Captain Vorpatril's alliance mv-14

by Lois McMaster Bujold

  “Well, this is what Grandmama said to use, and she should know. And we’ve been running in and out of here for days with just this, and nothing’s happened to us.”

  Ivan Xav stared at Tej with new alarm, as if he expected to see flesh-eating fungus start spreading all over her skin on the spot. His gaze flicked to Star with equal curiosity, if somewhat less concern.

  “You don’t have to come along,” added Star. “Nobody invited you.”

  Ivan Xav donned the gloves and yanked the mask up over his face. His deep brown eyes, Tej discovered, could glower quite fiercely all on their own, without any help from his mouth.

  Tej held up her cold light and started down the tunnel. She whispered over her shoulder, “From this point on, as little talking as possible.”

  “Right,” Ivan Xav whispered back.

  The tunnel, too, seemed slightly larger in diameter than before. Ivan Xav didn’t even have to duck his head, although he did anyway. He was very careful not to touch or brush the walls in passing. He plainly did not like the sitting and sliding around the two bendy parts at all. He held up his cold light to the occasional random appendix-holes, his brow furrowing in disapproval. Tej tried not to feel defensive. She hadn’t invented the Mycoborer.

  A wide place in the passage was impeded by a big pile of dirt, a few pale bones, and a tattered backpack with electronic parts spilling out of it.

  “I thought Grandmama was going to make Jet and Amiri clean this up,” Tej whispered to Star, stepping carefully around it.

  “They did,” whispered Star back. “But something shifted when we were out today, and this all came spilling out of the wall again. Dada says Jet has to come back and clean it up again before we start hauling goods out.”

  “What the hell is this…?” whispered Ivan Xav sharply, holding his cold light down to illuminate the pile. The bones sprang out in harsh relief.

  “It’s poor Sergeant Abelard,” Tej whispered back. “I didn’t actually find that dog-tag necklace on the floor of a garage. He was wearing it.”

  Ivan Xav knelt, staring wide-eyed, not touching.

  “He was in a collapsed tunnel that our tunnel crossed. Or at least his foot was; Jet made the hole. I didn’t think that was such a good idea, but, you know, brothers. Well, I suppose you don’t know brothers. Guys, then.”

  Ivan Xav’s hand turned up a flap of backpack, then drew back.

  “I do not have claustrophobia,” he…well, it was still a whisper, but it had a lot of snarl in it. It seemed he actually did possess emotional range beyond peeved. “I do, however, have a quite active unexploded bombs phobia. This could be—anything. Unstable, for example. Are you people insane?”

  “It can’t be too unstable,” said Star, unsympathetically. “It didn’t go off when it fell in here, and it didn’t go off when Pidge tripped over it and kicked it a bit ago. I wouldn’t play with it, mind, but it’s not going to do anything spontaneous, I don’t think.”

  Unlike Ivan Xav, who looked quite close to something spontaneous, possibly combustion. But he just stood up and waved them on.

  Their next check was at a point where the Mycoborer tunnel split into five channels. Three of them wrapped around a large-diameter pipe, from which the sound of rushing water filtered faintly. Ivan stared at it, listening, then shook his head. He muttered something that sounded like, Oh, sure, of course there’s water, but didn’t expand.

  “Uh, which way?” Tej asked Star. She hadn’t made it quite this far the other day; but neither had the Mycoborer.

  Star counted, then pointed. “That one.”

  They trudged after her, slippered feet shuffling. After a number of meters and a few kinks, but no more loop-the-loops, a faint viridescent glow showed up ahead. They rounded one more bend and climbed a slope to find a new vestibule, brightly lit by wavering cold lights, dead-ended against a flat wall and full of silent, milling Arquas.

  Dada and the Baronne looked around and spotted Ivan Xav. “Tej!” whispered the Baronne, with a shocked gesture at her Barrayaran.

  “It’s all right,” Tej whispered, coming over to them. “He’s with me.”

  Dada scowled. “But is he with us?”

  “He will be,” she promised. Ivan Xav smiled tightly behind his mask, but did not gainsay her. Yet.

  Amiri was just fitting some sort of hand-pumped suction device to an oval in the wall showing signs of work by cutting fluid and maybe something more physical. He motioned Jet forward; shoulders straining, they shifted the slab out of the wall and let it down slowly and silently.

