Komarr b-11

by Lois McMaster Bujold

  The man who had been introduced as the head of Microbial Reclassification smiled, not entirely gratefully, at Soudha, and turned to the Auditors. "Well, yes. Bacteria are booming. Both our deliberate inoculations, and wild genera. Over the years, every Earth type has been imported, or at any rate, has arrived and escaped. Unfortunately, microbial life has a tendency to adapt to its environment more swiftly than the environment has adapted to us. My department has its hands full, keeping up with the mutations. More light and heat are needed, as always. And, bluntly, my lords, more funding. Although our microflora grow fast, they also die fast, rereleasing their carbon compounds. We need to advance to higher organisms, to sequester the excess carbon for the millennial time-frames required. Perhaps you could address this, Liz?" He nodded toward a pleasantly plump middle-aged lady who had been named head of Carbon Drawdown.

  She smiled happily, by which Miles deduced her department's responsibilities were going well this year. "Yes, my lords. We've a number of higher forms of vegetation coming along both in major test plots, and undergoing genetic development or improvement. By far our greatest success is with the cold– and carbon-dioxide-hardy peat bogs. They do require liquid water, and as always, would do better at higher temperatures. Ideally, they should be sited in subduction zones, for really long-term carbon sequestration, but Serifosa Sector lacks these. So we've chosen low-lying areas which will, as water is released from the poles, eventually be covered with lakes and small seas, locking the captured carbon down under a sedimentary cap. Properly set up, the process will run entirely automatically, without further human intervention. If we could just get the funding to double or triple the area of our plantations in the next few years . . . well, here are my projections." Vorthys collected another data disk. "We've started several test plots of larger plants, to follow atop the bogs. These larger organisms are of course infinitely more controllable than the rapidly mutating microflora. They are ready to scale up to wider plantations right now. But they are even more severely threatened by the reduction in heat and light from the soletta. We really must have a reliable estimate of how long it will take to effect repairs in space before we dare continue our planting plans."

  She gazed longingly at Vorthys, but he merely said, "Thank you, Madame."

  "We plan a flyover of the peat plantations later this afternoon," Vorsoisson told her. She settled back, temporarily content.

  And so it continued around the table: more than Miles had ever wanted to know about Komarran terraforming, interspersed with oblique, and not so oblique, pleas for increased Imperial funding. And heat and light. Power corrupts, but we want energy. Only Accounting and Waste Heat Management had managed to arrive at the meeting with duplicate copies of their pertinent reports for Miles. He stifled an impulse to point this out to somebody. Did he really want another several hundred thousand words of bedtime reading? His newer scars were starting to twinge by the time everyone had had their say, without even yesterday's excuse of the physical stresses of buzzing around wreckage in a pressure suit. He rose from his chair much more stiffly than he had intended; Vorthys made a gesture of a helping hand to his elbow, but at Miles's frown and tiny head shake, suppressed it. He didn't really need a drink, he just wanted one.

  "Ah, Administrator Soudha," Vorthys said, as the Waste Heat department head stepped past them toward the door. "A word, please?"

  Soudha stopped, and smiled faintly. "My Lord Auditor?"

  "Was there some special reason you could not help that young fellow, Farr, find his missing lady?"

  Soudha hesitated. "I beg your pardon?"

  "The fellow who was looking for your former employee, Marie Trogir, I believe he said her name was. Was there some reason you could not help him?"

  "Oh, him. Her. Well, uh . . . that was a difficult thing, there." Soudha looked around, but the room had emptied, except for Vorsoisson and Venier waiting to convey their high-ranking guests on the next leg of their tour.

  "I recommended he file a missing person complaint with Dome Security. They may be making inquiries of you."

  "I … don't think I'll be able to help them any more than I could help Farr. I'm afraid I really don't know where she is. She left, you see. Very suddenly, only a day's notice. It put a hole in my staffing at what has proved to be a difficult time. I wasn't too pleased."

  "So Farr said. I just thought it was odd about the cats. One of my daughters keeps cats. Dreadful little parasites, but she's very fond of them."

