were still this afraid, someone with resources must really care, and not in a good way.
The room was not growing smaller. Nor darker. Nor damper. Nor changing in any way. But dear God this chair was getting hard. He hitched his shoulders and wriggled his butt, recalling all those dire warnings about deep-vein thrombosis and long rides in shuttle seats. As if he didn’t have enough paranoia running through his aching head right now. Though his legs had stopped with the post-stun pins-and-needles, and were down to just pins.
So how had the two women fallen in together, and what was their relationship, really? Was the blue woman friend, business partner, servant, lover, or bodyguard to the other? Some combination, or something even more arcane? When, inevitably, he’d had to pee, Rish had taken the con in the argument over whether it was safe to let him up. Ivan’s plaintive, How long do I have to spend not attacking you to prove I’m not attacking you? had moved the warmer Nanja, but not the gold-eyed other. In the end, Nanja had left the room, and Rish had held a plastic jug.
Decanting his bladder was too much of a relief by then for Ivan to be embarrassed, much. Rish’s strange beauty did not diminish close up, it just grew ever more detailed, almost fractal, but he’d stayed shriveled in her hand nonetheless, too alarmed to be aroused by her cool touch. She’d been as impersonal and efficient as a trained medtech. Which was undoubtedly just as well. Ivan couldn’t vouch for how things would have gone had the task fallen to her partner.
So had undertaking the chore indicated anything except the price of winning the argument, or that Rish was protectively older, or what? Maybe the two women were escaped slaves. They could ask for asylum-slavery was entirely illegal in the Imperium, even more disapproved than gaudy gengineering upon humans, despite the inevitable legal brangling about where mere unfavorable indentures left off and the real thing began. If Rish was a created slave, she might be valuable enough to pursue. Hell, maybe Nanja had stolen her, now there was a thought. That’d tick someone off…
For a planet with a mere nineteen-and-something-hour sidereal day, this was turning into a damned long night. Ivan eyed his out-of-reach wristcom and tried to estimate the time left till dawn, and his non-arrival at work. His credit chit, used at the shipping shop, would surely give ImpSec a Last Known Location. Nanja’s co-clerk would come under questioning about as soon as the investigating officer could scramble there, and probably wouldn’t even need fast-penta to identify Ivan. ImpSec-not Service Security, for reasons Ivan had not yet confided to his quarry- would probably be knocking on the door before the two women had finished arguing over whether to feed their famished prisoner any breakfast. Pleasant, well-upholstered Nanja, Ivan imagined, would take his side…
His breath stopped at a faint scratching noise from the living room window. The flat was three floors up; there was no wind within a dome to move, say, tree branches against the polarizing glass, even assuming there were any trees on that side of the building. He hadn’t had a chance to look. He opened his mouth again, exhaling as quietly as possible. Well-he scraped for optimism-maybe ImpSec hadn’t waited for morning…? And if you believe that, I have a cousin who will sell you the Star Bridge in Vorbarr Sultana…
A hiss, a faint glow, as a narrow plasma beam cut a large hole in the window. Ivan thought he could see two dark shapes briefly limned in the dark beyond. Three floors up? They had to be riding some kind of float pallet, out there above the alley. The panel of normally unbreakable glass was eased back soundlessly out of the way.
Ivan had quite expected ImpSec to come collect him, yet another reason not to exert himself unduly in pointless escape attempts. But not at this hour, and not by that route. It seemed Nanja’s paranoia was more urgently justified than he’d thought.
Ivan became uncomfortably aware that he was still tied to the bloody chair. Even if he could, by some heroic effort, rip his feet out of their restraints (shedding his shoes in the process), his wrists would remain bound to the chair arms. The most he’d be able to manage would be a sort of barefoot, crouching waddle toward his probably- armed foes. Maybe he could swing around and hit them in the shins with the chair legs…? Ivan had no desire to be stunned twice in one day, even optimistically assuming they bore stunners and not some more lethal weapons.
