Irresistible Forces

'Oh, yeah. I can see that.'

Her hand lay on the sofa fabric between them, clawed fingers tapping. He wanted to take it and squeeze it for comfort — hers, or his? But he didn't dare. Dammit, try, can't you?

His argument with himself was interrupted when his wrist com sounded. The gate guard reported the return of the Vorkosigan House party from the Imperial Residence. Roic coded down the house shields and stood aside as the crowd disembarked from a small fleet of groundcars. Pym was in close attendance upon the countess, smiling at something she was saying over her shoulder to him. The guests, variously cheerful, drowsy, or drunk, streamed past chatting and laughing.

'Anything to report?' Pym inquired perfunctorily. He glanced in curiosity past Roic at Taura, looming over his shoulder.

'Yes, sir. See me in private as soon as you can, please.'

The benign sleepy look evaporated from Pym's features. 'Oh?' He glanced back at the mob now divesting wraps and streaming up the stairs. 'Right.'

Low-voiced as Roic had been, the countess had caught the exchange. A wave of her finger dismissed Pym from her side. 'Although, if this is of moment, Pym, I'll take a report before bed,' she murmured.

'Yes, my lady.'

Roic jerked his head toward the antechamber of the library, and Pym followed him and Taura through the archway. The moment the guests had cleared the next room, Roic decanted a short precis of the night's adventure, self-plagiarized from the one he'd given to the ImpSec forensics captain. Omitting, again, the part about Taura's attempted theft. He hoped like hell that it wasn't going to turn out to be horribly pertinent later. He would submit the full account to in lord's judgment, he decided. When the devil was m'lord going to return?

Pym grew rigid as he took in the report. 'I checked that necklace myself, Roic. Scanned it clear of devices — the chemical sniffer didn't pick up anything either.'

'Did you touch it?' asked Taura.

Pym's eyes narrowed in memory. 'I mainly handled it by the clasp. Well… well, ImpSec will run it through the wringer. M'lord always claims they can use the exercise. It can't hurt. You acted correctly, Armsman Roic. You can continue about your duties now. I'll follow it up with ImpSec.'

With this tepid praise, he moved off, frowning.

'Is that all we get?' Taura whispered as Pym's ascending footsteps faded on the winding staircase.

Roic glanced at his chrono. 'Till ImpSec reports back, I guess. It depends on how hard that dirty stuff you saw' — he didn't insult her by phrasing it as you claimed you saw—'is to identify.'

She scrubbed tired-looking eyes with the back of her hand. 'Can I, uh, can I stay with you till they call?'

'Sure.'

In a moment of true inspiration, he led her down to the kitchen and introduced her to the staff refrigerator. He'd been correct; her extraordinary metabolism was in need of fuel again. Ruthlessly, he cleared out everything on the shelves and laid it in front of her. The early morning crew could fend for themselves. There was no shame here in offering up servants' food to a guest; everyone ate well from Ma Kosti's kitchen. He dialed up coffee for himself and tea for her, and they perched together on two stools at the counter.

Pym found them there as they were finishing eating. The senior armsman's face was so drained of blood as to be nearly green.

'Well done, Roic, Sergeant Taura,' he began in a stiff voice. 'Very well done. I just now spoke with ImpSec headquarters. The pearls were doctored — with a designer neurotoxin. ImpSec thinks it's of Jacksonian origin, but they're still cross-checking. The dose was sealed under a chemically neutral transparent lacquer that dissolves with body heat. Casual handling wouldn't release it, but if someone put the necklace on and wore it for a time… half an hour or so…'

'Enough to kill someone?' Taura's tone was tense.

'Enough to kill a bloody elephant, the lab boys say.' Pym moistened dry lips. 'And I checked it myself. I bloody passed it.' His teeth clenched. 'She was going to wear them to — M'lord would have—' He choked himself off and ran a hand over his face, hard.

'Does ImpSec know who really sent them?' asked Taura.

