This was not, Ivan sensed, a remark in Ivan’s favor, oblique though it sounded.
“I, as well,” murmured Udine, “though only once. I do not mean to let this present contretemps stand as twice.”
“But you left your original family,” Ivan tried. “To go with Shiv. Your new husband. Didn’t you? Anyway, left your planet.”
Udine’s voice went dry. “More evicted than left, in the event. We were fleeing the Barrayaran military conquest of Komarr, at the time.”
“Although that worked out surprisingly well,” Shiv murmured. “In the long run.” That passing hand grip again, on the sofa between them.
Her eyes grew amused, and turned back on Ivan. “Yes, I suppose I should thank you Barrayarans for that. Ejecting me out of my rut.”
“I wasn’t born yet,” Ivan put in, just in case.
Dare he ask them, straight out, Are you planning to take Tej away? What if the answer was Yes, certainly? Did Tej think she had a vote? Did they think Tej had a vote? Or Ivan?
No, Jacksonians didn’t have votes; they had deals. For the first time, Ivan wondered uneasily what he had to offer at the Great House scale of play. His personal wealth, though doubtless impressive to some prole or grubber, would barely tweak their scanners. His blood was more hazard than hope, the main question being how far it would splash in a crunch. And he wasn’t a candidate for conscription into their system, as they had hinted, not under any circumstances. Which left-what?
Udine’s gaze strayed to her abandoned comconsole. The suite was awfully quiet, Ivan realized. Where were all the rest of the clan this morning, and what were they doing? “Well, don’t let us keep you, Captain Vorpatril.”
From what? But Ivan took the hint, and stood. “Right-oh. Thanks for the coffee. If you hear from Tej before I do, ask her to call me, huh?” He tapped his wristcom meaningfully.
“Certainly,” said Udine.
Shiv saw him back to the door. “As it so happens,” he said, eyeing Ivan shrewdly, “we do have a little side deal in progress here on Barrayar. If it is successful, it will certainly aid our departure.” And if you want to see the back of Clan Arqua, maybe you’d better do your bit to see it is successful, huh? seemed to hang in the air, implied.
“I sure hope everything works out,” Ivan responded. Shiv merely looked amused at that manifest vagueness.
Ivan retreated down the hotel corridor.
He rather thought he might also see the back of Clan Arqua by just waiting and letting nature, or at least Customs amp; Immigration, take its course. Deportation, that was the ticket. And he, personally, wouldn’t have to lift a finger. And Tej would not be included in the roundup, because she had, what had Lady ghem Estif called it, umbrella residency as a spouse, all right and tight and no argument there.
If she chose.
Yeah.
It seemed to Ivan that he needed to court his wife. Promptly. In the next, what was it, ten days. If he could catch her in passing, in this spate of Arqua chores. But how can I court her when no one even gives me a chance to see her?
Tej parked the rented groundcar and stared dubiously around the dim underground garage. After yesterday’s dance in the park, and some sharp debate over city maps, Pearl had found this place-by the simple method of walking around and looking-under one of the few commercial buildings near ImpSec HQ, which was otherwise mainly ringed by assorted stodgy government offices. This building housed mostly offices as welclass="underline" attorneys, a satellite communications company, an architectural firm, a terraforming consultant, financial managers of various sorts. The two layers of garage were packed during the day, but relatively clear after hours and on the Barrayaran weekend, which this was.
This commercial building lay on a corner across the street from the backside, as it were, of the security headquarters. The far side, unfortunately, from the little park that had indeed been found to top Grandmama’s old lab site, or most of it; some of the lab had been mapped to run under the street fronting the headquarters. If ImpSec’s subbasements had been dug two dozen meters farther southeast, back in Mad Yuri’s day, they’d have cut right into the lab’s top corner. Tej didn’t see how they could have missed detecting it, but the Baronne claimed they must have. Dada…was perhaps persuading himself to believe.
As Tej, Amiri, and Grandmama exited the groundcar, Pearl detached herself from the shadow of a pillar and waved them over. Amiri removed a hefty valise from the trunk and followed.
“It’s looking good,” said Pearl. “Seems to be a storeroom for garage maintenance, in use, but no one has been in or out since I’ve been monitoring. I’ve adjusted the lock for us.”
She glanced around and led the way into a small, utilitarian chamber lit only, at the moment, by a cold light set on a metal shelf. The chamber and shelves seemed to contain stacks of various traffic barricades, buckets of paint, a ladder, and encouragingly dusty miscellanea. Pearl cracked a second cold light, doubling the eerie illumination.
“We need to leave it looking like no one has been in or out, too,” said Amiri. “At least for now. Where should we start?”
“Let’s shift these two shelves,” said Pearl. “We can shift them back, after. Here, Tej, take one end.”
Tej dutifully lifted her half of the grubby thing. When they were done, a large patch of concrete flooring lay exposed in the chamber’s corner.
From the valise, Amiri handed out breath masks, all marked with logos from the jumpship line the Arquas had traveled in on. Tej was under the impression that such safety devices were supposed to be handed back at the end of the voyage, but oh well. Waste not. He then donned biotainer gloves and removed a bottle from the valise; everyone else stood well back as he squatted and trailed a line of liquid in a smooth circle about a meter in diameter over the concrete, which began to bubble.
While the cutting fluid worked, he laid out other objects, including a long, mysterious padded case. Then they all stood back and stared for a while.
“All right,” he said at last, and he, Tej, and Pearl combined to lever the concrete slab out of its matrix and shove it aside. Revealed was a layer of pressed stones.
Pearl trundled up a waste bin, and she and Amiri and Tel then knelt and began prying up rocks-by hand. “You might have brought a shovel,” Tej grumbled.
“There should only be about a half a meter of this before we hit subsoil,” Amiri said. “Maybe less, if the contractor stinted.”
“Many hands make light the work,” Grandmama intoned, watching. At Tej’s irritated glance over her shoulder, she added, “It’s an old Earth saying I picked up.”
“No wonder everybody left the planet,” muttered Tej. Hired grubbers with power tools seemed a better deal for lightening a load to her.
“I would feel more secure if we could have found a place to rent or buy,” said Amiri. “Really proof against interruptions.”
“But this leaves no data trail,” said Pearl, perhaps defending her find.
This squabble continued intermittently until Tej found herself at the bottom of a half-meter-deep hole levering rocks out of identifiable dirt. Grandmama leaned over, shone the light down, and said, “That’s probably enough.” At least Amiri gave Tej a hand out. She pulled down her mask and sucked on a bleeding fingertip where her nail had broken.
Amiri brought the long box to the lip of the hole, took a deep breath, and knelt to open it.
“You don’t have to handle it like a live bomb,” Grandmama chided. “It’s quite inert until it’s activated.”
“If the stuff eats dirt, won’t it eat us?” said Amiri.
“Only if you are foolish enough to get it on yourself while it’s working,” said Grandmama. “Which I trust no grandchild of mine would be, especially after how many years of expensive Escobaran biomedical education?”
Amiri sighed and redonned his gloves. Tej ventured nearer to look more closely into the box.