Lois Bujold - Mirror Dance

Quinn had never stopped. She still wore her blood-soaked fatigues, her sudden inheritance of command of this debacle had allowed her no rest. Thorne had cleaned up and changed to ship greys, but obviously had not slept yet. Both their faces stood out pale in the shadows, too sharply lined. Quinn had made Mark take a stimulant when, getting him dressed, she’d found him too muzzy-mouthed for her taste, and he did not quite like its effects. His head and eyes were almost too clear, but his body felt beaten. All the edges and surfaces of the tac room seemed to stand out with unnatural clarity. Sounds and voices in his ears seemed to have a painful serrated quality, sharp and blurred at once. Quinn was on the stuff too, he realized, watching her wince at a high electronic squeal from the comm equipment.

(“All right, you’re on,”) said Quinn through the ear-bug as the vid plate in front of him began to sparkle. They all shut up at last.

The image of Baron Fell materialized, and frowned at him too. Georish Stauber, Baron Fell of House Fell, was unusual for the leader of a Jacksonian Great House in that he still wore his original body. An old man’s body. The Baron was stout, pink of face, with a shiny liver-spotted scalp fringed by white hair trimmed short. The silk tunic he wore in his House’s particular shade of green made him look like a hypothyroid elf. But there was nothing elfin about his cold and penetrating eyes. Miles was not intimidated by a Jacksonian Baron’s power, Mark reminded himself. Miles was not intimidated by any power backed by less than three entire planets. His father the Butcher of Komarr could eat Jacksonian Great Houses for breakfast.

He, of course, was not Miles.

Screw that. I’m Miles for the next fifteen minutes, anyway.

“So, Admiral,” rumbled the Baron. “We meet again after all.”

“Quite.” Mark managed not to let his voice crack.

“I see you are as presumptuous as ever. And as ill-informed.”

“Quite.”

(“Start talking, dammit,”) Quinn’s voice hissed in his ear.

Mark swallowed. “Baron Fell, it was not a part of my original battle plan to involve Fell Station in this raid. I am as anxious to decamp with my forces as you are to have us leave. To that end, I request your help as a go-between. You … know that we’ve kidnapped Baron Bharaputra, I trust?”

“So I’m told.” One of Fell’s eyelids tic’d. “You’ve rather overreached your available back-up, have you not?”

“Have I?” Mark shrugged. “House Fell is in a state of vendetta with House Bharaputra, are you not?”

“Not exactly. House Fell was on the verge of ending the vendetta with House Bharaputra. We’ve found it mutually unprofitable, of late. I’m now suspected of collusion in your raid.” The Baron’s frown deepened.

“Uh …” his thought was interrupted by Thorne whispering, (“Tell him Bharaputra’s alive and well.”)

“Baron Bharaputra is alive and well,” said Mark, “and can remain so, for all I care. As a go-between, it seems to me you would be well-placed to demonstrate your good faith to House Bharaputra by helping to get him back. I only wish to trade him—intact—for one item, and then we’ll be gone.”

“You are optimistic,” Fell said dryly.

Mark plowed on. “A simple, advantageous trade. The Baron for my clone.”

(“Brother,”) Thorne, Quinn, and Bothari-Jesek all corrected in unison in his ear-bug.

“—brother,” Mark continued, edged. He unset his teeth. “Unfortunately, my … brother, was shot in the melee downside. Fortunately, he was successfully frozen in one of our emergency cryo-chambers. Um, unfortunately, the cryo-chamber was accidentally left behind in the scramble to get off. A live man for a dead one; I fail to see the difficulty.”

The Baron barked a laugh, which he muffled in a cough. The three Dendarii faces across from Mark in the shadows were chill and stiff and not amused. “You’ve been having an interesting visit, Admiral. What do you want with a dead clone?”

(“Brother,”) Quinn said again. (“Miles insists, always.”)

(“Yes,”) seconded Thorne. (“That’s how I first knew you weren’t Miles, back on the Ariel, when I called you a clone and you didn’t jump down my throat.”)

“Brother,” Mark repeated wearily. “There was no head-wound, and the cryo-treatment was begun almost instantly. He has good hope of revival, as such things go.”

(“Only if we get him back,”) Quinn growled.

“I have a brother,” remarked Baron Fell. “He inspires no such emotions in me.”

I’m right with you, Baron, Mark thought.

Thorne piped up in Mark’s ear, (“He’s talking about his half-brother, Baron Ryoval of House Ryoval. The original axis of this vendetta was between Fell and Ryoval. Bharaputra got dragged in later.”)

I know who Ryoval is, Mark wanted to snap, but could not.

“In fact,” Baron Fell went on, “my brother will be quite excited to learn you are here. After you so reduced his resources on your last visit, he is alas limited to small-scale attacks. But I suggest you watch your back.”

“Oh? Do Ryoval’s agents operate so freely on Fell Station?” Mark purred.

Thorne approved, (“Good one! Just like Miles.”)

Fell stiffened. “Hardly.”

Thorne whispered, (“Yes, remind him you helped him with his brother.”)

What the hell had Miles done here, four years ago? “Baron. I helped you with your brother. You help me with mine, and we can call it square.”

“Hardly that. The apples of discord you threw among us on your last departure took far too much time to sort out. Still … it’s true you dealt Ry a better blow that I could have.” Was there a tiny glint of approval in Fell’s eye? He rubbed his round chin. “Therefore, I will give you one day to complete your business and depart.”

“You’ll act as go-between?”

“The better to keep an eye on both parties, yes.”

Mark explained the Dendarii’s best guess as to the approximate location of the cryo-chamber, and gave its description and serial numbers. “Tell the Bharaputrans, we think it may have been hidden or disguised in some way. Please emphasize, we wish it returned in good condition. And their Baron will be too.”

(“Good,”) Bothari-Jesek encouraged. (“Let ’em know it’s too valuable to destroy, without letting ’em guess they could hold us up for more ransom.”)

Fell’s lips thinned. “Admiral, you are an acute man, but I don’t think you altogether understand how we do things on Jackson’s Whole.”

“But you do, Baron. That’s why we’d like to have you on our side.”

“I am not on your side. That is perhaps the first thing you don’t understand.”

Mark nodded, slowly; Miles would have, he thought. Fell’s attitude was strange. Faintly hostile. Yet he acts like he respects me.

No. He respected Miles. Hell. “Your neutrality is all I ask.”

Fell shot him a narrow glance from under his white eyebrows. “What about the other clones?”

“What about them?”

“House Bharaputra will be inquiring.”

“They do not enter into this transaction. Vasa Luigi’s life should be sufficient and more.”

“Yes, the trade seems uneven. What is so valuable about your late clone?”

Three voices chorused in his ear, (“Brother!”) Mark yanked the ear-bug out and slapped it to the counter beside the vid plate. Quinn nearly choked.

“I cannot trade back fractions of Baron Bharaputra,” snapped Mark. “Tempted as I am to start doing so.”

Baron Fell raised a placating plump palm. “Calm, Admiral. I doubt it will be necessary to go so far.”

“I hope not.” Mark trembled. “It’d be a shame if I had to send him back without his brain. Like the clones.”