"Just so, Lieutenant," said Miles. "Go ahead and transmit."
"Oh. And when—if—they respond, what do you want me to do?"
Miles checked his chrono. "By the time of their next response, our line of travel should take us behind the twin suns' interference corona. We should be out of communications for a good, oh, three hours."
"I can boost the gain, sir, and cut through—"
"No, no, Lieutenant. The interference is going to be something terrible. In fact, if you can stretch that to four hours, so much the better. But make it look real. Until we're in range for a tight-beam conference between myself and Cavilo in near-real-time, I want you to think of yourself as a noncommunications officer."
"Yes, sir." She grinned. "Now I understand."
"Carry on. Remember, I want maximum inefficiency, incompetence, and error. On the Vervani channels, that is. You've worked with trainees, surely. Be creative."
"Yes,
sir.
"
Miles went off to find Tung.
He and Tung were deeply engrossed in the tactical computer display in the
Triumph's
tactics room, running projected wormhole scenarios, when the comm officer paged again.
"Changes at Vervain Station, sir. All outgoing commercial ship traffic has been halted. Incoming are being denied permission to dock. Encoded transmissions on all military channels have just about tripled. And four large warships just jumped."
"Into the Hub, or out to Vervain?"
"Out to Vervain, sir."
Tung leaned forward. "Dump data into the tactics display as you confirm it, Lieutenant."
"Yes, sir."
"Thank you," said Miles. "Continue to keep us advised. And monitor civilian clear-code messages, too, any you can pick up. I want to keep tabs on the rumors as they start to fly."
"Right, sir. Out."
Tung keyed up what was laughingly called the "real-time" tactics display, a colorful schematic, as the comm officer shunted the new data. He studied the identity of the four departing warships. "It's starting," he said grimly. "You called it."
"You don't think it's something we're causing?"
"Not those four ships. They wouldn't have moved off-station if they weren't badly wanted elsewhere. Better get your ass over to—that is, transfer your flag to the
Ariel,
son."
Miles rubbed his lips nervously, and eyed what he'd mentally dubbed his "Little Fleet" in the schematic display in the
Ariel's
tactics room. The equipment was now displaying the
Ariel
itself plus the two next-fastest ships in the Dendarii forces. His own personal attack-group; fast, maneuverable, amenable to violent course-changes, requiring less turning-room than any other possible combination. Admittedly, they were low in firepower. But if things went as Miles projected, firing was not going to be a desirable option anyway.
The
Ariel's
tac room was manned now by a mere skeleton crew; Miles, Elena as his personal communications officer, Arde Mayhew for all other systems. Inner Circle all, in anticipation of this next most-private conversation. If it came to actual combat, he'd turn the chamber over to Thorne, presently exiled to Nav and Com. And then, perhaps, retire to his cabin and slit his belly open.
"Let's see Vervain Station now," he told Elena in her comm station chair. The main holovid display in the center of the room whirled dizzyingly at her touch on the controls. The schematic representation of their target area seemed to boil with shifting lines and colors, representing ship movements, power shunts to various weapons systems and shieldings, and communications transmissions. The Dendarii were now barely a million kilometers out, a little more than three light-seconds. The rate of closure was slowing as the Little Fleet, fully two hours ahead of the slower ships of the main Dendarii fleet, decelerated.
"They're sure stirred up now," Elena commented. Her hand went to her ear-bug. "They're reiterating their demands that we communicate."
"But still not launching a counter-attack," Miles observed, studying the schematic. "I'm glad they realize where the true danger lies. All right. Tell them that we've got our comm problems straightened out—finally—but say again that I will speak first only to Commander Cavilo."
"They—ah—I think they're finally putting her through. I've got a tight-beam coming in on the dedicated channel."
"Trace it." Miles hung over her shoulder as she coaxed this information from the comm net.
"The source is moving. . . ."
Miles closed his eyes in prayer, snapped them open again at Elena's triumphant, "Got it! There. That little ship."
"Give me its course and energy profile. Is she heading toward the wormhole?"
"No, away."
"Ha!"
"It's a fast ship—small—it's a
Falcon-class
courier," Elena reported. "If her goal is Pol—and Barrayar—she must intersect our triangle."
