The Vor Game

'Didn't you ask Elena? I thought you would—look sir, sit down, please,' and put me down, dammit— Ungari seemed not to notice that Miles's toes were stretched to the floor, 'and tell me what all this looked like from your point of view. It's very important.'

Ungari, breathing heavily, released Miles and sat in the indicated station chair, or at least on its edge. At a hand signal, Overholt took up a pose of parade rest at his shoulder. Miles gazed with some relief at Overholt, whom he'd last seen face-down unconscious on the Consortium Station concourse; the sergeant appeared fully recovered, if tired and strained.

Ungari said, 'When he finally woke up, Sergeant Overholt followed you to Consortium Detention, but by then you'd disappeared. He thought they'd done it, they thought he'd done it. He spent bribe-money like water, finally got the story from the contract- slave you'd beaten up—a day later, when the man could finally talk—'

'He lived, then,' said Miles. 'Good, Gre—we were worried about that.'

'Yes, but Overholt didn't recognize the emperor at first, in the contract-slave records—the sergeant hadn't been on the need-to-know list about his disappearance.'

A faint irate look passed over the sergeant's face, as if in memory of great injustices.

'—it wasn't until he'd made contact with me here, we dead-ended, and we retraced all the steps in hopes of finding some clue about you we'd overlooked, that I identified the missing contract-slave as Emperor Gregor. Days lost.'

'I was sure you'd make contact with Elena Bothari-Jesek, sir. She knew where we'd gone. You knew she was my sworn liegewoman, it's in my files.'

Ungari shot him a flat-lipped glare, but did not otherwise offer explanation for this gaffe. 'When the first wave of Barrayaran agents hit the Hub, we finally had enough reinforcements to mount a serious search—'

'Good! So they know Gregor's in the Hub, back home. I was afraid Illyan would still be squandering all his resources on Komarr, or worse, towards Escobar.'

Ungari's fingers clenched again. 'Vorkosigan, what did you do with the emperor?'

'He's safe, but in great danger.' Miles thought that one over a second. 'That is, he's all right for the moment, I think, but that will change with the tactical—'

'We know where he is, he was spotted three days ago by an agent in Randall's Rangers.'

'Must have been just after I left,' Miles calculated. 'Not that he could have spotted me, I was in the brig —what are we doing about it?'

'Rescue forces are being scrambled; I don't know how large a fleet.'

'What about permission to cross Pol?'

'I doubt they'll wait for it.'

'We've got to alert them, not to offend Pol! The—'

'Ensign, Vervain holds the emperor!' Ungari snarled in exasperation. 'I'm not going to tell the—'

'Vervain doesn't hold Gregor, Commander Cavilo does,' Miles interrupted urgently. 'It's strictly nonpolitical, a plot for her personal gain. I think—in fact, I'm dead certain—the Vervani government doesn't know the first thing about her 'guest.' Our rescue forces must be warned to commit no hostile act until the Cetagandan invasion shows up.'

'The what?'

Miles faltered, and said in a smaller voice, 'You mean you don't know anything about the Cetagandan invasion?' He paused. 'Well, just because you don't have the word yet, doesn't mean Illyan hasn't figured it out. Even if we haven't spotted where they're massing, inside the Empire, as soon as ImpSec adds up how many Cetagandan warships have disappeared from their home bases, they'll realize something must be up. Somebody must still be keeping track of such things, even in the current flap over Gregor.' Ungari was still sitting there looking stunned, so Miles kept explaining. 'I expect a Cetagandan force to invade Vervani local space and continue on to secure the Hegen Hub, with Commander Cavilo's connivance. Very shortly. I plan to take the Dendarii fleet across- system and fight them at the Vervani wormhole, hold it till Gregor's rescue fleet arrives. I hope they're sending more than a diplomatic negotiation team. … By the way, do you still have that blank mercenary contract credit chit Illyan gave you? I need it.'

'You, mister,' Ungari began when he had mastered his voice again, 'are going nowhere but to our safe-house on Aslund Station. Where you will wait quietly—very quietly—until Illyan's reinforcements arrive to take you off my hands.'

Miles politely ignored this impractical outburst. 'You have to have been collecting data for your report to Illyan. Got anything I can use?'

'I have a complete report on Aslund Station, it's naval and mercenary dispositions and strengths, but —'

'I have all that, now.' Miles tapped his fingers impatiently on Oser's comconsole. 'Damn. I wish you'd spent the last two weeks on Vervain Station instead.'

Ungari gritted, 'Vorkosigan, you will stand up now, and come with Sergeant Overholt and me. Or so help me I will have Overholt carry you bodily.'

Overholt was eyeing him with cool calculation, Miles realized.

'That could be a serious mistake, sir. Worse than your failure to contact Elena. If you will just let me explain the over-all strategic situation—'

Goaded beyond endurance, Ungari snapped, 'Overholt, grab him.'

Miles hit the alarm on his comconsole desk as Overholt swooped down on him. He dodged around his station chair, knocking it loose from its clamps, as Overholt missed his first grab. The cabin door hissed open. Chodak and his two guards pelted through, followed by Elena. Overholt, chasing Miles around the end of the comconsole desk, skidded straight into Chodak's stunner fire. Overholt dropped with a massive thud; Miles winced. Ungari lurched to his feet and stopped, bracketed by the aim of four Dendarii stunners. Miles felt like bursting into tears, or possibly cackles. Neither would be useful. He got control of his breath and voice.

'Sergeant Chodak, take these two men to the Triumph's brig. Put them . . . put them next to Metzov and Oser, I guess.'

'Yes, Admiral.'

Ungari went bravely silent, as befit a captured spy, and suffered himself to be led out, though the veins in his neck pulsed with suppressed fury as he glared back at Miles.

And I can't even fast-penta him, Miles thought mournfully. An agent of Ungari's level was certain to have been implanted with an induced allergic reaction to fast-penta; not euphoria, but anaphylactic shock and death, would result from such a dose. In a moment two more Dendarii appeared with a float pallet and removed the inert Overholt. As the door closed behind them, Elena asked, 'All right, what was all that about?'

Miles sighed deeply. 'That, unfortunately, was my ImpSec superior, Captain Ungari. He was not in a listening mood.'

Elena's eye lit with a skewed enthusiasm. 'Dear God, Miles. Metzov—Oser—Ungari—all in a row—you sure are hard on your commanding officers. What are you going to do when the time comes to let them all out?'

Miles shook his head mutely. 'I don't know.'

The fleet disengaged from Aslund Station within the hour, maintaining strict comm silence; the Aslunders, naturally, were thrown into a panic. Miles sat in the Triumph's comm center and monitored their frantic queries, resolved not to interfere with the natural course of events unless the Aslunders opened fire. Until he again laid hands on Gregor, he must at all costs present the correct profile to Cavilo. Let her think she was getting what she wanted, or at least what she'd asked for.

In fact, the natural course of events promised to deliver more of the results Miles wanted than he could have gained through planning and persuasion. The Aslunders had three main theories, Miles deduced from their comm chatter; the mercenaries were fleeing from the Hub altogether at secret word of some impending attack, the mercenaries were off to join one or more of Aslund's enemies, or worst of all, the mercenaries were opening an