the older man’s hand swiveled to point at him. “Imola, you damned fool.”
“I think not, Shiv,” the older man said affably.
Shiv rolled his eyes. “First of all, your timing is terrible. The least application of thought might have told you that the time to go for us would be tomorrow night, after we’d emptied the vault for you. And you could have caught us and the cargo both. I’ve wondered about you Komarrans ever since the Conquest, really I have.”
“Got the drop on you all, didn’t we? Tomorrow night, you’d have been more on your guard.” Imola glanced around the chamber. “Although I begin to think you were holding out on me after all. Maybe, after we send you on your way, we’ll come back and clear this place out by ourselves.”
“Oh,” breathed Shiv, his anguished glance darting over their assailants’ power weapons and wristcoms, “you won’t be by yourselves. I guarantee it.”
“What a sinful waste of an opportunity,” mourned Udine, sliding up behind her husband. “I could just cry.” Or spit, it looked like. Venom.
“Hello there, Udine,” said Imola, with a nod of greeting and a slight, prudent shift of his aim. “You’ve held up well, I must say. Shiv said you were along. He probably shouldn’t have mentioned you. It was just cruel, to tempt a man like that. Do you have any idea what House Prestene is now offering for Arquas, delivered to their doorstep? Individually or in bulk?”
“Less than your fifteen percent would have been,” said Shiv growled. “Now you’ll get nothing. And so will we.”
“Oh, no,” whispered Tej in Ivan’s ear. “I bet he wants to cryofreeze us. That’s how he smuggles people, to keep them from fighting back. Horrid!”
Ivan could see that temptation; Arquas all over the chamber were shifting about, trying to look unthreatening and not succeeding.
Pearl said uncertainly, “Should we make them stun us, to slow them down?”
“By all means,” said Imola, grinning. “Then we won’t have to listen to you complain. Your transport awaits- my ground-van will hold you all with room to spare. So convenient of you to arrange it for us.”
“That won’t be necessary,” said Lady ghem Estif, in a loud but quavery voice. “All of you, just hold still. Someone might be hurt.” She emerged from the stairwell and made her way in a newly tottery manner toward the doorway. Her hand, held out, trembled like that of a frail old woman on the verge of collapse.
“Who’s that?” muttered one of the big goons backing Imola-a few cuts below even budget ninjas, in Ivan’s quick appraisal, but dangerous nonetheless when they were armed with distance weapons and you weren’t. One of them, he saw with indignation, held Ivan’s own good military stunner, no doubt lifted off the bench in the entry vestibule in passing. The grip of the cheap civilian model he’d traded up for peeked from a pocket.
“My grandmother,” said Amiri, suddenly watching hard. “She’s a hundred and thirty years old. You don’t need to hurt her or kidnap her-I bet Prestene doesn’t even have her on their list. She’s of no value to you! You leave her alone!”
“They don’t,” Imola began, then his eyes narrowed suddenly. “Wait, is that Udine’s haut-woman mother-”
His caution fell a moment too late. Ivan poised on the balls of his feet as Lady ghem Estif meandered up to the men and her shaky hand wandered to her belt. With a deep, spluttering snarl, her force-field sprang out at full power and spherical diameter, knocking one man off his feet and pinning the shrieking Imola up against the wall by the door.
Ivan had his target all picked out, the big bastard who’d stolen his stunner. The man tightened his finger on the trigger and fanned the room; nothing happened, except for Ivan hitting him with all the force of his full weight in launch mode and knocking him back through the doorway. The fellow was strong and nasty and…kind of slow, compared to Ivan’s usual sparring partners. Some knuckles to his windpipe, a few nerve jabs; Goon Two willingly gave up the useless stunner to Ivan’s wresting fingers in order to gather himself for a lunge that would put his outweighed opponent on the bottom of the pile, and was thoroughly, if briefly, surprised when the stun beam hit his head at point-blank range instead.