Miles exhaled. "Right. Right. She waited to speak on a line her Vervani bosses couldn't monitor. I thought she might. Wonder what lies she's told them? She's past the point of no return, does she know it?" He opened his arms to the new short vector line in the schematic. "Come, love. Come to me."
Elena raised her brow sardonically at him. "Coming through. Your sweetheart is about to appear on Monitor Three."
Miles swung into the indicated Station chair, settling himself before the holovid plate, which began to sparkle. Now was the time to muster every bit of self-control he'd ever owned. He smoothed his face to an expression of cool ironic interest, as Cavilo's fine features formed before him. Out of range of the vid pick-up, he rubbed his sweating palms on his trouser knees.
Cavilo's blue eyes were alight with triumph, constrained by her tight mouth and tense brows as if in echo of Miles's ships constraining her flight-path. "Lord Vorkosigan. What are you doing here?"
"Following your orders, ma'am. You told me to go get the Dendarii. And I've transmitted nothing to Barrayar."
A six-second time lag, as the tight-beam flew from ship to ship and returned her answer. Alas that it gave her as much time to think as it did him.
"I didn't order you to cross the Hub."
Miles wrinkled his brow in puzzlement. "But where else would you need my fleet except at the point of action? I'm not dense."
Cavilo's pause this time was longer than accounted for by the transmission lag. "You mean you didn't get Metzov's message?" she asked.
Damn near.
What a fabulous array of double meanings there. "Why, did you send him as a courier?"
Lag. "Yes!"
A palpable lie for a palpable lie. "I never saw him. Maybe he deserted. He must have realized he'd lost your love to another. Perhaps he's holed up in some spaceport bar right now, drowning his sorrows." Miles sighed deeply at this sad scenario.
Cavilo's concerned attentive expression melted to rage when this one arrived. "Idiot! I know you took him prisoner!"
"Yes, and I've been wondering ever since why you allowed that to happen. If that accident was undesired, you should have taken precautions against it."
Cavilo's eyes narrowed; she shifted her ground. "I feared Stanis's emotions made him unreliable. I wanted to give him one more chance to prove himself. I gave my backup man orders to kill him if he tried to kill you, but when Metzov missed, the dolt waited."
Substitute
as soon as/succeeded
for that
if/tried,
and the statement was probably near-truth. Miles wished he had a recording of that Ranger agent's field report, and Cavilo's blistering reply. "There, you see? You
do
want subordinates who can think for themselves. Like me."
Cavilo's head jerked back. "You, for a subordinate? I'd sooner sleep with a snake!"
Interesting image, that. "You'd better get used to me. You're seeking entry into a world strange to you, familiar to me. The Vorkosigans are an integral part of Barrayar's power-class. You could use a native guide."
Lag. "Exactly. I'm trying—I must—get your emperor to safety. You're blocking his flight path. Out of my way!"
Miles spared a glance for the tactics display. Yes, just so.
Good, come to me.
"Commander Cavilo, I feel certain you are missing an important datum in your calculations about me."
Lag. "Let me clarify my position, little Barrayaran. I hold your emperor. I control him absolutely."
"Fine, let me hear those orders from him, then."
Lag . . . fractionally briefer, yes. "I can have his throat cut before your eyes. Let me pass!"
"Go ahead." Miles shrugged. "It'll make an awful mess on your deck, though."
She grinned sourly, after the lag. "You bluff badly."
"I bluff not at all. Gregor is far more valuable alive to you than to me. You can do nothing, where you're going, except through him. He's your meal ticket. But has anyone mentioned to you yet that if Gregor dies, I could become the next emperor of Barrayar?" Well, arguably, but this was hardly time to go into the finer details of the six competing Barrayaran succession theories.
Cavilo's face froze. "He said . . . he had no heir. You said so too."
"None
named.
