“ I won’t,” said Rish. “I’m going to bunk in with Em and Pearl. I suppose the hotel can give me a gel-mattress or something.” She glowered at Byerly, and padded past him without looking back. Tej trailed disconsolately. The door slid shut once more.
Silence fell. Ivan and By stared at one another.
Ivan said, “Weren’t you supposed to be the glib, debonair ImpSec agent, here?”
Byerly said a rude word. “Or not, as the case may be. She’s cut me off, she says. I suppose I shouldn’t have tried to slip in a few subtle questions during sex. She didn’t like it.”
“Ah,” said Ivan, and mentally edited his own planned ploy for later. If there was a later.
“But I am half maddened with curiosity. Arquas have been handing me off one to another for the past three days, all the same run-around going nowhere. They wouldn’t be working so hard if they didn’t have something to hide. Unless it’s a practical joke, I suppose.” He let out his breath in a huff and sloped over to fling himself on Ivan’s couch.
Ivan stuffed his hands in his pockets and followed, reluctantly. “Can’t you call for backup?”
“Did.” By put his head back, eyes closing. “ImpSec, it seems, is busy this week. Galactic, Domestic, Komarran, all the Affairs. That high-level diplomatic conference going on at the Residence, the big comconsole-net security convention downtown, prep for dear Laisa’s upcoming excursion with the crown prince to Komarr to see the grandparents-yes, they promise me help. At the end of the week. Or next week. Maybe. Meantime, I’m on my own. Just me and this ungodly herd of your in-laws.” His eyes opened, and shot a look of unmerited blame Ivan-ward. “To whom I am already outed.”
Ivan had seldom seen By emit so much emotion at one time. Granted, it was all one emotion, frustration, but still. Byerly-the-Smooth was decidedly ruffled.
“I’ve cozied up to every Arqua,” said By, closed-eyed and addressing the ceiling once more. “Staked out the hotel. Planted bugs, which have either yielded nothing but rubbish, or gone fuzzy altogether. They’re spotting them, all right. God. What haven’t I tried?”
Ivan hesitated. “Simon?”
By made to raise his head, but it fell back. He did open his eyes again. “Are you nuts?”
“No, listen…” Ivan described his excursion yesterday to the park in front of ImpSec, the dance practice, Simon’s security street theater, and what seemed the pertinent bits of his strange conversation this morning with the Baron and the Baronne. By sat up and clasped his hands between his knees, listening hard.
“Simon and Shiv have some deal going on, I’d swear it,” said Ivan. “Or something. Going back to that first night in Simon’s study.”
“And they think there’s something buried, where, under ImpSec HQ? What, for God’s sake?”
“I don’t know. Something big enough to fund a small war. And old enough…I hesitate to guess how old, but what say a hundred years? Occupation, maybe? Or should I say Ninth Satrapy?”
“That’s before ImpSec was built.”
“Simon ought to know.” But did he remember?
“If Simon Illyan is up to something, we shouldn’t bump his elbow,” By declared firmly.
“I’m…not so sure.”
By’s eyes narrowed. “I thought he was just playing befuddled.”
So, By had spotted that. Good on By. “He does do that. He’s got half of Vorbarr Sultana believing he’s as addled as an egg, and my mother his caretaker. And the people they report to.”
“Right…”
“But sometimes he…shorts out, just a little. You can tell when it’s real, because it’s the only time he tries to hide it.”
“Oh.” By frowned. “I suppose you would know. Seeing him close up and all.”
“Mostly it’s seeing my mother. She gets this kind of brittle look around her eyes, when she’s covering for him.”
“But that’s just little memory lapses, right?”
“It’s Illyan. You want to try to guess what goes on in his head?” Ivan gave it a beat. “Or do you want to go ask?” That’s what Simon had once told Ivan to do, after all, in so many words. If Barrayar’s Foremost Former Authority gave you advice…
“No,” said By frankly. He hesitated. “But I’ll go if you’ll go with me.”
“What are we, a couple of women getting up a posse to go to the lav?”
“Why do women travel in herds like that, anyway?”
Ivan said glumly, “Delia Galeni, back when she was Delia Koudelka, once told me they go together to critique their dates.”
“Really?” By blinked.
“Not sure. She might have just been trying to wind me up, at the time.”
“Ah. Sounds like Delia.” Byerly waved a limp hand. “All right. Lead on.”
Ivan sighed, and pulled him up.
Then made him help eat the dehydrated dinner first, because Ivan had cooked it himself, dammit. But definitely without the seducing part. He left the dishes in the sink.
Chapter Nineteen
Ivan drove By to his mother’s building in his two-seater; despite, or perhaps because of, the heavy rain, the city traffic was relatively light. To Ivan’s secret relief, they found Simon alone for the evening. Mamere had gone off to the Imperial Residence to help coordinate some sort of feed, hosted by Gregor and Laisa, for those galactic diplomats By had complained of-a crowd guaranteed to clear a buffet table much the way Time of Isolation cavalry charges had cleared street riots. Ivan was only surprised neither of them had been roped in as native Barrayaran decor, as Mamere frequently did unto them for these things.
“Huh,” said Simon, looking them both over when they were guided into his study by the maidservant playing porter tonight. “You two again.” He set aside his reader, and took his slippered feet down from the hassock that had supported them in extended comfort. He was dressed in shirtsleeves and a sleeveless sweater, making him look in the lamplight like someone’s retired schoolteacher-uncle. “Close the door, would you please, Marie?”
“Yes, sir. Should I bring drinks?”
By looked briefly hopeful, but Ivan said firmly, “No, thank you, Marie.”
“Very good, Lord Ivan.” She withdrew, and the door shut rather more than firmly. It was extraordinarily quiet in this chamber, once that lock clicked. Byerly swallowed, and Ivan thought irritably, Welcome to Chez Vorpatril. Please, take a seat. I will be your spine for this evening… Not his favorite role under any circumstances.
“Well, gentlemen.” Simon waved genially to chairs, and tented his hands above his lap. “What brings you to me this rainy night? Why aren’t you out squiring your young ladies?”
By grimaced and barely shifted the comfy chairs; Ivan dragged them closer to their host, on whom he felt an unwanted responsibility to keep an eye. By sat on the edge of his.
“Sir,” By began, atop Ivan’s, “Simon…” They both stopped and waved each other on.
Ivan began again, since By seemed determined to outwait him. “Simon. What do you know that we don’t about what the Arqua clan is up to in front of ImpSec? Or under ImpSec, as it may be?”
Simon’s eyes crinkled, just slightly. “I can’t guess, Ivan. What do you two know?”
“That they think there’s something under there, probably Cetagandan and probably dating back to the Occupation, and Shiv and Udine Arqua think it’s valuable enough to fund their attempt to retake their House, which has got to be a high-end hobby. How the hell they think they can extract whatever it is right under ImpSec’s collective nose, not to mention get it out of the Empire, defeats me. But I think not you. Want to give me a clue?”
Simon murmured something under his breath that might have been, But you’re so much more amusing without one; Ivan didn’t ask him to repeat it. Simon went on, “Well, that’s proving more interesting than I thought at first glance. How do we know what we know? It’s really a very philosophical question.”
“Yeah, but I’m a practical kind of guy,” said Ivan, recognizing Simon-diversion. The man could keep interrogators going in circles for hours, at parties. All that practice, Ivan supposed. On both sides of the table. “And I’m tired and my wife’s stopped talking to me.”