After another few minutes, Rish came out to join her, smiling in a pleased way. “I was right about Hendro Fon,” she informed Tej. “He was faking the amnesia. And the DNA sample had been substituted. Sera Jenna was a real clone! I’ll bet the trade fleet merger is off now.” She sat beside Tej and nodded at Vorpatril. “Still out, is he?”
“Yes. He must have been exhausted. I wonder what it is they make an aide-de-camp do all day, anyway?”
“I have no idea,” said Rish.
Quiet held sway for a time.
Tej finally murmured, “Rish, what do we do next? We’re good here for tonight, probably tomorrow, but then what? I can’t go back to my job.”
“Small loss. I know you worked hard, sweetling, but your grubber job was far too slow in filling the bag. I said so at the time.”
“You did. I thought Nanja would get something better soon.” And the commonplace shop had seemed to be ideal for lying very low indeed. Tej had learned how to do every task required of her in less than two days. Which was good, because she doubted she’d have been up to mastering anything more challenging, just then. I’m so sick of this struggle. “Nanja Brindis used up my last identity package, and she was barely deep enough to pass even a cursory inspection.” Maybe that was a good thing. Her next identity would surely be less predictable to their pursuers if even she couldn’t predict it.
Nor afford it.
If they could get to Escobar, better identities might be made available to them there, but if they couldn’t get off Komarr without better IDs…
“I really realize, now, what it is to be Houseless.”
Rish gripped her hand in brief consolation. “I suppose we could try going to ground in a different dome. Maybe Equinox, or Serifosa. If we can’t afford a jumpship, we could at least afford the monorail. Get out of Solstice, where we know we’ve been smoked.” Her voice was unpressing.
“A smaller dome would make it even harder to hide, though.”
Rish stood, stretched, and wandered over to prod their host. When he did not stir, she leaned over and neatly forked his wallet from his pocket. She brought it back to Tej, and they went through it together, again.
“Not much cash,” said Rish, “and we can’t use his credit chit. Though I suppose his IDs would fetch a good price, if we could find the right buyer.”
“This”-Tej fingered the thin stack of local currency, then tucked it into the wallet again-“would only sustain us for a few days. We’ve a couple of days for free right here. This much wouldn’t get us ahead. Just put it back.”
Rish shrugged and did so, as deftly as she had extracted it.
Tej leaned her head back, her own eyes closed for a time.
“I saw this vid show,” Rish offered after a while, “all about Sergyar, and the colonization effort. It looked like a nice world, breathable atmosphere and all.”
“Did they show anything about that horrid worm plague?” Tej shuddered.
“Not a word. I think they were trying to persuade people to move there. Gruesome pictures of colonists all bloated up like lumpy sausages wouldn’t much aid that. But I gathered you could go as some sort of indentured laborer, and pay for your passage after.”
It sounded like the first step on the slippery slope into contract slavery, to Tej. What she said aloud was, “But Sergyar has an even smaller population than Komarr. And it’s all stocked with Barrayarans. How would you hide there?”
“It’s a very mixed population, I heard. The current Vicereine is making an effort to draw immigrants from all over. Even Beta Colony. It won’t be like Barrayar, or even Komarr, if that keeps on.”
They were both silent for a while, contemplating this option. It depended on their being able to make it to orbital embarkation alive and uncollected, which didn’t seem a good bet right now.
“There’s Captain Mystery, here.” Rish nodded to the sleeping figure across from them. “Captain Vormystery, I suppose he would correct that.”
“Ivan Xav, the one and only. I think he likes me.”
“Oh, I can smell that.” Rish smirked. “He also has a slight breast fetish.”
“Don’t they all,” Tej sighed. The corners of her mouth drew up. “Though not, in his case, for slight breasts.”
“If he were a random Komarran stranger off the street, I’d advise-though only as a second-to-last resort-that you attach yourself to him and ride as far as you could. But he’s not Komarran, he’s definitely not random, and that’s far too strange.”
“Mm.”
Another long silence.
Rish finally said, in a very low voice: “I would die before I allowed myself to be taken back and used against the Baron and Baronne.”
In an equally quiet tone, Tej returned, “There’s no Baron and Baronne left to be used against. We’d just be used.” She blinked eyes gone abruptly blurry. No. I won’t cry any more. If weeping were going to help, it would have done so by now.
Both stared straight ahead. Rish’s voice went darker, bleaker. “Once they grab us, the chances for the last escape will grow very constrained. Too soon could become too late too fast to target.”
No need to say out loud what the last escape was; they’d discussed it twice before, though they’d twice evaded it, once by bare minutes. “How, here?”
“Too dangerous for either of us to go out looking for a painless termination drug, though I did notice a sign for veterinary hospital on the way, could be raided, but…I read about this method, once, that they used on Old Earth. Lie back in a hot bath and just open your veins. It only hurts for a moment, a little sting, less than a hypospray jab, they say. There’s that great big tub in the bathroom. We could just ease back and…go to sleep, sweetling. Just go to sleep.”
“It would be a bit tough on Ivan Xav when he came home, though, wouldn’t it? Not to mention tricky for him to explain to the dome cops.”
“Not our problem by then.”
Barely turning her head, Tej glanced aside at her companion. “You’re tired, too. Aren’t you.”
“Very,” Rish sighed.
“You should have taken a nap this afternoon, as well.” Tej scrunched her eyes in thought. “I don’t know. I think I’d rather seize some last chance for…something. Go to the highest tower in Solstice, maybe, and step off the roof. The fall would be great, while it lasted. We could dance all the way down. Your last dance.”
“Bitch of an arret at the end, though,” said Rish.
“And no encore. The Baronne always loved your encores…”
“I vote for the tub.”
“The balcony out there might do, if we were cornered.”
“No, too public. They might scrape us up and put us back together. And then where would we be?”
“That’s…really hard to guess.”
“Ah.”
More silence. The sleeping captain snorted and rolled over again.
“You’d have a better chance of hiding out minus me,” began Rish.
Tej sniffed. This, too, was an old argument. “My loyalties may not be bred in my bones, odd-sister, but I’ll back nurture against nature any day you care to name.”
“Nature,” breathed Rish, starting to smile.
“Nurture,” said Tej.
“Nature.”
“Nurture.”
“Tub.”
“Tower.” Tej paused. “You know, we need a third vote, here. We always end up in a tie. It’s a gridlock.”
“Deadlock.”
“Whatever.” Tej tilted her head in consideration. “Actually, the best method would be something that made it look like our pursuers had murdered us. The local authorities would think they were killers, and their bosses would think they botched the snatch. Get them coming and going.”
“That’s pretty,” Rish conceded. “But it would only cook the meat. The best revenge would fry the brains.”
“Oh, yes,” Tej sighed. Oh, yes. But she didn’t see how to reach all the way home to effect such a deed from the Unbeing, given that she couldn’t even do so while still breathing.