And if it would help Clan Arqua to sell what was already given away, didn’t she have an obligation to allow that much?…Especially as it might get her off the hook for further demands. It wouldn’t make any practical difference to her and Ivan Xav-would it? Damn it, now I’m all confused. Again. It was hardly a help that Ivan Xav didn’t make her crazy when everyone else around them was doing so good a job.
Star emerged from the door of the engineering firm, looking self-satisfied. She and Dada slid into the back for a short report on her fake tunneling bid. Tej started the groundcar again and pulled into the street.
“Oh, about Ivan Xav,” Tej called over her shoulder. “He was going to ask Admiral Desplains for some personal leave. He hopes to get tomorrow free. To join us.”
“Oh, hell,” said Star. “Rotten timing. Why couldn’t he have waited till next week? What will we do with him?”
“The same drill as with his friend Byerly,” Dada assured her, unmoved. “Not a problem.”
Speak for yourself, Dada.
Tej did her best to slip away without him, the morning of Ivan’s first day off, but he cornered her in the kitchen.
“Driving again?” he asked amiably, sucking coffee. “What say I go with you?”
“It’ll be boring,” she told him, drinking her own coffee faster. “Who would have thought I’d ever be saying that about Vorbarr Sultana traffic? Live and learn.”
“I’m never bored with you.”
She flashed him a nervous smile. “And there wouldn’t be room.”
“I don’t mind squeezing up.”
He wondered how many rounds she’d go on this hedging, and had a brief insight into Simon’s fascination with the clan, but she gave over the argument and let him follow her down the street to the Arqua hotel. There, he discovered, she’d cannily sited reinforcements, and he somehow, without intending it, found himself assigned to drive another set of Arquas around on an assortment of errands that extended into a lingering lunch. They were joined in this meal by Byerly, trailing Emerald and looking thwarted. As diversions went, Ivan supposed it displayed a certain efficiency.
The polite runaround continued all day in this vein. It was only by chance, miscalculation, and a couple of social lies that Ivan managed to cross paths with his wife in his flat once more, at nearly bedtime. She was dressing-not for bed, which more usually involved undressing-in some casual, sturdy clothes that looked more suitable for a walk in the woods than a night on the town.
“Oh,” she said, looking around in surprise as he came in.
“Hi, beautiful.” He kissed her hello; even her return kiss felt evasive. “What’s up?”
“Just a few more chores for my family. Don’t wait up for me.”
“At this hour? You should be in bed. With me.” He nuzzled her neck; she slipped out of his grasp, which he just managed not to let become a clutch.
“We might not have much longer together on Barrayar. Pidge is having trouble getting the visa extension.”
Good. Wait, not good. “That doesn’t include you, you know. Lady Vorpatril.”
“Uh…” Her evasiveness was shading into panic, in her eyes. It wasn’t all that amusing.
“Tej,” he sighed. “We need to talk.”
“Next week. Next week would be good for me. I have to go now, or I’ll be late.”
“Not next week. Right now.” He captured her hand-it jerked in his grip, but didn’t jerk away-and led her to sit on the edge of the bed with him.
She offered him only a tight-lipped smile; she, clearly, wasn’t going to start. Up to him, eh.
“Tej. I know a lot more about what’s going on with you and your folks than you think.”
“Oh?” she tried. Leading not conceding.
“In fact, I bet I know something you don’t.”
“How can you know that you know something I don’t when you don’t what I know in the first place? I don’t see how you can. I mean, logically. Or you wouldn’t be asking.”
Simon had recently tricked him into going first with much the same turn of phrase, Ivan was wearily reminded. Or at least the gist of it. “Tej. I know that your family is after a certain Cetagandan bunker dating back to the Occupation, or at least, after something in it. And it’s sitting under that park in front of ImpSec. You mapped it during that dance last weekend.”
She froze for a moment, and then came up with: “Well…so? Simon was watching us.”
“Simon’s onto you.”
“He has an, an understanding with Dada, yes. You might have figured that out.”
“I did, yes. But Simon knows one thing that you-you Arquas-don’t.”
He waited, to by-God make her say something. Anything. Her face screwed up in the effort to contain her words, not to mention her curiosity, but lost the fight: “ What? ”
Ivan felt like a lout. No, this wasn’t going to be fun at all. “The bunker was found and emptied decades ago, when ImpSec HQ was first built. The bunker’s still there, yes, but there’s nothing inside. Simon’s setting you all up for a fall.” The weaselly bastard.
“ No,” she snapped. And, a tiny doubt creeping into her voice, “Can’t be. Grandmama would have known, and the Baronne.”
“Is so. Empty.” A trap without bait.
“Isn’t.” Tej could look remarkably mulish, when she set her mind to it.
“Is.”
“ Isn’t.” Her jaw unset just enough for her to say, “And I can prove it to you.”
“How?”
“I won’t tell you.” She was getting better with shifty; maybe it was all the recent practice. “But I’ll make you a deal for it. A…a bet. If that’s more Barrayaran.”
“What kind of a deal? Or bet.”
“If the lab-the bunker is empty, I’ll do what you want.”
Might that include stay on Barrayar? Could he twist this into a ploy to make her stay? He just kept that thought from falling straight out of his mouth; he didn’t know if she’d think it was a jewel or a toad. “And if it’s not?”
“If it’s full, then you’ll do what I want.” She frowned in reflection. “That seems balanced, doesn’t it?”
“Which would be…what?” Ivan was learning caution around Jacksonians bearing deals.
“Uh…” She’d been caught short, but was thinking fast. “To start with…help carry stuff. You’re big and strong. And, and go on keeping your mouth shut. About everything you see or hear. And no cheating by giving people hints. And after that…there might be more.”
“This deal seems to getting a bit open-ended.”
“So what do you care? If you really think the bunker is empty.”
So…should he bet on Simon? Ivan had a lot of trouble fitting Simon Illyan and wrong into the same sentence, although Aunt Cordelia claimed it was historically possible. And she should know. Not often wasn’t, after all, the same thing as never.
And he’d just be following Simon’s own example, with that bet. He wondered how well that might work as a defense, later. Not sanguine, was that the phrase? Which had something to do with blood. No, this was not a helpful line of thought.
“All right,” Ivan heard his mouth saying. Because Tej wasn’t the only person in this room being driven to insanity by curiosity, it seemed. “It’s a deal.”
He’d rather have sealed it with a kiss, but she offered him a firm Arqua handshake instead.
“Oh,” she said, turning back at the bedroom door. “And bring a pair of slippers.”
Tej made Ivan Xav park his two-seater a good five blocks from ImpSec Headquarters, just to be sure, which then entailed a long trudge through a cold drizzle. He had grown more and more silent, on the short drive over, as she’d explained about the Mycoborer. But his tone grew irate when she led him to the lower level of the garage- quiet, deserted, and shadowy at this late hour. “Why couldn’t we have parked here?”
