Lois Bujold - Captain Vorpatril's alliance

“You—!”

To Tej’s considerable surprise, the captain reached out, grabbed his visitor by the jacket, and swung him inside and up against the hall wall. The outer door hissed closed. She caught a bare glimpse of the man before shrinking back out of sight: neither old nor young, shorter than Ivan Xav, not in any recognizable uniform.

“Ivan, Ivan!” the voice protested, shifting its register from irate to placating. “Easy on the jacket! The last time anyone greeted me with that much passion, I at least won a big, sloppy kiss out of it.” A slight pause. “Granted, that was my cousin Dono’s dog. Thing’s the size of a pony, and no manners—it will jump all over—”

“Byerly, you, you—ImpWeasel! What the hell did you set me up for?”

“Just what I wanted to ask you, Ivan, my love. What went wrong? I thought you would bring the woman back here!”

“Not on a first date, you twit! You always end up at her place, first time. Or some neutral third location, but only if you’re both insanely hot.”

What…?

“I stand enlightened,” said the other voice, dryly. “Or would, if you would let me down. Thank you. That’s better.” Tej fancied she could almost hear him shooting his cuffs and adjusting his garb.

Ivan Xav’s voice, surly: “You may as well come on in.”

“That was what I’d had in mind, yes. I’d have thought the five minutes I spent leaning on your door buzzer would have been a clue, but oh well.”

Tej retreated on hasty tiptoes across the living room and around the bedroom doorframe. Rish stood plastered against the wall on the far side, listening intently. She raised a warning finger to her lips. Tej nodded and breathed through her open mouth.

The light, exasperated voice continued, “The latest updates from Solstice Dome Security on the break-in remain very unenlightening, but—tied to a chair , Ivan? However did you manage that?”

“I haven’t seen the latest—oh, God, they didn’t give my name, did they?”

“Do they know your name?”

“They do now.”

“Ivan! You should know better!” A hesitation. “The next begged question being, of course, how did you get untied?”

The captain heaved a sigh. “Before you say anything more, Byerly—ladies, you’d better come out, now.”

Whoever this man was, he seemed to know Ivan Xav, and far too much about Tej’s affairs. Should she trust in her host’s cavalier disclosure of them? Do we have a choice? Tej let out her breath, nodded across to Rish, and stepped out of the bedroom doorway. The new man swung around to take her in, his eyebrows climbing.

“The hell! Do you mean to tell me I’ve been running mad since midmorning trying to trace the woman, and she was here all the—”

Rish stepped out from behind Tej and regarded the newcomer coolly.

He was abruptly expressionless—now, there was a curious first response—his face unreadable. But not the rest of him. His eyelids did not widen, but his pupils flared. Rish could actually pick up heart rates, a degree of discernment beyond Tej’s capacity, though she fancied his heart did not speed, but actually slowed, seeming to take bigger gulps in its shock. Of the surprise, fear, and arousal all present in the first faint scent of him, wafting to her, she suspected he was only conscious of the first two.

He blinked, once. Closed his lips with a visible effort. “My word,” he said faintly.

“Yeah, that’s what I said. More or less,” said Vorpatril. “Or would have, if she hadn’t just grassed me with a stunner.”

“Mademoiselle.” The man named Byerly favored Rish with a flowing half-bow, only partly a parody of the gesture. “May I just say, a stunner seems redundant? So, introduce us, mon coz.” He was back in control of himself, now. Rish’s eyes were very narrow, watching him intently. Taking him in, far more literally than he could guess.

“He’s not my cousin,” said Vorpatril, with a jerk of his thumb at his visitor. “The relationship’s more removed, although, alas, not removed nearly far enough. Tej, Rish, meet Byerly Vorrutyer, commonly known as By. Just plain By. Not Lord Vorrutyer or Lord Byerly—those titles are reserved for the sons of the Count.”

In coloration, the two might have been siblings, though the underlying bones denied that first impression. Yet clearly, the two men shared a generous measure of Vor genes. Caste might be the precise term. The visitor wore a vaguely military-looking jacket and trousers, decorated with braid and piping that she suspected were more artistic than indicative of rank. The jacket swung open, revealing a fine shirt and colorful braces. And a brief glimpse of a discreet stunner holster.

Ivan Xav was dangerously engaging. This man was dangerously…tense? Tired? Wired? Yet despite his manhandling in the hallway, there was no flinching in his posture, no effort to distance himself from his host. No fear of Vorpatril, nor of Tej for that matter. Rish—by the flicker of his eyes, the angle that he held his body, he was keenly conscious of Rish. Trying to account for her?

Vorpatril went on, “By, meet Tej, also known as Nanja Brindis—but you knew about her, didn’t you? And her…friend, Rish. Who was a surprise to us all, but I believe the dome cops have her down on their play-list as the maidservant, missing .”

Tej swallowed. “How do you do, Byerly Vorrutyer,” she said formally. “That tells us who you are, but not, I’m afraid, what you are.” She let her eyebrows rise in an inquiry divided equally between the two Barrayarans.

Vorpatril folded his arms and stared off into space. “That would be for By to say.”

The other Barrayaran drew a long breath—buying time to think?—and cast an inviting wave toward the angled pair of couches. “Indeed. May I suggest we all sit down more comfortably?” Another moment or two purchased, while she and Rish alighted where they’d been before, and the two men took Vorpatril’s late sleeping slot. But after settling himself next to his removed relative, who removed himself yet further to the couch’s end, Byerly still looked rather blank. “Um. So. How…did you all end up here?”

Tej said, in chill tones, “Captain Vorpatril invited us.”

“They wanted a safe place to lie low,” Vorpatril put in. “Which must be working, if you couldn’t find ’em.” He added after another moment, “On purpose, anyway.”

Tej frowned at Byerly. The mismatch between his foppish mannerisms and his body’s testimony was as grating to her senses as clashing colors or a musical discord. “Who are you?”

“Good question. Who are you?”

“I can tell you one thing,” said Vorpatril. “Got it from Morozov, the Jackson’s Whole guru in Galactic Affairs out at HQ—Rish, here, is also known as Lapis Lazuli. She used to be part of a whole gengineered dance troupe belonging to the, evidently, late Baronne Cordonah of Cordonah Station. Seems that about seven months ago, House Cordonah was swallowed up by some pretty nasty competitors.”

Tej trembled.

Rish looked up, eyes hot with rage, swiftly banked. “Not competitors. Predators. Scavengers. Hyenas, jackals, and vultures.”

“A veritable zoo,” said Byerly, his brows lifting above widened eyes. “Were you, ah, there at feeding time?”

Tej held up her hand. “We won’t tell you anything.” She waited while his face tightened in frustration, and then offered her only card, or the illusion of it. Pure bluff, exhilarating and sickening. “But we might deal you for it. Answer for answer, value for value.”

Would he go for it? The deal was utterly hollow. The man could pull out his stunner, drop Rish where she sat, and take Tej before she was half launched at him—though perhaps less easily the other way around. She could wake up tied to a chair like poor Ivan Xav, except with the cool kiss of a hypospray of fast-penta held to her arm. In minutes, be spilling everything she knew, along with fits of giggles. Why should he buy what he could so easily steal?