s [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

"Gone with Lord Vorkosigan, miss."
"Jankowski?"
"Him, too."
"Anyone?"
"All the rest are gone with m'lord and m'lady."
"Damn! What about Roic?"
"He's sleeping, Miss."
"Fetch him down here."
"He won't like being waked up off-duty, miss..." the maid said nervously.
"Fetch him!"
Reluctantly, the maid started to drag herself out.
"Muno," said Gustioz, who'd watched this by-play with growing unease, "now."
He gestured at Enrique.
"Yes, sir." Muno gripped Enrique by the elbow.
Martya grabbed Enrique's other arm. "No! Wait! You can't take him!"
Gustioz frowned at the retreating maid. "Let's go, Muno."
Muno pulled. Martya pulled back. Enrique cried, "Ow!" Kareen grabbed the first
weaponlike object that came to her hand, a metal meter stick, and circled in.
Gustioz tucked his folder of flimsies up under his arm and reached to detach
Martya.
"Hurry!" Kareen screeched at the maid, and tried to trip Muno by thrusting the
meter stick between his knees. The whole mob was circling around the
stretching Enrique as the pivot-point, and she succeeded. Muno released
Enrique, who fell toward Martya and Gustioz. In a wild attempt to regain his
balance, Muno's hand came down hard on the corner of the bug hutch peeping
over the lab bench.
The stainless steel box flipped into the air. One-hundred-ninety-two
astonished brown-and-silver butter bugs were launched in a vast chittering
madly fluttering trajectory out over the lab. Since butter bugs had the
aerodynamic capacity of tiny bricks, they rained down upon the struggling
humans, and crunch-squished underfoot. The hutch clanged to the floor, along
with Muno.
Gustioz, attempting to shield himself from this unexpected air assault, lost
his grip on his folder; colorfully-stamped documents joined butter bugs in
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fluttering flight. Enrique howled like a man possessed. Muno just screamed,
frantically batted bugs off himself, and tried to climb up on the lab stool.
"Now see what you've done!" Kareen yelled at the Escobaran officers.
"Vandalism! Assault! Destruction of property!
Destruction of a
Vor lord's property, on Barrayar itself! Are you in trouble now!"
"Ack!" cried Enrique, trying to stand on tiptoe to reduce the carnage below.
"My girls! My poor girls! Watch where you put your feet
, you mindless murderers!"
The queen, who due to her weight had had a shorter trajectory, scuttled away
under the lab bench.
"What are those horrible things?" yipped Muno, from his perch on the teetering
stool.
"Poison bugs," Martya informed him venomously. "New Barrayaran secret weapon.
Everywhere they touch you, your flesh will swell up, turn black, and fall
off." She made a valiant attempt to introduce a chittering bug down Muno's
trousers or collar, but he fended her off.
"They are not!" Enrique denied indignantly, from tiptoe.
Gustioz was down on the floor furiously gathering up flimsies and trying not
to touch or be touched by the scattering butter bugs. When he rose, his face
was scarlet. "Sergeant!" he bellowed. "Get down from there! Seize the
prisoner! We leave at once
."
Muno, overcoming his startlement and a little sheepish to be discovered in
high retreat by his comrade, stepped carefully off the stool and grabbed
Enrique in a more professional come-along style. He bundled Enrique out the
lab door as Gustioz scooped up the last of his flimsies and jammed them back
any-which-way into his folder.
"What about my one bag?" wailed Enrique, as Muno began to march him down the
hall.
"I will buy you a damned toothbrush at the shuttleport," panted Gustioz,
scrambling after. "And a change of underwear. I will buy them from my own
pocket. Anything, but out, out!"
Kareen and her sister both hit the door at once, and had to sort themselves
out. They stumbled into the corridor as their future biotech fortune was
dragged away down it, still protesting that butter bugs were harmless and
beneficial symbiotes. "We can't let him get away!" cried Martya.
A stack of bug butter tubs tumbled over on Kareen as she regained her balance,
thumping off her head and shoulders and thudding to the floor. "Ow!" She
caught a couple of the kilogram-plus cartons, and stared after the retreating
men. She zeroed in on the back of Gustioz's head, hoisted a tub in her right
hand, and drew back. Martya, fending off cascading tubs from the other wall,
stared at her with widening eyes, nodded understanding, and took a similar
grip on a missile of her own.
"Ready," gasped Kareen, "Aim - "
CHAPTER NINETEEN
It didn't take ImpSec less than two minutes to arrive at Lord Auditor
Vorthys's residence; it took them almost four minutes.
Ekaterin, who'd heard the front door open, wondered if it would be considered
rude of her to point this out to the stern-featured young captain who mounted
the stairs, followed by a husky and humorless-looking sergeant. No matter:
Vassily, watched by an increasingly irritated Hugo, was still calling
blandishments and imprecations in vain through the locked door. A long silence
had fallen in the room beyond.
Both men turned and stared in shock at these new arrivals. "Who did he call
?" muttered Vassily.
The ImpSec officer ignored them both, and turned to give a polite salute to
Aunt Vorthys, whose eyes widened only briefly.
"Madame Professora Vorthys." He extended his nod to Ekaterin. "Madame
Vorsoisson. Please forgive this intrusion. I was informed there was an
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altercation here. My Imperial master requests and requires me to detain all
present."
"I believe I understand, Captain, ah, Sphaleros, isn't it?" said Aunt Vorthys
faintly.
"Yes, ma'am." He ducked his head at her, and turned to Hugo and Vassily.
"Identify yourselves, please."
Hugo found his voice first. "My name is Hugo Vorvayne. I'm this lady's elder
brother." He gestured at Ekaterin.
Vassily came automatically to attention, his gaze riveted to the ImpSec Horus
eyes on the captain's collar. "Lieutenant Vassily
Vorsoisson. Presently assigned to OrbTrafCon, Fort Kithera River. I am Nikki
Vorsoisson's guardian. Captain, I'm very sorry, but
I'm afraid you've had some sort of false alarm."
Hugo put in uneasily, "It was very wrong of him, I'm sure, but it was only a
nine-year-old boy, sir, who was upset about a domestic matter. Not a real
emergency. We'll make him apologize."
"That's not my affair, sir. I have my orders." He turned to the door, pulled a
small slip of flimsy from his sleeve, glanced at a hastily scrawled note [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]