“Shut up.” The senior guard chewed his lip, stared at the control virtual, and after an irresolute moment, coded open the door and trod cautiously within.
“Gah!” said Miles.
“What?” snapped the junior guard.
“He moved again. He, he, sort of spasmed.”
The junior man drew his stunner and followed his comrade inside, covering him. The senior man extended his hand, faltered, and on second thought pulled his shock stick from his belt and prodded it warily toward the body.
Miles smacked the door control with a duck of his forehead. The glass seal slid shut, barely in time. The guards smashed into the door and up it like rabid dogs. It barely transmitted the vibration. Their mouths were open, howling curses and threats at him, but no sound passed. The transparent walls must be space-grade material; it stopped stunner fire, too.
The senior man pulled out a plasma arc and began burning. The wall started to glow slightly. Not good. Miles studied the control panel … there. He pushed at menu blocks with his tongue till it brought up oxygen, and re-set it down as far as it would go. Would the guards pass out before the wall gave way to the plasma arc?
Yes. Good environmental system, that. Ryoval’s dogs crumpled against the glass, clawed hands relaxing in unconsciousness. The plasma arc fell from nerveless fingers, and shut off.
Miles left them sealed in their victim’s tomb.
It was a lab. There had to be cutters, and tools of all sorts … right. It took several minutes of contortions, working behind his back, during which he nearly passed out, but his shackles gave way at last. He whimpered with relief as his hands came free.
Weapons? All weapons per se had been taken, apparently, by the departing inhabitants, and without a biotainer suit he was disinclined to re-open the glass cell and retrieve the guards’ gear. But a laser-scalpel from the lab made him feel less vulnerable.
He wanted his clothing. Shivering from the cold, he trotted back through the eerie corridors to the security entrance, and donned his knits again. He turned back into the facility, and began to seriously search. He tried every comconsole he came to that wasn’t smashed. All were internally dedicated, no way to tap an outside channel.
Where is Mark? It occurred to him suddenly that if there could be anything worse than being held prisoner in some cell here, waiting for his tormentors to come again, it would be to be locked in a cell here waiting for tormentors who never came again. In what was perhaps the most frantic half-hour he’d ever experienced in his life, he opened or broke open every door in the facility. Behind every one he expected to find a sodden little body, its throat mercifully cut … He was wheezing and fearing another convulsion when, with great relief, he found the cell—closet—near Ryoval’s quarters. Empty. It stank of recent occupation, though. And the bloodstains and other stains on the walls and floor turned his stomach cold and sick. But wherever Mark was, and in whatever condition, he was not here. He had to get out of here too.
He caught his breath, and found a plastic basket, and went shopping in the labs for useful electronic equipment. Cutters and wires, circuit-diagnostics, readers and relays, whatever he could find. When he thought he had enough, he returned to the Baron’s study, and proceeded to dissect the damaged comconsole. He finally managed to jump the palm-lock, only to have a little bright square patch come up on-view and demand, Insert code-key. He cursed, and stretched his aching back, and sat again. This was going to be tedious.
It took another pass through the facility for equipment before he was able to jump the code-key block. And the comconsole would never be the same. But at last, finally, he punched through to the planetary communications net. There was another short glitch while he figured out how to charge the call to House Ryoval’s account; all fees were collected in advance, here on Jackson’s Whole.
He paused a moment, wondering who to call. Barrayar kept a consulate on the Hargraves-Dyne Consortium Station. Some of the staff were actually diplomatic and/or economic personnel, but even they doubled as ImpSec analysts. The rest were agents-proper, running a thin network of informants scattered across the planet and its satellites and stations. Admiral Naismith had a contact there. But had ImpSec been here already? Was this their work, rescuing Mark? No, he decided. It was ruthless, but not nearly methodical enough. In fact, it was utter chaos.
So why didn’t you guys come looking for Mark? A bothersome question, and one to which he had no answer. He punched through the consulate’s code. Let the circus begin.
They were down on him in half an hour, a tense ImpSec lieutenant named Iverson with a rented squad of local muscle from House Dyne in paramilitary uniforms and with decent military equipment. They’d dropped straight from orbit in a shuttle; heat wavered off its skin in the watery morning light. Miles sat on a rock outside the pedestrian entrance, or more properly speaking, emergency exit he’d found, and watched sardonically as they all galloped out, weapons at the ready, and spread out as if to take the installation by assault.
The officer hurried up to him, and half-saluted. “Admiral Naismith?”
Iverson was no one he knew; at this level of the echelon the man must take him for a valued, but non-Barrayaran, ImpSec hireling. “The one and only. You can tell your men to relax. The installation is secured.”
“You secured it yourself?” Iverson asked in faint disbelief.
“More or less.”
“We’ve been looking for this place for two years!”
Miles suppressed an irate remark about people who couldn’t find their own prick with a map and a hand-light. “Where is, ah, Mark? The other clone. My double.”
“We don’t know, sir. Acting on a tip from an informant, we were about to make an assault on a House Bharaputra location to retrieve you, when you called.”
“I was there last night. Your informant did not know I was moved.” Had to be Rowan—she’d got out, hooray! “You would have been embarrassingly late.”
Iverson’s lips thinned. “This has been an incredibly fouled-up operation from first to last. The orders kept changing.”
“Tell me,” Miles sighed. “Have you heard anything from the Den-darii Mercenaries?”
“A covert ops team from your outfit is supposed to be on its way, sir.” Iverson’s “sirs” were tinged with uncertainty, the dubious regard of a Barrayaran regular for a self-promoted mercenary. “I … wish to ascertain for myself if the installation is fully secure, if you don’t mind.”
“Go ahead,” Miles said. “You’ll find it an interesting tour. If you have a strong stomach.” Iverson marched his troopers indoors. Miles would have laughed, if he weren’t screaming inside. He sighed, slipped from his perch, and followed them.
Miles’s people came in a small personnel shuttle, swooping right into the concealed garage. He watched them on the monitor from Ryoval’s study, and gave them directions how to find him. Quinn, Elena, Taura and Bel, all in half-armor. They came clanking into the study double-time, almost as impressively useless as the ImpSec crowd.
“Why the party clothes?” was his first weary question as they heaved into view. He should stand, and receive and return salutes and things, but Ryoval’s station chair was incredibly comfortable and he was incredibly tired.
“Miles!” Quinn cried passionately.
With the sight of her concerned face he realized just how very angry he was, and guilty for it. Furiously angry because furiously afraid. Where is Mark, damn you all? “Captain Quinn,” he put her on notice that this was duty-time before she could fling herself on him. She skidded to a halt in mid-fling, and came to a species of attention. The others piled up behind her.