse clan mansion to an enterprising prole with grandiose ambitions, and living entirely off the proceeds. Instead of the permitted squad of twenty, he kept only a single Armsman, an equally depressed and rather elderly fellow who doubled as every servant the Count had. Still, Vorfolse's apprehensive refusal to align himself with any faction or party or project, no matter how benign it appeared, at least meant he wasn't an automatic yes for Richars. And a vote was a vote, Ivan supposed, no matter how eccentric.

  A narrow, multilevel parking garage attached to the building provided spaces for the prole residents to house their vehicles, at a stiff surcharge Ivan had no doubt. Parking space in the capital was normally leased by the square meter. Joris oozed Pierre's groundcar into the meager clearances, then suffered a check when he discovered all the ground-floor visitor parking to be taken.

  Ivan, planning to stay in the comfy car with Olivia, revised his plan when Olivia jumped out to accompany Dono. Dono left Joris waiting for a space to open up, and, flanked by Olivia and his security outriders, strode out through the street-level pedestrian access and around toward the apartment building's front entrance. Torn between curiosity and caution, Ivan trailed along. With a short gesture, Szabo left one of his men to take station by the outer door, and the second by the lift tube exit on the third floor, so that by the time they arrived at Vorfolse's flat they were a not-too-intimidating party of four.

  A discreet brass tag was screwed a little crookedly to the door above the apartment's number; it read Vorfolse House in a script that was meant to be imposing, but, in context, succeeded mainly in being rather pathetic. Ivan was reminded of his Aunt Cordelia's frequent assertion that governments were mental constructs. Lord Dono touched the chime-pad.

  After a couple of minutes, a querulous voice issued from the intercom. The little square of its vid viewer stayed blank. "What do you want?"

  Dono glanced at Szabo, and whispered, "That Vorfolse?"

  "Sounds like," Szabo murmured back. "It's not quavery enough to be his old Armsman."

  "Good evening, Count Vorfolse," Dono said smoothly into the com. "I'm Lord Dono Vorrutyer." He gestured at his companions. "I believe you know Ivan Vorpatril, and my senior Armsman, Szabo. Miss Olivia Koudelka. I stopped by to talk to you about tomorrow's vote on my District's Countship."

  "It's too late," said the voice.

  Szabo rolled his eyes.

  "I have no wish to disturb your rest," Dono pressed on.

  "Good. Go away."

  Dono sighed. "Certainly, sir. But before we depart, may I at least be permitted to know how you intend to vote on the issue tomorrow?"

  "I don't care which Vorrutyer gets the District. The whole family's deranged. A plague on both your parties."

  Dono took a breath, and kept smiling. "Yes, sir, but consider the consequences. If you abstain, and the vote falls short of a decision, it will simply have to be done over again. And over and over, until a majority is finally reached. I would also point out that you would find my cousin Richars a most unrestful colleague—short-tempered, and much given to factionalism and strife."

  Such a long silence issued from the intercom, Ivan began to wonder if Vorfolse had gone off to bed.

  Olivia leaned into the scan pickup to say brightly, "Count Vorfolse, sir, if you vote for Lord Dono, you won't regret it. He'll give diligent service to both the Vorrutyer's District and to the Imperium."

  The voice replied after a moment, "Eh, you're one of Commodore Koudelka's girls, aren't you? Does Aral Vorkosigan support this nonsense, then?"

  "Lord Miles Vorkosigan, who is acting as his father's voting deputy, supports me fully," Dono returned.

  "Unrestful. Eh! There's unrestful for you."

  "No doubt," said Dono agreeably. "I have noticed that myself. But how do you intend to vote?"

  Another pause. "I don't know. I'll think about it."

  "Thank you, sir." Dono motioned them all to decamp; his little retinue followed him back toward the lift tubes.

  "That wasn't too conclusive," said Ivan.

  "Do you have any idea how positive I'll think about it seems, in light of some of the responses I've gotten?" said Dono ruefully. "Compared to certain of his colleagues, Count Vorfolse is a fountain of liberality." They collected the Armsman, and descended the lift tube. Dono added as they reached the ground foyer, "You have to give Vorfolse credit for integrity. There are a number of dubious ways he could be stripping his District of funds to support a more opulent lifestyle here, but he doesn't choose 'em."

  "Huh," said Szabo. "If I were one of his liege people, I'd damn well encourage him to steal something. It would be better than this miserable miserly farce. It's just not proper Vor. It's not good show."

  They exited the building with Szabo in the lead, Dono and Olivia somehow walking side by side, and Ivan following, trailed by the two other Armsmen. As they passed through the pedestrian entry to the dim garage, Szabo stopped short and said, "Where the hell's the car?" He lifted his wrist comm to his lips. "Joris?"

  Olivia said uneasily, "If somebody else had come in, he'd have had to take the car all the way up, back down, and around the block to let them past. No room to turn that car in here."

