Irresistible Forces

'Yes, ma'am.' He rose, gave her a kind of vague salute copied from m'lord's own style, and let himself out.

The night duty guard at the gate kiosk reported no entries since Roic had left. The festivities at the Imperial Residence would go on till dawn, although Roic didn't expect Vorkosigan House's attendees to stay that late, not with the grand party planned here for tomorrow afternoon and evening. He put the borrowed car away in the sub- basement garage, relieved that it hadn't acquired any hard-to-explain dings in its passage back through some of the rowdier crowds between here and the university.

He made his way softly up through the mostly darkened great house. All was quiet now. The kitchen crew had at last retreated till tomorrow's onslaught. The maids and menservants had gone to roost. For all that he complained about missing the daytime excitements, Roic usually enjoyed these quiet night hours when the whole world seemed his personal property. Granted, by three hours before dawn, coffee would be a necessity little less urgent than oxygen. But by two hours before dawn, life would start trickling back, as those with early duties roused themselves and padded down to start work. He checked the security monitors in the basement HQ and started his physical rounds. Floor by floor, window and door, never in quite the same order or at quite the same hour.

As he crossed the great entry hall, a creak and a clink sounded from the half-lit antechamber to the library. He paused for a moment, frowned, and rose on his toes, moving his feet as gently as possible across the marble pavement, breathing through his open mouth for silence. His shadow wavered, passed along from dim wall sconce to dim wall sconce. He made sure it was not thrown before him as he moved to the archway. Easing up beside the door frame, he stared into the half-gloom.

Taura stood with her back to him, sorting through the gifts displayed upon the long table by the far wall. Her head bent over something in her hands. She shook out a cloth and upended a small box. The elegant triple strand of pearls slithered from their velvet backing into the cloth, which she wrapped around them. She clicked the box closed, set it back on the table, and slipped the folded cloth into a side pocket of her russet jacket.

Shock held Roic paralyzed for a moment longer, M'lord's honored guest, rifling the gifts?

But I liked her. I really liked her.

Only now, in this moment of hideous revelation, did he realize just how much he'd come to… to admire her in their brief time together. Brief, but so damned awkward. She was really beautiful in her own unique way, if only you looked at her right. For a moment it had seemed as though far suns and strange adventures had beckoned to him from her gold eyes; just possibly, more intimate and exotic adventures than a shy backcountry boy from Hassadar had ever dared to imagine. If only he were a braver man. A handsome prince. Not a fool. But Cinderella was a thief, and the fairy tale was gone suddenly sour.

Sick dismay flooded him as he imagined the altercation, the shame, the wounded friendship and shattered trust that must follow this discovery — he almost turned away. He didn't know the value of the pearls, but even if it were a city's ransom he was certain m'lord would trade them in a heartbeat for the ease of spirit he'd had with his old followers.

It was no good. They'd be missed first thing tomorrow in any case. He drew a breath and touched the light pad.

Taura spun like a huge cat at the flare of the overhead lights. After a moment, she let out her breath in a huff, visibly powering down. 'Oh. It's you. You startled me.'

Roic moistened his lips. Could he patch up this shattered fantasy? 'Put them back, Taura. Please.'

She stood still, looking back at him, tawny eyes wide; a grimace crossed her odd features. She seemed to coil, tension flowing back into her long body.

'Put them back now,' Roic tried again, 'and I won't tell.' He bore a stunner. Could he draw it in time? He'd seen how fast she moved…

'I can't.'

He stared at her without comprehension.

'I don't dare.' Her voice grew edgy. 'Please, Roic. Let me go now, and I promise I'll bring them back again tomorrow.'

Huh? What? 'I… can't. All the gifts have to go through a security check.'

'Did this?' Her hand twitched by her pocket full of spoils.

'Yes, certainly.'

'What kind? What did you check it for?'

'Everything is scanned for devices and explosives. All food and drink and their containers are tested for chemicals and biologicals.'

'Only the food and drink?' She straightened, eyes glinting in rapid thought. 'Anyway, I wasn't stealing it.'

Maybe it was the covert ops training that enabled her to stand there and utter bald-faced… what? Counter- factual statements? Complicated things? 'Well… then what were you doing?'

Again, a kind of frozen misery stiffened her features. She looked down, away, into the distance. 'Borrowing it,' she said in a gruff voice. She glanced across at him, as if to check his reaction to this feeble statement.

But Taura wasn't feeble, not by any definition. He felt out of his depth, flailing for firm footing and not finding it. He dared to move closer, to hold out his hand. 'Give them to me.'

'You mustn't touch them!' Her voice went frantic. 'No one must touch them.'

Lies and treachery? Trust and truth? What was he seeing here? Suddenly, he wasn't sure. Back up, guardsman. 'Why not?'

She glowered at him narrow-eyed, as if trying to see through to the back of his head. 'Do you care about Miles? Or is he just your employer?'

Roic blinked in increasing confusion. He considered his armsman's oath, its high honor and weight. 'A Vorkosigan armsman isn't just what I am; it's who I am. He's not my employer at all. He's my liege lord.'

She made a frustrated gesture. 'If you knew a secret that would hurt him to the heart — would you, could you, keep it from him even if he asked?'

What secret? This? That his ex-lover was a thief? It didn't seem as though that could be what she was talking about — around. Think, man.

'I… can't pass a judgment without knowledge.' Knowledge. What did she know that he didn't? A million things, he was sure. He'd glimpsed some of them, dizzying vistas. But she didn't know him, now, did she? Not the way she evidently knew, say, m'lord. To her, he was a blank in a brown-and-silver uniform. With his mirror-polished boot stuck in his mouth, eh. He hesitated, then countered, 'M'lord can requisition my life with a word. I gave him that right on my name and breath. Can you trust me to hold his best interests to heart?'

Stare met stare, and no one blinked.

'Trust for trust,' Roic breathed at last. 'Trade, Taura.'

Slowly, not dropping her intent, searching gaze from his face, she drew the cloth from her pocket. She shook it gently, spilling the pearls back into their velvet box. She held the box out. 'What do you see?'

Roic frowned. 'Pearls. Pretty. White and shiny.'

She shook her head. 'I have a host of genetic modifications. Hideous bioengineered mutant or no—'

He flinched, his mouth opening and shutting.

'— among other things I can see slightly farther into the ultraviolet, and quite a bit farther into the infrared, than a normal person. I see dirty pearls. Strangely dirty pearls. And that's not what I usually see when I look at pearls. And then Miles's bride touched them, and an hour later was so sick she could hardly stand up.'

An unpleasant tremor coursed down Roic's body. And why the devil hadn't he noticed that progression of events? 'Yes. That's so. They'll have to be checked.'

'Maybe I'm wrong. I could be wrong. Maybe I'm just being horrible and paranoid and — and jealous. If they were proved clean, that would be the end of it. But, Roic—Quinn. You don't have any idea how much he loved Quinn. And vice versa. I've been going half-mad all evening, ever since it all clicked in, wondering if Quinn really sent these. It would about slay him, if it were so.'