Brothers in Arms

pausing only to check for a pulse in the neck of the sprawled man. He had one, happily.

'How are you going to get me out of this?' demanded Mark.

'Well, now, that's the tricky part,' Miles admitted. He paused to listen intently. Someone was on the ladder in the lift tube, trying to climb quietly; not near their level yet. 'The police are on their way, and when they arrive I expect the Barrayarans will decamp in a hurry. They won't want to be caught in an embarrassing interplanetary incident which the ambassador would have to explain to the local authorities. This night's operation is already way out of control in that anybody saw 'em at all. Destang will have their blood on the carpet in the morning.'

'The police?' Mark's grip tightened on his stunner; competing fears struggled for ascendancy in his face.

'Yes. We could try and play hide and seek in this tower till the police finally get here—whenever. Or we could go up to the roof and have a Dendarii aircar pick us off right now. I know which I'd prefer. How about you?'

'Then I would be your prisoner.' Mark's whispering voice blurred with a fear-fueled anger. 'Dead now, dead later, what's the difference? I finally figured out what use you had for a clone.'

Mark was seeing himself as a walking body-parts bank again, Miles could tell. Miles sighed. He glanced at his chrono. 'By Galen's timetable, I have eleven minutes left to find Ivan.'

A shifty look stole over Mark's face. 'Ivan's not up. He's down. Back the way we came.'

'Ah?' Miles risked a flash-peek into the lift tube. The climber had exited at another floor. The hunters were being thorough in their search. By the time they worked their way up here they'd be quite certain of their quarry.

Miles was still wearing the rappelling harness. Very quietly, careful not to clank, he reached out and fastened the grappler to the safety bar, and tested it. 'So you want to go down, do you? I can arrange that. But you'd better be right about Ivan. Because if he dies I'll dissect you personally. Heart and liver, steaks and chops.'

Miles stooped, checked his connections, set the spool's rate of spin and stop-point, and positioned himself under the bar, ready for launch. 'Climb on.'

'Don't I get straps?'

Miles glanced over his shoulder and grinned. 'You bounce better than I do.'

Looking extremely dubious, Mark staffed his stunner back in his belt, sidled up to Miles, and gingerly wrapped his arms and legs around Miles's body.

'You'd better hang on tighter than that. The deceleration at the bottom is going to be severe. And don't scream going down. It would draw attention.'

Mark's grip tightened convulsively. Miles checked once more for unwanted company—the tube was still empty—and thrust over the side.

Their doubled weight gathered momentum terrifyingly. They fell unimpeded in near-silence for four stories—Miles's stomach was floating near his back teeth, and the sides of the lift tube were a smear of color—then the rappelling spool began to whine, resisting its blurring spin. The straps bit, and Mark's grip hand-to-hand across Miles's collarbone began to pull apart. Miles's right hand flashed up to clamp around Mark's wrist. They braked to a demure stop a centimeter or two above the lift tube's bottom floor, back in the belly of the synthacrete mountain. Miles's ears popped.

The noise of their descent had seemed thunderous to Miles's exacerbated senses, but no startled heads appeared in the openings above, no weapons crackled. Miles and Mark both nipped back out of the line of sight of the tube, into the little foyer off the tidal barrier's internal access corridor. Miles pressed the control to release his grappler and let the spool rewind; the falling thread made no noise, but the grappler unit clinked hitting bottom, and Miles flinched. 'Back that way,' said Mark, pointing right. They jogged down the corridor side by side. A deep, growling vibration began to drown lighter sounds. The pumping station that had been blinking and humming when Miles had first passed that way was now at work, lifting Thames water to high-tide sea level through hidden pipes. The next station down, previously dark and silent, was now lit, preparing to go into action.

Mark stopped. 'Here.'

'Where?'

Mark pointed, 'Each pumping chamber has an access hatch, for cleaning and repairs. We put him in there.'

Miles swore.

The pumping chamber was about the size of a large closet. Sealed, it would be dark, cold, slimy, stinking, and utterly silent. Until the rush of rising water, thrumming with immense force, gushed in to turn it into a death chamber. Rushed in to fill the ears, the nose, the dark-staring eyes; rushed in to fill the chamber up, up, not even one little pocket of air for a frantic mouth; rushed through to batter and twist the body ceaselessly, roiling against the thick unyielding walls until the face was pulped beyond recognition, until, with the tide, the dank waters at last receded, leaving—nothing of value. A clog in the line.

'You …' breathed Miles, glaring at Mark, 'lent yourself to this . . . ?'

Mark wiped his palms together nervously, stepping back. 'You're here—I brought you here,' he began plaintively. 'I said I would. …'

'Isn't this a rather severe punishment for a man who never did you more harm than to snore and keep you awake? Agh!' Miles turned, his back rigid with disgust, and began punching at the hatch lock controls. The last step was manual, turning the bar that undogged the hatch. As Miles pushed the heavy beveled door inward, an alarm began to beep.

'Ivan?'

'Ah!' The cry from within was nearly voiceless.

Miles thrust his shoulders through, flashed his handlight. The hatch was near the top of the chamber; he found himself looking down at the white smudge of Ivan's face half a meter below, looking up.

'You!' Ivan cried in a voice of loathing, staggering back and slipping in the slime.

'No, not him,' Miles corrected. 'Me.'

'Ah?' Ivan's face was lined, exhausted, almost beyond coherent thought; Miles had seen the same look on men who had been in combat too long.

Miles tossed down his handy-dandy rappelling harness—he shuddered, recalling that he'd almost decided not to include it when he'd been kitting up back in the Triumph— and braced the spool. 'Ready to come up?'

Ivan's lips moved in a mumble, but he wrapped the harness sufficiently around his arms. Miles hit the spool control, and Ivan lifted. Miles helped him slither through the hatch. Ivan stood, boots planted apart, hands on knees supporting himself, breathing heavily. His green dress uniform was damp, crumpled and beslimed. His hands looked like dog meat. He must have pounded and scratched, scrabbled and screamed in the dark, muffled and unheard . . .

Miles swung the hatch back. It clicked firmly. He twirled the manual locking bar. The alarm stopped beeping. Safety circuits reconnected, the pump immediately began to thrum. No greater noise penetrated from the pumping chamber than a monstrous subliminal hiss. Ivan sat down heavily, and pressed his face to his knees.

Miles knelt beside him in worry. Ivan turned his head and managed a sickly grin. 'I think,' he gulped, 'I'm going to take up claustrophobia for a hobby now. …'

Miles grinned back, and clapped him on the shoulder. He rose and turned. Mark was nowhere in sight.

Miles spat, and lifted his wrist comm to his lips. 'Quinn? Quinn!' He stepped out into the corridor, looked up and down it, listened intently. The faintest echo of running footsteps was fading in the distance, in the direction opposite the Barrayaran-infested watchtower. 'Little shit,' Miles muttered. 'To hell with him.' He re-keyed his comm for the air patrol. 'Sergeant Nim? Naismith here.'

'Yo, sir.'

'I've lost contact with Commander Quinn. See if you can raise her. If you can't, start looking for her. I last saw her on foot inside the tidal barrier, halfway between Towers Six and Seven, heading south.'

'Yes, sir.'

Miles turned back and helped pull Ivan to his feet. 'Can you walk?' he asked anxiously.

'Yeah . . . sure,' said Ivan. He blinked. 'I'm just a little …' They started down the corridor. Ivan stumbled a