Because my father refuses to be named, not because he lacks the bloodlines. But ignoring the bloodlines doesn't erase them. And I am my father's only child. And he can't live forever. Ergo . . . So, resist my boarding parties, by all means. Threaten away. Carry out your threats. Give me the Imperium. I shall thank you prettily, before I have you summarily executed. Emperor Miles the First. How does it sound? As good as Empress Cavilo?" Miles gave it an intense beat. "
Or,
we could work together. The Vorkosigans have traditionally felt that the substance was better than the name. The power behind the throne, as my father before me—who has held just that power, as Gregor has doubtless told you, for far too long—you're not going to dislodge
him
by batting your eyelashes. He's immune to women. But I know his every weakness. I've thought it through. This could be my big chance, one way or another. By the way—milady—do you care which emperor you wed?"
The time lag allowed him to fully savor her changes of expression, as his plausible calumnies thudded home. Alarm; revulsion; finally, reluctant respect.
"I underestimated you, it seems. Very well . . . Your ships may escort us to safety. Where—clearly—we must confer further."
"I will
transport
you to safety, aboard the
Ariel.
Where we will confer immediately."
Cavilo straightened, nostrils flaring. "No way."
"All right, let's compromise. I will abide by Gregor's orders, and Gregor's orders only. As I said, milady, you'd better get used to this. No Barrayaran will take orders from you directly at first, till you've established yourself. If that's the game you're choosing to play, you'd better start practicing. It only gets more complicated after this. Or, you can choose to resist, in which case I get it all."
Play for time, Cavilo! Bite!
"I'll get Gregor." The vid went to the grey haze of a holding signal.
Miles flung himself back in his station chair, rubbed his neck and rolled his head, trying to relieve his screaming nerves. He was shaking. Mayhew was staring at him in alarm.
"Damn," said Elena in a hushed voice. "If I didn't know you, I'd think you were Mad Yuri's understudy. The look on your face . . . am I reading too much into all that innuendo, or did you in fact just connive to assassinate Gregor in one breath, offer to cuckold him in the next, accuse your father of homosexuality, suggest a patricidal plot against him, and league yourself with Cavilo—what are you going to do for an encore?"
"Depends on the straight lines. I can hardly wait to find out," Miles panted. "Was I convincing?"
"You were
scary.
"
"Good." He wiped his palms on his trousers again. "It's mind-to-mind, between Cavilo and me, before it ever becomes ship-to-ship. . . . She's a compulsive plotter. If I can smoke her, wind her in with words, with what-ifs, with all the bifurcations of her strategy-tree, just long enough to get her eye off the one real
now . . ."
"Signal," Elena warned.
Miles straightened, waited. The next face to form over the vid plate was Gregor's. Gregor, alive and well. Gregor's eyes widened, then his face went very still.
Cavilo hovered behind his shoulder, just slightly out of focus. "Tell him what we want, love."
Miles bowed sitting down, as profoundly as physically possible. "Sire. I present you with the Emperor's Own Dendarii Free Mercenary Fleet. Do with us as You will."
Gregor glanced aside, evidently at some tactical readout analogous to the
Ariel's
own. "By God, you've even got them
with
you. Miles, you are supernatural." The flash of humor was instantly muffled in sere formality. "Thank you, Lord Vorkosigan. I accept your vassal-offering of troops."
"If you would care to step aboard the
Ariel,
sire, you can take personal command of your forces."
Cavilo leaned forward, interrupting. "And
now
his treachery is made plain. Let me play a portion of his last words for you, Greg." Cavilo reached past Gregor to touch a control, and Miles was treated to an instant replay of his breathless sedition, beginning with—naturally—the flim-flam about the named heir, and ending with his offer of himself as a substitute Imperial groom. Very nicely selected, clearly unedited.
Gregor listened with his head in a thoughtful tilt, his face perfectly controlled, as the Miles-image stammered to its damning conclusion. "But does this surprise you, Cavie?" asked Gregor in an innocent tone, taking her hand and looking over his shoulder at her. From the expression on her face,
something
was surprising her. "Lord Vorkosigan's mutations have driven him mad, everyone knows that! He's been sulking around muttering like that for years. Of course, I trust him no further than I can throw him—"
Thanks, Gregor. I'll remember that line.
"—but as long as he feels he can further his interests by furthering ours, he'll be a valuable ally. House Vorkosigan has always been powerful in Barrayaran affairs. His grandfather Count Piotr put my grandfather Emperor Ezar on the throne. They'd make an equally powerful enemy. I should prefer us to rule Barrayar with their cooperation."