Pidge rose and darted to the senior Arquas; Gregor went aside for more coffee and a bite of pastry. Ivan could only think, Yes, for the love of mercy get your blood sugar up, sire. He joined the huddle. Simon and Mamere, he noted, stayed seated.
Pidge was saying, “If we want to hold off retribution for as long as possible with delaying actions, now is our chance. You know I had the sequence of court fights all mapped out—”
“If I may advise?” said Ivan, pitching his voice low. Shiv put out a hand to quell Pidge, who scowled at the interruption.
“Please do,” said the Baronne.
“About ten thousand people are lined up behind you competing for a slice of Gregor’s time, but he’s offering you this morning on a platter. He won’t make that offer twice. Also, his clothes.”
“What about them?” asked Shiv, his heavy face dark in bafflement.
“Signal. If he’d planned to go after you about the local issues—including that damned Mycoborer—he’d have come dressed in his Vorbarra House black-and-silver. If he meant to crush you for what you did to his ImpSec headquarters, he’d be in his Service dress greens. But he’s wearing his politician-suit, instead. That means he wants something he doesn’t already have. That means there may be the offer of what you might call a deal, depending. If you don’t waste his time, and if you don’t piss him off.”
“How does one piss him off?” asked Shiv, eyes narrowing.
“Well, wasting his time would be a good way to start.”
“And how can you tell?” asked Tej, with an anxious glance past his shoulder at the podium. “If he’s pissed off, I mean.”
“Um…” Ivan hesitated. “You all probably can’t. But ask me.”
He backed away, to give the Arquas one last chance to confer privately. To his intense relief, Shiv turned and stated, “House Cordonah chooses to abide by the authority of this Star Chamber.”
Lady Alys didn’t say a word, but her hand pressed to her lips looked to Ivan like hope rewarded. Which made him really wonder what all those all-senior-female confabs among Moira, Udine, and Alys had covered, these past few days.
The secretary glanced at a signal from his wristcom, then rose to go to the chamber door and receive from the majordomo a new delegation of men. Ivan recognized them all.
Duv Galeni was wearing his dress greens, all the polished Imperial officer this morning; General Allegre likewise, as was Colonel Otto, too secure in his expertise to be daunted by his surroundings, and entirely mud-free. Equally secure in his expertise, not to mention his ego, was Dr. Vaughn Weddell from the Imperial Science Institute, one of their major bio-boffins—molecular, xeno, genetic, all of the above. He was followed by I.S.I Senior Administrator Susan Allegre, possibly there as his handler, as he usually needed one, possibly to track and gate any other demands on the Institute that might emerge this morning; at any rate, when they were directed to seats, she went with Weddell and not her husband.
When the room had settled once more, Gregor continued, “There are two possible approaches to solving a dilemma, in justice or elsewhere; begin with the facts, and follow out their logic where it leads one, or begin with the desired outcome, and reason backward to the necessary steps to achieve it. We shall see if it is possible to do both, and meet in the middle. To begin at the beginning, with some anchoring facts—Commodore Galeni, were you able to find out how the information about the Cetagandan bunker and its contents were first lost to ImpSec? And the source of Sergeant Abelard and his bomb? We know his fate.”
“Yes, sire. I made considerable progress on both questions yesterday and last night.”
Since his last report, in other words, so some of this was going to be new to Gregor as well. A wave of the emperor’s hand directed Duv to the front; Gregor leaned on the podium, and Duv took up a practiced lecturer’s stance beside the comconsole table. His eye took in his audience almost as curiously as his audience’s eyes took in him.
“In examining what documents and records remain from the construction of ImpSec Headquarters, almost eighty years ago, I was able to trace the officer who signed off on the bunker inspection, a Captain Geo Pharos. He was ImpSec: he had as his listed assistant a sergeant of engineers, Vlad Norman. One month later, both men, along with three civilian employees, were killed in that on-site construction accident where, according to the subsequent engineering reports, two floors in progress collapsed due to incorrect-to-spec sizing and improper installation of the bracing connectors. Buggered to fit, was the, er, engineering term underlined in the holograph report. Twice.”
