Captain Vorpatril's Alliance

by Lois McMaster Bujold

  “Something special you’re looking for, Lady ghem Estif?” Ivan Xav inquired politely. “Can we help?”

  She waved away the suggestion. “Just . . . memories, so far. With which you cannot aid me, I’m afraid, Captain.”

  Ivan Xav shifted a few crates into a makeshift sort of sofa; he and Tej sat, and he eased back and put his arm around her. She leaned into him, wondering how many tens-of-millions-worth in anybody’s currency they were sitting on—for that much money, it should have been more comfortable. The old lab was cool, not cold, the steady temperature of deep underground, and not especially clammy, but his warmth was welcome nonetheless. For some reason she was put in mind of that night back on Komarr, not-quite-cuddling on his couch and watching the vid of the unexpectedly graceful legless dancers in free fall. She’d been more afraid then than she was now. Strange.

  “Ah!” said Grandmama from the other side of the room. “Filters!” Clutching her prize, she made her way back up the stairs.

  “There’s a help,” Tej said. “At least we’ll have something to drink.”

  “But then we’ll have to piss,” said Ivan Xav. “I suppose we can go out in the tunnel. Pretend we’re camping, or on maneuvers.”

  “Or we might find some pots in here.”

  A smile moved his lips for the first time since the near-fire. “Priceless porcelain vases from the Time of Isolation, perhaps? Did they make porcelain back them? Not sure. Or carved jadeite bowls, those were popular once, I think. Worth thousands, now. Hell, maybe some ghem-general collected old Barrayaran Imperial chamber pots. I know they had those, seen ’em in the Residence. For all I know, still used by the more conservative Vorish guests.”

  A little laugh puffed her lips.

  It was quiet for a time. “Now what?” she said after a while, wondering if it would help any to breathe less deeply. Likely not.

  “Now what what?” He sounded, if not sleepy, very tired.

  She was exhausted, she realized. What time was it? So late it was early, it felt like. Some cusp of night. “What did you do the last time you were stuck in a hole like this? To pass the time?”

  “It wasn’t a hole like this. It was a lot darker. And smaller. And wetter. Though air was not an issue. This is practically a palace, by comparison.”

  “Still.”

  “Well. First there was a lot of screaming. And pounding on the walls. And more screaming.”

  “I don’t think that would help, here.”

  “It didn’t help there, either. Screaming back at death doesn’t help. Pounding on the walls till your hands bleed . . . doesn’t help.”

  She captured one now, and stroked it till it unclenched, releasing the memory. “What does help?”

  “Well, Miles. Eventually. Though I note that he’s on another planet right now. Mind you, he wasn’t much help—the first thing he wanted me to do was hide from the bad guys by going back down in that bloody hole.”

  “Did you?”

  “Well, yes.”

  “Why?”

  “It . . . was the right thing to do. At the time. It all worked out, anyway.”

  “And then?”

  “Huh?”

  “You said first. What was next?”

  “Oh. When I was still trapped. I actually got, um, a little strange after a while. I tried to sing myself all the old Imperial scout camp songs that I could remember, from when I was a spotty whelp. And then the rude versions. Except I couldn’t remember enough of them, and then I ran out.” He added after a minute, “But then, I was alone.” And after another minute, “Don’t take this the wrong way or anything, but I kinda wish I was alone again. And you . . . back in our bed, maybe. Sleeping dreamlessly.”

  She returned his apologetic hug. “Same to you.”

  “Let’s be sensible and wish for both of us there, while we’re wishing. I mean, it’s not like wishes are rationed.”

  “Good point.” Except . . . she was glad he wasn’t alone to face this unnerving reminder of what sounded, despite his making light of it, like the most terrifying hours of his younger life. It was not an erotic moment; imminent death by suffocation was a bit of a mood-killer. But it was good to just sit, not going anywhere, cuddling contentedly.

  “Tej . . .” he said, and his voice was oddly uncertain. “There’s a question I’ve been meaning to ask you for a while.”

  She blinked into the crowding shadows. “Now would probably be a good time to get it in, yeah.”

