Cetaganda

extracted Nadina from her bubble? 'I think you're getting a little ahead of us, milady,' he sighed.

Kety walked around the haut Pel's bubble, studying it. Cracking this egg was a pretty puzzle for him. Or was it? He'd done it once before.

Escape was impossible; the bubbles movements were physically blocked. Kety might besiege them, starve them out, if he didn't mind waiting—no. Kety couldn't wait. Miles grinned blackly, and said to Pel, 'This float-chair has communication link capacity, doesn't it? I'm afraid it's time to call for help.'

They had, by God, almost brought it off, almost made the entire affair disappear without a trace. But now that they'd identified and targeted Naru, the threat of secret aid for Kety from inside Cetagandan Imperial Security was neutralized. The Cetagandans should be able to unravel the rest of it for themselves. If I can get the word out.

Governor Kety motioned the two men holding the haut Nadina to drag her forward to what he apparently guessed was in front of the bubble, except that he was actually about forty degrees offsides. He relieved one guardsman of his vibra-knife, stepped behind Nadina, and lifted her thick silver hair. She squeaked in terror, but relaxed again when he only laid the knife very lightly against her throat.

'Drop your force-screen, Pel, and surrender. Immediately. I don't think I need to go into crude, tedious threats, do I?'

'No,' whispered Pel in agreement. That Kety would slit the haut Nadina's throat now, and arrange the body later, was unquestionable. He'd gone beyond the point of no return some time ago.

'Dammit,' grated Miles in anguish. 'Now he's got it all. Us, the Great Key …' The Great Key. Chock full it was of … coded information. Information the value of which lay entirely in its secrecy and uniqueness. Everywhere else people waded through floods of information, information to their eyebrows, a clogging mass of data, signal and noise … all information was transmittable and reproducible. Left to itself, it multiplied like bacteria as long as there was money or power to be had in it, till it choked on its own reduplication and the boredom of its human receivers.

'The float-chair, your comm link—it's all Star Creche equipment. Can you download the Great Key from it?'

'Do what? Why …' said Pel, struggling with astonishment, 'I suppose so, but the chair's comm link is not powerful enough to transmit all the way back to the Celestial Garden.'

'Don't worry about that. Patch it through to the commercial navigation's emergency communication net. There'll be a booster right outside this ship on the orbital transfer station. I have the standard codes for it in my head, they're made simple on purpose. Maximum emergency overrides—the booster'll split the signal and dump it into the on-board computers of every ship, commercial or military, navigating right now through the Eta Ceta star system, and every station. Supposed to be a cry-for-help system for ships in deep trouble, you see. So Kety'll have the Great Key. So will a couple thousand other people, and where is his sly little plot then? We may not be able to win, but we can take his victory from him!'

The look on Pel's face, as she digested this outrageous suggestion, transformed from horror to a fey delight, but then to dismay. 'That will take—many minutes. Kety will never let—no! I have the solution for that.' Pels eyes lit with understanding and rage. 'What are those codes?'

Miles rattled them off; Pel's fingers flashed over her control panel. A dicey moment followed while Pel arranged the opened Great Key in the light-beam reader. Kety cried from outside the bubble, 'Now, Pel!' His hand tightened on the knife. Nadina closed her eyes and stood in dignified stillness.

Pel tapped the comm link start code, dropped the bubble's force-screen, and sprang out of her seat, dragging Miles with her. 'All right!' she cried, stepping away from the bubble. 'We're out.'

Kety's hand relaxed. The bubble's screen snapped back up. The force of it almost pushed Miles off his feet; he stumbled into the unwelcoming arms of the haut-governor's guards.

'That,' said Kety coldly, eyeing the bubble with the Great Key inside, 'is annoying. But a temporary inconvenience. Take them.' He jerked his head at his guards, and stepped away from Nadina. 'You!' he said in surprise, finding Miles in their grip.

