Komarr - Bujold Lois Mcmaster - Страница 72

Away from the docks and locks area, the crowds thinned to an occasional passer-by. The station did not run so much on a day-and-night rhythm, as on a ships in dock, everybody switch, load and unload like mad because time was money, ships out, quiet falls again pattern which did not necessarily match the Solstice-standard time kept throughout Komarr local-space.

Ekaterin turned up a narrow utility corridor she'd discovered earlier which provided a shortcut to the food concourse and her hostel beyond. One of the kiosks baked traditional Barrayaran breads and cannily vented their ovens into the concourse, for advertising; Ekaterin could smell yeast and cardamom and hot brillberry syrup. The combination was redolent of Barrayaran Winterfair, and a wave of homesickness shook her.

Coming down the otherwise-unpeopled corridor toward them along with the aromas was a man, wearing stationer-style dock-worker coveralls. The commercial logo on his left breast read southport transport ltd., done in tilted, speedy-looking letters with little lines shooting off. He carried two large bags crammed with meal-boxes. He stopped short and stared in shock, as did she. It was one of the engineers from Waste Heat Management—Arozzi was his name.

He recognized her at once, too, unfortunately. "Madame Vorsoisson!" And, more weakly, "Imagine meeting you here." He stared around with a frantic, trapped look. "Is the Administrator with you . . . ?"

Ekaterin was just mustering a plan for, I'm sorry, I don't believe I know you? followed by dancing around him blankly, walking away without looking back, turning the corner, and dashing madly for the nearest emergency call box. But Arozzi dropped his bags, dug a stunner out of his pocket, and fumbled it right way round before she'd made it any further than, "I'm sorry—"

"So am I," he said with evident sincerity, and fired.

Ekaterin's eyes opened on a cockeyed view of the corridor ceiling. Her whole body felt like pins and needles, and refused to obey her urgent summons to move. Her tongue felt like a wadded-up sock, stuffed in her mouth.

"Don't make me stun you," Arozzi was pleading with someone. "I will."

"I believe you," came Aunt Vorthys's breathless voice, from just behind Ekaterin's ear. Ekaterin realized she was now aboard the float pallet, half-sitting up against her aunt's chest, her legs hung limply over the rearranged luggage in front of her. The Professora's hand gripped her shoulder. Arozzi, after a desperate look around, set his meal-boxes in her lap, picked up the float pallet's lead, and started off down the corridor as fast as the whining, overburdened pallet would follow.

Help, thought Ekaterin. I'm being kidnapped by a Komarran terrorist. Her cry, as they turned down another corridor and passed a woman in a food service uniform, came out a low moan. The woman barely glanced at them. Not an unusual sight, this, two very jumpsick transients being towed to their connecting ship, or to a hostel, or maybe to the infirmary. Or the morgue . . . Heavy stun, Ekaterin had been given to understand, knocked people out for hours. This must be light stun. Was this a favor? She could not feel her limbs, but she could feel her heart beating, thudding heavily in her chest as adrenaline struggled uselessly with her unresponsive peripheral nervous system.

More turns, more drops, more levels. Was her map cube still in her pocket? They passed out of passenger-country, into more utilitarian levels devoted to freight and ship repair. At last they turned in at a door labeled southport transport, ltd. in the same logo style as on the coveralls, and authorized personnel only in larger red print. Arozzi led them around a turn, through some more airseal doors, and down a ramp into a large loading bay. It smelled cold, all oil and ozone and a sharp sick scent of plastics. They were at the outermost skin of the station, anyway, whatever direction they'd come. She'd seen the Southport logo before, Ekaterin realized; it was one of those minor, shoestring-budgeted local-space shipping companies that eked out a living in the few interstices left by the big Komarran family firms.

A tall, squarely-built man, also in worker's coveralls, trod across the bay toward them, his footsteps echoing. It was Dr. Soudha. "Dinner at last," he began, then he caught sight of the float pallet. "What the hell . . . ? Roz, what is this? Madame Vorsoisson!" He stared at her in astonishment. She stared back at him in muzzy loathing.

"I ran smack into her when I was coming away from the food concourse," explained Arozzi, grounding the float pallet. "I couldn't help it. She recognized me. I couldn't let her run and report, so I stunned her and brought her here."

"Roz, you fool! The last thing we need right now is hostages! She's sure to be missed, and how soon?"

"I didn't have a choice!"

"Who's this other lady?" He gave the Professora a weirdly polite, harried, how-d'you-do nod.

"My name is Helen Vorthys," said the Professora.

"Not Lord Auditor Vorthys's wife—?"

"Yes." Her voice was cold and steady, but as sensation returned Ekaterin could feel the slight tremble in her body.

Soudha swore under his breath.

Ekaterin swallowed, ran her tongue around her mouth, and struggled to sit up. Arozzi rescued his boxes, then belatedly drew his stunner again. A woman, attracted by the raised voices, approached around a stack of equipment. Middle-aged, with frizzy gray-blond hair, she also wore Southport Transport coveralls. Ekaterin recognized Lena Foscol, the accountant.

"Ekaterin," husked Aunt Vorthys, "who are these people? Do you know them?"

Ekaterin said loudly, if a little thickly, "They're the criminals who stole a huge sum of money from the Terraforming Project and murdered Tien."

Foscol, startled, said "What? We did no such thing! He was alive when I left him!"

"Left him chained to a railing with an empty oxygen canister, which you never checked. And then called me to come get him. An hour and a half too late." Ekaterin spat scorn. "An exquisite setup. Madame. Mad Emperor Yuri would have considered it a work of art."

"Oh," Foscol breathed. She looked sick. "Is this true? You're lying. No one would go out-dome with an empty canister!"

"You knew Tien," said Ekaterin. "What do you think?"

Foscol fell silent.

Soudha was pale. "I'm sorry, Madame Vorsoisson. If that was what happened, it was an accident. We intended him to live, I swear to you."

Ekaterin let her lips thin, and said nothing. Sitting up, with her legs swung out to the deck, she was able to get a less dizzying view of the loading bay. It was some thirty meters across and twenty deep, strongly lit, with catwalks and looping power lines running across the ceiling, and a glass-walled control booth on the opposite side from the broad entry ramp down which they'd come. Equipment lay scattered here and there around a huge object dominating the center of the chamber. Its main part seemed to consist of a wriggly trumpet-shaped cone made of some dark, polished substance—metal? glass?—resting in heavily padded clamps on a grounded float cradle. A lot of power connections slotted in at its narrow end. The mouth of the bell was more than twice as tall as Ekaterin. Was this the "secret weapon" Lord Vorkosigan had posited?

And how had they ever got it, and themselves, past the ImpSec manhunt? ImpSec was surely checking every shuttle that left the planetary surface—now, Ekaterin realized. This thing could have been transported weeks ago, before the hunt even started. And ImpSec was probably concentrating its attention on jumpships and their passengers, not on freight tugs trapped in local space. Soudha's conspirators had had years to develop their false ID. They acted as though they owned this place—maybe they did.