  He drew a long, long breath. It must be important; they’d both been breathing shallowly, when they’d remembered to. “Tej. Will you stay with me for the rest of my life?”

  At the little jump of the laugh in her chest, his encircling arm tightened, heartened and heartening. He’d intended her to laugh, she guessed. Ivan Xav was good at that, it occurred to her. Making light in dark places.

  “That . . . might not be too hard a commitment, I suppose. Right now.”

  “Well, it’s not the sort of question a fellow wants to take a chance with, you know.” His voice was rueful.

  They were both, she noticed, holding on harder. How much courage had that question taken? More than the first time he’d asked, she suspected. She turned her head to watch his profile, looking out into the shadows of the chamber. “Where would I go? Upstairs?”

  “I would follow you to the ends of the bunker,” he promised.

  Which kind of was the ends of their universe, currently. Who could promise more?

  She, too, drew a long breath, because he was worth it. “Do you know what the third thing was I was going to ask you if I’d won our bet? Which I did do, just pointing that out.”

  “Tell me, my little wheeler-dealer.”

  “I was going to ask if I could stay with you. When my family left.”

  “Ah.” His voice brightened; his lips curved up. “Now, isn’t that a happy coincidence.”

  “I thought so.” She hitched around and pillowed her head on his shoulder; he stroked her tangled curls.

  If it seems too good to be true, her Dada had used to warn Tej, it probably is. A much lesser man than Ivan Xav might have appeared to offer escape enough from her beloved, overpowering, constricting, maddening family. Not quite anyone with a pulse, but such a choice had been scarily close a few times. And then she wouldn’t have this. Maybe only love gave you more than what you’d dealt for.

  Oh. So that’s what this is. Oh . . .

  So . . . if you spurned a miracle because it seemed to come too easily, would you ever get another? She suspected not.

  Hang on to this one, then. Hang on for all you’re worth.

  Their breathing slowed in their shared warmth; that was good. “You know what I like best about you, Ivan Xav?” she asked, newly shy in her illumination.

  He turned his chin into her hair in an inquiring sort of way. “My shiny groundcar? My Vorish insouciance? My astounding sexual prowess? My . . . my mother? Dear God, you’re not taking me for the sake of getting my um-stepfather?”

  “Well, I do like them both very much, but no. What I like best about you, Ivan Xav, is that you’re nice. And you make me laugh.” She smiled now, into his shoulder.

  “That . . . doesn’t seem like much.” He sounded a bit taken aback.

  “Yes,” she sighed, “but consider the context.”

  He stared out into the dark room. “Ah,” he said after a minute. “Oh.”

  Ivan Xav makes light for me. Even here. To the ends of their universe . . . maybe even to the ends of their lives. Where light would be wanted, she was pretty sure.

  They both fell silent for a time, conserving heat together.

  Tej stretched the crick in her neck, and said, “Remember the first thing you said to me?”

  His face scrunched up. “Hi, there, Nametag, I have this vase to go to Barrayar . . . ?”

  She giggled. “No, after that. Do you recall that entire—never mind. But you made an indelible first impression.”

  “So did you—you shot me
.”

  “No, Rish did.” Her breath caught at the name, and Ivan Xav went still; they both looked up toward the face of the lab with the tunnel entrance. But it remained very quiet on the floor above. Tej controlled her wobble; tried to recapture their fragile moment of peace, but maybe all such moments were fleeting. If the good ones fleet, so must the bad ones. If you don’t pack them up and carry them with you, like . . . like anti-treasures. “Well, we couldn’t let you get away. That would have been . . . a huge mistake.” Speaking of understatements. The greatest mistake of her life, and she wouldn’t even have known it. The chill of that thought was like some predatory shadow passing overhead . . . and passing on. He saved my life. In more ways than one. “No. It was about your first rule of picking up girls.”

  “Don’t remember that,” he—lied prudently, she suspected.

  “You said you’d never give up till I laughed.” She hesitated. “She laughs, you live.”

  “I’d be willing to take that for a prophecy, right about now,” he admitted.

  “The never give up part sounded good, too.”

  “Yeah,” he sighed.

  They rested, and waited.