'Me.' Miles's lips peeled back on a white flash of teeth that had nothing to do with a smile. 'Me all along, in fact. From start to finish.' And you are finished. Of course, I may be too dead to enjoy the spectacle. . . . Kety dared not let any of the three interlopers live. But it would take a little time yet to arrange their deaths with civilized artistry. How much time, how many chances to—

Kety caught himself just before his fist delivered a jaw-cracking blow to Miles's face. 'No. You're the breakable one, isn't that right,' he muttered half to himself. He stepped back, nodded to a guard. 'A little shock- stick on him. On them all.'

The guard unshipped his standard military issue shock-stick, glanced at the white-robed haut consorts, and hesitated. He shot a covertly beseeching look at Kety.

Miles could almost see Kety grind his teeth. 'All right, just the Barrayaran!'

Looking very relieved, the guard swung his stick with a will and belted Miles three times, starting with his face and skittering down his body to belly and groin. The first touch made him yell, the second took his breath away, and the third dropped him to the floor, blazing agony radiating outward and drawing his arms and legs in. Calculation stopped, temporarily. Ghem-General Naru, just being helped to his feet, chuckled in a tone of one happy to see justice done.

'General,' Kety nodded to Naru, then to the bubble, 'how long to get that open?'

'Let me see.' Naru knelt to the unconscious whey-faced tech, and relieved him of a small device, which he pointed at the bubble. 'They've changed the codes. Half an hour, once you get my men waked up.'

Kety grimaced. His wrist comm chimed. Kety's brows rose, and he spoke into it. 'Yes, Captain?'

'Haut-governor,' came the formal, uneasy voice of some subordinate. 'We are experiencing a peculiar communication over emergency channels. An enormous data dump is being speed-loaded into our systems. Some kind of coded gibberish, but it has exceeded the memory capacity of the receiver and is spilling over into other systems like a virus. It's marked with an Imperial override. The initial signal appears to be originating from our ship. Is this . . . something you intend?'

Kety's brows drew down in puzzlement. Then his gaze rose to the white bubble, glowing in the center of the room. He swore, one sharp, heartfelt sibilant. 'No. Ghem-General Naru! We have to get this force-screen down now!'

Kety spared a venomous glare for Pel and Miles that promised infinite retribution later, then he and Naru fell to frantic consultation. Heavy doses of synergine from the guards' med-kit failed to return the techs to immediate consciousness, though they stirred and groaned in a promising fashion. Kety and Naru were left to do it themselves. Judging by the wicked light in Pel's eyes, as she and the haut Nadina clung together, they were going to be way too late. The pain of the shock-stick blows were fading to pins and needles, but Miles remained curled up on the floor, the better not to draw further such attentions to himself.

Kety and Naru were so absorbed in their task and their irate arguments over the swiftest way to proceed, only Miles noticed when a spot on the door began to glow. Despite his pain, he smiled. A beat later, the whole door burst inward in a spray of melted plastic and metal. Another beat, to wait out anyone's hair-trigger reflexes.

Ghem-Colonel Benin, impeccably turned out in his bloodred dress uniform and freshly applied face paint, stepped firmly across the threshold. He was unarmed, but the red-clad squad behind him carried an arsenal sufficient to destroy any impediment in their path up to the size of a pocket dreadnought. Kety and Naru froze in mid-lurch; Kety's liveried retainers suddenly seemed to think better of drawing weapons, opening their hands palm-outward and standing very still. Colonel Vorreedi, equally impeccable in his House blacks, if not quite so cool in expression, stepped in behind. Benin. In the corridor beyond, Miles could just glimpse Ivan looming behind the armed men, and shifting anxiously from foot to foot.

'Good evening, haut Kety, ghem-General Naru.' Benin bowed with exquisite courtesy. 'By the personal order of Emperor Fletchir Giaja, it is my duty to arrest you both upon the serious charge of treason to the Empire. And,' contemplating Naru especially, Benin's smile went razor-sharp, 'complicity in the murder of the Imperial Servitor the Ba Lura.'

CHAPTER FIFTEEN