"What?" snapped the junior guard.
"He moved again. He, he, sort of spasmed."
The junior man drew his stunner and followed his comrade inside, covering him. The senior man extended his hand, faltered, and on second thought pulled his shock stick from his belt and prodded it warily toward the body.
Miles smacked the door control with a duck of his forehead. The glass seal slid shut, barely in time. The guards smashed into the door and up it like rabid dogs. It barely transmitted the vibration. Their mouths were open, howling curses and threats at him, but no sound passed. The transparent walls must be space-grade material; it stopped stunner fire, too.
The senior man pulled out a plasma arc and began burning. The wall started to glow slightly. Not good. Miles studied the control panel . . . there. He pushed at menu blocks with his tongue till it brought up oxygen, and re-set it down as far as it would go. Would the guards pass out before the wall gave way to the plasma arc?
Yes. Good environmental system, that. Ryoval's dogs crumpled against the glass, clawed hands relaxing in unconsciousness. The plasma arc fell from nerveless fingers, and shut off.
Miles left them sealed in their victim's tomb.
It was a lab. There had to be cutters, and tools of all sorts . . . right. It took several minutes of contortions, working behind his back, during which he nearly passed out, but his shackles gave way at last. He whimpered with relief as his hands came free.
Weapons? All weapons per se had been taken, apparently, by the departing inhabitants, and without a biotainer suit he was disinclined to re-open the glass cell and retrieve the guards' gear. But a laser-scalpel from the lab made him feel less vulnerable.
He wanted his clothing. Shivering from the cold, he trotted back through the eerie corridors to the security entrance, and donned his knits again. He turned back into the facility, and began to seriously search. He tried every comconsole he came to that wasn't smashed. All were internally dedicated, no way to tap an outside channel.
Where is Mark? It occured to him suddenly that if there could be anything worse than being held prisoner in some cell here, waiting for his tormentors to come again, it would be to be locked in a cell here waiting for tormentors who never came again. In what was perhaps the most frantic half-hour he'd ever experienced in his life, he opened or broke open every door in the facility. Behind every one he expected to find a sodden little body, its throat mercifully cut . . . He was wheezing and fearing another convulsion when, with great relief, he found the cell—closet—near Ryoval's quarters. Empty. It stank of recent occupation, though. And the bloodstains and other stains on the walls and floor turned his stomach cold and sick. But wherever Mark was, and in whatever condition, he was not here. He had to get out of here too.
He caught his breath, and found a plastic basket, and went shopping in the labs for useful electronic equipment. Cutters and wires, circuit-diagnostics, readers and relays, whatever he could find. When he thought he had enough, he returned to the Baron's study, and proceeded to dissect the damaged comconsole. He finally managed to jump the palm-lock, only to have a little bright square patch come up on-view and demand, Insert code-key. He cursed, and stretched his aching back, and sat again. This was going to be tedious.
It took another pass through the facility for equipment before he was able to jump the code-key block. And the comconsole would never be the same. But at last, finally, he punched through to the planetary communications net. There was another short glitch while he figured out how to charge the call to House Ryoval's account; all fees were collected in advance, here on Jackson's Whole.
He paused a moment, wondering who to call. Barrayar kept a consulate on the Hargraves-Dyne Consortium Station. Some of the staff were actually diplomatic and/or economic personnel, but even they doubled as ImpSec analysts. The rest were agents-proper, running a thin network of informants scattered across the planet and its satellites and stations. Admiral Naismith had a contact there. But had ImpSec been here already? Was this their work, rescuing Mark? No, he decided. It was ruthless, but not nearly methodical enough. In fact, it was utter chaos.
So why didn't you guys come looking for Mark? A bothersome question, and one to which he had no answer. He punched through the consulate's code. Let the circus begin.
They were down on him in half an hour, a tense ImpSec lieutenant named Iverson with a rented squad of local muscle from House Dyne in paramilitary uniforms and with decent military equipment. They'd dropped straight from orbit in a shuttle; heat wavered off its skin in the watery morning light. Miles sat on a rock outside the pedestrian entrance, or more properly speaking, emergency exit he'd found, and watched sardonically as they all galloped out, weapons at the ready, and spread out as if to take the installation by assault.
