"What about you?"
"He"s not thrilled with me either."
"No, I mean, what are you doing? Are you directly involved with the... current operation?"
"Hardly."
"Ah. I"m relieved. I was a little afraid-somebody-might have gotten a short circuit in his head about requiring it of you as proof of loyalty or some d.a.m.n thing."
"Commodore Destang is neither a s.a.d.i.s.t nor a fool." Galeni paused. "He"s careful, however. I"m confined to quarters."
"You have no direct access to the operation, then. Like where they are, and how close, and when they plan to... make a move."
Galeni"s voice was carefully neutral, neither offering nor denying help. "Not readily."
"Hm. He just ordered me confined to quarters too. I think he"s had some sort of break, and things are coming to a head."
There was a brief silence. Galeni"s words drifted out on a sigh. "Sorry to hear that..." His voice cracked. "It"s so d.a.m.ned useless! The dead hand of the past goes on jerking the strings by galvanic reflex, and we poor puppets dance-nothing is served, not us, not him, not Komarr..."
"If I could make contact with your father," began Miles.
"It would be useless. He"ll fight, and keep on fighting."
"But he has nothing, now. He blew his last chance. He"s an old man, he"s tired-he could be ready to change, to quit at last," Miles argued.
"I wish... no. He can"t quit. Above life itself, he has to prove himself right. To be right redeems his every crime. To have done all that he"s done, and be wrong-unbearable!"
"I... see. Well, I"ll contact you again if I... have anything useful to say. There"s, ah, no point in turning in the comm link till you have both halves, eh?"
"As you wish." Galeni"s tone was not exactly fired with hope.
Miles shut down the comm link.
He called Thorne, who reported no visible progress.
"In the meantime," said Miles, "here"s another lead for you. An unfortunate one. The team from the Barrayarans has evidently spotted our target within the last hour or so."
"Ha! Maybe we can follow them, and let them lead us to Galen."
"Afraid not. We have to get ahead of them, without treading on their toes. Their hunt is a lethal one."
"Armed and dangerous, eh? I"ll pa.s.s the word." Thorne whistled thoughtfully. "Your creche-mate sure is popular."
Miles washed, dressed, ate, made ready: boot knife, scanners, stunners both hip-holstered and concealed, comm links, a wide a.s.sortment of tools and toys one might carry through London"s shuttleport security checks. It was a far cry from combat gear, alas, though his jacket nearly clanked when he walked. He called the duty officer, made sure a personnel shuttle was fueled, pilot at the ready. He waited without patience.
What was Galen up to? If he wasn"t just running-and the fact that the Barrayaran security team had nearly caught up with him suggested he was still hanging around for some reason-why? Mere revenge? Something more arcane? Was Miles"s a.n.a.lysis of him too simple, too subtle-what was he missing? What was left in life for the man who had to be right?
His cabin comconsole chimed. Miles sent up a short inarticulate prayer-let it be some break, some c.h.i.n.k, some handle- The comm officer"s face appeared. "Sir, I have a call originating from the downside commercial comconsole net. A man who refuses to identify himself says you want to talk to him."
Miles jerked electrically upright. "Trace the call and cut a copy to Captain Thorne in Intelligence. Put it through here."
"Do you want your visual to go out, or just audio?"
"Both."
The comm officer"s face faded as another man"s appeared, giving an unsettling illusion of trans.m.u.tation.
"Vorkosigan?" said Galen.
"So?" said Miles.
"I will not repeat myself." Galen spoke low and fast. "I don"t give a d.a.m.n if you"re recording or tracing. It"s irrelevant. You will meet me in seventy minutes exactly. You will come to the Thames Tidal Barrier, halfway between Towers Six and Seven. You will walk out on the seaward side to the lower lookout. Alone. Then we"ll talk. If any condition is not met, we will simply not be there when you arrive. And Ivan Vorpatril will die at 0207."
"You are two. I must be two," Miles began. Ivan?
"Your pretty bodyguard? Very well. Two." The vid blinked blank.
"No-"
Silence.
Miles keyed to Thorne. "Did you get that, Bel?"
"Sure did. Sounded threatening. Who"s Ivan?"
"A very important person. Where"d this originate?"
"A tubeway nexus, public comconsole. I have a man on the way who can make it in six minutes. Unfortunately-"
"I know. Six minutes gives a search radius of several million people. I think we"ll play it his way. Up to a point. Put a patrol in the air over the Tidal Barrier, file a flight plan for my shuttle downside, have an aircar and Dendarii driver and guard meet it. Tell Bone I want that credit chit now. Tell Quinn to meet me in the shuttle hatch corridor, and bring a couple of med scanners. And stand by. I want to check something."
He took a deep breath, and keyed open the comm link. "Galeni?"
A pause. "Yes?"
"You still confined to quarters?"
"Yes."
"I have an urgent request for information. Where"s Ivan, really?"
"As far as I know, he"s still at-"
"Check it. Check it fast."
There was a long, long pause, which Miles utilized to recheck his gear, find Lieutenant Bone, and walk to the shuttle hatch corridor. Quinn was waiting, intensely curious.
"What"s up now?"
"We have our break. Of sorts. Galen wants a meeting, but-"
"Miles?" Galeni"s voice came back at last. It sounded rather strained.
"Yo."
"The private we"d sent to be driver/guard called in about ten minutes ago. He"d spelled Ivan, attending on Milady, while Ivan went to p.i.s.s. When Ivan didn"t come back in twenty minutes, the driver went to look for him. Spent thirty minutes hunting-the Horticulture Hall is huge, and mobbed tonight-before he reported back to us. How did you know?"
"I think I"ve got hold of the other end. Do you recognize whose style of doing business this is?"
