Captain Vorpatril's Alliance (3 page)

“Oh,” he mumbled after a moment. “You two are
t’gether.
Thass all right, then…”

The first thing Tej’s patting hand found was a small flimsy, tucked into his breast pocket. Featuring a still scan of her. A chill washed through her.

She seized his well-shaved jaw, stared into his eyes, demanded tightly: “Are you a hired killer?”

Still weirdly dilated from the stun nimbus, his eyes were not tracking quite in unison. He appeared to have to think this question over. “Well…in a
sense
…”

Abandoning interrogation in favor of physical evidence, Tej extracted the wallet he’d flashed earlier, a door remote much like her own, and a slender stunner hidden in an inner pocket. No more lethal weaponry surfaced.

“Let me see that,” said Rish, and Tej obediently handed up the stunner. “Who is this meat really?”

“Hey, I c’n answer that,” their victim mumbled, but fell prudently silent again as she jerked her aim back at him.

The top item in the wallet was the credit chit. Beneath it was a disquietingly official-looking security card with a heavy coding strip identifying the man further as one
Captain Ivan X. Vorpatril, Barrayaran Imperial Service, Operations, Vorbarr Sultana
. Another mentioned such titles as
Aide-de-Camp to Admiral Desplains, Chief of Operations
, with a complicated building address featuring lots of alphanumeric strings. There was also a strange little stack of tiny rectangles of heavy paper, reading only
Lord Ivan Xav Vorpatril
, nothing else. The fine, black, raised lettering bumped under her curious fingertips. She passed them all up for Rish’s inspection.

On sudden impulse, she drew off one of his polished shoes, which made him twitch in a scrambled reflex, and looked inside.
Military
issue shoes, aha, that explained their unusual style. 12 Ds, though she couldn’t think of a reason for that to be important, except that they fit the rest of his proportions.

“Barrayaran military stunner, personally coded grip,” Rish reported. She frowned at the handful of IDs. “These all look quite authentic.”

“Assure you, they are,” their prisoner put in earnestly from the floor. “Damn. By never mentioned any lethal blue-faced ladies, t’ ratfink. Izzat…makeup?”

Tej murmured in uncertainty, “I suppose the best cappers would look authentic. Nice to know they’re taking me seriously enough not to send cut-rate rental meat.”

“Capper,” wheezed Vorpatril—was that his real name? “Thass Jacksonian slang, innit? For a contract killer. You expectin’ one? That ’splains a lot…”

“Rish,” Tej said, a sinking feeling beginning in her stomach, “do you think he could really be a Barrayaran officer? Oh, no, what do we do with him if he
is
?”

Rish glanced uneasily at the outside door. “We can’t stay here. Someone else could come in or out at any moment. Better get him upstairs.”

Their prisoner did not cry out or try to struggle as they womanhandled his limp, heavy body into the lift tube, up three flights, and down the corridor to the corner flat. As they dragged him inside, he remarked to the air, “Hey, made it inside her door on t’ first date! Are things lookin’ up for Ma Vorpatril’s boy, or what?”

“This is not a date, you idiot,” Tej snapped at him.

To her annoyance, his smile inexplicably broadened.

Unnerved by the warm glance, she dumped him down hard in the middle of the living room floor.

“But it could be,” he went on. “…To a fellow of certain special tastes, that is. Bit of a waste that I’m not one of ’em, but hey, I can be flexible. Was never quite sure about m’cousin Miles, though. Amazons all the way for him. Compensating, I always thought…”

“Do you ever give up?” Tej demanded.

“Not until you laugh,” he answered gravely. “First rule of picking up girls, y’know; she laughs, you live.” He added after a moment, “Sorry I triggered your, um, triggers back there. I’m not attacking you.”

“Dead right you’re not,” said Rish, scowling. She tossed shawl, vest, and gloves onto the couch, and dug out her stunner again.

Vorpatril’s mouth gaped as he stared up at her.

A black tank top and loose trousers did not hide lapis lazuli-blue skin shot with metallic gold veins, platinum blond pelt of hair, pointed blue ears framing the fine skull and jaw—to Tej, who had known her companion and odd-sister for her whole life, she was just
Rish
, but there were good reasons she’d kept to the flat, out of sight, ever since they’d come to Komarr.

“Thass no makeup! Izzat…body mod, or genetic construct?” their prisoner asked, still wide-eyed.

Tej stiffened. Barrayarans were reputed to be unpleasantly prejudiced against genetic variance, whether accidental or designed. Perhaps dangerously so.

