Captain Vorpatril's alliance

“Look out!” Vorpatril cried, and, to Tej’s bewilderment, lurched to try to shove her behind him. Uselessly, as it only cleared the target for Rish. The stun beam kneecapped him neatly, and he fell, Tej supposed, the way a tree was said to, not that she’d ever witnessed a tree do such a thing. Most of the trees she’d seen before she’d fetched up on Komarr had lived in tubs, and did not engage in such vigorous behavior. In any case, he crashed to the tiles with a vague thrashing of upper branches and a loud plonk as his head hit. “Owww…” he moaned piteously.

The quiet buzz of the stunner had not carried far; no one popped out of their first floor flat door to investigate either that or the thump, alarming as the latter had seemed to Tej.

“Search him,” Rish instructed tersely. “I’ll cover you.” She stood just out of reach of his long but no doubt tingling arms, aiming the stunner at his head. He eyed it woozily.

Tej knelt and began going through his pockets. His athletic appearance was not a facade; his body felt quite fit, beneath her probing fingers.

“Oh,” he mumbled after a moment. “You two are t’gether. Thass all right, then…”

The first thing Tej’s patting hand found was a small flimsy, tucked into his breast pocket. Featuring a still scan of her. A chill washed through her.

She seized his well‑shaved jaw, stared into his eyes, demanded tightly: “Are you a hired killer?”

Still weirdly dilated from the stun nimbus, his eyes were not tracking quite in unison. He appeared to have to think this question over. “Well…in a sense…”

Abandoning interrogation in favor of physical evidence, Tej extracted the wallet he’d flashed earlier, a door remote much like her own, and a slender stunner hidden in an inner pocket. No more lethal weaponry surfaced.

“Let me see that,” said Rish, and Tej obediently handed up the stunner. “Who is this meat really?”

“Hey, I c’n answer that,” their victim mumbled, but fell prudently silent again as she jerked her aim back at him.

The top item in the wallet was the credit chit. Beneath it was a disquietingly official‑looking security card with a heavy coding strip identifying the man further as one Captain Ivan X. Vorpatril, Barrayaran Imperial Service, Operations, Vorbarr Sultana. Another mentioned such titles as Aide‑de‑Camp to Admiral Desplains, Chief of Operations, with a complicated building address featuring lots of alphanumeric strings. There was also a strange little stack of tiny rectangles of heavy paper, reading only Lord Ivan Xav Vorpatril, nothing else. The fine, black, raised lettering bumped under her curious fingertips. She passed them all up for Rish’s inspection.

On sudden impulse, she drew off one of his polished shoes, which made him twitch in a scrambled reflex, and looked inside. Military issue shoes, aha, that explained their unusual style. 12 Ds, though she couldn’t think of a reason for that to be important, except that they fit the rest of his proportions.

“Barrayaran military stunner, personally coded grip,” Rish reported. She frowned at the handful of IDs. “These all look quite authentic.”

“Assure you, they are,” their prisoner put in earnestly from the floor. “Damn. By never mentioned any lethal blue‑faced ladies, t’ ratfink. Izzat…makeup?”

Tej murmured in uncertainty, “I suppose the best cappers would look authentic. Nice to know they’re taking me seriously enough not to send cut‑rate rental meat.”

“Capper,” wheezed Vorpatril‑was that his real name? “Thass Jacksonian slang, innit? For a contract killer. You expectin’ one? That ’splains a lot…”

“Rish,” Tej said, a sinking feeling beginning in her stomach, “do you think he could really be a Barrayaran officer? Oh, no, what do we do with him if he is?”

Rish glanced uneasily at the outside door. “We can’t stay here. Someone else could come in or out at any moment. Better get him upstairs.”

Their prisoner did not cry out or try to struggle as they womanhandled his limp, heavy body into the lift tube, up three flights, and down the corridor to the corner flat. As they dragged him inside, he remarked to the air, “Hey, made it inside her door on t’ first date! Are things lookin’ up for Ma Vorpatril’s boy, or what?”

“This is not a date, you idiot,” Tej snapped at him.

To her annoyance, his smile inexplicably broadened.

Unnerved by the warm glance, she dumped him down hard in the middle of the living room floor.

“But it could be,” he went on. “…To a fellow of certain special tastes, that is. Bit of a waste that I’m not one of ’em, but hey, I can be flexible. Was never quite sure about m’cousin Miles, though. Amazons all the way for him. Compensating, I always thought…”

“Do you ever give up?” Tej demanded.

“Not until you laugh,” he answered gravely. “First rule of picking up girls, y’know; she laughs, you live.” He added after a moment, “Sorry I triggered your, um, triggers back there. I’m not attacking you.”

“Dead right you’re not,” said Rish, scowling. She tossed shawl, vest, and gloves onto the couch, and dug out her stunner again.