  "Cats?" said Soudha, looking increasingly mystified.

  "Trogir apparently left her cats in the keeping of Farr."

  Soudha blinked, but said, "I've always considered it out of line to intrude on my subordinate's personal lives. Men or pets, it was Trogir's business, not mine. As long as they're kept off project time. I … was there anything else?"

  "Not really," said Vorthys.

  "Then if you will excuse me, my Lord Auditor." Soudha smiled again, and ducked away.

  "What was that all about?" Miles asked Vorthys as they turned down the corridor in the opposite direction.

  Vorsoisson answered. "A minor office scandal, unfortunately. One of Soudha's techs—female—ran off with one of his engineers, male. Completely blindsided him, apparently. He's fairly embarrassed about it. However did you run across it?"

  "Young Farr accosted Ekaterin in a restaurant," said Vorthys.

  "He really has been a pest." Vorsoisson sighed. "I don't blame Soudha for avoiding him."

  "I always thought Komarrans were more casual about such things," said Miles. "In the galactic style and all that. Not as casual as the Betans, but still. It sounds like a Barrayaran backcountry elopement." Without, surely, the need to avoid backcountry social pressures, such as homicidal relatives out to defend the clan honor.

  Vorsoisson shrugged. "The cultural contamination between the worlds can't run one way all the time, I suppose."

  The little party continued to the underground garage, where the aircar Vorsoisson had requisitioned was not in evidence. "Wait here, Venier." Swearing under his breath, Vorsoisson went off to see what had happened to it; Vorthys accompanied him.

  The opportunity to interview a Komarran in apparently-casual mode was not to be missed. What kind of Komarran was Venier? Miles turned to him, only to find him speaking first: "Is this your first visit to Komarr, Lord Vorkosigan?"

  "By no means. I've passed through the topside stations many times. I haven't got downside too often, I admit. This is the first time I've been to Serifosa."

  "Have you ever visited Solstice?"

  The planetary capital. "Of course."

  Venier stared at the middle distance, past the concrete pillars and dim lighting, and smiled faintly. "Have you ever visited the Massacre Shrine there?"

  A cheeky damned Komarran, that's what kind. The Solstice Massacre was infamous as the ugliest incident of the Barrayaran conquest. The two hundred Komarran Counselors, the then-ruling senate, had surrendered on terms—and subsequently been gunned down in a gymnasium by Barrayaran security forces. The political consequences had run a short range from dire to disastrous. Miles's smile became a little fixed. "Of course. How could I not?"

  "All Barrayarans should make that pilgrimage. In my opinion."

  "I went with a close friend. To help him burn a death offering for his aunt."

  "A relative of a Martyr is a friend of yours?" Venier's eyes widened in a moment of genuine surprise, in what otherwise felt to Miles to be a highly choreographed conversation. How long had Venier been rehearsing his lines in his head, itching for a chance to try them out?

  "Yes." Miles let his gaze become more directly challenging.

  Venier apparently felt the weight of it, because he shifted uneasily, and said, "As you are your father's son, I'm just a little surprised, is all."

  By what, that I have any Komarran friends? "Especially as I am my father's son, you should not be."

  Venier's brows tweaked up. "Well . . . there is a theory that the massacr
e was ordered by Emperor Ezar without the knowledge of Admiral Vorkosigan. Ezar was certainly ruthless enough."

  "Ruthless enough, yes. Stupid enough, never. It was the Barrayaran expedition's chief Political Officer's own bright idea, for which my father made him pay with his life, not that that did much good for anyone after the fact. Leaving aside every moral consideration, the massacre was a supremely stupid act. My father has been accused of many things, but stupidity has never, I believe, been one of them." His voice was growing dangerously clipped.

  "We'll never know the whole truth, I suppose," said Venier.

  Was that supposed to be a concession? "You can be told the whole truth all day long, but if you won't believe it, then no, I don't suppose you ever will know it." He bared his teeth in a non-smile. No, keep control; why let this Komarran git see he's scored you off?

