Lois Bujold - Brothers in Arms

Elli glanced at the numbers on the doors and swung up the bubble canopy. Miles slid out to stand beside her. From the groundcar, Ivan ran the scanners. "There's nobody home," he reported, squinting at his readouts.

"What? Not possible," said Elli.

"We could be early."

"Rats," said Elli. "As Miles is so fond of saying, look at the logic. The people who want to buy Lord Vorkosigan didn't give us this rendezvous till the last second. Why? So we couldn't get here first and check it out. They have to be set up and waiting." She leaned back into the car's cockpit, reaching over Ivan's shoulder. He turned his hands palm-out in acquiescence as she ran the scan again. "You're right," she admitted, "but it still feels wrong."

Was it chance vandalism that a couple of streetlights were broken out, just here? Miles peered into the night.

"Don't like it," Elli murmured. "Let's not tie your hands."

"Can you handle me, all by yourself?"

"You're drugged to the eyeballs." Miles shrugged, and let his jaw hang slack and his eyes track randomly and not quite in unison. He shambled beside her as her hand pinched his upper arm, guiding him up the steps. She tried the door, an old-fashioned one hung on hinges. "It's open." It swung wide squeaking, revealing blackness.

Elli reluctantly reholstered her stunner and unhooked a handlight from her belt, flashing it into the darkness. An entry hall; rickety-looking stairs ascended to the left, twin archways on either side led into empty, dirty front rooms. She sighed and stepped cautiously across the threshold. "Anybody here?" she called softly. Silence. They entered the left-hand room, the beam of the handlight darting from corner to corner.

"We're not early," she muttered, "not late, the address is right . . . where are they?"

He could not very well answer and stay in character. Elli released him, switched the light to her left hand and re-drew her stunner. "You're too tanked to wander far," she decided, as if talking to herself. "I'm going to take a look around."

One of Miles's eyelids shivered in acknowledgement. Until she finished checking for remote bugs and scanner beams, he had better keep playing Lord Vorkosigan in a convincingly kidnapped state. After a moment's hesitation, she took to the stairs. Taking the light with her, dammit.

He was still listening to the swift, faint creak of her footsteps overhead when the hand closed over his mouth and the back of his neck was kissed by a stunner on very light power, zero range.

He convulsed, kicking, trying to shout, trying to bite. His assailant hissed in pain and clutched harder. There were two—his hands were yanked up behind his back, a gag stuffed into his mouth before his teeth could snap closed on the hand that fed him. The gag was permeated with some sweet, penetrating drug; his nostrils flared wildly, but his vocal cords went involuntarily slack. He seemed out of touch with his body, as if it had moved leaving no forwarding address. Then a pale light came up.

Two large men, one younger, one older, dressed in Earther clothing, shifted in the shadows, faintly blurred. Scanner shields, dammit! And very, very good ones, to beat the Dendarii equipment. Miles spotted the boxes belted to their waists—a tenth the size of the latest thing his people had. Such tiny power packs—they looked new. The Barrayaran embassy was going to have to update its secured areas . . . He went cross-eyed, for a mad moment, trying' to read the maker's mark on them, until he saw the third man.

Oh, the third. I've lost it, Miles's panicked thought' gyrated. Gone right over the edge. The third man was himself.

The alter-Miles, neatly turned out in Barrayaran : dress greens, stepped forward to stare long and strangely, hungrily, into his face as he was held up by the two younger men. He began emptying the contents of Miles's pockets into his own. Stunner . . . IDs . . . half a pack of clove breath mints . . . He frowned at the breath mints as if momentarily puzzled, then pocketed them with a shrug. He pointed to Miles's waist.

Miles's grandfather's dagger had been willed explicitly to him. The 300-year-old blade was still flexible as rubber, sharp as glass. Its jewelled hilt concealed die Vorkosigan seal. They took it from beneath his jacket. The alter-Miles shrugged the sheath-strap over his shoulder and refastened his tunic. Finally, he unhooked the scanner-shield belt from his own waist and slipped it swiftly around Miles.

The alter-Miles's eyes were hot with an exhilarated terror, as he paused to sweep one last glance over Miles. Miles had seen the look once before, in his own face in the mirrored wall of a tube station.

No.

He'd seen it on this one's face in the mirrored wall of a tube station.

He must have been standing feet away that night, behind Miles at an angle. In the wrong uniform. The green one, at a moment Miles was wearing his Dendarii greys.

Looks like they managed to get it right this time, though. …

"Perfect," growled the alter-Miles, freed of the scanner-shield's sonic muffling. "We didn't even have to stun the woman. She'll suspect nothing. Told you this would work." He inhaled, jerked up his chin, .and smiled sardonically at Miles.

Posturing little martinet, Miles thought poisonously. I'll get you for that.

Well, I always was my own worst enemy.

The switch had taken only seconds. They carried Miles through the doorway at the back of the room. With a heroic twitch, he managed to bump his head on the frame, going through.

"What was that?" Elli's voice called instantly from upstairs.

"Me," the alter-Miles called back promptly. "I just checked around. There's nobody down here either. This is a wash-out."

"You think?" Miles heard her cantering down the stairs. "We could wait a while."

Elli's wristcom chimed. "Elli?" came Ivan's voice thinly. "I just got a funny blip in the scanners a minute ago."

Miles's heart lurched in hope.

"Check again." The alter-Miles's voice was cool.

"Nothing, now."

"Nothing here either. I'm afraid something's panicked them, and they've aborted. Pull in the perimeter and take me back to the embassy, Commander Quinn.

"So soon? You sure?"

"Now, yes. That's an order."

"You're the boss. Damn," said Elli regretfully "I had my heart set on that hundred thousand Betan dollars."

Their syncopated footsteps echoed out the hallway and were muted by the closing door. The purr of a groundcar faded in the distance. Darkness, silence scored by breathing.

They dragged Miles along again, out a back door, through a narrow mews and into the back seat of a groundcar parked in the alley. They sat him up like a mannequin between them, while a third kidnapper drove. Miles's thoughts spun dizzily along the edge of consciousness. Goddamn scanners . . . five-year-old technology from the rim zone, which put it maybe ten years behind Earth's—they'd have to bite the budget bullet and scrap the Dendarii scanner system fleet-wide, now—if he lived to order it. … Scanners, hell. The fault didn't lie in the scanners. Wasn't the formerly-mythical unicorn hunted with mirrors, to fascinate the vainglorious beast while its killers circled for the strike? Must be a virgin around here somewhere. . . .

This was an ancient district. The tortuous route the groundcar was taking could be either to confuse him or merely the best shortcut local knowledge could supply. After about a quarter hour they dove into an underground parking garage and hissed to a halt. The garage was small, clearly private, with room for only a few vehicles.

They hauled him to a lift tube and ascended one level to a short hallway. One of the goons pulled off Miles's boots and scanner-shield belt. The stun was starting to wear off. His legs were rubbery, shot with pins and needles, but at least they propped him up. They released his wrists; clumsily, he tried to rub his aching arms. They popped the gag from his mouth. He emitted a wordless croak.