Miles Errant - Lois McMaster Bujold [141]
"All right," said Miles to Elli, "this is where we split off. Stay back and out of sight at all costs, but if you can find a vantage, good. Wrist comm open?"
Elli keyed her wrist comm. Miles pulled his boot knife and used the point to disengage and extinguish the tiny transmit-indicator light in his own wrist comm, then blew into it; the hiss of it whispered from Elli's wrist. "Sending fine," she confirmed.
"Got your med scanner?"
She displayed it.
"Take a baseline."
She pointed it at him, waved it up and down. "Recorded and ready for auto-comparison."
"Can you think of anything else?"
She shook her head, but still didn't look happy. "What do I do if he comes walking back and you don't?"
"Grab him, fast-penta him—got your interrogation kit?"
She flashed open her jacket; a small brown case peeped from an inner pocket.
"Rescue Ivan if you can. Then," Miles took a deep breath, "you can blow the clone's head off or whatever you choose."
"What happened to 'my brother right or wrong'?" said Elli.
Galeni, coming up in the middle of this, cocked his head with interest to hear the answer to that one, but Miles only shook his head. He couldn't think of a simple answer.
"Three minutes left," said Miles to Galeni. "We better move."
They headed up a walk that led to a set of stairs, stepping over the chain that marked them as closed for the night to law-abiding citizens. The stairs climbed the back side of the tidal barrier to a public promenade that ran along the top to allow sightseers a view of the ocean in the daytime. Galeni, who had evidently been moving at speed, was breathing deeply even as they began their climb.
"Have any trouble getting out of the embassy?" asked Miles.
"Not really," said Galeni. "As you know, the trick is getting back in. I think you demonstrated simplest is best. I just walked out the side entrance and took the nearest tubeway. Fortunately, the duty guard had no orders to shoot me."
"Did you know that in advance?"
"No."
"Then Destang knows you left."
"He will know, certainly."
"Think you were followed?" Miles glanced involuntarily over his shoulder. He could see the parking lot and aircar below; Elli and the two soldiers had vanished from view, seeking their vantage no doubt.
"Not immediately. Embassy security," Galeni's teeth flashed in the shadows, "is undermanned at present. I left my wristcomm, and bought cash tokens for the tubeway instead of using my passcard, so they have nothing quick to trace me by."
They panted to the top; the damp air moved cool against Miles's face, smelling of river slime and sea salt, a faintly decayed estuarial tang. Miles crossed the wide promenade and peered down over the railing at the synthacrete outer face of the dike. A narrow railed ledge ran along some twenty meters below, vanishing away out of sight to the right along an outcurving bulge in the Barrier. Not part of the public area; it was reached by keyed extension ladders at intervals along the railing, all folded up and locked for the night of course. They could fuss with trying to break open and decode one of the locked ladder controls—time-consuming, and likely to light up the alarm board of some night-shift supervisor in one of the distant watchtowers—or go down the fast way.
Miles sighed under his breath. Rappelling high over rock-hard surfaces was one of his all-time least favorite activities. He fished the drop-wire spool from its own little pocket on his Dendarii jacket, attached the gravitic grappler carefully and firmly to the railing, and doublechecked it. At a touch, handles telescoped out from the sides of the spool and released the wide ribbon-harness that always looked horribly flimsy despite its phenomenal tensile strength. Miles threaded it round himself, clipped it tight, hopped over the rail, and danced down the wall backwards, not looking down. By the time he reached the bottom his adrenaline was pumping nicely, thank you.
He sent the spool winding itself back up to Galeni, who repeated Miles's performance. Galeni offered no comment about his