The officer hurried up to him, and half-saluted. "Admiral Naismith?"
Iverson was no one he knew; at this level of the echelon the man must take him for a valued, but non-Barrayaran, ImpSec hireling. "The one and only. You can tell your men to relax. The installation is secured."
"You secured it yourself?" Iverson asked in faint disbelief.
"More or less."
"We've been looking for this place for two years!"
Miles suppressed an irate remark about people who couldn't find their own prick with a map and a hand-light. "Where is, ah, Mark? The other clone. My double."
"We don't know, sir. Acting on a tip from an informant, we were about to make an assault on a House Bharaputra location to retrieve you, when you called."
"I was there last night. Your informant did not know I was moved." Had to be Rowan—she'd got out, hooray! "You would have been embarrassingly late."
Iverson's lips thinned. "This has been an incredibly fouled-up operation from first to last. The orders kept changing."
"Tell me," Miles sighed. "Have you heard anything from the Dendarii Mercenaries?"
"A covert ops team from your outfit is supposed to be on its way, sir." Iverson's "sirs" were tinged with uncertainty, the dubious regard of a Barrayaran regular for a self-promoted mercenary. "I . . . wish to ascertain for myself if the installation is fully secure, if you don't mind."
"Go ahead," Miles said. "You'll find it an interesting tour. If you have a strong stomach." Iverson marched his troopers indoors. Miles would have laughed, if he weren't screaming inside. He sighed, slipped from his perch, and followed them.
Miles's people came in a small personnel shuttle, swooping right into the concealed garage. He watched them on the monitor from Ryoval's study, and gave them directions how to find him. Quinn, Elena, Taura and Bel, all in half-armor. They came clanking into the study double-time, almost as impressively useless as the ImpSec crowd.
"Why the party clothes?" was his first weary question as they heaved into view. He should stand, and receive and return salutes and things, but Ryoval's station chair was incredibly comfortable and he was incredibly tired.
"Miles!" Quinn cried passionately.
With the sight of her concerned face he realized just how very angry he was, and guilty for it. Furiously angry because furiously afraid. Where is Mark, damn you all? "Captain Quinn," he put her on notice that this was duty-time before she could fling herself on him. She skidded to a halt in mid-fling, and came to a species of attention. The others piled up behind her.
"We were just coordinating with ImpSec for a raid on House Bharaputra," Quinn said breathlessly. "You've come back to yourself! You were cryo-amnesic—have you recovered? That Durona doctor said you would—"
"About ninety percent, I think. I'm still finding holes in my memory. Quinn—what happened?"
She looked slightly overwhelmed. "Since when? When you were killed—"
"Start from five days ago. When you came to the Durona Group."
"We came looking for you. Found you, after nearly four bleeding months!"
"You were stunned, Mark was taken, and Lilly Durona hustled me and my surgeon off to what she thought was going to be safety," Miles cued her to t
he focus he wanted.
"Oh, she was your doctor. I thought—never mind." Quinn bit back her emotions, pulled off her helmet and pushed back her hood, raked red-tipped fingers through her smashed curls, and began organizing the information into its essentials, combat-style. "We lost hours at the start. By the time Elena and Taura got another aircar, the snatchers were long gone. They searched, but no luck. When they got back to the Durona Group, Bel and I were just waking up. Lilly Durona insisted you were safe. I didn't believe her. We pulled out, and I contacted ImpSec. They started to pull in their people, who were scattered all over the planet looking for clues as to your whereabouts, and sent them to focus on Mark. More delays, while they worked through their pet theory that the kidnappers were Cetagandan bounty-hunters. And House Ryoval had about fifty different sites and facilities to check on, not including this one, which really was secret.
"Then Lilly Durona decided you were missing after all. Since it seemed more important to find you, we diverted all available forces to that. But we had fewer leads. We didn't even find the abandoned lightflyer for two days. And it yielded up no clues."
"Right. But you suspected Ryoval had Mark."
