Tej held one up. “Kind of elegant, though…”
Ivan, getting a good look into the tray of cutlery at last, reached out and plucked it from her hand with trembling fingers. “This is a Time-of-Isolation seal dagger. Count’s sigil on the hilt…dear God, they all are.” The first tray of twenty knives lifted out to reveal another, and a third. Ivan’s eye decoded the arms, Vorinnis, Vortala, Vorfolse, Vorloupulos…holy crap, Vorkosigan as well, and yes, there was a Vorpatril…it was like a roll-call of the old Council of Counts. “It’s a complete set. A complete set of seal-daggers from all sixty Counts-palatine in existence a hundred years back.” Some brilliant connoisseur ghem-officer’s collection…
“Do they have any value?” Tej inquired ingenuously. “They don’t look all that fancy.”
“Ordinary Vor seal daggers from the Time of Isolation can go for ten thousand marks up. Way up, if it’s from anyone famous. Ten times that, from a count or prince. My cousin Miles has one that’s literally priceless.” Which he used as a letter opener, Ivan recalled. “A complete set… with provenance…” Ivan tried to do the multiplication in his spinning head. “Six to ten million?”
“Barrayaran marks or Betan dollars?” Shiv inquired, coming over.
“Either,” said Ivan, shaken. Very belatedly, he realized he should have said, Oh, it’s just a bunch of dusty, rusty old knives. If you don’t want them, I’ll take them off your hands…
And that was only the first crate. This place held hundreds of them.
He suddenly wanted to run around the room madly breaking open bins. And screaming.
Jet pried open the top of another crate and peered within. “What’s this?” he asked the air, looking nonplussed. Ivan craned his neck; it looked like a pile of old electronics, and some slate slats.
Lady ghem Estif, crossing from one side of the room to the other by threading her way through the piles, stopped to look over his shoulder. Her frown echoed his. After a long pause, she pronounced, “Artwork.” And after another, “Or perhaps a weapon. Not sure. Just set it aside, for now.”
Ceremonial objects, wasn’t that the catch-all term? Ivan thought wildly. He turned to find himself looking through the faded plastic side of another bin; it seemed to be packed tightly with flimsies. Or maybe papers, back then. He lifted it down from its pile of brethren, popped the top, and was retroactively relieved not to have the contents turn to dust-someone ought to be being careful with all this stuff-but, remembering he was already wearing gloves, tried to thumb through the top layer. Real, old-fashioned paper, yes. Some of the pages stuck together. His eye picked out the salutation on a hand-written letter, faded brown ink, Dear Yuri, but of course no saying it was that Yuri…gingerly, he wriggled it out. His wildly skipping glance caught only some talk about requisitions, and the closing salutation, Your brother in a better grade of arms, Xav.
…Duv Galeni would have a stroke.
“What’s that?” asked Shiv, at his elbow. Ivan flinched. His brain finally catching up with his mouth, he said airily, “Not much. Just some old papers and letters.” Hastily, he turned the page face down and closed the lid of the bin, tapping it sealed again, firmly. And, just for luck, returned it to the top of its stack. “Probably not worth hauling out. Go for the gold, eh?”
“Oh, that as well,” said Shiv.
On the other side of the chamber Pearl had found another stack of small, heavy cases, locked and with some Ninth Satrapy seal incised on the tops. Star brought over a flat metal bar looted from a lab bench drawer; together, they pried the top case open. Pearl held up a cylindrical roll that gleamed through its plastic wrapper. “Ah, here are the gold coins. You were right, Grandmama.”
Lady ghem Estif was now moving around to all the cupboards and old, dead refrigeration units in the lab, examining their insides intently; she waved blase acknowledgement of this. “That’s nice, dear.”
Tej and Rish bopped over to see; Ivan replaced the dagger in its velvet slot, controlled an urge to slip the Vorpatril blade into his pocket, reverently closed and latched the lid, and followed.
Pearl broke open the wrapper and let the coins spill out in a bright clinking stream, handing them around for closer examination.
“Those Ninth Satrapy coins are worth way more than their face value on the collector’s market,” Ivan observed. “Most of them were melted down after the Occupation, and the currency was burned. Although…” He noted the stacks of cases, and gave up on the multiplication, “You might not want to let all those out at once, or you’ll crash the prices.”
Shiv’s paw descended on his shoulder in an approving grip. “Good thinking, Ivan Xav. We’ll make a Jacksonian of you yet.” Though he, too, rolled a few of the coins around curiously in his hand. His sample went back into his pocket when he was done.
Shiv stepped up on a couple of crates and looked over the room with a calculating eye. “I know you’re all excited to be opening presents, children, and so am I,” he called out over the stacks. “But work before pleasure.”
That seemed an un-Jacksonian sentiment, but it was perhaps how Shiv had become a top-dog Jacksonian, Ivan reflected.
Shiv went on, “We’ll need to save the complete inventory for later, in some more secure space. Time is as much of the essence as treasure tonight. Location, location, location, they say; and this is not one to linger in.”
A faint, disappointed-but-not-disagreeing moan from his progeny scattered about the room acknowledged this pronouncement.
Shiv’s eye fell on his eldest daughter. “Star, you’re supposed to be guarding the entrance.”
“I locked the door, Dada. And I wanted to see.”
“Yes, yes”-he waved an understanding hand-“but now you have. Back to your post. You, Jet, Em-no, Rish, you go with him, you can keep him on task-go clean up that mess in the tunnel. Each of you carry something with you as you go-we don’t have time for wasted trips tonight. Off with you!”
They each grabbed a coin case-even Jet gave a little grunt, lifting it to his shoulder-and, stepping over the high threshold, filed out the oval hole in the wall.
“Some of it is bound to be trash,” murmured Udine, giving her husband a steadying hand as he stepped down off his makeshift podium. “Those would be wasted trips as well.”
“Mm, true. Well, if the next room down is like this one, we’re going to need more than one van. And more than one night. We can take the obvious items tonight, and leave some of us in here tomorrow during the day to triage the rest.”
She nodded.
Shiv herded more of his children into shifting the coin cases from their stack through the hole in the wall to a staging area in the Mycoborer vestibule. Lady ghem Estif, meanwhile, straightened up from a cupboard on the far side of the room with an “Ah!” of surprised satisfaction. Both Ivan’s and Udine’s heads swiveled around.
“What did you find, Mother?” Udine inquired, zigzagging over to her. Ivan and Tej followed.
Lady ghem Estif held up what might have been a really, really elegant combat utility belt. “My old biotainer girdle. I wonder if it still works?” And, in a bemusing womanly addendum, “I wonder if it still fits?” She slipped out of her coat and cinched it about her waist, and a sincerely delighted smile illuminated her face as she found that yes, it did still fit. One hand went up to fluff her short hair, and the smile twisted.
Her long fingers danced over what was evidently a control panel on the left side. Ivan jumped back as a flickering force-field abruptly sprang out around her, shoving over a stack of boxes, which slid and fell with a few dull thumps; she touched another control, and its spherical shape became a more form-fitting tall oval. She looked as if she were standing inside a narrow, translucent egg.
“Hey, what about no electronic signatures?” Ivan cried in panic. Wait, no, wrong. He wanted them to be surprised by ImpSec, didn’t he? In some way that he had nothing whatsoever to do with, in order to keep his word to Tej. This could be perfect.