  "Not without—" Szabo began. He was interrupted by a quiet buzz, seemingly out of nowhere, a sound familiar enough to Ivan's ears. Szabo fell like a tree.

  "Stunner tag!" bellowed Ivan, and jumped behind the nearest pillar to his right. He looked around for Olivia, but she had dodged the other way, with Dono. Two more well-aimed stunner shots took out the other two Armsmen as they broke right and left, though one got off a wild shot with his own weapon before he went down.

  Ivan, crouching between the pillar and a dilapidated groundcar, cursed his unarmed state and tried to see where the shots had come from. Pillars, cars, inadequate lighting, shadows . . . further up the ramp, a dim shape flitted from the shadow of a pier and vanished among the tightly packed vehicles.

  Stunner combat rules were simple. Drop everything that moved, and sort them out later, hoping that no one harbored a bad heart condition. Dono's unconscious Armsman could supply Ivan with a stunner, if he could reach it without getting himself zapped. . . .

  A voice from up the ramp whispered hoarsely, "Which way did he go?"

  "Down toward the entry. Goff'll get him. Drop that damned officer as soon as you get a clear shot."

  At least three assailants, then. Assume one more. At least one more. Cursing the tight clearances, Ivan retreated backward on his hands and knees from his stunner-bolt-stopping pillar and tried to work his way between the row of cars and the wall, edging toward the entry again.
If he could make it out onto the street—

  This had to be a snatch. If it had been an assassination, their attackers would have picked a much deadlier weapon, and the whole party would be well-mixed hamburger on the walls by now. In a slice of vision between two cars, away down the descending ramp to his left, a white shape moved: Olivia's party dress. A meaty thunk came from behind a pillar there, followed by a nauseating noise like a pumpkin hitting concrete. "Good one!" Dono's voice jerked out.

  Olivia's mother, Ivan reminded himself, had been the boy-Emperor's personal bodyguard. He tried to imagine the cozy mother-daughter instruction rituals in the Koudelka household. He was pretty sure they hadn't been limited to baking cakes together.

  A black-clad shape darted.

  "There he goes! Get him! No, no—he's supposed to stay conscious!"

  Running footsteps, scuffling and breathing, a thunk, a strangled yelp—praying everyone's attention would be diverted, Ivan dove for the Armsman's stunner, snatched it up, and ducked again for cover. From the ascending ramp to the right came the whuff of a vehicle backing rapidly and illegally down toward them. Ivan risked a peek over a car. The back doors of the battered lift van swung wildly open, as it jerked to a halt at the curve. Two men hustled Dono toward it. Dono was open-mouthed, stumbling, a look of astonished agony on his face.

  "Where's Goff?" barked the driver, swinging out to look at his two comrades and their prize. "Goff!" he shouted.

  "Where's the girl?" asked one of them.

  The other said, "Never mind the girl. Here, help me bend him back. We'll do the job, dump him, and get out of here before she can run for help. Malka, circle around and get that big officer. He wasn't supposed to be in this picture." They pulled Dono into the van—no, only half into the van. One man pulled a bottle from his pocket, flipped off its cap, and placed it ready-to-hand on the edge of the van floor. What the hell . . . ? This isn't a kidnapping.

  "Goff?" the man detailed to hunt down Ivan called uncertainly into the shadows, as he crouched and skittered past the cars.

  The, under the circumstances, extremely unpleasant hum of a vibra knife sounded from the hand of the man bending over Dono. Risking everything, Ivan popped to his feet and fired.

  He scored a direct hit on the fellow seeking Goff; the man spasmed, fell, and failed to move thereafter. Dono's men carried heavy stunners, and not without cause, apparently. Ivan only managed to wing one of the others. They both abandoned Dono and dashed behind the van. Dono fell to the pavement, and curled up around himself; with all this stunner fire flashing around, probably no worse a move than trying to run for it, but Ivan had a gruesome vision of what would happen if the van backed up.

  From further up the ramp, on the far side of the van, two more stunner bolts snapped out in quick succession.

  Silence.

  After a moment, Ivan called cautiously, "Olivia?"

  She responded from higher up the ramp in a breathless sort of little-girl voice, "Ivan? Dono?"

  Dono spasmed on the pavement, and vented a moan.

  Warily, Ivan stood up and started for the van. After a couple of seconds, probably to see if he would draw any more fire, Olivia rose from her cover and ran lightly down the ramp to join him.

  "Where'd you get the stunner?" he inquired, as she popped around the vehicle's side. She was barefoot, and her party dress was tucked up around her hips.

  "Goff." Somewhat absently, she jerked her skirts back down with her free hand. "Dono! Oh, no!" She jammed the stunner into her cleavage and knelt by the black-clad man. She raised a hand covered, sickeningly, with blood.

  "Only," gasped Dono, "a cut on my leg. He missed. Oh, God! Ow, ow!"