In the third row, Colonel Otto, brows rising with keen interest, nodded; Galeni cast him an acknowledging sort of analyst’s salute.
Galeni continued, “For which unauthorized shortcut Emperor Yuri, on his architect’s recommendation, had the construction boss hanged, and bracing on the girders and connectors throughout triply reinforced, but that’s another tale.
“Ah, those were the days,” muttered Otto; Ivan couldn’t tell if it was with irony or approval.
“There are two possible explanations for the lapse at the time in revealing the, if I may say it, extraordinary contents of that bunker. One, Pharos and Norman may have simply blown off the inspection, due to laziness or time pressures, assuming that the then-thirty-year-old bunker held nothing of interest or danger. The project was already over budget and late—hence, apparently, the business with the girder connections—so this hypothesis cannot be totally ruled out. Or two, that they discovered the contents, but chose to conceal the news hoping to come back secretly later and make some private profit for themselves. Norman’s prior military records are unexceptionable, but the temptation, as we have discovered, was large. Pharos has possibilities in this direction—things around Yuri were already getting worrisome by then, which he would have been in position to see at close range, so he might have been driven to this alternate method of providing for his future by either greed or fear. Or both, of course.”
“Do you have a favored explanation yet?” inquired Gregor.
Galeni shook his head. “The most interesting question of history is always, What were these people thinking? But I’m afraid it’s often also the most elusive. Unless some new documentation surfaces in my searches, that’s as far as I can honestly take the tale.”
“Very good,” said Gregor, meaning, probably, a slightly disappointed Very well. “And Abelard? I should mention, in a personal communication I received from the Viceroy of Sergyar last night, Aral says he doesn’t remember ever ordering anyone to blow up Vordarian’s ImpSec building. Such a decision ought to have made it up to his level, he said, but, in the confusion of the times, it’s perfectly possible it didn’t. And, ah, a few other remarks about excessive initiative in subordinates, but they’re not pertinent here.”
Galeni had come alert, but now his shoulders slumped slightly. “I was hoping he could clarify—oh, well. At least we know it couldn’t have been ordered by Negri against Vordarian, because Negri was dead on the first day.”
Illyan cleared his throat, and spoke up. “Actually, some such beyond-the-grave sleeper order from Chief Negri would have been perfectly possible. Back then.” His hand and Lady Alys’s found each other, down between their seats.
Galeni appeared to suffer a brief pang from having what might have been his only certainty plucked from him. “Ah. Well. In that case. Abelard had an exemplary record prior to the Pretendership. That…gets us no forwarder, because it’s quite clear that many officers and men at the time did honestly think Vordarian might be the best thing for Barrayar.”
“Hence Regent Vorkosigan’s generous pardons, after,” Gregor put in.
Galeni nodded warily. “Abelard was a senior guard on ImpSec HQ itself; he certainly knew the territory he was, er, under. His records break off abruptly at the start of the hostilities, and don’t take up again till after, during the cleanup, when he was finally listed as missing. Missing, period, mind you—neither ‘in action’ nor ‘absent wit
hout leave.’ He’s certainly not accused of desertion. At this point, I would want to turn his remains and those of his equipment over to a forensic pathologist, to look for any other physical clues—the nature of the bomb or the construction of the tunnel in which he was found might have helped—but, ah.”
“Indeed,” sighed Gregor, with a less-than-pleased glance at the Arquas assembled.
“Is that pissed?” Tej whispered in Ivan’s ear.
“Not yet,” he whispered back. “Sh.”
“So what’s your best guess?” said Gregor. “As a former ImpSec analyst.”
Galeni suppressed a pained look. Ivan wondered if he was reciting, Accuracy, brevity, clarity to himself, possibly with an added, pick the best two out of three. “My feeling”—and his emphasis suggested his low opinion of that word—“was that he was probably one of the many men cut off from their units, who re-sorted themselves as they could find each other, and prosecuted the war as best they could on their own. That still doesn’t prove for which side. Given more time, my next suggested direction of inquiry would be to send field agents to locate as many of his old mates still alive as we could, and interview them.”
