Lois Bujold: Komarr

“There’s no benefit in waiting, either way,” Soudha went on. “The risk increases every minute. Lena?”

“No surrender,” said Foscol sturdily. “We go on.” And more bleakly, “Somehow.”

“Cappell?”

The mathematician hesitated a long time. “I can’t stand that Marie died for nothing. Hold out.”

“Myself…” Soudha let his big square hand fall open. “Stop. Now that we’ve lost surprise, this goes nowhere. The only question is how long it takes to arrive.” He turned to Madame Radovas.

“Oh. My turn already? I didn’t want to go last.”

“Yours would be the tie-breaking vote in any case,” said Soudha.

Madame Radovas fell silent, staring out the control booth’s glass-at the airlock door, across the bay? Miles’s gaze could but help following hers; her turn back caught him at it, and he flinched.

You’ve done it now, boy. Ekaterin’s life and your soul’s oath hang on a frigging Komarran shareholders’ debate. How did you let this happen? This wasn’t in the plans… His eye relocated, and ignored, the code on his comconsole that would launch Vorgier and his waiting troops.

Madame Radovas’s gaze returned to window. She said, to no one in particular, “Our safety before always depended on secrecy. Now even if we get to Pol or Escobar, or further, ImpSec will follow us. There would not ever be a safe time give up our hostages. In exile or not, it will be prisons, always prisoners. I’m tired of being a prisoner, of hope, of fear.”

“You were not a prisoner!” said Foscol. “You were one of us, I thought.”

Madame Radovas looked across at her. “I supported my husband. If I hadn’t-he would still be alive. Lena, I’m tired.” Foscol said tentatively, “Maybe you should rest, before deciding.”

The look she got from Madame Radovas in return for that line made her drop her eyes, and look away. Madame Radovas said to Soudha, “Do you believe him, about the device not working?”

Soudha frowned deeply. “Yes. I’m afraid so. Or I would have acted differently.”

“Poor Barto.” She stared at Miles for a long time in an almost detached wonder.

Encouraged by her apparent dispassion, he asked curiously, why is your vote the tie-breaker?”

“The scheme was my husband’s idea, originally. This obsession has dominated my life for seven years. His voting share is always considered the greatest.”

How very Komarran. Then Soudha had actually been the second-in-command, forced into the dead man’s shoes… was all amazingly irrelevant now. Maybe they’ll name it after him . The Radovas Effect. Belike. “We are both heirs, of a sort, then.”

“Indeed.” The widow’s lips twisted. “You know, I will never forget the look on your face when that fool Vorsoisson told you there was no place on his forms for an Imperial order. I almost laughed out loud, despite it all.”

Miles smiled briefly, scarcely daring to breathe.

Madame Radovas shook her head in disbelief, but not, he thought, of his promises. “Well, Lord Vorkosigan… I’ll take your word. And find out what it’s worth.” She searched the faces of each of her three colleagues, but when she spoke, she looked at him. “I vote to stop now.”

Miles waited tensely for signs of dissension, protest, internal revolt. Cappell struck his fist on the booth’s glass wall, which reverberated, and turned away, his features working. Foscol buried her face in her hands. After that, silence.

“That’s it, then,” said Soudha, bleakly exhausted. Miles wondered if the news of the device’s inherent defect had sapped his will more than any argument. “We surrender, on your word for our lives. Lord Auditor Vorkosigan.” He squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again. “Now what?”

“A lot of sensible slow moves. First I gently detach ImpSec from its vision of a heroic assault. They were getting pretty worked up, out here. Then you inform the rest of your group. Then disarm whatever booby-traps you’ve set, and pile any weapons you may possess well away from yourselves. Unlock the doors. Then sit down quietly on the loading bay floor with your hands behind your heads. At that point, I’ll let the boys in.” He added prudently, “Please avoid sudden movements, that sort of thing.”

“So be it.” Soudha cut his comm; the Komarrans winked out. Miles shuddered in sudden disorientation, alone again in his little sealed room. The screaming man behind the glass wall in his mind was getting out a battering ram, it felt like.

Miles opened the channel on his comconsole and ordered a medical squad to accompany the arresting officers from ImpSec and Station Security, who were to be armed with stunners and stunners only. He repeated that last command a couple of times, to be sure. He felt as if he’d spent a century in his station chair. When he tried to stand up, he nearly fell over. Then he ran.

Miles’s only compromise with Vorgier’s anxiety for the Imperial Auditor’s personal safety was to march down the ramp into the Southport loading bay behind instead of in front of the security team. The ten or so Komarrans, sitting cross-legged on the floor, twisted around to watch as the Barrayarans entered. After Miles came the tech squad, which spread out looking for booby-traps, and behind them the medical team with a float pallet.

The first thing which caught Miles’s eye after the live target inventory was the upside-down float cradle in the middle of the bay, atop a pile of tangled wreckage. He was able, barely, to recognize it from the diagrams he’d seen back on Komarr of the fifth novel device. His heart lifted at this inexplicable, welcome sight.

He walked around it, staring, and came up to where Soudha was being frisked down and restrained. “My goodness. Your wormhole-collapser appears to have met with an accident. But it won’t do you any good. We have the plans.” Cappell and a man Miles recognized as the engineer who’d fled from Bollan Design stood nearby, glowering at him; Foscol struggled into earshot, barely controlled by her female arresting officer.

“It wasn’t us,” sighed Soudha. “It was her.” A jerk of his thumb drew Miles’s attention to the inner door of the bay’s personnel airlock. A metal bar was placed crookedly across the airseal door’s jamb; the ends were melted onto floor and wall respectively.

Miles’s eyes widened, and his lips parted in breathless anticipation. “Her?”

“The bitch from hell. Or Barrayar, which is almost the same thing to hear her tell it. Madame Vorsoisson.”

“Remarkable.” The source of several oddly tilted responses on the Komarrans’ part to his recent negotiations began at last to come clear to Miles. “Um… how? ”

All three Komarrans tried to answer him at once, with a medley of blame-casting which included a lot of phrases like, if Madame Radovas hadn’t let her out, If you hadn’t let Radovas let her out, How was I supposed to know? The old lady looked sick to me. Still does. If you hadn’t put the remote down right front of her, If you hadn’t left the damned control booth, If you had just moved faster, If you had run for the float cradle and cut the power, So why didn’t you think of that, huh? by which Miles slowly pieced together the most glorious mental picture he’d had all day. All year. For quite a long time, actually.

I’m in love. I’m in love. I just thought I was in love, before, now I really am. I must, I must, I must have this woman! Mine, mine, mine. Lady Ekaterin Nile Vorvayne Vorsoisson Vorkosigan, yes! She’d left nothing here for ImpSec and all the Emperor’s Auditors to do but sweep up the bits. He wanted to roll on the floor and howl with joy, which would be most undiplomatic of him, under the circumstances. He kept his face neutral, and very straight. Somehow, he didn’t think the Komarrans appreciated the exquisite delight of it all.