Miles Errant - Lois McMaster Bujold [158]
"I trust she has a sense of humor. Well, what's a little character assassination among friends?"
"Better than the real thing."
"Urgh. Anyway, I don't have my flask. Are we ready?"
"I guess. No, hold it—" Another aircar was dropping down. Civilian, but the police guard at the main tower entrance went to meet it. An older man got out, and they hurried back to the tower together. "Now."
Ivan took Quinn's shoulders and Mark took her feet. Miles stepped carefully over the stunned body of the policeman who had been guarding this exit, and they all double-timed it across the pavement toward cover.
"God, Miles," panted Ivan as they paused in the greenery to scan the next leg, "why don't you go in for little petite women? It'd make more sense . . ."
"Now, now. She only weighs about double a full field pack. You can make it." No shouting from behind, no hurrying pursuers. The area closest to the tower was actually probably the safest. It would have been scanned and swept before now, and pronounced clean of intruders. Police attention would be concentrated at the park's border. Which they would have to cross, to reach the city and escape.
Miles stared into the shadows. With all the artificial lighting about, his eyes were not dark-adapting as well as he'd like.
Ivan stared too. "I can't spot any coppers in the bushes," he muttered.
"I'm not looking for police," Miles whispered back.
"What, then?"
"Mark said a man wearing face paint fired at him. Have you seen anybody wearing face paint yet?"
"Ah . . . maybe the police nabbed him first, before we saw the others." But Ivan looked over his shoulder.
"Maybe. Mark—what color was the face? What pattern?"
"Mostly blue. With white and yellow and black kind of swirling slashes. A ghem-lord of middle rank, right?"
"A century-captain. If you were supposed to be me you should be able to read ghem-markings forward and backward."
"There was so much to learn. . . ."
"Anyway, Ivan—do you really want to just assume a century-captain, highly trained, sent from headquarters, formally sworn to his hunt, really let some London constable sneak up and stun him? The others were just ordinary soldiers. The Cetagandans will bail 'em out later. A ghem-lord'd die before he'd let himself be so embarrassed. He'll be a persistent bugger, too."
Ivan rolled his eyes. "Wonderful."
They wound through a couple hundred meters of trees, shrubbery and shadows. The hiss and hum of traffic on the main coastal highway came faintly now. The pedestrian underpasses were doubtless guarded. The high-speed highway was fenced and strictly forbidden to foot traffic.
A synthacrete kiosk cloaked with bushes and vines hopeful of concealing its blunt utility squatted near the main path to the pedestrian underpass. At first Miles took it for a public latrine, but a closer look revealed only one blank locked door. The spotlights that should have illuminated that side were knocked out. As Miles watched, the door began to slide slowly aside. A weapon in a pale hand glittered faintly in the blackness. Miles aimed his stunner and held his breath. The dark shape of a man slipped out.
Miles exhaled. "Captain Galeni!" he hissed.
Galeni jerked as though shot, crouched, and scurried toward them, joining them in their concealment on hands and knees. He swore under his breath, discovering, as Miles had, that this grouping of ornamental shrubs had thorns. His eyes took instant inventory of the ragged little group, Miles and Mark, Ivan and Elli. "I'll be damned. You're still alive."
"I'd sort of been wondering about you, too," Miles admitted.
Galeni looked—Galeni looked bizarre, Miles decided. Gone was the blank witnessing stillness that had absorbed Ser Galen's death without comment. He was almost grinning, electric with a slightly off-center exhilaration, as if he'd overdone some stimulant drug. He was breathing heavily; his face was bruised, mouth