Captain Vorpatril's alliance

Ivan spent the next two days chasing Tej around the clock. She returned from the hotel very late, Rishless, when Ivan was already half comatose and shrinking from the thought of tomorrow morning’s alarm. The workweek resumed; Ivan’s shift ran over due to what seemed an unending stream of minor Ops cockups and stupidities eliciting a return of memos running a short range from the tart to the sarcastic, and had Ivan mentally composing a whole new level of the latter, searing. In any case, he missed dinner, and Tej, who was out doing more driving.

Ivan’s preemptive strike for the next evening‑dinner reservations at a restaurant for Tej and her family, for which she’d have to show up if only because she’d have to ferry the rest of them‑resulted in less than a quorum of Arquas, but still more than enough to prevent any serious personal discussions. Vapid tourist talk dominated the table. The public venue had been a bad idea. Ivan should invite them to his flat for the sort of intimate conclave he wanted‑preferably with fast‑penta served with the soup. Or maybe the predinner drinks. Alas that the truth drug could not be administered orally.

No private talk with Tej that night, either, nor even sex as a substitute, an evasion for which Ivan was beginning to think he might be willing to settle. Since the evening ended with Rish back on Ivan’s couch, presumably By’s bed‑luck was equally dire, but it seemed an insufficient consolation. And in the morning, Tej let him oversleep too much‑deliberately? – so that he had to rush off for his day of arm‑wrestling with Ops’s finest idiots without talk, kisses, breakfast, or coffee.

This can’t go on.

The Mycoborer was misbehaving.

Tej adjusted her mask‑a simple hospital filter mask, without electronic components, acquired by Amiri from who‑knew‑where‑yanked on her plastic gloves, and prepared to follow Amiri, Grandmama, and Jet on the none‑too‑solid flex‑ladder down the meter‑wide black shaft. The chemical cold lights hooked to everyone’s belts bobbed as they descended, making a bright but unsteady illumination.

She had to admit, the results of the first three days of Mycoborer penetration were impressive. After that initial visit, Amiri and Jet had found their way to the garage on their own, by different routes each time, for once‑a‑day checks and repositionings of new myco‑sticks as the old ones successively pooped out. But Tej was afraid Grandmama was going to have to report to her Earth friend that his straight route and uniform diameter goals were still a hope for the future. The black walls of the shaft wavered‑and not just from her wobbling light‑widened and constricted irregularly, and bent away. Tej arrived at a kind of foyer Amiri had made at the bottom of the shaft to store the bulk of their supplies, straightened, and caught her breath.

Amiri held a finger to his mask. “As little talking as possible, from here on,” he whispered. Jet and Tej nodded dutifully. They’d left their wristcoms in the locked utility room, and traded shoes for soft, muffling slippers. Tej’s had bunny faces on the toes, and Grandmama’s had kittens, which was what they got for letting Em do the shopping, she supposed. The floor felt odd, through them‑rubbery, not solid.

The tunnel leading away toward the park was just wide enough to stand upright in, though Grandmama had to bend her head, except where it occasionally constricted, and they all had to duck through. Worse, it turned, randomly. Twice, they had to sit and slide around complete bends. It seemed less like traveling a tunnel than like crawling through a giant intestine.

Continuing the comparison, the tube also seemed to be growing appendixes. Most were no larger in diameter than Tej’s arm; she felt no impulse to stick her hand in, glove or no, but Jet, having taken a possessive attitude toward it all, demonstrated that one could. Tej made a face at him. Jet stopped at another irregular wide spot, his eyes bright over his mask.

Amiri was leading Grandmama on toward an inspection of the working face; he cast a look of irritation over his shoulder, but could not, of course, yell at them. Their lights bobbed away.

“Here!” Jet whispered, pointing with his light to his prize, or surprise, as he’d resolutely refused to tell his sister what the wildly wonderful thing that he’d found was.

A pale, skeletal foot was sticking through the wall, at about waist height.

Tej jumped back, and glared at her odd‑brother. Even‑brothers, odd‑brothers, all brothers were the same. He apparently found it hilarious that she wasn’t allowed to scream, choking instead. She drew a calming breath, deciding that an unruffled front would be the best revenge. “Well, that’s one Barrayaran who won’t be bothering us.”

Jet snickered, and drew a long, folding steel knife from his jacket pocket. He opened it and held the point to the rubbery wall beside the foot, leaning in. After a moment of resistance, it poked through.