"But Ryoval wanted Admiral Naismith. We thought Ryoval would figure out he had the wrong man."
He ran his hands over his face. His head was aching. And so was his stomach. "Did you ever figure that Ryoval wouldn't care? In a few minutes, I want you to go down the corridor and look at the cell they kept him in. And smell it. I want you to look closely. In fact, go now. Sergeant Taura, stay."
Reluctantly, Quinn led Elena and Bel out. Miles leaned forward; Taura bent to hear.
"Taura, what happened? You're a Jacksonian. You know what Ryoval is, what this place is. How did you all lose sight of that?"
She shook her big head. "Captain Quinn thought Mark was a complete screw-up. After your death, she was so angry she could barely give him the time of day. And at first I agreed with her. But . . . I don't know. He tried so hard. The crèche raid only failed by a hair. If we'd been faster, or if the shuttle defense perimeter had done their job, we would have brought it off, I think."
He grimaced in agreement. "There's no mercy for failures of timing in no-margin operations like that one was. Commanders can have no mercy either, or you might as well stay in orbit and feed your troops directly into the ship's waste disintegrators, and save steps." He paused. "Quinn will be a good commander someday."
"I think so, sir." Taura pulled off her helmet and hood, and stared around. "I kind of came to like the little schmuck, though. He tried. He tried and failed, but no one else tried at all. And he was so alone."
"Alone. Yes. Here. For five days."
"We really did think Ryoval would figure out he wasn't you."
"Maybe . . . maybe so." Some part of his mind clung to that hope himself. Maybe it hadn't been as bad as it looked, as bad as his galloping imagination supplied.
Quinn and company returned, looking universally grim.
"So," he said, "you've found me. Now maybe we can all focus on Mark. I've been all over this place in the last hours, and I haven't found a clue. Did the absconding staff take him along? Is he out wandering around in the desert somewhere, freezing? I've got six of Iverson's men looking outside with 'scopes, and another one checking the facility's disintegration records for fifty-plus kilo lumps of protein. And other bright ideas, folks?"
Elena came back from a peek in the next room. "Who do you figure did the honors on Ryoval?"
Miles opened his hands. "Don't know. He had hundreds of mortal enemies, after his career."
"He was killed by an unarmed person. A kick to the throat, then beaten to death somehow after he was down."
"I noticed that."
"You notice the tool kit?"
"Yeah."
"Miles, it was Mark."
"How could it have been? It had to have happened sometime last night. After what, five days of being worked over—and Mark's a little guy like me. I don't think it's physically possible."
"Mark's a little guy, but not like you," said Elena. "And he almost killed a man in Vorbarr Sultana with a kick to the throat."
"What?"
"He was trained, Miles. He was trained to take out your father, who is an even bigger man than Ryoval, and has years of combat experience."
"Yes, but I never believed—when was Mark in Vorbarr Sultana?" Amazing, how being dead for two or three months will put you out of touch. For the first time, his impulse to fling himself directly back into active-duty command status was checked. A maniac with three-quarters of a memory and a habit of going into convulsions is just what we want in charge, sure. Not to mention the shortness of breath.
"Oh, and about your father, I should mention—no, maybe that had better wait." Elena eyed him in worry.
"What about—" He was interrupted by a buzz from the comm link Iverson had given him as a courtesy. "Yes, Lieutenant?"
"Admiral Naismith, Baron Fell is here at the entrance. With a double-squad. He, ah . . . says he's here to collect his deceased half-brother's body, as next-of-kin."
Miles whistled soundlessly, and grinned. "Is he, now? Well. Tell you what. Let him come inside, with one bodyguard. And we'll talk. He may know something. Don't let his squad in yet, though."
"Do you think that's wise?"
How the hell should I know? "Sure."
In a few minutes, Baron Fell himself puffed in, escorted by one of Iverson's rental troopers and flanked by a big green-clad guard. Baron's Fell's round face was slightly pinker than usual with the exertion, otherwise he was the same plump, grandfatherly figure as ever, exuding the usual dangerously deceptive good cheer.
"Baron Fell." Miles nodded. "How good to see you again."