Ivan glanced back at Allegre; his slight wince suggested he was praying, Please Gregor, not this week.
Gregor may have heard that prayer; in any case, he went on. “And how is emptying the bunker coming along?”
Pidge shot to her feet. “May I note a point of purely Barrayaran law. Your, er…sir.” She’d at least retained Ivan’s hasty instruction, No, don’t call him sire; he’s not your liege-lord, so he’s not your sire. In any case, Gregor granted her a curt nod. She went on, “Barrayaran law supports the claim of a ten-percent finder’s fee for lost items, including historical artifacts confiscated by District or the Imperial governments.”
“Hell, Pidge, that’s meant for lost wallets,” muttered Ivan, under his breath. He thought only Tej heard him, by the squeeze on his arm, but Pidge glanced his way in irritation before she went on more firmly.
“House Cordonah, jointly, wishes to put in such a claim upon the contents of Lady ghem Estif’s old workplace. Because without us, it would never have been found.”
“At this time,” said Illyan, not quite in an undervoice.
“Intact,” countered Pidge. “Given yet more time, who knows who else might have found and raided it before you people ever got around to looking?”
Gregor held up a palm. “I am aware of the precedent, Baronette. We will return to the point later.”
Collective or Imperial We? In any case, Pidge, in a moment of blessed acumen, nodded and sat down.
Gregor said, “Continue, please, Commodore.”
Galeni gave a short nod. “I’ve placed Professora Helen Vorthys and her picked team of conservators in charge of all papers, documents, and data devices, the last of which we cleared out yesterday and sent to a secured location at the Imperial University. Sorting and preservation has only just started.”
Gregor waved a hand, And…?
“Our best guess of the value of the rest of the items inventoried and removed so far—as of this morning; I checked on the way here—is”—Galeni cleared his throat, unaccountably dry—“three point nine billion marks.”
Make that accountably dry, Ivan corrected his observation. Gregor, who had hitched himself up on the edge of the comconsole table, nearly fell off it. Shiv Arqua rubbed his forehead, his face screwing up like a man suffering from the sharpest twinge of existential pain in history.
“Almost four billion marks, Duv?” choked Gregor. “Really?”
“So far. We hope to have cleared the upper floor by the end of the week. I have absolutely no idea what we’ll find on the lower one.”
“More of the same, as I recall,” murmured Lady ghem Estif.
Silence fell throughout the room, as everyone present paused for a bit of simple arithmetic.
“I would note in passing,” observed Duv, recovering his driest professorial tones, “that the current value of the art and artifacts is very much higher that the, what one might call street value, would have been a hundred years ago. Appreciation, in both senses. Yet quite a number of people must have known what was in there, because it certainly took more than one man to fill it up. I really have no idea why no Cetagandan entrepreneur has been back since.”
Lady ghem Estif gave a muffled sniff, dulcetly, and waited.
Gregor opened his hand to her, a bit ironically. “Enlighten us, milady, if you please.”
“Because most of the items were the property of the ruling ghem-junta, and most of the ghem-junta were executed upon their return to Eta Ceta,” said Lady ghem Estif. She added, “They had planned to be back in person, of course.”
Ivan had no idea if it was the historian or the security analyst ascendant in his hungry tones, but Duv said, “I do hope you’ll have time to chat with me later, Lady ghem Estif.”
She held up her own hands, palm out, in a gesture that had little to do with surrender. “That will not be up to me.”
“Thank you, Commodore Galeni, that will do for now,” said Gregor. “Colonel Otto, do you have a, perhaps, fuller and more detailed account than your preliminary one of why my Imperial Security building is now largely an underground installation? From a technical perspective.”
Since Ivan recalled, among the cries coming from the command post the other day, some anguished engineering bellows of It sank! It sank! The sucker just sank! he suspected Otto did.
Galeni stood down and Otto came up.