  * * *

  Ivan thought he might have dozed off for a little, but biology ruled all things; thirst and a need to pee drove them both back upstairs all too soon. Together. Tej had said together. She had meant together, hadn’t she?

  This time, yes. Thank God for do-overs.

  Team Arqua, under the Baronne’s capable direction, had addressed biology’s most immediate demands. Several large plastic bins had been emptied of old clothing.

  Some were now filled with turbid water, slowly settling. One was set up in a corner behind a stall made of yet more priceless boxes, adequate camp toilet and with a tightly fitting lid that they might have cause to be grateful for later. A drip-filter was measuring out drinks, rather slowly for the crowd, but sips were shared around in fine antique glassware, its gold leaf showing sigils suggesting the—alas, incomplete—set had been the personal property of the infamous Count Pierre “Le Sanguinaire” Vorrutyer. Ivan didn’t even attempt to mentally appraise it.

  Imola had returned, trousers soaked to his thighs; he sat back in his surly huddle and didn’t say much. The water was now lapping the outer wall of the bunker.

  Shiv, Amiri, and Ivan then combined to switch the vacuum-handle to the other side of the door slab, and heave it back up into place, just beating the rising tide. The jagged seam around the slab grew dark and wet at a steady pace, creeping upward, but only a small dribble leaked through, to be captured by some mats found downstairs.

  Ivan was impressed by Shiv’s level-headedness in this emergency, which set the tone and the example for his whole family, bluntly curbing the potential chaos. But then, anyone who had once suffered defeat by Admiral Aral Vorkosigan in a pitched space battle likely had much higher standards for emergencies than most mortals.

  The thought of his uncle caused stern lectures on prisoner-of-war regulations to rise to Ivan’s mind, so he supervised the waking of Goons One and Two to allow them to piss and drink. He didn’t argue, though, when Shiv put the woozy men back to sleep with another stun shot, along with Imola, who had started to restively complain again, for good measure. Unconsciousness would slow their metabolisms and breathing, right? It was all for the common good.

  The younger women in the crowd, including Tej, then began to sort through the piles of clothing that had given up their containers to the drinking water reserves. No new lethality sprang from the benign diversion, and Ivan slowly relaxed. It was almost all fine court wear, in both Cetagandan and Barrayaran styles, including some old military dress uniforms that Amiri, and in a bit Ivan, were compelled to somewhat sheepishly model, ghem and Vor respectively. The Cetagandan garb was challengingly complex, with a non-obvious fastening protocol that Lady ghem Estif was drawn into advising upon.

  It was while they were engaged upon this enterprise that Pearl picked up and shook out a long outer-coat, and something fell out of the folds to the floor with a clink. Ivan controlled his flinch.

  “Oh!” said Lady ghem Estif. She bent and swept it up into her palm, and stared avidly. “I certainly didn’t expect to find this there!”

  “What is it, Grandmama?” Tej inquired; the females gathered around to look.

  “My old brooch.” The old haut woman smiled. “I thought it was lost.”

  Ivan, stiff in some dead Barrayaran prince’s uniform that was a trifle too small for him, wandered over to see. It was not a very pretty piece of jewelry; an array of beads that looked more like ball bearings, set in a symmetrical array. Cetagandan then-modern art? But it seemed to mean a lot to the old lady, for she instantly fastened it to the inmost layer of her clothing.

  “Very good, Pearl!”

  The fashion show was brought to a close by the gradual fading of the cold lights. Ivan skinned out of the scratchy wool and heavy, rather greenish gold braid, roused to a new and unexpected pity for his military ancestors, and gratefully redonned his weekend civvies, manky as they now were with the night’s exertions. The Baronne cracked a new light and set it up on a central box. People drifted away in small groups to the edges of the chamber, to make bedrolls of sorts out of the fine fabrics. Sleeping was encouraged, on the basis of slowed breathing all around.

