Brothers in Arms

What was Galen up to? If he wasn't just ru

His cabin comconsole chimed. Miles sent up a short inarticulate prayer—let it be some break, some chink, some handle—

The comm officer's face appeared. "Sir, I have a call originating from the downside commercial comconsole net. A man who refuses to identify himself says you want to talk to him."

Miles jerked electrically upright. "Trace the call and cut a copy to Captain Thorne in Intelligence. Put it through here."

"Do you want your visual to go out, or just audio?"

"Both."

The comm officer's face faded as another man's appeared, giving an unsettling illusion of transmutation.

"Vorkosigan?" said Galen.

"So?" said Miles.

"I will not repeat myself." Galen spoke low and fast. "I don't give a damn if you're recording or tracing. It's irrelevant. You will meet me in seventy minutes exactly. You will come to the Thames Tidal Barrier, halfway between Towers Six and Seven. You will walk out on the seaward side to the lower lookout. Alone. Then we'll talk. If any condition is not met, we will simply not be there when you arrive. And Ivan Vorpatril will die at 0207."

"You are two. I must be two," Miles began. Ivan?

"Your pretty bodyguard? Very well. Two." The vid blinked blank.

"No—"

Silence.

Miles keyed to Thorne. "Did you get that, Bel?"

"Sure did. Sounded threatening. Who's Ivan?"

"A very important person. Where'd this originate?"

"A tubeway nexus, public comconsole. I have a man on the way who can make it in six minutes. Unfortunately—"

"I know. Six minutes gives a search radius of several million people. I think we'll play it his way. Up to a point. Put a patrol in the air over the Tidal Barrier, file a flight plan for my shuttle downside, have an aircar and Dendarii driver and guard meet it. Tell Bone I want that credit chit now. Tell Qui

He took a deep breath, and keyed open the comm link. "Galeni?" A pause. "Yes?"

"You still confined to quarters?"

"Yes."

"I have an urgent request for information. Where's Ivan, really?"

"As far as I know, he's still at—"

"Check it. Check it fast."

There was a long, long pause, which Miles utilized to recheck his gear, find Lieutenant Bone, and walk to the shuttle hatch corridor. Qui

"What's up now?"

"We have our break. Of sorts. Galen wants a meeting, but—"

"Miles?" Galeni's voice came back at last. It sounded rather strained.

"Yo."

"The private we'd sent to be driver/guard called in about ten minutes ago. He'd spelled Ivan, attending on Milady, while Ivan went to piss. When Ivan didn't come back in twenty minutes, the driver went to look for him. Spent thirty minutes hunting—the Horticulture Hall is huge, and mobbed tonight—before he reported back to us. How did you know?"

"I think I've got hold of the other end. Do you recognize whose style of doing business this is?"

Galeni swore.

"Quite. Look. I don't care how you do it, but I want you to meet me in fifty minutes at the Thames Tidal Barrier, Section Six. Pack at least a stu

"If he has Ivan—"

"He had to bring some card to the table, or he wouldn't come play. We've got one last chance to make it come out right. Not a good chance, just the last one. Are you with me?"

A slight pause. "Yes." The tone was decisive.

"See you there."

Pocketing the link, Miles turned to Elli. "Now we move."

They swung through the shuttle hatch. For once, Miles had no objection to Ptarmigan's habit of taking all downside flights at combat-drop speed.

Chapter Fourteen

The Thames Tidal Barrier, know to local wags as the King Canute Memorial, was a vastly more impressive structure seen from a hundred meters up than it had seemed from the kilometers-high view from the shuttle. The aircar banked, circling. The synthacrete mountain ran away in both directions farther than Miles's eye could follow, whitened into an illusion of marble by the spotlights that knifed through the faintly misty midnight blackness.

Watchtowers every kilometer housed not soldiers guarding the wall but the night shift of engineers and technicians watching over the sluices and pumping stations. To be sure, if the sea ever broke through, it would raze the city more mercilessly than any army.

But the sea was calm this summer night, dotted with colored navigation lights, red, green, white, and the distant moving twinkle of ships' ru

On the other side of the white barrier toward ancient London, all the dirt and grime and broken places were swallowed by the night, leaving only the jewelled illusion of something magic, unmarred and immortal.

Miles pressed his face to the aircar's bubble canopy for a last strategic view of the arena they were about to enter before the car dropped toward the near-empty parking area behind the Barrier. Section Six was peripheral to the main cha

"What's significant about 0207?" Miles wondered aloud. "I have the feeling it should be obvious. It's such an exact time."

Elli the space-born shook her head, but the Dendarii soldier piloting the aircar volunteered, "It's high tide, sir."

"Ah!" said Miles. He sat back, thinking furiously. "How interesting. It suggests two things. They've concealed Ivan around here someplace—and we might do best to concentrate our search below the high waterline. Could they have chained him to a railing down by the rocks or some damn thing?"

"The air patrol could make a pass and check," said Qui

"Yes, have them do that."

The aircar settled into a painted circle on the pavement.

Qui

"Pray it's Captain Galeni," Miles muttered, with a glance at his chrono. Seven minutes remained of his time limit.

It was a man jogging with his dog. The pair stared at the four uniformed Dendarii, and arced nervously around them to the far side of the parking lot before disappearing through the bushes softening the north end. Everybody took their hands off their stu

The soldier checked his infra-red. "Here comes another one."

Not the soft pad of ru