Ivan sank back and waited till both dark shapes had oozed through the gap and stood up, before calling out in a carrying voice: “If you’re after those two women, I gotta tell you, you’re hours too late. They packed their bags and flew ages ago.”
A low-voiced huff from the dark that might have been, What the hell…? A faint double gleam from night goggles as two startled heads turned toward him.
“You may as well turn on the lights,” Ivan continued, loudly. “You could stand to untie me, too.” He bounced in place and thumped his chair legs, as if for emphasis.
The shapes trod forward. One reached to shove up his goggles and hit the light pad on the wall; the other yelped, “Ow!”, clapped his hands over his eyes, and hastily dragged down his own light-amplifying eyewear. Cheap civilian models, Ivan observed, wincing against the sudden glare, not that anything more exotic would be required for this sort of sortie.
The first intruder strode toward him. Waving a stunner, Ivan noted wearily. “Who the hell are you?” the man demanded.
Two males. Komarran accents. And heights and general builds, though Komarran phenotypes were not nearly so uniformly blended as Barrayaran. It was all their centuries of trade, and passing traders, when Barrayar had been cut off from the Nexus at large. Dark clothing that might pass as street wear.
“A few minutes ago, I’d have said I was a completely innocent bystander, but now I’m starting to think I might be someone who was mistaken for you,” said Ivan amiably. “I don’t suppose you could untie me?”
“And why are you strapped to that chair?” added the other, staring.
“Tortured, too,” Ivan supplied inventively. Nanja, Rish, wake up! “Horribly. For hours.”
The second man peered in suspicion. “I don’t see any marks.”
“It was psychological torture.”
“What kind?”
“Well,” Ivan said, beginning with the first thought that rose to his mind, “they took off all their clothes, and then-”
The first man said, “Don’t talk to him, you fool! The job’s gone wrong. Toss the place and let’s split.”
“Hey, it gets better-don’t you want to know about the ice cubes…?”
“Should we grab him, instead?”
The stunner wavered in doubt, steadied, pointing all-too-directly into Ivan’s face. “Decide on the way out. Stun him first.”
And ask questions later? In some nastier locale, much harder for ImpSec to find…? Dammit, Miles could have talked two such goons into untying him. Yeah, and probably suborned them to his cause before the ropes hit the floor, to boot. The trigger finger tightened…
The staccato buzz of a stunner beam came not from the Komarran, but from the shadows of the darkened hallway. Two pulses, two direct head-hits, the most effective if you could make the aim. The range was short. The invaders dropped like sacks of cement.
Ivan controlled his involuntary flinch. “About time you two woke up,” he said cheerily, swiveling his head.
Rish padded into the light, followed at a more cautious tiptoe by Nanja. Neither woman wore filmy nightwear, Ivan saw to his disappointment. And apparently neither slept bare, more’s the pity. Instead, both wore body- hugging knits suitable for the gym. Or for snapping awake in the middle of the night and dealing with unpleasant surprises.
“You know, if anything I said maybe led you to think I didn’t quite believe you, I mean, about being a touch twitchy about uninvited visitors, I take it back,” Ivan began. He nodded to the two lumps on the floor. “Anybody you know?”
Rish knelt and turned them over. Nanja followed to stare down into their faces.
“No,” said Rish.
“Local rental meat,” said Nanja, in a more disgusted tone. Her face grew suddenly tenser. “They’ve tracked us. Not only to Komarr, but all the way to here. Rish, now what do we do?”
“Follow the plan.” The blue woman rose and stared down at the unconscious pair. “Kill them first, I suppose.”
“Wait, wait!” said Ivan, a twinge of panic running through him. She meant that, even if she didn’t sound very enthusiastic about it. “I mean, I agree with your diagnosis, local hirelings. Suggests they probably don’t know much. And I don’t think they were assassins-cappers. They were kidnappers, I bet.” He added after a moment, “And don’t
