Captain Vorpatril's alliance

Not that cleared necessarily equated to welcome, Ivan reflected, when he checked the security vid to find Byerly Vorrutyer waiting in the corridor, looking around and tapping his fingers tensely on his trouser seam. Maybe it was time to review that list, and take certain names off it…Reluctantly‑wasn’t this how he’d fallen into all of this trouble in the first place? – Ivan opened the door and let By in, rather like a delivery boy bringing not delicious meals, but bags of snakes. No tip for you, By.

By was perfectly neat, tidy, and well groomed, but he had a harried look in his eye. “Hello, Ivan,” he said, padding past his host. “Is everyone all still here? Ah, yes, good. Hello, Rish, Tej.” He waved to the women lingering around Ivan’s little dining table, who sat up with interest and waved back, and helped himself to a seat, settling in with a sigh.

“If you’re looking to hide out from my mother,” said Ivan, “this likely isn’t the best place.”

“Too late for that,” said By. “For the love of mercy, give me a drink.”

“Isn’t this, like, the equivalent of dawn for you? Drinking before breakfast is a sign of serious degeneration, you know.”

“You have no idea what serious degeneration is, Ivan. I just had a very long interview with your mother. Worse than my ImpSec debriefing by far, and that took a full day.”

Ivan balanced mercy against a tempting heartlessness. Mercy won by a hair, so he brought Byerly a clean glass to share out their champagne and orange juice, heavy on the champs. Byerly evidently wasn’t in a fussy mood, for he didn’t even look at the label till after he’d poured and taken his first sip, not quite a gulp, and raised a brow in belated appreciation.

“I’d have thought you would’ve had the sense to duck her,” said Ivan, settling back into his own chair.

“Wasn’t given a chance. I was publicly arrested in the Vorbarr Sultana shuttleport by an ImpSec goon squad as soon as I stepped off the shuttle yesterday, and hauled away in handcuffs.”

“Ivan Xav’s mother did that?” said Tej, sounding impressed. “She just sent Christos and a car for us.”

Byerly appeared to contemplate this. “Much the same thing, I suppose. It was actually my handler’s bright idea for getting me to my debriefing discreetly, now that the Vormercier scandal has hit the news. The public tale for me will be that I had no idea that all this brotherly chicanery was going on; I was just the caterer for the party yacht. Drinks, drugs, girls, you know.”

“Girls?” said Ivan. “I don’t think the term for that is caterer, By.”

By shrugged one shoulder. “They were actually my co‑agents. ImpSec has found that it’s often better to recruit from those already in the trade, giving them a step up in the world in return for their loyalty, than to start with a trained agent and persuade them to‑well, you see. I called right after I left your wedding, told them to get the hell off Vormercier’s yacht, met them on the orbital transfer station to, supposedly, go shopping‑that was our code phrase for pulling the plug. We were all three boarding a commercial flight to Barrayar by the time Desplains and your crew descended on the Kanzian. Desplains’s jump‑pinnace passed us by us en route, I suppose‑ours wasn’t the fastest ship. Nor the best cabin. We had to share.” A smile flickered over Byerly’s face. “We were commended for our economy, though. ImpSec being in the throes of one of its periodic budget spasms.”

“Hot bunks?” inquired Ivan. “What suffering you ImpSec weasels do endure, to be sure. Just you and two beautiful call girls, stuck together for eight days in a tiny room with nothing to do. It must have been hell.”

“Not quite nothing,” Byerly murmured back, taking another sip of champagne and orange juice. “We had all those reports to write…”

“What’s a call girl?” asked Tej, her brows crimping in puzzlement.

“Uh…” Ivan sought a translation. “Like a Betan licensed practical sexuality therapist, only without the licensed and the therapy parts.”

“Oh.” She frowned. “Like a grubber sex worker. That doesn’t sound altogether safe.”

“It isn’t,” said By. “It’s not a trade that attracts the risk‑averse, let us say.”

“Like an informer?” inquired Rish, with a small blue smile.

He raised his glass to her, and drained it. “There are parallels. Combine that with informer, and you may perhaps guess why I was anxious to extract them before the hammer came down.”

“Hm,” she said, eyeing him in fresh evaluation.

“So ImpSec released me back into the wild today, supposedly after a grueling night of incarceration and involuntary fast‑penta interrogation, which cleared me of complicity in Vormercier’s crimes. But left me looking rather a public fool. All good so far.” He scowled, and added, “I was also commended for my months of meticulous and, if I may say it, wearing work on the Vormercier case, and raised one pay grade.”

“Congratulations!” said Rish. “But…you don’t look happy…?”

By’s lips twisted. “And then I was promptly reprimanded and docked one pay grade for involving you, Ivan.”