Young Miles - Lois McMaster Bujold [285]
"He acted like I was unarmed." Elena shook her head in exasperation, and slipped the hypospray into her jacket pocket.
"Now what?" Miles hissed frantically as the guard-corporal bent over the door's code-lock.
"We all go to the brig, I guess. Tung's there," said Elena.
"Ah . . ." Oh-hell-we'll-never-bring-this-off. Had to try. Miles smiled cheerily at the entering guards, and helped them release Metzov, largely getting in their way and keeping their attention off the peculiarly happy-looking Oser. At a moment when their eyes were elsewhere, he tripped Metzov, who staggered.
"You'd better each take one of his arms, he's not too steady," Miles told the guards. He was none too steady himself, but he managed to block the doorway so the guards and Metzov led the way, himself second, and Elena, arm-in-arm with Oser, followed last. "Come, love, come," he heard Elena intone behind him, like a woman coaxing a cat to her lap.
It was the longest short walk he'd ever taken. He dropped back to growl out of the corner of his mouth to Elena, "All right, we get to the brig, it will be stocked with Oser's finest. What then?"
She bit her lip. "Don't know."
"That's what I was afraid of. Turn right here." They swung around the next corner.
A guard looked back over his shoulder. "Sir?"
"Carry on, boys," Miles called. "When you've got that spy locked up, report back to us at the admiral's cabin."
"Very good, sir."
"Keep walking," breathed Miles. "Keep smiling. . . ."
The guards' footsteps faded. "Where now?" asked Elena. Oser stumbled. "This is untenable."
"Admiral's cabin, why not?" Miles decided. His grin was fixed and fey. Elena's inspired mutinous gesture had given him the best break of the day. He had the momentum now. He wouldn't stop till he was brought down bodily. His head spun with the unutterable relief of at last getting the shifting, writhing, cluttering might-be-might-be-might-be nailed to a fixed is. The time is now. The word is go.
Maybe. If.
They passed a few Oseran techs. Oser was sort of nodding, Miles hoped it would pass as casual acknowledgment of their salutes. Nobody turned and cried Hey! anyway. Two levels and another turn brought them to the well-remembered corridors of officer's country. They passed the captain's cabin (God, he'd have to deal with Auson, and soon); Oser's palm, pressed by Elena against the lock, admitted them to the quarters Oser had made his flag office. When the door slipped shut behind them Miles realized he'd been holding his breath.
"We're in it now," said Elena, sagging for a moment with her back to the door. "You going to run out on us again?"
"Not this time," Miles replied grimly. "You may have noticed one item I didn't bring up for discussion, down in sickbay."
"Gregor."
"Just so. Cavilo holds him hostage aboard her flagship right now."
Elena's neck bent in dismay. "She means to sell him to the Cetagandans for a bonus, then?"
"No. Weirder than that. She means to marry him."
Elena's lip curled in astonishment. "What? Miles, there's no way she could have got such an impossible notion in her head, unless—"
"Unless Gregor planted it. Which, I believe, he did. Watered and fertilized it, too. What I don't know is whether he was serious, or playing for time. She was very careful to keep us separated. You knew Gregor almost as well as I do. What do you think?"
"It's hard to imagine Gregor love-struck to idiocy. He was always . . . rather quiet. Almost, well, undersexed. Compared to, say, Ivan."
"I'm not sure that's a fair comparison."
"No, you're right. Well, compared to you, then."
Miles wondered just how to take that. "Gregor never had much in the way of opportunities, when we were younger. I mean, no privacy. Security always in his back pocket. That . . . that can inhibit a man, unless he's a bit of an exhibitionist."
Her hand turned, as if measuring