Captain Vorpatril's alliance

By the time he’d ordered in a gratifyingly substantial lunch, the tale of her and Rish’s escape and subsequent odyssey across three systems was almost told. The first not‑too‑alarmed flight to Fell Station, and then all their false sense of security blown to shocked bits when their bodyguard was shot; the escape to the Hegen Hub, the weeks turned to months of slipping from station to station around the Hub like some sort of lethal shell game‑brief, stressed, frightening periods of motion alternated with long, boring, frightening periods of hiding; the bad news catching up with them in agonizingly slow hammer blows; the gradual relaxation of their months downside on the free planet Pol, almost sure they’d shaken pursuit, till it turned up again. The final flight to Komarr, with their every resource of money, identity, and resolution nearly tapped out. She tried to hold back how their identity shifts had worked, but since the fellow promptly guessed nearly every detail, Tej ended up being frank about all that, as well.

Morozov might not be properly intimidating, but he was something better; he understood. Tej discovered, when he volunteered a few inviting anecdotes of his own during the lulls and hesitations, that some years back he had actually been a junior ImpSec field agent in the Whole. They were all out‑of‑date tales of amusing misadventures, but Tej began to sense that in the gaps lay some adventures that hadn’t been so amusing, nor misses.

“No one is allowed to become an analyst without field experience,” he explained. “They are not at all the same skill‑set, but when one is given the task of interpreting field reports, it’s a source of considerable illumination to have once been the fellow writing them.” He seemed quite content with his headquarters job now, though, and perhaps the holovid of the middle‑aged woman with children, tucked almost out of sight on his cluttered desk, suggested why.

As they portioned out sandwiches, teas, and assorted deep‑fried vegetables and cheeses around the cubicle, Tej, with editorial interjections from Rish, brought the tale up to the moment with a description of her bewildering wedding at dawn.

“I wish I could have been a witness, too,” said Morozov, his eyes crinkling. “That was quite a quixotic impulse on your, er, bridegroom’s part. Well, faint heart ne’er won fair lady, I suppose.”

“I think it was his admiral calling on his wristcom that finally pushed him…” she swallowed the words, over the edge, and substituted, “into his inspiration. When it wouldn’t stop chiming, he finally took it off and threw it into the refrigerator.”

Morozov choked on a bite of sandwich. But, “Really,” was all he said when he got his breath back.

“Is this Admiral Desplains of Ivan Xav’s a, um, very important admiral?”

“Chief of Operations for the entire Imperial Service? You could say so, but it would be a charming understatement.”

“Oh,” said Tej. “So…Ivan Xav’s not just some sort of military clerk?”

“You could say so.” Morozov’s lips twitched. “But it would be a charming understatement.” Morozov finished his last bite, leaned back in his station chair, and tented his fingertips together. “I should likely explain, I served several years of my apprenticeship in Analysis at ImpSec headquarters in Vorbarr Sultana, back when the legendary Chief Illyan was still running the place.”

Illyan’s, at least, was a name Tej dimly remembered hearing on her father’s lips, more than once. Usually accompanied by swearing. She nodded uncertainly.

“Domestic Affairs was never my department, but one cannot serve long in the capital without acquiring some familiarity with the high Vor scene.”

“Did you know Ivan Xav there?”

“No, we never met in person till the affair of his cousin’s clone brought him into my orbit, some time later.”

And why did that have anything to do with Jackson’s Whole? And which cousin? “Am I‑are we‑likely to meet his cousin? Or his clone?” She hesitated. “Is this the Cousin Miles he keeps talking about? Is he anyone important?”

Morozov squeezed his eyes shut, briefly. Opened them to give her a rather pained look. “Just how much has your new husband told you about himself?”

“Not much. I looked him up.”

“Where?”

“Maybe I’d better show you…”

A few minutes at his comconsole found Tej’s database. “Why ever did you look in a Komarran database for Barrayaran affairs?” Morozov inquired mildly.

“It seemed…as if it would be more reliable…?” Would he take that as an insult?

Morozov looked over Ivan Xav’s entry and sniffed. “Correct but incomplete, and sadly out of date. You shouldn’t have stopped there, m’dear.”

“I ran out of time.”

“Well.” Morozov swung around again. “High Vor family relations tend to be complex, interlaced, and mined. Before you set foot in them, I strongly advise you to study up.”

“Is Ivan Xav high Vor, then? I thought he was just…middling. He acts middling.” Tej was beginning to be peeved about that. Just what kind of a tricky deal had she landed herself in, anyway?