They panted to the top; the damp air moved cool against Miles's face, smelling of river slime and sea salt, a faintly decayed estuarial tang. Miles crossed the wide promenade and peered down over the railing at the synthacrete outer face of the dyke. A narrow railed ledge ran along some twenty meters below, vanishing away out of sight to the right along an outcurving bulge in the Barrier. Not part of the public area, it was reached by keyed extension ladders at intervals along the railing, all folded up and locked for the night of course. They could fuss with trying to break open and decode one of the locked ladder controls—time-consuming, and likely to light up the alarm board of some night-shift supervisor in one of the distant watchtowers—or go down the fast way.
Miles sighed under his breath. Rappelling high over rock-hard surfaces was one of his all-time least-favorite activities. He fished the drop-wire spool from its own little pocket on his Dendarii jacket, attached the gravitic grappler carefully and firmly to the railing, and doublechecked it. At a touch, handles telescoped out from the sides of the spool and released the wide ribbon-harness that always looked horribly flimsy despite its phenomenal tensile strength. Miles threaded it round himself, clipped it tight, hopped over the rail and danced down the wall backwards, not looking down. By the time he reached the bottom his adrenalin was pumping nicely, thank you.
He sent the spool winding itself back up to Galeni, who repeated Miles's performance. Galeni offered no comment about his feelings about heights as he handed back the device, so neither did Miles. Miles touched the control that released the grappler and rewound and pocketed the spool.
"We go right," Miles nodded. He drew his holstered stunner. "What did you bring?"
"I could only get one stunner." Galeni pulled it from his pocket, checked its charge and setting. "And you?"
"Two. And a few other toys. There are severe limits to what you can carry through shuttleport security."
"Considering how crowded this place is, I think they're wise," remarked Galeni.
Stunners in hand, they walked single file along the ledge, Miles first. Sea water swirled and gurgled just below their feet, green-brown transluscence frosted with streaks of foam within the circles of light, silky black beyond. Judging from the discoloration, this walkway was inundated at high tide.
Miles motioned Galeni to pause, and slipped forward. Just beyond the outcurve the walkway widened to a four-meter circle and dead-ended, the railing arcing around to meet the wall. In the wall was a doorway, a sturdy watertight oval hatch.
Standing in front of the hatch were Galen and Mark, stunners in their hands. Mark wore black T-shirt and Dendarii grey trousers and boots, minus the pocketed jacket—his own clothes, pilfered, Miles wondered, or duplicates? His nostrils flared as he spotted his grandfather's dagger in its lizard-skin sheath at the clone's waist.
"A stand-off," remarked Galen conversationally as Miles halted, with a glance at Miles's stunner and his own. "If we all fire at once, it leaves either me or my Miles on his feet, and the game is mine. But if by some miracle you dropped us both, we could not tell you where your oxlike cousin is. He'd die before you could find him. His death has been automated. I need not get back to him to carry it out. Quite the reverse. Your pretty bodyguard may as well join us."
Galeni stepped around the bend. "Some stand-offs are more curious than others," he said.
Galen's face flickered from its hard irony, lips parting in a breath of deep dismay, then tightening again even as his hand tightened on his weapon. "You were to bring the woman," he hissed.
Miles smiled slightly. "She's around. But you said two, and we are two. Now all the interested parties are here. Now what?"
Galen's eyes shifted, counting weapons, calculating distances, muscle, odds no doubt; Miles was doing the same.
"The stand-off remains," said Galen. "If you're both stunned you lose; if we're both stunned you lose again. It's absurd."
"What would you suggest?" asked Miles.
"I propose we all lay our weapons in the center of the deck. Then we can talk without distraction."
He's got another one concealed, thought Miles. Same as me. "An interesting proposition. Who puts his down last?"
Galen's face was a study in unhappy calculation.
He opened his mouth and closed it again, and shook his head slightly.
"I too would like to talk without distraction," said Miles carefully. "I propose this schedule. I'll lay mine down first. Then M—the clone. Then yourself. Captain Galeni last."
"What guarantee . . . ?" Galen glanced sharply at his son. The tension between them was near-sickening, a strange and silent compound of rage, despair, and anguish.
"He'll give you his word," said Miles. He looked for confirmation to Galeni, who nodded slowly.
Silence fell for the space of three breaths, then Galen said, "All right."
Miles stepped forward, knelt, laid his stunner in the center of the deck, stepped back. Mark repeated his performance, staring at him the while. Galen hesitated a long, agonized moment, eyes still full of shifting calculation, then put his weapon down with the others. Galeni followed suit without hesitation. His smile was like a sword-cut. His eyes were unreadable, but for the baseline of dull pain that had lurked in them ever since his father had resurrected himself.
"Your proposition first, then," Galen said to Miles. "If you have one."
"Life," said Miles. "I have concealed—in a place only I know of, and if you'd stunned me you'd never have discovered it in time—a cash-credit chit for a hundred thousand Betan dollars—that's half a million Imperial marks, friends—payable to the bearer. I can give it to you, plus a head start, useful information on how to evade Barrayaran security—which is very close behind you, by the way—"
The clone was looking extremely interested; his eyes had widened when the sum was named, and widened still further at the mention of Barrayaran security.
"—in exchange for my cousin," Miles took a slight breath, "my brother, and your promise to—retire, and refrain from further plots against the Barrayaran Imperium. Which can only result in useless bloodshed and unnecessary pain to your few surviving relations. The war's over, Ser Galen. It's time for someone else to try something else. A different way, maybe a better way—it could scarcely be a worse way, after all."
"The revolt," breathed Galen almost to himself, "must not die."
"Even if everybody in it dies? 'It didn't work, so let's do it some more'? In my line of work they call that military stupidity. I don't know what they call it in civilian life."
"My older sister once surrendered on a Barrayaran's word," Galen remarked. His face was very cold. "Admiral Vorkosigan too was full of soft and logical persuasion, promising peace."
"My father's word was betrayed by an underling," said Miles, "who couldn't recognize when the war was over and it was time to quit. He paid for the error with his life, executed for his crime. My father gave you your revenge then. It was all he could give you; he couldn't bring those dead to life. Neither can I. I can only try to prevent more dying."
Galen smiled sourly. "And you, David. What bribe would you offer me to betray Komarr, to lay alongside your Barrayaran master's money?"
Galeni was regarding his fingernails, a peculiar fey smile playing around his lips as he listened. He buffed them briefly on his trouser seam, crossed his arms, blinked. "Grandchildren?"
Galen seemed taken aback for a bare instant. "You're not even bonded!"