“Sire.” His nod to Gregor was very respectful; his glower at the Arquas, not. “We’re still modifying details of our picture as new data come in, but I think what I have here is a correct general outline.” He shoved a data chip into the read-slot on the comconsole table; a large-scale, three-dimensional image in outlines of colored light sprang into view above the vid plate.
Otto gestured with a lightstick. “Ground-lines in dark brown, surrounding buildings in light brown. ImpSec building in green.” All six floors and the several subbasements, a boxy cage of cold-light-hued lines. “The bunker.” Another short stack of boxes in blue, cattycorner to the one in green. “The old storm sewer.” A translucent tube of red light, running at a diagonal far under the street. “We suspect Sergeant Abelard’s old tunnel might have had its start-point from the storm sewer, by the way. It’s possible that a patch there might have provided a weak point”—a darker red blob, with uncertain dotted outlines—“that blew out when the bomb”—an ominous purple pinpoint, accurately placed as far as Ivan could tell—“went off.”
“As much of the remaining Mycoborer tunnels as we could map.” Starting as a solid yellow tube descending from the garage under the office building across the back corner; a second, solid end snaking back from the vestibule hugged up next to the bunker.
“Our current best guess of what existed in between the two ends prior to the bomb blast.” Dotted yellow outlines, branching and re-branching directly under the ImpSec subbasements.
“The Mycoborer walls appear to cure very hard, strong in compression but weak in tension, and brittle. At some point during the firefight between the criminals and the ImpSec guards who pursued them underground, someone’s stray stunner beam struck the old bomb on the tunnel floor, setting it off.” Scrupulously, Otto’s picture did not suggest whose stunner this triggering energy pulse came from. A flare of purple light filled the tunnel network. “The air and gasses in the tunnels transmitted a strong concussion to the walls throughout; we don’t yet know if there was further chemical reaction. The stretching in tension cracked and in some places shattered the walls, both visible and micro cracks. At the same time, the weak portion of the storm sewer abutting or closely abutting the Mycoborer tunnel blew out, a section of the drain just down from the breach collapsed, the water so dammed diverted through the breach, and the shattered tunnel began to rapidly fill. Water not being compressible, this actually helped keep the network from collapsing for quite som
e time. Water from the on-going heavy rain drainage further penetrated and weakened the cracked walls, and began mixing under considerable pressure with the formerly dry and solid subsoil. In effect, the branching Mycoborer tunnel turned into a giant sponge under the ImpSec Headquarters.” A bulky, irregular region under the green cage filled with red light. “The pressure mounted.” The red light grew more intense; the sponge swelled.
Both Illyan and Allegre had exactly the same expressions of horrified fascination on their faces, Ivan noted in a brief look around.
“At the time that my engineers dug down to the bunker roof with grav-lifters”—a white circle appeared on the ground level of the park, and grew downward to the blue box in a neat cone—“possibly at the moment that we cut through the roof, the storm sewer unplugged itself. I suspect, but can’t prove yet, that the vibrations from our rescue work might have helped that along. In any case, the sewer unplugged and began draining the Mycoborer tunnel network of what was now a hell of a lot of liquid mud. The ImpSec building directly above acted as a giant weight, compressing the sponge and expressing its contents out the newly opened exit channel.”
Pulses of red light marched down the storm sewer.
“And the rest”—Otto sighed—“we all witnessed.” Slowly, as the red sponge flattened, its filaments collapsing, the green cage began to sink below the brown ground lines.
“How far down d’you think we’ll end up?” asked General Allegre, from his back row.
“Not much farther, I think. A man should just about be able to jump off the roof to the ground. Without breaking his legs, that is.”
A little silence followed this word-picture. If Allegre contemplated suicide over all of this, he was going to have to find another method than the traditional parapet, Ivan reflected. Gregor stirred himself and broke the hypnotized hush with, “Thank you, Colonel Otto, that was very clear.”
“Thank you, sire. But the big question I want answered”—he pointed to the sewer line—“we know damned well that bits of Mycoborer tunnel walls had to have been mixed with the mud. Which has mostly ended up in the river. What’s it doing downstream?” His glare at the Arquas was impartial, but far from impassive.
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