“’Cause if you did it to yourself, thass one thing, but if somebody did it
to
you, thass…thass just
wrong
.”

“I am grateful for my existence and pleased with my appearance,” Rish told him, her sharp tone underscored by a jab of her stunner. “
Your
ignorant opinion is entirely irrelevant.”

“Very boorish, too,” Tej put in, offended on Rish’s behalf. Was she not one of the Baronne’s own Jewels?

He managed a little apologetic flip of his hands—stun wearing off already? “No, no, ’s gorgeous, ma’am, really. Took me by surprise, is all.”

He seemed sincere. He hadn’t been expecting Rish. Wouldn’t a capper or even hired meat have been better briefed? That, and his bizarre attempt to protect her in the foyer, and all the rest, were adding to her queasy fear that she’d just made a serious mistake, one with consequences as lethal, if more roundabout, as if he’d been a real capper.

Tej knelt to strip off his wristcom, which was clunky and unfashionable.

“Right, but please don’t fool with that,” he sighed. He sounded more resigned than resistant. “Tends to melt down if other people try to access it. And they make issuing a replacement the most unbelievable pain in the ass. On purpose, I think.”

Rish examined it. “Also military.” She set it gingerly aside on the nearby lamp table beside the rest of his possessions.

How many details had to point in the same direction before one decided they pointed true?
Depends on how costly it is to be mistaken, maybe?
“Do we have any fast-penta left?” Tej asked Rish.

The blue woman shook her head, her gold ear-bangles flashing. “Not since that stop on Pol Station.”

“I could go out and try to get some…” Here, the truth drug was illegal in private hands, being reserved to the authorities. Tej was fairly sure that worked about as well as it did anywhere.

“Not by yourself, at this hour,” said Rish, in her
and no backtalk
voice. Her gaze down at the man grew more thoughtful. “There’s always good old-fashioned torture…”

“Hey!” Vorpatril objected, still working his jaw against the stun numbness. “There’s always good old-fashioned
asking politely
, didja ever think of that?”

“It would be bound,” said Tej to Rish, primly overriding his interjection, “to make too much noise. Especially at this time of night. You know how we can hear Ser and Sera Palmi carrying on, next door.”

“Houseless grubbers,” muttered Rish. Which was rude, but then, she’d also had her sleep impeded by the amorous neighbors. Anyway, Tej wasn’t sure but that she and Rish qualified as Houseless, too, now. And grubbers as well.

And that was another weird thing. The man wasn’t yelling for help, either. She tried to decide if a capper, even one who’d had the tables so turned upon him, would have the nerve to bluff his way out past an influx of local police. Vorpatril did not seem to be lacking in nerve. Or else, against all the evidence, he didn’t think he had reason to fear them. Mystifying.

“We’d better tie him up before the stun wears off,” said Tej, watching his tremors ease. “Or else stun him again.”

He did not even try to resist this process. Tej, a little concerned for that pale skin, vetoed the harsh plastic rope from the kitchen stores that Rish unearthed, and pulled out her soft scarves, at least for his wrists. She still let Rish tug them plenty tight.

“This is all very well for tonight,” said Vorpatril, observing closely, “especially if you break out t’ feathers—do you have any feathers? because I don’t like that ice cube thing—but I have to tell you, there’s going to be a problem come morning. See, back home, if I didn’t show up for work on time after a night on the town, nobody would panic right off. But this is Komarr. After forty years, assimilation into the Imperium’s going pretty well, they say, but there’s no denying it got off to a bad start. Still folks out there with grudges. Any Barrayaran soldier disappears in the domes, Service Security takes it up seriously, and quick, too. Which, um…I’m thinking might not be too welcome to you, if they track me to your door.”

His comment was uncomfortably shrewd. “Does anyone know where you are?”

Rish answered for him: “Whoever gave him your picture and address does.”

“Oh. Yes.” Tej winced. “Who
did
give you my picture?”

“Mm, mutual acquaintance? Well, maybe not too mutual—he didn’t seem to know much about you. But he did seem to think you were in some kind of danger.” Vorpatril looked down rather ironically at the bindings now securing him to a kitchen chair, dragged out to the living room for the purpose. “It seems you think so, too.”

Tej stared at him in disbelief. “Are you saying someone sent
you
to
me
as a
bodyguard?
”

He appeared affronted by her rising tones. “Why not?”

“Aside from the fact that the two of us took you down without even getting winded?” said Rish.