  The confiscated but otherwise useless wristcoms of Imola and his minions at least allowed them to track the time; about three hours before the late winter dawn, Ivan judged. If it had been a work day, he’d be getting up in about an hour. He and Tej cuddled in by one wall; Shiv and Udine by another. The remaining Jewels, Pearl and Emerald, made themselves a bedroll, and Pidge and Amiri anchored close by, not quite intruding on their space. Lady ghem Estif alone sat up, her eyes gleaming in the shadows, watching who-knew-what parade of memories pass before her mind’s eye.

  Ivan snuffled up around Tej, using her as a comfy body pillow, and let his face hide itself in her hair. The scent of it was soothing. He had an edgy relationship with darkness, just at the moment, but maybe letting his eyes close would make it seem more natural. He was certainly too keyed up to sleep . . .

  * * *

  Ivan shot awake into a deep thrumming noise that seemed to come from the very walls, reverberating directionlessly around the room. The cold light propped on the box fell over and rolled to the floor. Another cold light snapped into existence from Shiv and Udine’s side of the room; Ivan added one of his own and sat up, raising it high. Tej was awake and on her feet already, looking sleep-shocked. Ivan clambered up after her.

  “What the hell is that?” shouted Amiri, as the thunder continued unabated. It shifted, changed pitch, stopped for a moment, then started up again.

  Ivan moved around, trying to get a bearing; he eventually decided up by process of elimination.

  “Either Vorbarr Sultana is undergoing a surprise bombardment from space,” he shouted back, “or some engineers are shifting a hell of a lot of dirt in a hurry with a heavy-duty grav-lifter.”

  Welcome as this sign was, it occurred to Ivan that being directly under a big grav-lifter at work was not the healthiest possible location, especially if the operators were working blind. “Stay away from the middle of the room!” he shouted. Were there any stronger places, like doorways, to cluster under? No, not exactly. Would downstairs be safer? Maybe . . . He was about to suggest this when the noise stopped.

  He couldn’t decide if the thunder or the silence was more unnerving. Everyone around the room was staring upward now, with a range of expressions ranging from hope to fear, with a few side jaunts—Lady ghem Estif’s expression was bland in its haut mask; Shiv’s was blackly ironic. Tej . . . stuck tight to Ivan. That worked for him.

  The uproar started and stopped again a dozen agonizing times in the next hour. It was getting louder . . . closer . . . the vibrations took on a strange, whiny, lighter timbre. Weird thumps followed from the ceiling—roof—however you wanted to think of it.

  An ear
-splitting shriek; dust began to sift down from a circle slowly being drawn over the center of the room. Ivan darted forward and rescued the seal-dagger box, then skittered back to Tej’s side, trying to calculate the weight of a two-meter-wide disc of very thick, very peculiarly reinforced plascrete, and its probable momentum after a three-meter drop. Would it go right through the floor to the chamber below? Possibly . . .

  But in the event, when the circle completed itself, the slab hung suspended and then, miraculously, fell up. Hooray for grav-tractors!

  Cold gray light filled the room, and a whoosh of chilly air that made Ivan realize just how much of a damp reek of exhalation had been starting to accumulate down here, accounting for his growing headache if it hadn’t had a dozen other probable causes. Their tunnel door slab groaned, shifted, and abruptly blew out into the Mycobore vestibule, wet but now empty of water. The draft increased, whistling wildly for a moment, then faded to a steady flow.

  A soldier in groundside half-armor dropped through the hole on a rappelling line; his dramatic entrance was spoiled when he landed askew on a pile of boxes, which fell over, and him along with it, though he found his feet at once. A number of Arquas around the chamber prudently held up their hands palm-outward, clearly empty of weaponry. A second man dropped beside the first, as the point man began shouting in excitement into his wristcom, “We’re through, sir! We’ve found them!”

  The third man in was the last individual Ivan would ever have expected to see dangling at the end of a rappelling harness: Byerly Vorrutyer, and looking vastly uncomfortable, too, with a few pieces of military gear slapped over his rumpled civilian suit. Ivan handed Tej the precious seal-dagger box and advanced to catch him, and incidentally protect the crates he was in danger of kicking over in his awkward landing.

  “I hate heights,” By gasped, as Ivan guided him down to his feet.

  “Well, I hate depths,” Ivan returned.

  “To each his own, I guess.”

  “Evidently.”