Ivan pushed himself up, breathing, well, not too hard-it was more the adrenaline than the exertion-to find Tej looking down at him with vast approval. The metal bar gripped in her hand was redundant to need, but might have proven a very well-chosen accessory to a Vor lady’s evening garb. He grinned back in sudden exhilaration. His filter mask had been torn off in the struggle; he didn’t bother to try to reaffix it.
“And you said you were just a desk pilot,” murmured Tej.
“But it’s a Barrayaran desk,” he murmured back, and scrambled to his feet. Together, they looked over Ivan’s victim, lying on his back with his legs bent over the jagged doorway. They each took an ankle and dragged him through into the chamber, and out of the path; Tej did not concern herself unduly with his head thumping over the lintel, Ivan was proud to note.
“That was either really brave or really stupid,” said Tej, her admiration tinged by faint doubt, “jumping him unarmed like that.”
Ivan was tempted to claim the first, but was afraid of being tarred with the second. Sheepishly, he admitted the truth instead: “Neither. I could see he had filched my stunner. It’s one of the new issue, with the personally- coded grips. Only the upper ranks have theirs so far. They’re still arguing over whether to give them to the grunts or not.”
“Oh, good,” said Udine in passing. “You mother told me she didn’t think you could be an idiot.”
Imola and his other partner had been overpowered and disarmed. Imola was still whimpering from his contact with the force-field. It must have been just like running up against a really big shock-stick. Driven by a really angry haut woman. Her teeth bared and tight, Lady ghem Estif turned off her antique biotainer field again; with a last blurt of protest, it powered down.
Pidge, now in possession of one of the other stunners, bent to give the struggling Goon One, whom Emerald and Amiri together were barely holding down, a buzz to the back of his neck; he jerked and lay still. Em and Amiri then combined to haul up the shaking older man that Tej had named Imola and push him to the wall.
“I’d be delighted to test the Mycoborer on him,” said Lady ghem Estif in a precisely measured voice, “but I suspect the results would be too slow. Perhaps I can find something faster downstairs.”
“No need,” said Shiv, padding closer to this old friend-enemy. “We’ll do something lower tech.”
Imola watched Shiv approach him with fearful fascination; he realized his new mistake when the taller Udine whirled, grabbed him by the neck, lifted him off his feet, and pressed him to the wall with all her half-haut strength.
“ Where are my children, you worthless sack of greed? ”
“ Glp! ” he replied, eyes bulging.
Shiv’s voice in his other ear dropped to a tiger’s purr. “Star, Jet, Rish. You have to have passed them, coming in. What did you do with them?”
Ah, a quick round of good-Cordonah-bad-Cordonah, Ivan recognized. Or bad-Cordonah-worse-Cordonah. He suspected the roles were interchangeable between the two at need. He wouldn’t have interfered for worlds.
“How many more men do you have out there?” Shiv continued.
Udine permitted Imola a breath of air. Prudently, he used the exhalation to gasp, “Only saw one! Tall girl!”
She waited a little, and permitted him another.
“Really! M’boys took her down-put her in the van!”
Another long pause.
“Four, waiting on stragglers! Crossfire, no escape!”
Udine, after another pause that Imola no doubt found quite lengthy, let him drop. He crumpled to the floor, frantically rubbing his neck.
“If that’s so,” said Em in doubt, watching all this, “where are Jet and Rish?”
Tej’s hand had found Ivan’s, during this show; it tightened in alarm.
“And how do we get out, if they’re laying for us at the only exit?” asked Amiri a bit plaintively.
“Oh,” said Shiv sadly, “I imagine all we have to do is sit down and wait a bit. Ivan Xav’s stepda will be along. To collect on his bet.” He added after a tight-jawed moment, “ Dammit. We were so close.”
“Who the hell is Ivan Xav?” said Imola, clearly bewildered by these additions to the play-list. “Or his stepda?”
