Lois Bujold: Captain Vorpatril's alliance

“Ivan.” Gregor’s mouth twisted. “Captain and Lady Vorpatril. I want to see you tomorrow. My secretary will call with your appointment.”

When orders were dropped from that high up, they packed a lot of momentum when they hit ground level, in Ivan’s experience. So he wasn’t surprised when things, which had seemed to be hovering in a holding pattern for the past four days, moved fast.

Deportation was to be the cover story, it turned out, which had the added advantage of being perfectly true. Just not perfectly complete. Since the members of House Cordonah were, for their own reasons, as anxious to depart as Barrayar was to be rid of them, they swallowed the appearance of defeat and disgrace without choking, much. And also the excellent farewell luncheon smoothly supplied by Dowager Lady Vorpatril.

After, everyone was escorted by the ImpSec guards downstairs to pack except Lady ghem Estif, captured by Duv Galeni and carried off to Simon’s office, along with a keenly interested Simon. The two hours they were closeted, Duv indicated to Ivan when they all emerged, were not nearly enough for a century’s worth of debriefing.

“I’m going to send an analyst along on their jumpship as far as Komarr, or maybe Pol Station,” he told Ivan, simultaneously calling up contact codes on his wristcom. “And one of Helen Vorthys’s post-docs or grad students, if she can scramble one in time. That’ll give five to ten more days. Damn I wish I could go myself.” He made his hurried call to the surprised but interested Professora. Chasing down one of his own people took a little longer, scattered all over town as they were at the moment, but at that point, all he had to do was snap commands, and some poor ImpSec schmuck’s Winterfair plans were sudden smoke. Ivan hoped there would be compensations.

“There’ll be a couple of dozen theses on the declassified papers alone,” Duv predicted confidently. “ With honors.”

Well, that was probably someone’s idea of a reward, yeah. Because there was no accounting for taste. “You’re classifying this stuff? After a hundred years? Isn’t that paranoid even for ImpSec?”

“We’ll be declassifying most of it as fast as we can get through it. But there are some things about the old ghem-junta…never mind.” His lips compressed. And opened again to release a, “But you know that history book I gave Lady Tej?”

“Yes…?”

“I think there may have to be a new edition.”

Ivan walked him out to the hallway; by the time Duv reached the lift tubes in the penthouse foyer, he was jogging, and fielding more calls from his wristcom. Eight billion marks , Ivan couldn’t help thinking, and he worries more about the papers…

Or the truth, perhaps. What price that?

Gregor was providing a courtesy military jump pilot and crew for Vormercier’s yacht for the run to the borders of the empire at Pol Station. This, Ivan gathered, was to make sure they arrived 1) there and 2) nowhere else. The ten days of travel time would be plenty to tightbeam ahead and arrange whatever commercial crew the Arquas wanted to hire on for the next leg. Vetted, Ivan trusted, for ingenious bounty hunters. Jet would be rejoining the Jewels, but Amiri was to travel with his family only as far as Komarr, then transfer to a government courier vessel for a free ride to Escobar, and a safe delivery back to the Durona Clinic. Any stray bounty hunter who made it that far would be Lily Durona and Mark Vorkosigan’s problem; or rather, vice versa. Definitely vice versa, Ivan reflected.

His life was simplifying nicely. But not, Ivan trusted, too much. A little uneasy, he took the lift tube down from his mother’s flat to find Tej.

Tej, when she’d had about as much as she could stand of listening to Amiri burble about how happy he was to be going back to Escobar, wandered into her parents’ temporary bedroom. The flat had been hastily furnished with rental beds and a few sofas and chairs, the night they’d all been dumped in here by the Barrayaran authorities; a lot of the meals had been taken upstairs at Lady Alys’s place. No one had urged anything more permanent.

The Baronne and Lady Alys, or rather, Lady Alys’s competent dresser under their joint supervision, was just finishing packing. The Baronne was remarking, “…not my plan at all, but it will certainly do. Flexibility, as Shiv says.”

She broke off and both mothers looked across at Tej as she entered, Lady Alys rather bemusedly, the Baronne…her lips tightened, but not in anger.

Lady Alys, tactful as always, murmured, “I should just see to a few things upstairs, Udine. I hope to speak with you later, Tej, dear.” Motioning her dresser to close the case and follow, she withdrew. Tej wasn’t sure if she was grateful or not. Spacious as the flat was, the Arquas had more than filled it; that, and all the disruptions of the past few days, had allowed Tej to dodge intimate tête-à-têtes pretty much since the rescue.

The Baronne plucked at her bangs, her new nervous gesture. Tej hoped her hair would grow out quickly.

“Have you packed?” the Baronne asked abruptly.

Tej swallowed. Straightened. “No. Nor am I going to.”

The Baronne eyed the set of her chin. “You know, when you father and I told you to go with your Barrayaran husband the other day, it was merely because we hoped you could thus avoid arrest, or whatever other retribution the Barrayarans had in mind.”

“Yes, I got that.”

“We certainly didn’t mean…”

“Mean it?” Tej suggested.

The Baronne cleared her throat. “It was a ploy , Tej. It was not possible, at that moment, to predict that events were going to turn out so favorably. We wanted to protect you. If not ourselves, then someone …”

Someone needed to baby-sit me? If Rish was going to be out of the job. “Yes. But when I said I would stay with Ivan Xav, I meant it.”

The Baronne made an abortive gesture. “The cars are coming to take us all to the shuttleport in another hour. Surely too short a time to make such a permanent life-bargain in.”

I made it in a minute, the first time… Well, provisionally.

“How long did it take you to decide you wanted Dada?” Tej asked, suddenly curious.

“That is neither here nor there,” said the Baronne. “Circumstances were very different.”

“I see,” said Tej, biting her lip to hide a smile.

“Also, wanting and arranging are two different things. The latter requires planning…action…sometimes, sometimes…

“Flexibility?”

“Yes.” The Baronne, realizing she was being diverted, tracked back. “Anyway, if you won’t—your Dada and I were thinking—perhaps you could ride along with us. At least as far as Pol Station. It would give us more time together.”

Tej controlled a shudder at the vision. Her and her entire family, packed into what Byerly had implied was a not-very-large spaceship, with less escape possible than from an underground bunker. We just had twenty-five years together, Baronne. Don’t you think it’s time for a break? “I thought I’d say my good-byes right here. The military shuttleport isn’t that much of a treat—I’ve seen it—and they’ll be wisking you all through, I expect.”

“I expect,” echoed the Baronne, only not-disagreeing because she couldn’t, at least about the shuttleport. “This all seems so rushed.”

“We’ve had the past four days. You must have guessed something like this was coming.”

“Or some Barrayaran incarceration. Which would have required an entirely novel plan. We’ve not been saying good-bye for the past four days!”