The Vor Game

way, and collect a lucrative and honorable thank-you. An, as it were, win-win strategy.'

'Honorable?' Metzov's eyes burned. He fell into a brooding silence, then muttered. 'But what are they doing here? And where's the snake Illyan? I want the mutant, in any case. Damn! It must be played boldly, or not at all.' He stared malignantly at Miles. 'Vorkosigan … so. And what is Barrayar to me now, a Service that stabbed me in the back after thirty-five years. . . .' He straightened decisively, but still did not, Miles noticed, draw a weapon in the emperor's presence. 'Yes, take them to the brig, Cavie.'

'Not so fast,' said Cavilo, looking newly pensive. 'Send the little one to the brig, if you like. He's nothing, you say?'

The only son of the most powerful military leader on Barrayar kept his mouth shut for a change. If, if, if …

'By comparison,' Metzov temporized, looking suddenly fearful of being cheated of his prey.

'Very well.' Cavilo slid her stunner, which she had stopped aiming and started playing with some time back, soundlessly into her holster. She moved to unseal the door and beckon to the guards. 'Put him,' she gestured to Gregor, 'in Cabin Nine, G Deck. Cut the outgoing comm, lock the door, and post a guard with a stunner. But supply him with any reasonable comfort he may request.' She added aside to Gregor, 'It's the most comfortable visiting officer's quarters the Kurin's Hand can supply, ah—'

'Call me Greg,' Gregor sighed.

'Greg. Nice name. Cabin Nine is next to my own. We will continue this conversation shortly, after you, ah, freshen up. Perhaps over dinner. Oversee his arrival there, will you, Stanis?' She favored both men with an impartial, glittering smile, and wafted out, a neat trick in boots. She stuck her head back in and indicated Miles. 'Bring him along to the brig.'

Miles was removed by the second guard with a wave of a stunner and the prod of a blessedly inactivated shock-stick, to follow in her wake.

The Kurin's Hand, judging from his passing glimpses, was a much larger command ship than the Triumph, able to field bigger and punchier combat drop or boarding forces, but correspondingly sluggish in maneuver. Its brig was larger too, Miles discovered shortly, and more formidably secured. A single entrance opened onto an elaborate guard monitor station, from which led two dead-end cell bays.

The freighter captain was just leaving the guard station, under the watchful eye of the squadman detailed to escort him. He exchanged a hostile look with Cavilo.

'As you see, they remain in good health,' Cavilo said to him. 'My half of the bargain, Captain. See that you continue to complete your own part.'

Let's see what happens. . . . 'You saw a recording,' Miles piped up. 'Demand to see 'em in the flesh.'

Cavilo's white teeth clenched rigidly, but her annoyed grimace melted seamlessly into a vulpine smile as the freighter captain jerked around. 'What? You . . .' he planted himself mulishly. 'All right which of you is lying?'

'Captain, that's all the guarantee you get,' said Cavilo, gesturing to the monitors. 'You chose to gamble, gamble you shall.'

'Then that—' he pointed to Miles, 'is the last result you get.' A subtle hand motion down by her trouser seam brought the guards to the alert, stunners drawn. 'Take him out,' she ordered 'No!'

'Very well,' her eyes widened in exasperation, 'take him to Cell Six. And lock him in.' As the freighter captain turned, torn between resistance and eagerness, Cavilo motioned the guard to open distance from his prisoner. He fell away, brows rising in question. Cavilo glanced at Miles and smiled very sourly, as if to say, All right, Smartass, watch me. In a cold smooth motion Cavilo flipped open her left side holster seal, brought up a nerve disrupter, took careful aim, and fried the back of the captain's head. He convulsed once and dropped, dead before he hit the deck.

She walked over and pensively prodded the body with the pointed toe of her boot, then glanced up at Miles, whose jaw was gaping open. 'You will keep your mouth shut next time, won't you, little man?' Miles's mouth shut with a snap. You had to experiment. … At least now he knew who'd killed Liga. The rabbity Polian's reported death seemed suddenly real and vivid. The exalted look flashing over Cavilo's face as she blew the freighter captain away fascinated even as it horrified Miles. Who did you really see in your gunsights, darling?

'Yes, ma'am,' he choked, trying to conceal his shakes, delayed reaction to this shocking turn. Damn his tongue. . . .

She stepped down to the security monitoring station and spoke to the tech at—frozen at—her post. 'Unload the recording of General Metzov's cabin that includes the last half-hour, and give it to me. Start a fresh one. No, don't play it back!' She placed the disk in a breast pocket and carefully sealed the flap. 'Put this one in Cell Fourteen,' she nodded toward Miles. 'Or, ah—if it's empty, make that Cell Thirteen.' Her teeth bared briefly.

The guards re-searched Miles, and took ID scans. Cavilo blandly informed them that his name should be entered as Victor Rotha.

As he was pulled to his feet, two men with medical insignia arrived with a float-pallet to remove the body. Cavilo, watching without expression now, remarked tiredly to Miles, 'You chose to damage my double-agent's utility. A vandal's prank. He had better uses than as an object-lesson for a fool. I do not warehouse non-useful items. I suggest you start thinking of how you can make yourself more useful to me than as merely General Metzov's catnip toy.' She smiled faintly into some invisible distance. 'Though he does jump for you, doesn't he? I shall have to explore that motivation.'

'What is the use of Stanis-darling to you?' Miles dared, pigheaded-defiant in his wash of angry guilt. Metzov as her paramour? Revolting thought.

'He's an experienced ground combat commander.'

'What's a fleet on all-space wormhole guard duty want with a ground commander?'

'Well, then,' she smiled sweetly, 'he amuses me.'

That was supposed to have been the first answer. 'No accounting for taste,' Miles muttered inanely, careful not to be heard. Should he warn her about Metzov? On second thought, should he warn Metzov about her? His head was still spinning with this new dilemma when the blank door of his solitary cell sealed him in.

It didn't take long for Miles to exhaust the novelties of his new quarters, a space a little larger than two by two meters, furnished only with two padded benches and a fold-out lavatory. No library viewer, no relief from the wheel of his thoughts mired in the quag of his self-recriminations.

A Ranger field-ration bar, inserted some time later through a force-shielded aperture in the door, proved even more repellent than the Barrayaran Imperial version, resembling a rawhide dog chew. Wetted with spit, it softened slightly, enough to tear off gummy shreds if your teeth were in good health. More than a temporary distraction, it promised to last till the next issue. Probably nutritious as hell. Miles wondered what Cavilo was serving Gregor for dinner. Was it as scientifically vitamin-balanced?

They'd been so close to their goal. Even now, the Barrayaran consulate was only a few locks and levels away, less than a kilometer. If only he could get there from here. If a chance came . . . On the other hand, how long would Cavilo hesitate to disregard diplomatic custom and violate the consulate, if she saw some utility in it? About as long as she'd hesitated to shoot the freighter captain in the back, Miles gauged. She would surely have ordered the consulate, and all known Barrayaran agents on Vervain Station, watched by now. Miles unstuck his teeth from a fragment of ration-leather, and hissed.

A beeping from the code-lock warned Miles he was about to have a visitor. Interrogation, so soon? He'd expected Cavilo to wine, dine, and evaluate Gregor first, then get back to him. Or was he to be amere project for underlings? he swallowed, throat tight on a ration blob, and sat up, trying to look stern and not scared.

The door slid back to reveal General Metzov, still looking highly military and efficient in the tan and black Ranger fatigues.

'Sure you don't need me, sir?' the guard at his elbow asked as Metzov shouldered through the opening.