“You did too get winded. Dragging me up here. Anyway, I don’t hit girls. Generally. Well, there was that time with Delia Koudelka when I was twelve, but she hit me first, and it really hurt, too. Her mama and mine were inclined to be merciful, but Uncle Aral wasn’t—gave me a permanent twitch on the subject, let me tell you.”

“Shut.
Up
,” said Rish, driven to twitch a bit herself. “Nothing about him makes sense!”

“Unless he’s telling the truth,” said Tej slowly.

“Even if he’s telling the truth, he’s blithering,” said Rish. “Our dinner is getting cold. Come on, eat, then we’ll figure out what to do with him.”

With reluctance, Tej allowed herself to be drawn into the kitchen. A glance over her shoulder elicited a look of hope from the man, which faded disconsolately as she didn’t turn back. She heard his trailing mutter: “Hell, maybe I should’ve
started
with ponies…”

Chapter Two

Ivan sat in the dark and contemplated his progress. It was not heartening.

Not that his reputation for success with women was undeserved, but it was due to brains, not luck, and steady allegiance to a few simple rules. The first rule was to go to places where lots of women already in the mood for company had congregated—parties, dances, bars. Although not weddings, because those tended to put the wrong sorts of thoughts into their heads. Next, try likely prospects till you hit one who smiled back. Next, be amusing, perhaps in a slightly risqué but tasteful way, until she laughed. Extra points if the laughter was genuine. Continue
ad lib
from there. A 10:1 ratio of trials to hits was not a problem as long as the original pool contained ten or more prospects to start with. It was simple statistics, as he’d tried to explain to his cousin Miles on more than one occasion.

He’d entered that shop knowing the odds were not in his favor; a pool with only one fish required a fellow to get it right the first time. Well, he
might
have got lucky; it wasn’t unprecedented. He wriggled his wrists against his scarf bonds, which were unexpectedly unyielding for such soft, feminine cloth. Some sort of metaphor, there.
This is not my fault
.

It was By’s fault, he decided. Ivan was a victim of poor intel from his own side, like many a forlorn hope before him. Ivan had encountered overprotective duennas before, but never one who’d shot him from ambush the first time he walked through the door. The unfriendly blue woman…was a puzzle. He disliked puzzles. He’d never been good at them, not even as a child. His impatient playmates had generally plucked them out of his hands and finished them for him.

Rish was incredibly beautiful—sculpted bones, flowing muscles, stained-glass skin shimmering as she moved—but not in the least attractive, at least in the sense of someone he’d want to cuddle up to. Sort of a cross between a pixie and a python. She was shorter and slimmer than Nanja, and very bendy, but, he had noticed when the two women were dragging him up here, much the stronger. He also suspected genetically augmented reflexes, and the devil knew what else. Best appreciated from several meters’ distance, like a work of art, which he suspected she was.

Whose work? That degree of genetic manipulation on humans was wildly illegal on all three planets of the Barrayaran Imperium. Unless one had it done to oneself, offworld, in which case it might still be better to go live somewhere else, after. Nanja was certainly neither Komarran nor Barrayaran, or she’d have had a more visible reaction to that famous name and address where he’d shipped the ghastly vase. Not only Not From Around Here, but also Not Been Here Long.

Her companion’s elegant gengineering was almost Cetagandan in its subtlety—but the Cetagandans didn’t make human novelties as such. Their aesthetic boundaries in that material were very strict, not to mention restricted, reserved for more serious and long-range goals. Now, animals—when Cetagandans were working with animal or plant genomes, or worse, both at once, all bets were off. He shuddered in memory. He would be
glad
to cross Cetagandans off his list, renegade or otherwise. He would be
ecstatic
.

Ivan peered around the dim living room. He was not, he assured himself, tied up in a small, dark place. It was a spacious, dark place, and not pitch-dark in any case, given the ambient urban glow from the window. And on the third floor, well aboveground. He sighed, and remembered to keep wriggling his weary feet. The nasty plastic ropes securing his ankles to the chair legs did seem to be slowly stretching. Perhaps he should have tried harder to escape, earlier. But the two women had been taking him right where he’d wanted to go, inside, for just the purpose he’d come, to talk. True, he’d been envisioning
friendly chat
, not
hostile interrogation
, but what was that quote Miles was so fond of?
Never interrupt your enemy while he is making a mistake.
Not that they were enemies, necessarily. He hoped. By could have stood to be clearer on that point, in retrospect.