  "You're bleeding all over the place. Lie still, love!" Olivia commanded. She looked around a little frantically, jumped up and peered into the dark cavernous emptiness of the van's freight compartment, then determinedly ripped off the beige lace overskirt of her party dress. More quick ripping sounds, as she hastily fashioned a pad and some strips. She began to bind the pad tightly to the long shallow slash along Dono's thigh, to staunch the bleeding.

  Ivan circled the van, collected Olivia's two victims, and dragged them back to deposit in a heap where he could keep an eye on them. Olivia now had Dono half sitting up, his head cradled between her breasts as she anxiously stroked his dark hair. Dono was pale and shaking, his breathing disrupted.

  "Take a punch in the solar plexus, did you?" Ivan inquired.

  "No. Further down," Dono wheezed. "Ivan . . . do you remember, whenever one of you fellows got kicked in the nuts and went over, doing sports or whatever, how I laughed? I'm sorry. I never knew. I'm sorry . . ."

  "Sh," Olivia soothed him.

  Ivan knelt down for a closer look. Olivia's first aid was doing its job; the beige lace was soaked with bright gore, but the bleeding had definitely slowed. Dono wasn't going to exsanguinate here. His assailant had sliced Dono's trousers open; the vibra-knife lay abandoned on the pavement nearby. Ivan rose, and examined the bottle. His head jerked back at the sharp scent of liquid bandage. He considered offering it to Olivia for Dono, but there was no telling what nasty additives it might be spiked with. Carefully, he recapped it, and stared around at the scene. "It seems," he said shakily, "someone was aiming to reverse your Betan surgery, Dono. Disqualify you just before the vote."

  "I'd figured that out, yeah," Dono mumbled.

  "Without anesthetic. I think the liquid bandage was to stop the bleeding, after. To be sure you'd live through it."

  Olivia cried out in revolted horror. "That's awful!"

  "That's," Dono sighed, "Richars, in all probability. I didn't think he'd go this far. . . ."

  "That's—" said Ivan, and stopped. He scowled at the vibra knife, and stirred it with the toe of his boot. "Now, I'm not saying I approve of what you did, Dono, or of what you're trying to do. But that's just wrong."

  Dono's hands wandered protectively to his groin. "Hell," he said in a faint voice. "I hadn't even got to try it out yet. I was saving myself. For once in my life, I wanted to be a virgin on my wedding night . . ."

  "Can you stand up?"

  "Are you joking?"

  "No." Ivan glanced around uneasily. "Where'd you leave Goff, Olivia?"

  She pointed. "Over by that third pillar."

  "Right." Ivan went to collect him, seriously wondering where Pierre's car had gone. The thug Goff was still unconscious too, although of a subtly more disturbing limpness than the stunner victims. It was the greenish skin tone, Ivan decided, and the weird spongy lump on his head. He paused along the route, in dragging Goff to join the others, to check Szabo's wrist comm for Joris. No answer, though Szabo's pulse seemed to be bumping along all right.

  Dono was stirring, but still not ready to stand. Ivan frowned, stared around, then jogged up the ramp.

  Just around the next curve, Ivan found Pierre's groundcar sitting skewed a little sideways across the concrete. Ivan didn't know by what trick they'd lured Joris out of it, but the young Armsman lay in a stunned heap in front of the car. Ivan sighed, and dragged him around to dump in the rear compartment, and backed the car carefully down to the van.

  Dono's color was coming back, and he was now sitting up only a little bent over.

  "We have to get Dono medical attention," Olivia told Ivan anxiously.

  "Yep. We're going to need all kinds of drugs," Ivan agreed. "Synergine for some," he craned his neck toward Szabo, who twitched and moaned but didn't quite claw back to consciousness, "fast-penta for others." He frowned at the heap of thugs. "You recognize any of these goons, Dono?"

  Dono squinted. "Never seen 'em in my life."

  "Hirelings, I suppose. Contracted through who knows how many middlemen. Could be days before the municipal guard, or ImpSec if they take an interest, get to the bottom of it all."

  "The vote," sighed Dono, "will be over by then."

  I don't want anything to do with this. This isn't my job. It's not my fault. But really, this was a political precede
nt nobody was going to favor. This was damned offensive. This was just . . . really wrong.

  "Olivia," Ivan said abruptly, "can you drive Dono's car?"

  "I think so . . ."

  "Good. Help me get the troops loaded up."

  With Olivia's assistance, Ivan managed to get the three stunned Vorrutyer Armsmen laid into the rear compartment with the unfortunate Joris, and the disarmed thugs hoisted rather less carefully into the back of their own van. He locked the doors firmly from the outside, and took charge of the vibra knife, the armload of illegal stunners, and the bottle of liquid bandage. Tenderly, Olivia helped Dono limp over to his car, and settled him into the front seat with his leg out. Ivan, watching the pair, blond head bent over dark, sighed deeply, and shook his head.

  "Where to?" called Olivia, punching controls to lower the canopies.