  The doors of a nearby elevator opened, and Venier abruptly dropped from Miles's attention as Madame Vorsoisson and Nikolai exited. She was wearing the same dull dun outfit she'd sported that morning, and carried a large pile of heavy jackets over her arm. She waved her hand around the jackets and stepped swiftly over to them. "Am I very late?" she asked a bit breathlessly. "Good afternoon, Venier."

  Suppressing the first idiocy that came to his lips, which was, Any time is a good one for you, milady, Miles managed a, "Well, good afternoon, Madame Vorsoisson, Nikolai. I wasn't expecting you. Are you to accompany us?" I hope? "Your husband has just gone off to fetch an aircar."

  "Yes, Uncle Vorthys suggested it would be educational for Nikolai. And I haven't had much chance to see outside the domes myself. I jumped at the invitation." She smiled, and pushed back a strand of dark hair escaping its confinement, and almost dropped her bundle. "I wasn't sure if we were to land anywhere and get outside on foot, but I brought jackets for everyone just in case."

  A large two-compartment sealed aircar hissed around the corner and sighed to the pavement beside them. The front canopy opened, and Vorsoisson clambered out, and greeted his wife and son. The Professor watched from the front seat with some amusement as the question of how to distribute six passengers among the two compartments was taken over by Nikolai, who wanted to sit both by his great-uncle and by his Da.

  "Perhaps Venier could fly us today?" Madame Vorsoisson suggested diffidently.

  Vorsoisson gave her an oddly black look. "I'm perfectly capable."

  Her lips moved, but she uttered no audible protest. Take your pick, my Lord Auditor, Miles thought to himself. Would you rather be chauffeured by a man just possibly suffering the first symptoms of Vorzohn's Dystrophy, or by a Komarran, ah, patriot, with a car full of tempting Barrayaran Vor targets? "I have no preference," he murmured truthfully.

  "I brought coats—" Madame Vorsoisson handed them out. She and her husband and Nikolai had their own; a spare of her husband's did not quite meet around the Professor's middle. The heavily padded jacket she handed Miles had been hers, he could tell immediately by the scent of her, lingering in the lining. He concealed a deep inhalation as he shrugged it on. "Thank you, that will do very well."

  Vorsoisson dove into the rear compartment and came up with a double handful of breath masks, which he distributed. Both he and Venier had their own, with their names engraved on the cheek-pieces; the others wer. all labeled "Visitor": one large, two medium, one small.

  Madame Vorsoisson hung hers over her arm, and bent to adjust Nikolai's, and check its power and oxygen levels. "I already checked it," Vorsoisson told her. His voice hinted a suppressed snarl. "You don't have to do it again."

  "Oh, sorry," she said. But Miles, running through his own check in drilled habit, noticed she finished inspecting it before turning to adjust her own mask. Vorsoisson noticed too, and frowned.

  After a few more moments of Betan-style debate, the group sorted themselves out with Vorsoisson, his son, and the Professor in the front compartment, and Miles, Madame Vorsoisson, and Venier in the rear. Miles was uncertain whether to be glad or sorry with his lot in seatmates. He felt he could have engaged either of them in fascinating, if quite different, conversations, if the other had not been present. They all pulled heir masks down around their necks, out of the way but instantly ready to hand.

  They departed the garage's vehicle-lock without further delay, and the car rose in the air. Venier returned to his initial stiffly professional lecture mode, pointing out bits of project scenery. You could begin to see the terraforming from this modest altitude, in the faint smattering of Earth-green in the damp low places, and a fuzziness of lichen and algae on the rocks. Madame Vorsoisson, her face plastered to the canopy, asked enough intelligent questions of Venier that Miles did not have to strain his tired brain for any, for which he was very grateful.

  "I'm surprised, Madame Vorsoisson, with your interest in botany, that you haven't leaned on your husband for a job in his department," said Miles after a while.

  "Oh," she said, as if this was a new idea to her. "Oh, I couldn't do that."

  "Why not?"

