Outside, Vorpatril swung Byerly aside and backed him up into a wall niche behind a tall, potted evergreen. She could hear very little of their rapid, low-voiced exchange over the street noise, but it seemed to involve a lot of jaw-clenching and teeth-baring. Under a flowing headscarf, Rish all but pricked her ears. Tej leaned toward the pair, but only caught Ivan’s Xav’s forceful You owe me, and I’m collecting…and, as he finally eased back and released his unwilling auditor, Go do what you have to do. Byerly was more successful at pitching his voice not to carry, so all Tej had to go on was his body language. She’d never before seen someone swear quite so emphatically in body language. But when they started again toward the bubble-car platform, Byerly hastened off in the opposite direction.
They were about to cross the street when Vorpatril herded her and Rish abruptly into the doorway of a shop not yet open, spinning Tej around to face him—and, she realized, to shield him from view. “What is it?” she whispered, acquiescing to the tactic as soon as she recognized it.
“Service Security,” he muttered into her hair. “A whole patrol. Just came charging out of the bubble-car station—yep, heading for my building, all right. Two enlisteds, a sergeant, and a colonel, hoo boy. Desplains must have dispatched them for me. I wonder if they mean to rescue me, or arrest me?…I think we don’t want to stick around to find out. They can have a nice, long chat with the building manager. He deserves it, and it’ll hold ’em for just long enough, I think. Come on, hurry.”
Vorpatril’s wooden smile and this-is-all-normal posture didn’t slip till he’d bundled them into a bubble car and it was bowling along the route out to the military shuttleport. He slumped in his seat and addressed himself to his wristcom with the caution of a man defusing a bomb. At some return code, he muttered in relief, “Oh, good, he’s got it on voice delay,” and continued more brightly, “Admiral Desplains, Vorpatril here, sir. Sorry about the holdup this morning, but I have the misunderstanding with the Komarrans all straightened out. Nobody’s trying to arrest me anymore”—his lips silently mouthed, I hope—“but I have one more short stop to make at ImpSec Galactic Affairs to settle a few details. I’ll meet you and the Horsemen out at Dock Six. I’ll explain everything else when I get there.” He made to cut the com, but then raised it to his lips and added, “Please don’t leave without me. It’s important.”
He blew out his breath, then entered another code, and made an appointment with someone named Captain Morozov to meet them in a few minutes at some lobby security desk. Tej and Rish looked uneasily at each other.
“That’s your ImpSec person you mentioned who studies Jackson’s Whole?” asked Rish.
“Morozov, yes. Good scout, bit of a boffin, but he’s really interested, you know. I mean, above and beyond what he has to be for his duties as an analyst, which I suppose is what makes him a top boffin. I thought I’d leave you two with him for the day. You can’t go back to my flat—after all that uproar this morning, it’s gotta be smoked.”
“True,” said Rish, reluctantly.
“But however you feel about ImpSec, I can pretty much guarantee that nobody’s rent-a-goons can get at you inside their HQ.”
“But surely this Captain Morozov will want to know things,” said Tej. “What should we tell him?”
Ivan Xav shrugged. “Everything. He’s even cleared to know about By, though I doubt he does—not his department.”
“Even about the—the wedding thing?”
He sighed. “I’ll tell him about that.”
When they exited into the busy bubble-car station out by the shuttleport, Rish said, “I have to pee,” grabbed Tej, and towed her into the ladies’ lavatory. Vorpatril made frustrated gestures of protest, but stopped short of following them inside. They left him standing in the corridor alongside a couple of other males with glazed, waiting expressions.
It didn’t matter; there was only the one door, and no windows, Tej automatically noted as they entered. A woman dealing with a wailing infant, and another attempting to shepherd two hyperactive and not-well-trained toddlers through their ablutions, gave plenty of sound cover and guaranteed that no one was paying them the least attention.
Rish retreated to a corner and turned Tej around, strong blue hands gripping her shoulders. “Talk to me, Tej. You look like someone hit you on the head with a mallet, and you’re just waiting to fall down. You’re scaring me, sweetling.”
“Am I?” Tej blinked. “I sure didn’t see that blow coming. I wonder if he really thinks he married me?”
Rish shifted her head and eyed Tej narrowly, as if checking to see that her pupils were still the same size. “Do you think you really married him?”
“I have no idea. I guess the important thing is that everyone else seems to.” Tej took a deep breath. “And till we find out what all else this Lady Vorpatril business is good for, we’d likely better go along with it.”
Rish pursed her lips, nodded, and stood back, releasing her worried grip. “Point taken.” Her mouth tightened. “So what are we going to tell this Morozov fellow? Think, sweetling, think.”
Tej rubbed her forehead. “I’d be perfectly happy to feed everything we know about those House Prestene bastards to Barrayar, if only I could be sure they weren’t about to become new best friends afterward. Though if the Prestene syndicate is really on the other end of this smuggling scheme, I think the Barrayarans aren’t going to be too well-disposed toward House Cordonah’s new management. I know even Dada and the Baronne took care how they crossed these Imperium crazies. It’s rumored that all of House Ryoval was taken down by a single ImpSec agent, after the old baron pissed Barrayar off somehow.”
Rish whistled. “Really?”
“That’s the tale Star told me, anyway. She got it from someone in House Fell. So I think…” Tej wished she could think. Her brain seemed to have turned to mush. “I think we should tell this Morozov almost everything. Bury him in details, so’s he won’t have either the time or the motivation to move on to the fast-penta.”
“Ah.”
“Our story will be that the syndicate is after you as a flashy prize, and me as a baby enemy they want to strangle in the cradle.” Yes, that had seemed to work for the Byerly person. And besides, it was true. “Hold back only anything about where Amiri is. Anything about Amiri, come to think. And don’t volunteer anything about Star and Pidge. Or Grandmama.”
Rish nodded understanding.
They both made quick dashes for the stalls, returning to the station corridor before Vorpatril overcame his social conditioning and came in looking for them, although, by the glare he cast them, it had been a near thing.
“Crowded?” he inquired.
“Lots of little kids,” Tej said truthfully. “I think they must have eaten straight sugar for breakfast.” That was the best deal, yes. Truth.
Just not all of it.