Captain Vorpatril's alliance

Lady ghem Estif held up what might have been a really, really elegant combat utility belt. “My old biotainer girdle. I wonder if it still works?” And, in a bemusing womanly addendum, “I wonder if it still fits?” She slipped out of her coat and cinched it about her waist, and a sincerely delighted smile illuminated her face as she found that yes, it did still fit. One hand went up to fluff her short hair, and the smile twisted.

Her long fingers danced over what was evidently a control panel on the left side. Ivan jumped back as a flickering force‑field abruptly sprang out around her, shoving over a stack of boxes, which slid and fell with a few dull thumps; she touched another control, and its spherical shape became a more form‑fitting tall oval. She looked as if she were standing inside a narrow, translucent egg.

“Hey, what about no electronic signatures?” Ivan cried in panic. Wait, no, wrong. He wanted them to be surprised by ImpSec, didn’t he? In some way that he had nothing whatsoever to do with, in order to keep his word to Tej. This could be perfect.

Lady ghem Estif glanced upward. “Oh, no one will pick up anything through these walls.”

Crap, thought Ivan. Nonetheless, she turned the sputtering field back off.

Ivan narrowed his eyes in belated recognition. “Wait. I saw something like that before, back on Eta Ceta. When Miles and I had to go as the Barrayaran diplomatic representatives to the late Cetagandan empress’s funeral, twelve, thirteen years ago. The haut‑lady bubbles. All the haut women traveled around in these float chairs, with personal shields a lot like that one.”

Lady ghem Estif looked at him in surprise. “Indeed. The biotainer girdles were made a symbol of haut status. Personally, I disapproved of fitting them onto the float chairs‑robbing them of their original purpose in pursuit of display. Really, I do sometimes wonder if my old caste is becoming effete. I begin to believe I was well out of it. Young people these days, no sense of the right robust relation of form and function. And they call themselves artists!”

“So,” said Ivan, taken aback to have the formerly‑settled insides of his head so abruptly rearranged, “the haut‑lady bubbles actually started as biotainers? But they don’t work as suits anymore?”

“Oh, of course they still do that,” murmured Lady ghem Estif, and headed purposefully for the stairs.

Undine shrugged and picked up the nearest case, turning toward the hole in the wall. “Tej, Ivan Xav”‑a warmer drop in her voice at his name acknowledged his volunteer status‑“time to start hauling. Quickly, now.”

Tej dutifully picked up the next crate down, and Ivan, more dubiously, followed suit‑its weight tried to pull his arms out of their sockets. What the hell should he be doing down here? It had been all too easy to get sucked into the general excitement and forget that, no, his aims were not those of the rest of the people in this place. Maybe some opportunity would come as he helped lug all this stuff through that damned twisty tunnel‑dark and confined, true, but he’d hardly be alone. They’d be just like a line of ants, or termites, or one of those other Earth social insects in their little burrows. But once he’d carried his first load to the access well, he might lay hands on his wristcom again, and then‑his eye fell on Tej‑then he would have a real dilemma.

Amiri, pausing at the new doorway, called over his shoulder to his sire, “Do you think it will be more efficient to each carry these all the way, or pass them along?”

“Pass along,” Shiv replied without hesitation, also now lugging a case. “Space yourselves evenly as to time, though, not distance. Those switchbacks are going to make slow spots.”

Amiri nodded and stepped through.

Hell, thought Ivan. But he might still work his way back to the access well, just not as directly. Ivan was now almost as reluctant to leave this treasure vault, so barely explored, as he had been to enter it. If he could just‑

Amiri stepped backward through the ragged oval aperture, his empty hands reaching out above his head. What was he doing, stretching? No one had yet had time to become that fatigued‑

A total stranger with a stunner in his hand, trained on Amiri’s midsection, stepped through after.

Ivan’s heart jumped in his chest; he stumbled to a halt.

Then Pearl, who’d also stepped out to the vestibule, came through likewise walking backward. And then another stunner‑armed man, much older, and a third.

Not ImpSec in plainclothes‑Ivan wasn’t sure what subliminal signs his backbrain was processing, besides the general absence of Byerly Vorrutyer, though God knew he’d looked up close at enough ImpSec men in his life‑but he was sadly sure of it. Ordinary garage security guards? No, they wore uniforms. Very gently, Ivan set down the case he was carrying on the nearest stack, to free his hands, and eased in front of Tej, who had stopped short in shock.

“Do you know what this is?” Ivan murmured to her, almost voicelessly.