  Amiri tossed in a couple of cold lights—Tej could hear them hit something and roll to a stop—adjusted his mask, and stuck his head through. Nine other Arquas, a ghem Estif, and one Vorpatril held their breaths. Or was that, eight other Arquas, one ghem Estif, and two Vorpatrils…?

  “What can you see?” demanded Dada. His hand reached out to clasp the Baronne’s. She gripped back just as hard.

  Amiri’s voice floated back: “Marvelous things!”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Ivan had never thought of his nightmares as being insufficiently imaginative, before tonight. Dark, wet, constricted, underground, check. How had he left out biohazards? After all that, the frigging unexploded bomb just seemed a…a redundant redundancy. And the stray corpse a mere decoration. How did I get into this mess? Miles isn’t even here.

  Though the labyrinthine results of the Mycoborer were impressive as well as alarming, he had to admit. The discovery of the supposedly-empty Cetagandan bunker had been interesting, though Ivan wouldn’t have been human if he hadn’t found its transmutation to a ghem-generals’ lost treasure vault riveting, as irresistible to him as to any Arqua. But the belated news of its original provenance as a Cetagandan haut bio-lab, which Tej hadn’t let drop till they were almost here—had to make it the most entirely resistible temptation he had ever encountered.

  And that idiot Amiri was going inside. Ivan hadn’t had cause to dislike his new brother-in-law before now, but this was just wrong. Amiri turned to politely help his haut grandmama over the threshold of the oval they’d cut into the wall, incidentally compromising any biohazard containment integrity the old lab had still held, but hey, who cared about that? Not the intent Arquas, it seemed. The tall woman bent her head and twitched her long coat through the aperture, as dignified as an aged queen returning to her country after some long exile. Other Arquas filed through eagerly after her. Tej glanced back over her shoulder as she followed, bright-eyed with triumph.

  Ivan was not going to be able to get through the rest of this night without inhaling, alas. And Tej had just slipped out of his view, even though he edged closer and craned his neck. He drew a long breath through his filter mask, squeezed himself down, and ducked in after them all.

  Arquas were spreading out through the chamber, their bright green-white cold lights held aloft. The place wasn’t huge, about eight by ten meters, though Ivan spotted a stairway going down to another level. But it was crowded with crates and boxes and covered bins: on the floor, under and upon benches and desks and chairs, some in neat, tight stacks—those against the walls reaching the ceiling—others seemingly flung atop the rest in a scattered hurry. A faint plume of dust had settled over the array, fanning from a rubble-filled aperture on the far end, but on the whole the place looked as pristine as the day it had been sealed off. Ivan wondered if he was now breathing hundred-year-old air, a few molecules of which might have passed through the lungs of Prince Xav, or not-yet-mad Prince Yuri, or other famous Barrayaran ancestors.

  Lady ghem Estif was staring around with satisfaction; she stepped up on a crate and pulled down her filter mask. Most of the others followed her example. Ivan left his in place as, he noticed nervously, did the biologist Amiri. “We should be able to speak to each other in normal tones, inside here,” she announced to the Arquas at large. “No loud thumps or shouting or screaming, of course.”

  No screaming, eh. Good she’d reminded Ivan of that. It w
as dawning on him that he’d just lost the biggest wager of his recent life; the ramifications were spinning out beyond his boggled imagination. But at least he wasn’t running around the room mad with greed like the Jacksonians…

  “This one’s heavy.” Emerald lifted a plastic box atop a pile, and shook it a little. Something slid inside. “Think it could be the gold?”

  Tej, Rish, and Pidge crowded around; drawn, Ivan looked over their shoulders as Em pried open the top. Inside was another large, rectangular box, of fine polished wood. The gold clasp yielded to her green fingers; the velvet-lined lid swung up.

  “Oh,” said Rish in disappointment. “It’s just a bunch of old knives.”