'Not yet. But they're all over it, you can believe.'

A vision of the deadly pale spheres lying on m'lady-to-be's warm throat flashed through Roic's memory. 'Madame Vorsoisson touched the pearls last night — night before last, that is now,' said Roic urgently. 'She had them on for at least five minutes. Is she going to be all right?'

'ImpSec is dispatching a physician to Lord Auditor Vorthys's to check her — one of their toxins experts. If she'd taken in enough to kill her, she'd have died right then, so that's not going to happen, but I don't know what other… I have to go now and call m'lord there and warn him to expect a visitor. And — and tell him why. Well done, Roic. Did I say well done? Well done.' Pym drew a shaken, unhappy breath and strode back out.

Taura, her chin in her hand as she drooped over her plate, scowled after him. 'Jacksonian neurotoxin, eh? That doesn't prove much. The Jacksonians will sell anything to anyone. Mles made enough enemies there in some of our old sorties — if they knew it was intended for him, they'd probably offer a deep discount.'

'Yeah, I imagine tracing the source is going to take a little longer. Even for ImpSec.' He hesitated. 'Although, wouldn't they know him on Jackson's Whole only under his old covert ops identity? Your little admiral?'

'That cover's been well-blown for a couple of years, he tells me. Partly as a result of the mess his last mission there produced, partly from some other things. Over my head.' She yawned, hugely. It was… impressive. She'd been up since dawn, Roic was reminded, and hadn't slept through the afternoon as he had. Stranded in what must seem to her an alien place and wrestling terrible fears. All by herself. For the first time, he wondered if she was lonely. One of a kind, the last of her kind if he understood correctly, without home or kin except for that chancy wandering mercenary fleet. And then he wondered why he hadn't noticed her essential aloneness sooner. Armsmen were supposed to be observant. Yeah?

'If I promise to come by and tell you if I get any news, d'you suppose you could try to sleep?'

She rubbed the back of her neck. 'Would you? Then I think I could. Try, that is.'

He escorted her to her door, past m'lord's dark and empty suite. When he clasped her hand briefly, she clasped back. He swallowed, for courage.

'Dirty pearls, eh?' he said, still holding her hand. 'Yknow… I can't speak for arty other Barrayarans… but I think your genetic modifications are beautiful.'

Her lips curved up, he hoped not altogether bleakly. 'You are getting better.'

When she let go and turned in, a claw trailing lightly over the skin of his palm made his body shudder in involuntary, sensual surprise. He stared at the closing door and swallowed a perfectly foolish urge to call her back. Or follow her inside… He was still on duty, he reminded himself. The next monitors check was overdue. He forced himself to turn away.

The sky outside was shifting from the amber night of the city to a chill blue dawn when the gate guard called Roic to code down the house shields for m'lord's return. As the armsman who'd been called out to chauffeur drove the big car off to put away, Roic opened one door to admit the hunched, frowning figure. M'lord looked up to recognize Roic, and a rather ghastly smile lightened his furrowed features.

Roic had seen m'lord looking strung-out before, but never so alarmingly as this, not even after one of his bad seizures or when he'd had that spectacular hangover after the disastrous butter bug banquet. His eyes stared out from gray circles like feral animals from their dens. His skin was pale, and lines of tension mapped the anxiety across his face. His movements were simultaneously tired and stiff, and jerky and nervous, a spinning exhaustion that could find no place of rest.

'Roic. Thank you. Bless you,' m'lord began in a voice that sounded as though it were coming from the bottom of a well.

'Is m'lady-to-be all right?' Roic asked in some apprehension.

M'lord nodded. 'Yes, now. She fell asleep in my arms, finally, after the ImpSec doctor left. God, Roic! I can't believe I missed the signs. Poisoning! And I fastened that death around her neck with my own hands! It's a damned metaphor for this whole thing, that's what it is. She thought it was just her. I thought it was just her. How little faith in herself, or me in her, to misidentify dying of poison for dying of self-doubt?'