  "Wouldn't it be nepotism? Or some kind of conflict of interest?"

  "Not if you did your job well, which I'm sure you would. After all, the whole Barrayaran Vor system runs on nepotism. It's not a vice for us, it's a lifestyle."

  Venier suppressed an unexpected noise, possibly a snort, and glanced at Miles with increased interest.

  "Why should you be exempt?" Miles continued.

  "It's only a hobby. I don't have nearly enough technical training. I'd need much more chemistry, to start."

  "You could start in a technical assistant position—take evening classes to fill in your gaps. Bootstrap yourself up to something interesting in no time. They have to hire someone." Belatedly, it occurred to Miles that if she, not Vorsoisson, was the carrier of the Vorzohn's Dystrophy, there might be quelling reasons why she had not plunged into such a time– and energy-absorbing challenge. He sensed an elusive energy in her, as if it were tied in knots, locked down, circling back to exhaust itself destroying itself; had fear of her coming illness done that to her? Dammit, which of them was it? He was supposed to be such a hotshot investigator now, he ought to be able to figure this one out.

  Well, he could do so easily; all he had to do was cheat, and call ImpSec Komarr, and request a complete background medical check on his hosts. Just wave his magical Auditor-wand and invade all the privacy he wanted to. No. All this had nothing to do with the accident to the soletta array. As this morning's embarrassment with her comconsole had demonstrated, he needed to start keeping his personal and professional curiosity just as strictly separated as his personal and Imperial funds. Neither a peculator nor a voyeur be. He ought to get a plaque engraved with that motto and hang it on his wall for a reminder. At least money didn't tempt him. He could smell her faint perfume, organic and floral against the plastic and metal and recycled air. . . .

  To Miles's surprise, Venier said, "You really should consider it, Madame Vorsoisson."

  Her expression, which during the flight had gradually become animated, grew reserved again. "I … we'll see. Maybe next year. After … if Tien decides to stay."

  Vorsoisson's voice, over the intercom from the front compartment, interrupted to point out the upcoming peat bog, lining a long narrow valley below. It was a more impressive sight than Miles had expected. For one thing, it was a true and bright Earth-green; for another, it ran on for kilometers.

  "This strain produces six times the oxygen of its Earth ancestor," Venier noted with pride.

  "So … if you were trapped outside without a breath mask, could you crawl around in it and survive till you were rescued?" Miles asked practically.

  "Mm … if you could hold your breath for about a hundred more years."

  Miles began to suspect Venier of concealing a sense of humor beneath that twitchy exterior. In any case, the aircar spiraled down toward a rocky outcrop, and Miles's attention was taken up by their landing site. He'd had unpleasant and deep, so to speak, personal experience with the treachery of arctic b
ogs. But Vorsoisson managed to put the car down with a reassuring crunchy jar on solid rock, and they all adjusted their breath masks. The canopy rose to admit a blast of chill unbreathable outside air, and they exited for a clamber over the rocks and down to personally examine the squishy green plants. They were squishy green plants, all right. There were lots of them. Stretching to the horizon. Lots. Squishy. Green. With an effort, Miles stopped his back-brain from composing a lengthy Report to the Emperor in this style, and tried instead to appreciate Venier's highly technical disquisition on potential deep-freeze damage to the something-chemical cycle.

  After a little more time spent regarding the view—it didn't change, and Nikki, though he sprang around like a flea, with his mother laboring after him, didn't quite manage to fall into the bog—they all reboarded the aircar. After a flyover of a neighboring green valley, and a pass across another dull brown unaltered one for comparison and contrast, they turned for the Serifosa Dome.

  A largish installation featuring its own fusion reactor, and a riot of assorted greens spilling away from it, caught Miles's attention on the leftward horizon. "What's that?" he asked Denier.

  "It's Waste Heat's main experiment station," Venier replied.

  Miles touched the intercom. "Any chance of dropping in for a visit down there?" he called the forward compartment.

  Vorsoisson's voice hesitated. "I'm not sure we could get back to the dome before dark. I don't like to take the chance."