The frieze of pressed gargoyles above them sank from view as if being dragged down to their old hell. The descent finally slowed at a point where occupants on the third floor could have stepped out of their windows to the ground, if there had been any windows. A few men rappelled off the roof, instead.
“Well,” said Gregor, in a choked voice. “There’s…a surprise.”
A startling cackle broke from Simon’s lips. He clapped a hand over his mouth, and managed in a more measured voice, “My God, I hope no one has been injured.” Except then he cackled again, louder. Lady Alys gripped his arm in worry.
Gregor’s fretful armsmen finally managed to drag him away from this riveting show and back to his groundcar. Surrounded by its black-and-silver-clad outriders, it rose on its fans and slowly pulled away. Ivan thought he saw a familiar face pressed to the canopy, looking backward in still-stunned fascination, as it rounded the corner on the route back to the Residence.
“We aren’t doing anything useful here, Simon-love,” said Lady Alys, after a few more silent, staring minutes. “Perhaps we should go home. Ivan-now you’re rescued-Tej, will you come with us? We want to hear more about your, your ordeal. And I’m sure anyone who wants us will be able to find us there.” She cast one more astounded glance back over her shoulder at the…the upper half of ImpSec Headquarters. Emergency teams of every description were thick on the ground now, arguing with each other about access.
Said Simon, faintly, “I’m sure they will,” and allowed himself to be drawn off.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Tej had the impression, that afternoon, that ImpSec would have preferred to drop a giant, concealing tarp over their whole two-block area of Vorbarr Sultana, but it was much too late. Between the dramatic-not to mention noisy, muddy, and public-engineering rescue, the rumors of almost-stolen treasure, crime lords, off-world invasion, secret bombings, ugly kidnappings of beautiful women, smugglers, and much, much more, all playing out in the Eye of the Imperium that was the Old Town capital-and all of it overtopped by the swallowing of one of the most notorious structures on the planet by the planet-about the only thing the Barrayaran government managed to keep a lid on was the details of the Mycoborer itself.
“The Arquas had better hope Gregor’s damage-control people succeed, on that one,” Ivan Xav advised Tej. “All the rest could just get them jailed. Barrayar is still traumatized from some of the Cetagandan weaponized biologicals and chemical warfare experiments during the Occupation. The news that you all have managed to release a mutant alien fungus into our biosphere could get you torn limb from limb. The Dismemberment of Mad Emperor Yuri would be nothing to it. The angry mobs would fill the city. They’d tear the pieces to pieces. And the military couldn’t stop them because most of the military would be joining them.”
“But the Mycoborer was from Earth,” Tej offered hesitantly. “Not Cetagandan at all. Old Earth is practically the definition of not alien. And Grandmama said it was safe.”
“Big, big heaving mobs,” said Ivan Xav. “As far as the eye can see.”
Simon Illyan nodded in reluctant agreement.
The Arqua clan was released from ImpMil that evening with clean bills of health, and returned not to their hotel but to an empty apartment a few floors down from Lady Alys’s penthouse. Uniformed ImpSec guards stood at the foyer doors, with more patrolling downstairs. The Arquas’ things, minus all communications devices, arrived much later, transported from their hotel after a detour for close examination by whatever high-clearance security people could be spared at present. Ivan Xav wondered aloud just how many Winterfair leaves had been summarily cancelled over this, and indicated that this grudge, too, would be added on the debit side of the House Cordonah ledger, at least in the dark matter column.
They were not yet officially arrested, though Tej heard that Ser Imola had been, satisfactorily. The legal phrase for their own state was detained at the Emperor’s pleasure, a term that had Pidge wrinkling her nose and, conducted by an impassive sentry, ascending to Lady Alys’s flat to look it up. Ivan Xav explained, morosely, that it would more accurately be described as detained at the Emperor’s displeasure. But it seemed it trumped, at least temporarily, their visa termination, though Tej gathered that deportation on that point could be brought back into play at any time.
Requests for media interviews penetrated despite all the sequestration.
Pidge said hesitantly, “It might be a way to start to put a good spin on all this. Pave the way for our defense.”
“I,” said Lady ghem Estif austerely, “would be more than happy to give this benighted world a piece of my mind.”
Baron and Baronne Cordonah looked at each other.
“No interviews,” said the Baronne. “Not one word.”
“Right,” sighed Dada.
Evacuation of critical equipment and files continued out the roof of ImpSec HQ, under tight military escort, to be temporarily relocated in an assortment of nearby government buildings appropriated for this emergency. Illyan, wincing at the pictures in passing, muttered only, “God, but the evidence rooms are going to be a bitch. When they get down to them.”
The edifice’s on-going descent, it was said, had slowed to an almost imperceptible rate. But by midnight, Lord Dono the Architect’s masterpiece had sunk to the fourth floor.
Simon kept his appointment the next day with Emperor Gregor. He returned over an hour late.
“It is not often,” he remarked, either to Lady Alys or the air generally, it was hard to tell, “that Gregor permits himself the self-indulgence of sarcasm. I could see that it was very relieving for him.” With an added mutter of, “We live to serve,” he disappeared alone into his study and did not come out till dinner.
When the Imperial Accounting Office auditors inventorying the old Cetagandan bunker-under the general direction and command of Commodore Duv Galeni, pulled off his departmental duties for the special assignment- reached an estimate of eleven hundred million marks, they stopped publicly reporting.
“What,” said Pidge, peering over Ivan Xav’s shoulder, “is an Imperial Court of Inquiry ”-she squinted-“ most secret?”
“You could think of it as a subpoena,” said Ivan Xav. “With fangs. But it would be…be…”
“A charming understatement?” suggested Tej, peering over his other shoulder.
“No,” said Ivan Xav, in a distant tone, “not charming…”
Ivan had looked forward to escorting Tej on her first trip to the Imperial Residence, but not under these circumstances. She stared up apprehensively at the sprawling pile, a great irregular rectangle of four-to-six-story- high wings with odd inner links, in style a bit like Vorkosigan House bloated by a factor of four but with modern additions dating back to one post-war rebuild or another. The East Portico was one of the older, more ornate and impressive entrances. Mamere’s groundcar was just finishing disgorging her and Simon and the senior Arquas (and one ghem Estif) as Ivan pulled up behind it in his two-seater; they caught up with the group at the double doors, to be herded through by Gregor’s own majordomo. The man’s expression this morning was grim and suspicious, though as he caught sight of Simon it took refuge in very, very blank. Ivan won grim and annoyed.
Followed by a pair of Residence guards, to pick off stragglers presumably, the majordomo led around and, unusually, down. Ivan had not often seen this subterranean section of the Residence, devoted to a pocket of practical conference rooms, as it was never open during the assorted public ceremonies or festivities, such as the annual Imperial Winterfair Ball coming up soon. The chamber into which they were gated felt more like a small, if unusually well-appointed, university lecture hall than a courtroom. At the front was a lectern and a comconsole table, and more seats were arrayed in a semi-circle of gently ascending rows. It might have held forty people in a crush. Which this was apparently not to be, despite the milling other-Arquas-plus-Byerly who had arrived just before them. A table at the side was set up with, mercifully, coffee, teas, and an assortment of pastries; Ivan wasn’t sure if it represented hospitality or a sign that this was going to be a very long session.
