Brothers in Arms

"What about Ivan?" asked Captain Galeni softly.

"I have as little use for Vorkosigan's nephew as I have for his son," said Galen. "They can skip down to hell hand in hand." His head turned to the clone and he added, "Begin!"

Mark swallowed, and raised the weapon in a two-handed firing stance. "But—what about the credit chit?"

"There is no credit chit. Can't you spot a lie when you hear it, fool?"

Miles raised his wrist comm, and spoke distinctly into it. "Elli, do you have all this?"

"Recorded and transmitted to Captain Thorne in I.Q.," Qui

"Not yet." He let his hand fall, stood straight, met Galen's furious eyes and clenched teeth; "As I said. End plot. Let's discuss alternatives."

Mark had lowered the nerve disrupter, his face dismayed.

"Alternatives? Revenge will do!" hissed Galen. "Fire!"

"But—" said the clone, agitated.

"As of this moment, you're a free man." Miles spoke low and fast. "He bought and paid for you, but he doesn't own you. But if you loll for him, he'll own you forever. Forever and ever."

Not necessarily, spoke Galeni's silent quirk of the lips, but he did not interfere with Miles's pitch.

"You must kill your enemies," snarled Galen.

Mark's hand and aim sagged, his mouth opening in protest.

"Now, dammit!" yelled Galen, and made to grab back the nerve disrupter.

Galeni stepped in front of Miles. Miles scrabbled in his jacket for his second stu

To see Galen crumple, convulsing, back arching in a bone-cracking twist, face writhing—and slump in death.

"Kill your enemies," breathed Mark, his face white as paper. "Right. Ah!" he added, raising the weapon again as Miles started forward, "Stop right there!"

A hiss at Miles's feet—he glanced down to see a thin layer of foam wash past his boots, lose momentum, and recede. In a moment, another. The tide was rising over the ledge. The tide was rising—

"Where's Ivan?" Miles demanded, his hand clenching on his stu

"If you fire that you'll never know," said Mark.

His eye hurried nervously, from Miles to Galeni, from Galen's body at his feet to the weapon in his own hand, as if they all added up to some impossibly incorrect sum. His breath was shallow and panicky, his knuckles, wrapped around the nerve disrupter, bone-pale. Galeni was standing very, very still, head cocked, looking down at what lay there, or inward; he did not seem to be conscious of the weapon or its wielder at all.

"Fine," said Miles. "You help us and we'll help you. Take us to Ivan."

Mark backed toward the wall, not lowering the nerve disrupter. "I don't believe you."

"Where are you going to run to? You can't go back to the Komarrans. There's a Barrayaran hit squad with murder on its collective mind breathing down your neck. You can't go to the local authorities for protection; you have a body to explain. I'm your only chance."

Mark looked at the body, at the nerve disrupter, at Miles.

The soft whirr of a rappel spool unwinding was barely audible over the hiss of the sea foam underfoot. Miles glanced up. Qui

Mark kicked open the hatch and stumbled backwards into it. "You hunt for Ivan. He's not far. I don't have a body to explain—you do. The murder weapon has your fingerprints on it!" He flung down the nerve disrupter and slammed the hatch closed.

Miles leapt for the door, fingers scrabbling, but it was already sealed—he came close to snapping some more finger bones. The slide and clank of a locking mechanism designed to defy the force of the sea itself came muffled through the hatch. Miles hissed through his teeth.

"Should I blow it open?" gasped Qui

"Y—good God, no!" The discoloration on the wall marking high water was a good two meters higher than the top of the hatch. "We might drown London. Try to get it open without damaging it. Captain Galeni!" Miles turned. Galeni had not moved. "You in shock?"

"Hm? No … no, I don't think so." Galeni came out of himself with an effort. He added in a strangely calm, reflective tone, "Later, perhaps."

Qui

Miles reached around and pulled the rappeling harness off Qui

Galeni nodded and hooked up the rappeling harness.

Miles held out stu

"Stu

With pleasure, Miles added for him silently. He nodded. They had both been through Barrayaran basic unarmed combat school. Three fourths of the moves were barred to Miles in a real fight at full force due to the secret weakness of his bones; the same was not true of Galeni. Galeni ascended into the night air, bounding up the wall on the almost-invisible thread as readily as a spider.

"Got it!" cried Qui

Miles yanked his handlight out of his belt and hopped through. He glanced back at Galen's grey-faced body, lapped by foam, released from obsession and pain. There was no mistaking the stillness of death for the stillness of sleep or anything else; it was the absolute. The nerve-disruptor beam must have hit his head square on. Qui

They both scrambled up the corridor. A mere five meters farther on they came to their first check, a T-intersection. This main corridor was lighted, and curved away out of sight in both directions.

"You go left, I'll go right," said Miles.

"You shouldn't be alone," Qui

"Maybe I should be twins, eh? Go, dammit!"

Qui

Miles sprinted in the other direction. His footsteps echoed eerily in the corridor, deep in the synthacrete mountain. He paused a moment, listened; heard only Qui

He keyed open his wrist comm. "Qui

He stepped into the lift tube and rose. Oh, God, which level had Mark got off at? The third floor he passed opened out onto a glass-walled, lobby-looking area, with doors and the night beyond. Clearly an exit. Miles swung out of the lift tube.

A total stranger, wearing civilian jacket and pants, whirled at the sound of his footstep and dropped to one knee. The silver flash of a parabolic mirror twinkled in his raised hands, a nerve-disruptor muzzle. "There he is!" the man cried, and fired.