Galeni swore.
"Quite. Look. I don"t care how you do it, but I want you to meet me in fifty minutes at the Thames Tidal Barrier, Section Six. Pack at least a stunner, and get away preferably without alerting Destang. We have an appointment with your father and my brother."
"If he has Ivan-"
"He had to bring some card to the table, or he wouldn"t come play. We"ve got one last chance to make it come out right. Not a good chance, just the last one. Are you with me?"
A slight pause. "Yes." The tone was decisive.
"See you there."
Pocketing the link, Miles turned to Elli. "Now we move."
They swung through the shuttle hatch. For once, Miles had no objection to Ptarmigan"s habit of taking all downside flights at combat-drop speed.
Chapter Fourteen.
The Thames Tidal Barrier, know to local wags as the King Canute Memorial, was a vastly more impressive structure seen from a hundred meters up than it had seemed from the kilometers-high view from the shuttle. The aircar banked, circling. The synthacrete mountain ran away in both directions farther than Miles"s eye could follow, whitened into an illusion of marble by the spotlights that knifed through the faintly misty midnight blackness.
Watchtowers every kilometer housed not soldiers guarding the wall but the night shift of engineers and technicians watching over the sluices and pumping stations. To be sure, if the sea ever broke through, it would raze the city more mercilessly than any army.
But the sea was calm this summer night, dotted with colored navigation lights, red, green, white, and the distant moving twinkle of ships" running lights. The eastern horizon glowed faintly, false dawn from the radiant cities of Europe beyond the waters.
On the other side of the white barrier toward ancient London, all the dirt and grime and broken places were swallowed by the night, leaving only the jewelled illusion of something magic, unmarred and immortal.
Miles pressed his face to the aircar"s bubble canopy for a last strategic view of the arena they were about to enter before the car dropped toward the near-empty parking area behind the Barrier. Section Six was peripheral to the main channel sections with their enormous navigation locks busy around the clock; it was just d.y.k.e and auxiliary pumping stations, nearly deserted at this hour. That suited Miles. If the situation devolved into some sort of shooting war, the fewer civilian bystanders wandering through the better. Catwalks and ladders ran to access ports in the structure, geometric black accents on the whiteness; spidery railings marked walkways, some broad and public, some narrow, reserved no doubt to Authorized Personnel. At present they all appeared deserted, no sign of Galen or Mark. No sign of Ivan.
"What"s significant about 0207?" Miles wondered aloud. "I have the feeling it should be obvious. It"s such an exact time."
Elli the s.p.a.ce-born shook her head, but the Dendarii soldier piloting the aircar volunteered, "It"s high tide, sir."
"Ah!" said Miles. He sat back, thinking furiously. "How interesting. It suggests two things. They"ve concealed Ivan around here someplace-and we might do best to concentrate our search below the high waterline. Could they have chained him to a railing down by the rocks or some d.a.m.n thing?"
"The air patrol could make a pa.s.s and check," said Quinn.
"Yes, have them do that."
The aircar settled into a painted circle on the pavement.
Quinn and the second soldier exited first, cautiously, and ran a fast perimeter scan around the area. "There"s somebody approaching on foot," the soldier reported.
"Pray it"s Captain Galeni," Miles muttered, with a glance at his chrono. Seven minutes remained of his time limit.
It was a man jogging with his dog. The pair stared at the four uniformed Dendarii, and arced nervously around them to the far side of the parking lot before disappearing through the bushes softening the north end. Everybody took their hands off their stunners. Civilized town, thought Miles. You wouldn"t do that at this hour in some parts of Vorbarr Sultana, unless you had a much bigger dog.
The soldier checked his infra-red. "Here comes another one."
Not the soft pad of running shoes this time, but the quick ring of boots. Miles recognized the sound of the boots before he could make out the face in the splash of light and shadow. Galeni"s uniform turned from dark grey to green as he entered the lot"s zone of brighter illumination, walking fast.
"All right," said Miles to Elli, "this is where we split off. Stay back and out of sight at all costs, but if you can find a vantage, good. Wrist comm open?"
Elli keyed her wrist comm. Miles pulled his boot knife and used the point to disengage and extinguish the tiny transmit-indicator light in his own wrist comm, then blew into it; the hiss of it whispered from Elli"s wrist. "Sending fine," she confirmed.
"Got your med scanner?"
She displayed it.
"Take a baseline."
She pointed it at him, waved it up and down. "Recorded and ready for auto-comparison."
"Can you think of anything else?"
She shook her head, but still didn"t look happy. "What do I do if he comes walking back and you don"t?"
"Grab him, fast-penta him-got your interrogation kit?"
She flashed open her jacket; a small brown case peeped from an inner pocket.
"Rescue Ivan if you can. Then," Miles took a deep breath, "you can blow the clone"s head off or whatever you choose."
"What happened to "my brother right or wrong"?" said Elli.
Galeni, coming up in the middle of this, c.o.c.ked his head with interest to hear the answer to that one, but Miles only shook his head. He couldn"t think of a simple answer.
"Three minutes left," said Miles to Galeni. "We better move."
They headed up a walk that led to a set of stairs, stepping over the chain that marked them as closed for the night to law-abiding citizens. The stairs climbed the back side of the tidal barrier to a public promenade that ran along the top to allow sightseers a view of the ocean in the daytime. Galeni, who had evidently been moving at speed, was breathing deeply even as they began their climb.
"Have any trouble getting out of the emba.s.sy?" asked Miles.
"Not really," said Galeni. "As you know, the trick is getting back in. I think you demonstrated simplest is best. I just walked out the side entrance and took the nearest tubeway. Fortunately, the duty guard had no orders to shoot me."