  Tej held one up. “Kind of elegant, though…”

  Ivan, getting a good look into the tray of cutlery at last, reached out and plucked it from her hand with trembling fingers. “This is a Time-of-Isolation seal dagger. Count’s sigil on the hilt…dear God, they all are.” The first tray of twenty knives lifted out to reveal another, and a third. Ivan’s eye decoded the arms, Vorinnis, Vortala, Vorfolse, Vorloupulos…holy crap, Vorkosigan as well, and yes, there was a Vorpatril…it was like a roll-call of the old Council of Counts. “It’s a complete set. A complete set of seal-daggers from all sixty Counts-palatine in existence a hundred years back.” Some brilliant connoisseur ghem-officer’s collection…

  “Do they have any value?” Tej inquired ingenuously. “They don’t look all that fancy.”

  “Ordinary Vor seal daggers from the Time of Isolation can go for ten thousand marks up. Way up, if it’s from anyone famous. Ten times that, from a count or prince. My cousin Miles has one that’s literally priceless.” Which he used as a letter opener, Ivan recalled. “A complete set…with provenance…” Ivan tried to do the multiplication in his spinning head. “Six to ten million?”

  “Barrayaran marks or Betan dollars?” Shiv inquired, coming over.

  “Either,” said Ivan, shaken. Very belatedly, he realized he should have said, Oh, it’s just a bunch of dusty, rusty old knives. If you don’t want them, I’ll take them off your hands…

  And that was only the first crate. This place held hundreds of them.

  He suddenly wanted to run around the room madly breaking open bins. And screaming.

  Jet pried open the top of another crate and peered within. “What’s this?” he asked the air, looking nonplussed. Ivan craned his neck; it looked like a pile of old electronics, and some slate slats.

  Lady ghem Estif, crossing from one side of the room to the other by threading her way through the piles, stopped to look over his shoulder. Her frown echoed his. After a long pause, she pronounced, “Artwork.” And after another, “Or perhaps a weapon. Not sure. Just set it aside, for now.”

  Ceremonial objects, wasn’t that the catch-all term? Ivan thought wildly. He turned to find himself looking through the faded plastic side of another bin; it seemed to be packed tightly with flimsies. Or maybe papers, back then. He lifted it down from its pile of brethren, popped the top, and was retroactively relieved not to have the contents turn to dust—someone ought to be being careful with all this stuff—but, remembering he was already wearing gloves, tried to thumb through the top layer. Real, old-fashioned paper, yes. Some of the pages stuck together. His eye picked out the salutation on a hand-written letter, faded brown ink, Dear Yuri, but of course no saying it was that Yuri…gingerly, he wriggled it out. His wildly skipping glance caught only some talk about requisitions, and the closing salutation, Your brother in a better grade of arms, Xav.

  …Duv Galeni would have a stroke.

  “What’s that?” asked Shiv, at his elbow. Ivan flinched. His brain finally catching up with his mouth, he said airily, “Not much. Just some old papers and letters.” Hastily, he turned the page face down and closed the lid of the bin, tapping it sealed again, firmly. And, just for luck, returned it to the top of its stack. “Probably not worth hauling out. Go for the gold, eh?”

  “Oh, that as well,” said Shiv.

  On the other side of the chamber Pearl had found another stack of small, heavy cases, locked and with some Ninth Satrapy seal incised on the tops. Star brought over a flat metal bar looted from a lab bench drawer; together, they pried the top case open. Pearl held up a cylindrical roll that gleamed through its plastic wrapper. “Ah, here are the gold coins. You were right, Grandmama.”

  Lady ghem Estif was now moving around to all the cupboards and old, dead refrigeration units in the lab, examining their insides intently; she waved blasé acknowledgement of this. “That’s nice, dear.”

  Tej and Rish bopped over to see; Ivan replaced the dagger in its velvet slot, controlled an urge to slip the Vorpatril blade into his pocket, reverently closed and latched the lid, and followed.

  Pearl broke open the wrapper and let the coins spill out in a bright clinking stream, handing them around for closer examination.

  “Those Ninth Satrapy coins are worth way more than their face value on the collector’s market,” Ivan observed. “Most of them were melted down after the Occupation, and the currency was burned. Although…” He noted the stacks of cases, and gave up on the multiplication, “You might not want to let all those out at once, or you’ll crash the prices.”

  Shiv’s paw descended on his shoulder in an approving grip. “Good thinking, Ivan Xav. We’ll make a Jacksonian of you yet.” Though he, too, rolled a few of the coins around curiously in his hand. His sample went back into his pocket when he was done.

