Miles in Love - Lois McMaster Bujold [161]
He walked around it, staring, and came up to where Soudha was being frisked down and restrained. "My goodness. Your wormhole-collapser appears to have met with an accident. But it won't do you any good. We have the plans."
Cappell and a man Miles recognized as the engineer who'd fled from Bollen Design stood nearby, glowering at him; Foscol struggled into earshot, barely controlled by her female arresting officer.
"It wasn't us," sighed Soudha. "It was her."
A jerk of his thumb drew Miles's attention to the inner door of the bay's personnel airlock. A metal bar was placed crookedly across the airseal door's jamb; the ends were melted onto door and wall respectively.
Miles's eyes widened, and his lips parted in breathless anticipation. "Her?"
"The bitch from hell. Or Barrayar, which is almost the same thing to hear her tell it. Madame Vorsoisson."
"Remarkable." The source of several oddly tilted responses on the Komarrans' part to his recent negotiations began at last to come clear to Miles. "Um . . . how?"
All three Komarrans tried to answer him at once, with a medley of blame-casting which included a lot of phrases like, If Madame Radovas hadn't let her out, If you hadn't let Radovas let her out, How was I supposed to know? The old lady looked sick to me. Still does, If you hadn't put the remote down right in front of her, If you hadn't left the damned control booth, If you had just moved faster, If you had run for the float cradle and cut the power, So why didn't you think of that, huh? by which Miles slowly pieced together the most glorious mental picture he'd had all day. All year. For quite a long time, actually.
I'm in love. I'm in love. I just thought I was in love, before. Now I really am. I must, I must, I must have this woman! Mine, mine, mine. Lady Ekaterin Nile Vorvayne Vorsoisson Vorkosigan, yes! She'd left nothing here for ImpSec and all the Emperor's Auditors to do but sweep up the bits. He wanted to roll on the floor and howl with joy, which would be most undiplomatic of him, under the circumstances. He kept his face neutral, and very straight. Somehow, he didn't think the Komarrans appreciated the exquisite delight of it all.
"When we stuffed her in the airlock I welded it shut," said Soudha morosely. "I wasn't going to let her do us a third time."
"Third time?" Miles said. "If that was the second, what was the first?"
"When that idiot Arozzi first brought her down here, she damn near blew the whole thing right then by hitting the emergency alarm."
Miles glanced aside at the alarm on the nearby wall. "And then what happened?"
"We had a sudden influx of station accident control. I thought I'd never get rid of them."
"Ah. I see." How curious. Vorgier never mentioned that part. Later. "You mean we've spent the last five hours scrambling to evacuate this station for nothing?"
Soudha smiled sourly. "You coming to me for sympathy, Barrayaran?"
"Heh. Never mind."
Most of the prisoners were formed up and marched out; with a gesture, Miles ordered Soudha to be held behind.
"Moment of truth, Soudha. Have you booby-trapped this thing?"
"There is a motion-sensitive charge attached to the outer door. Opening it from this side should not set it off."
With iron self-control, Miles watched as an ImpSec tech torched off the metal bar. It fell to the deck with a clang. He paused in one last moment of sick fear.
"What are you waiting for?" asked Soudha curiously.
"Just pondering the depth of your political ingenuity. Suppose this is set to go off and snatch our prize from us at the last."
"Now? Why? It's over," said Soudha.
"Revenge. Manipulation. Maybe you figure to drive me berserk and trigger a repeat of the Solstice Massacre all over again, writ somewhat smaller. That could be a propaganda coup. Whether it would be worth spending your lives for is all in your point of view, of course. Properly massaged,