Fell nodded back. "Admiral. Yes, I imagine everything looks good to you just now. So, it really was you the Bharaputran sniper shot. Your clone-twin did an excellent job of pretending to be you, afterward, I must say, much to the confusion of an already very confused situation."
Argh! "Yes. And, ah, what brings you here?"
"Trade," stated Fell, Jacksonian short-hand for, You first.
Miles nodded. "The late Baron Ryoval had me brought me here in a lightflyer by two of his erstwhile bodyguards. We found things much as you see them. I, um, neutralized them at my first opportunity. How I came to be in their hands is a more complicated story." Meaning, That's all you get till I get some.
"There are some extraordinary rumors starting to circulate about my dear departed—he is departed, I trust?"
"Oh, yes. You can see in a moment."
"Thank you. My dear departed half-brother's death. I had one first-hand."
A former Ryoval employee from here fled directly to him as an informant. Right. "I hope his virtue was rewarded."
"It will be, as soon as I ascertain he was telling the truth."
"Well. Why don't you come look." He had to get up out of the station chair. He marshaled the effort with difficulty, and led the Baron into the living room, the House Fell bodyguard and the Dendarii following.
The big bodyguard shot a worried glance at Sergeant Taura, looming over him; she smiled back, her fangs gleaming. "Hi, there. You're kinda cute, you know?" she told him. He recoiled, and sidled closer to his master.
Fell hurried to the body, knelt by its right side, and held up the severed wrist. He hissed with disappointment. "Who has done this?"
"We don't know yet," said Miles. "That's how I found him."
"Exactly?" Fell shot him a sharp glance.
"Yes."
Fell traced the black holes across the corpse's forehead. "Whoever did this, knew what he was doing. I want to find the assassin."
"To . . . avenge your brother's death?" Elena asked cautiously.
"No. To offer him a job!" Fell laughed, a booming, jolly sound. "Do you realize how many people have been trying, for how many years, to accomplish this?"
"I've an idea," said Miles. "If you can help—"
In the
next room, Ryoval's half-butchered comconsole chimed.
Fell looked up, eyes intent. "No one can call in here without the code-key," he stated, and heaved to his feet. Miles barely beat him back into the study, and slid into the station chair.
He activated the vid plate. "Yes?" And almost fell out of his seat again.
Mark's puffy face formed above the vid plate. He looked as if he'd just come out of a shower, face scrubbed, hair wet and slicked back. He was wearing gray knits like Miles's. Blue bruises, going greenish-yellow around the edges, made what skin Miles could see look like a patch-work quilt, but both eyes were open and very bright. His ears were still on. "Ah," he said cheerfully, "there you are. I thought you might be. Have you figured out who you are yet?"
"Mark!" Miles almost tried to crawl through the vid image. "Are you all right? Where are you?"
"You have, I see. Good. I'm at Lilly Durona's. God, Miles. What a place. What a woman. She let me have a bath. She put my skin back on. She fixed my foot. She gave me a hypo of muscle-relaxant for my back. With her own hands, she performed medical services too intimate and disgusting to describe, but very badly needed, I assure you, and held my head while I screamed. Did I mention the bath? I love her, and I want to marry her."
All this was delivered with such dead-pan enthusiasm, Miles could not tell if Mark was joking. "What are you on?" he asked suspiciously.
"Pain killers. Lots and lots of pain killers. Oh, it's wonderful!" He favored Miles with a weird broad grin. "But don't worry, my head is perfectly clear. It's just the bath. I was holding it together till she gave me the bath. It unmanned me. Do you know what a wonderful thing a bath is, when you're washing off—never mind."
"How did you get out of here, and back to the Durona Clinic?" Miles asked urgently.
"In Ryoval's lightflyer, of course. The code-key worked."
Behind Miles, Baron Fell drew in his breath. "Mark." He leaned into the vid pick up with a smile. "Would you put Lilly on a moment, please?"
"Ah, Baron Fell!" said Mark. "Good. I was going to call you next. I want to invite you to tea, here at Lilly's. We have a lot to talk about. You too, Miles. And bring all your friends." Mark gave him a sharply meaningful glance.