“Well, there was the divorce thing we were waiting for.”
“The what?” said Dada.
With a reluctant sigh, Tej plunged into an account of her and Ivan Xav’s trip to New Evias, and Count Falco’s strange, archaic court with its unexpected non-result.
Dada rubbed his lips thoughtfully as she wound down, his dark eyes crinkling. “I expect we may simply ignore this local wrinkle when we leave. Alternatively, should you wish to become a widow, you have only to ask. It wouldn’t be a first. I’m sure something could be arranged.”
“No!” said Tej indignantly, hoping he was joking. She was almost sure he was joking. Despite being a Barrayaran, Ivan Xav wasn’t disposable.
“Don’t be so hotheaded, love,” said the Baronne to her mate with a fond smile. “We shouldn’t waste our opportunities before we’ve thoroughly explored them, after all.” The double meaning of waste might have been intended, because the corner of Dada’s mouth twitched up, as it always did when his half-haut queen indulged in Jacksonian gutter slang. The Baronne never could make it come out quite right. Dada could, authentically, when he got on a roll about his old times. But Tej wasn’t sure she liked this swing of the Ivan Xav pendulum any better.
Star frowned in doubt. “If your Barrayaran husband wanted to get rid of you, why didn’t he just let the bounty hunters carry you off? Problem solved, from his point of view.”
“Barrayar’s a more complicated place than I thought,” said Tej, in a possibly-fruitless effort at warning. Was anyone listening to her?
An unexpected murmur of support from, of all people, Grandmama: “Indeed, we should not go rushing in.”
“I want some sleep first, before rushing anywhere,” said Dada, a yawn cracking his face. “What a dismal shuttleport. Bed next for everyone, I think. Nobody’s thinking straight.”
“Should I go out and try to scrounge an arsenal, first?” said Star. “We’re horribly disarmed, here.”
“You have to admit,” said Pidge, “Dada was right about not trying to carry ours along. It would never have survived that second search.”
“Would’ve passed the first one, though,” grumbled Star. “Before Amiri insisted on bringing up that Vorpatril fellow’s name.”
“No, don’t you dare!” said Tej, fairly sure that Star out cruising back alleys trying to deal for illegal weaponry fell under the heading of something awful. Especially while this short of sleep. And clues, for that matter.
Rish came to Tej’s aid: “As far as any unwanted visitors from Prestene go, I think that Barrayaran Imperial Security has us covered for now. I know they’re watching out for them. And with more resources than we can command here, right now.”
Dada nodded understanding and agreement. “My take as well. Bed, chicks and chicklets.” He stood and stretched, cracking joints. Grumbling, the Arquas trailed off to their respective roosts.
Dada and the Baronne hugged Tej and Rish a temporary goodbye as they left for Ivan Xav’s flat. Their grips lingered, as if reassuring themselves by the most fundamental sensory means of the girls’ well-being, and, well, being. “Yes, call us at Ivan Xav’s number when you’re ready to go down to dinner,” said Tej.
Pidge followed them into the hotel corridor.
“We could be halfway through the Hegen Hub by now, if you two had stuck to your original plan,” she complained. “This detour is costing us critical resources, you know. Time as much as money. I don’t know why they didn’t just send Amiri to collect you.”
“None of this is anything like the original plan.” Tej scowled. “Fortunately, if you want to be honest. If you do. Just for a change, you know.”
With a short gesture, Pidge batted this shot away. “We’re going back to retake the House. Everyone is pitching in—even Amiri. Everyone’s expected to help. Even you.”
Tej ran an aggravated hand through her hair, which snagged and pulled unhelpfully. “Doing what?”
“Dada and the Baronne for overall strategy, of course. Star’s taking Security, I’m taking Negotiations, and the Jewels are doing everything they can. Which is quite a lot. You, well—the least you could do is cooperate in making yourself available for a genetic alliance. A bargaining chip—I’ll bet the Baronne can slot you in somewhere.”
“Dada said I didn’t have to! And the Baronne didn’t argue with him!”
“That was then, this is now. We don’t have the margin for personal indulgences anymore. None of us do.”
“Dada wouldn’t ask me this.”
“Dada shouldn’t have to ask you this! Isn’t it about time you stopped being such a maddening deadweight in the House? You had your choice of choices, you didn’t take any of them, you’ve lost your say, I’d say.”
“I don’t see you offering up your body as a personal pledge in some side deal!”
“Who says.” Pidge’s voice was grim.
“…Oh.”
“So.”
“So, um…call us when you wake up, anyway.”
“Right.” Pidge flung herself back into the suite.
Tej and Rish continued toward the lift tubes. Rish watched her sideways, but for once, offered no comment. Tej loved her family, she really did. She didn’t doubt for an instant that they loved her, too, in their way. But she wondered how she’d plunged from soaring elation to glum depression in so few hours.
Chapter Fifteen
Ivan, only slightly out of breath but considerably out of sleep, entered Admiral Desplain’s outer office to find one of the senior Ops clerks manning his desk. The morning’s first pot of coffee had been made and drunk long ago, he noted from the dark dregs in the bottom of the pot on the credenza and the faint tarry aroma in the air. He checked a desire to scrape out the bottom of the pot with a spoon and eat the residue.
“Ah, Captain Vorpatril,” said the clerk, brightening. “The old man wanted to know as soon as you arrived.” He keyed his intercom. “Sir, Captain Vorpatril is here.”
“Finally,” returned Desplains’s voice. Ivan tried to read the tone, but from three syllables could only ascertain not joyful. “Send him in.”
Ivan trod into his boss’s inner sanctum, to find the admiral had a visitor—an ImpSec captain, Ivan saw by his collar pins and tabs, as the man twisted in his chair to observe him in turn, frowning. Lean but HQ-pale, salt-and-pepper hair that tried but failed to make him look older than the mid-grade middle-aged man he apparently was. Raudsepp, read his nametag. They exchanged the briefest of military courtesies.
Desplains was looking faintly harassed. And, given that the harassment was apparently being delivered by a mere ImpSec captain—bringing the snakes in person?—decidedly irritated. The admiral did not invite Ivan to sit, so Ivan took up a prudent sort-of parade rest and waited. Someone would tell him what was going on shortly; they always did, however little he wanted to know.
Desplains went on, dry-voiced, “Captain Raudsepp has just inquired if, at the time I signed off on your marriage on Komarr, I had known what a curious set of relations young Lady Vorpatril was apparently trailing after her.”
“At the time of our marriage on Komarr, everyone thought Tej was an orphan,” said Ivan, “including Tej. And Rish. They seemed pretty happy to find out this was not the case, last night. And your interest in this is what, Captain Raudsepp?”
“Until last night, I was the Galactic Affairs officer charged with riding herd on your new wife’s alleged bounty-hunter threat. A relatively routine physical security issue that has so far failed to provide much in the way of action, to everyone’s relief. I came in this morning to find my mandate had been unexpectedly upped by a renegade refugee Jacksonian baron and most of his extended family, about which the critical complaint is the unexpectedly part.”