The Vor Game

'Better put a protective as well as holding guard on our prisoner. I'm not sure if he was meant to survive capture.'

'Right,' Oser agreed bemusedly.

Thorne supporting one arm and Elena the other, Miles staggered home into the Triumph's hatchway.

14

Miles sat trembling on a bench in a glassed-in cubicle normally used for bio-isolation in the Triumph's sickbay, and watched Elena tie General Metzov to a chair with a tangle-cord. It would have given Miles a smug sense of turn-about, if the interrogation upon which they were about to embark was not so fraught with dangerous complications. Elena was disarmed again. Two stunner-armed men stood guard beyond the soundproof transparent door, glancing in occasionally. It had taken all Miles's eloquence to keep the audience for this initial questioning limited to himself, Oser, and Elena.

'How hot can this man's information be?' Oser had inquired irritably. 'They let him go out in the field.'

'Hot enough that I think you should have a chance to think about it before broadcasting it to a committee,' Miles had argued. 'You'll still have the recording.'

Metzov looked sick and silent, tight-mouthed and unresponsive. His right wrist was neatly bandaged. Awakening from stun accounted for the sick; the silence was futile, and everyone knew it. It was a kind of strange courtesy, not to badger him with questions before the fast-penta cut in.

Now Oser frowned at Miles. 'Are you up to this yet?'

Miles glanced down at his still-shaking hands. 'As long as no one asks me to do brain surgery, yes. Proceed. I have reason to suspect that time is of the essence.'

Oser nodded to Elena, who held up a hypospray to calibrate the dose, and pressed it to Metzov's neck. Metzov's eyes shut briefly in despair. After a moment his clenched hands relaxed. The muscles of his face unlocked to sag into a loose, idiotic smile. The transformation was most unpleasant to watch. Without the tension his face looked aged.

Elena checked Metzov's pulse and pupils. 'All right. He's all yours, gentlemen.' She stepped back to lean against the doorframe with folded arms, her expression almost as closed as Metzov's had been.

Miles opened his hand. 'After you, Admiral.'

Oser's mouth twisted. 'Thank you. Admiral.' He walked over to stare speculatively into Metzov's face. 'General Metzov. Is your name Stanis Metzov?'

Metzov grinned. 'Yeah, that's me.'

'Presently second-in-command, RandalFs Rangers?'

'Yeah.'

'Who sent you to assassinate Admiral Naismith?'

Metzov's face took on an expression of sunny bewilderment.

'Who?'

'Call me Miles,' Miles suggested. 'He knows me under a … pseudonym.' His chance of getting through this interview with his identity undisclosed equalled that of a snowball surviving a worm-hole jump to the center of a sun, but why rush the complications?

'Who sent you to kill Miles?'

'Cavie did. Of course. He escaped, you see. I was the only one she could trust . . . trust . . . the bitch. …'

Miles's brow twitched. 'In fact, Cavilo shipped me back here herself,' he informed Oser. 'General Metzov was therefore set up. But to what end? My turn, now, I think.'

Oser made the after-you gesture and stepped back. Miles tottered off his bench and into Metzov's line-of- sight. Metzov breathed rage even through the fast-penta euphoria, then grinned vilely.

Miles decided to start with the question that had driven him most nuts the longest. 'Who—what target— was your ground-attack planned to be upon?'

'Vervain,' said Metzov.

Even Oser's jaw dropped. The blood thudded in Miles's ears in the stunned silence.

'Vervain is your employer,' Oser choked.

'God—God!—finally it adds up!' Miles almost capered; it came out a stagger, which Elena lurched away from the wall to catch. 'Yes, yes, yes. …'

'It's insane,' said Oser. 'So that's Cavilo's surprise.'

'That's not the end of it, I'll bet. Cavilo's drop forces are bigger than ours by far, but no way are they big enough to take on a fully-settled planet like Vervain on the ground. They can only raid and run.'

'Raid and run, right,' smiled Metzov equably.

'What was your particular target, then?' asked Miles urgently.

'Banks . . . art museums . . . gene banks . . . hostages. . . .'

'That's a pirate raid,' said Oser. 'What the hell were you going to do with the loot?'

'Drop it off on Jackson's Whole, on the way out; they fence it.'

'How did you figure to escape the irate Vervani Navy, then?' asked Miles.

'Hit them just before the new fleet comes on-line. Cetagandan invasion fleet'll catch 'em in orbital dock. Sitting targets. Easy.'

The silence this time was utter.

'That's Cavilo's surprise,' Miles whispered at last. 'Yeah. That one's worthy of her.'

'Cetagandan . . . invasion?' Oser unconsciously began to chew a fingernail.

'God, it fits, it fits.' Miles began to pace the cubicle with uneven steps. 'What's the only way to take a wormhole jump? From both sides at once. The Vervani aren't Cavilo's employers—the Cetagandans are.' He turned to point at the slack-lipped, nodding general. 'And now I see Metzov's place, clear as day.'

'Pirate,' shrugged Oser.

'No—goat.'

'What?'

'This man—you apparently don't know—was cashiered from the Barrayaran Imperial Service for brutality.'

Oser blinked. 'From the Barrayaran Service? That must have taken some doing.'

Miles bit down a twinge of irritation. 'Well, yes. He, ah … took on the wrong victim. But anyway, don't you see it? The Cetagandan invasion fleet jumps through into Vervani local space on Cavilo's invitation—probably on Cavilo's signal. The Rangers raid, do a fast trash of Vervain. The Cetagandans, out of the kindness of their hearts, 'rescue' the planet from the treacherous mercenaries. The Rangers run. Metzov is left behind as goat—just like throwing the guy out of the troika to the wolves,' oops, that wasn't a very Betan metaphor, 'to be publicly hung by the Cetagandans to demonstrate their 'good faith.' See, this evil Barrayaran harmed you, you need our Imperial protection from the Barrayaran Imperial threat, and here we are.

'And Cavilo gets paid three times. Once by the Vervani, once by the Cetagandans, and the third time by Jackson's Whole when she fences her loot on the way out. Everybody profits. Except the Vervani, of course.' He paused to catch his breath.

Oser was beginning to look convinced, and worried. 'Do you think the Cetagandans plan to punch through into the Hub? Or will they stop at Vervain?'

'Of course they'll punch through. The Hub is the strategic target; Vervain is just a stepping stone to it. Hence the 'bad mercenary' setup. The Cetagandans want to expend as little energy as possible pacifying Vervani.