  Shiv stepped up on a couple of crates and looked over the room with a calculating eye. “I know you’re all excited to be opening presents, children, and so am I,” he called out over the stacks. “But work before pleasure.”

  That seemed an un-Jacksonian sentiment, but it was perhaps how Shiv had become a top-dog Jacksonian, Ivan reflected.

  Shiv went on, “We’ll need to save the complete inventory for later, in some more secure space. Time is as much of the essence as treasure tonight. Location, location, location, they say; and this is not one to linger in.”

  A faint, disappointed-but-not-disagreeing moan from his progeny scattered about the room acknowledged this pronouncement.

  Shiv’s eye fell on his eldest daughter. “Star, you’re supposed to be guarding the entrance.”

  “I locked the door, Dada. And I wanted to see.”

  “Yes, yes”—he waved an understanding hand—“but now you have. Back to your post. You, Jet, Em—no, Rish, you go with him, you can keep him on task—go clean up that mess in the tunnel. Each of you carry something with you as you go—we don’t have time for wasted trips tonight. Off with you!”

  They each grabbed a coin case—even Jet gave a little grunt, lifting it to his shoulder—and, stepping over the high threshold, filed out the oval hole in the wall.

  “Some of it is bound to be trash,” murmured Udine, giving her husband a steadying hand as he stepped down off his makeshift podium. “Those would be wasted trips as well.”

  “Mm, true. Well, if the next room down is like this one, we’re going to need more than one van. And more than one night. We can take the obvious items tonight, and leave some of us in here tomorrow during the day to triage the rest.”

  She nodded.

  Shiv herded more of his children into shifting the coin cases from their stack through the hole in the wall to a staging area in the Mycoborer vestibule. Lady ghem Estif, meanwhile, straightened up from a cupboard on the far side of the room with an “Ah!” of surprised satisfaction. Both Ivan’s and Udine’s heads swiveled around.

  “What did you find, Mother?” Udine inquired, zigzagging over to her. Ivan and Tej followed.

  Lady ghem Estif held up what might have been a really, really elegant combat utility belt. “My old biotainer girdle. I wonder if it still works?” And, in a bemusing womanly addendum, “I wonder if it still fits?” She slipped out of her coat and cinched it about her waist, and a sincerely delighted smile illuminated her face as she found that yes, it did still fit. On
e hand went up to fluff her short hair, and the smile twisted.

  Her long fingers danced over what was evidently a control panel on the left side. Ivan jumped back as a flickering force-field abruptly sprang out around her, shoving over a stack of boxes, which slid and fell with a few dull thumps; she touched another control, and its spherical shape became a more form-fitting tall oval. She looked as if she were standing inside a narrow, translucent egg.

  “Hey, what about no electronic signatures?” Ivan cried in panic. Wait, no, wrong. He wanted them to be surprised by ImpSec, didn’t he? In some way that he had nothing whatsoever to do with, in order to keep his word to Tej. This could be perfect.

  Lady ghem Estif glanced upward. “Oh, no one will pick up anything through these walls.”

  Crap, thought Ivan. Nonetheless, she turned the sputtering field back off.

  Ivan narrowed his eyes in belated recognition. “Wait. I saw something like that before, back on Eta Ceta. When Miles and I had to go as the Barrayaran diplomatic representatives to the late Cetagandan empress’s funeral, twelve, thirteen years ago. The haut-lady bubbles. All the haut women traveled around in these float chairs, with personal shields a lot like that one.”

  Lady ghem Estif looked at him in surprise. “Indeed. The biotainer girdles were made a symbol of haut status. Personally, I disapproved of fitting them onto the float chairs—robbing them of their original purpose in pursuit of display. Really, I do sometimes wonder if my old caste is becoming effete. I begin to believe I was well out of it. Young people these days, no sense of the right robust relation of form and function. And they call themselves artists!”

  “So,” said Ivan, taken aback to have the formerly-settled insides of his head so abruptly rearranged, “the haut-lady bubbles actually started as biotainers? But they don’t work as suits anymore?”

  “Oh, of course they still do that,” murmured Lady ghem Estif, and headed purposefully for the stairs.

  Undine shrugged and picked up the nearest case, turning toward the hole in the wall. “Tej, Ivan Xav”—a warmer drop in her voice at his name acknowledged his volunteer status—“time to start hauling. Quickly, now.”