Komarr b-11

by Lois McMaster Bujold

  "Technically, Gregor owns the planet Sergyar. You might point that out to anyone who theorizes he's marrying Laisa for her money."

  Tuomonen grinned. "Yes, but is Sergyar a liquid asset?"

  "Only in the sense of Imperial funds gurgling down the drain, according to my father. But that's an entire other set of problems. And what do the Barrayaran expatriates around here think of the marriage?"

  "In general, it's favored." Tuomonen smiled dryly into his coffee cup. "Five years ago, my colleagues thought I was cutting my career throat by my own marriage. I'd never get promoted out of Serifosa, they said. Now I am suspected of secret genius, and they've taken to regarding me with wary respect. I think . . . it's best if I be amused."

  "Hen. You are a wise man, Captain." Miles finished off a starchy and gelid square of pasta-and-something, and chased it with the last of his cooling coffee. "So what did Trogir's friends think of Radovas?"

  "Well, he's certainly managed to give a consistent impression of himself. Nice, conscientious guy, didn't make waves, kept to Waste Heat, his elopement a surprise to most. One woman thought it was your math fellow Cappell who was sweet on Trogir, not Radovas."

  "He sounded more sour than sweet to me. Frustrated, perhaps?" Miles's back-brain sketched a nice, straightforward scenario of jealous murder, involving pushing Radovas out an airlock on a trajectory that only just by coincidence matched that of some soletta debris. You can wish. And anyway, it seemed more logical that any homicidal maniac wishing to clear a path to Trogir's side ought to have started with Andro Farr, and what the hell did any of this tragic romance have to do with an ore freighter swinging off course and smashing into the soletta array anyway? Unless the jealous maniac was Andro Farr … the Serifosa Dome police were supposed to be looking into that possibility.

  Tuomonen grunted. "I will say, I got more of a sense of Trogir's personality from the few minutes I spent with Farr than I have from the rest of this crew all morning. I want to talk with him again, I think."

  "I want to go topside, dammit. But whatever the end of the story is, up there, it certainly has to have begun here. Well . . . onward, I guess."

  Soudha supplied Miles with more human sacrifices in the form of employees called back from the experiment station. They all seemed more interested in their work than in office gossip, but perhaps, Miles reflected, that was an observer-effect. By late afternoon, Miles was reduced to amusing himself wandering around the project offices and terrorizing employees by taking over their comconsoles at random and sampling data, and occasionally emitting ambiguous little "Hm …" noises as they watched him in fearful fascination. This lacked even the challenge of dissecting Madame Vorsoisson's comconsole, since the government-issue machines all opened everything immediately to the overrides in his Auditor's seal, regardless of their security classification. He mainly learned that terraforming was an enormous project with a centuries-long scientific and bureaucratic history, and that any individual who attempted to sort clues through sheer mass data assimilation had to be frigging insane.

  Now, delegating that task, on the other hand . . . Who do I hate enough in ImpSec?

  He was still pondering this question as he browsed through the files on Venier's comconsole in the Administrator's outer office. The nervous Venier had fled after about the fourth "Hm," apparently unable to stand the suspense. Tien Vorsoisson, who had intelligently left Miles pretty much to his own devices all day, poked his head around the corner and offered a tentative smile.

  "My Lord Auditor? This is the hour at which I normally go home. Do you wish anything else from me?"

  Departing employees had been trickling past the open doorway for the past several minutes, and office lights had been going out all down the corridor. Miles sat back and stretched. "I don't think so, Administrator. I want to look at a few more files, and talk to Captain Tuomonen. Why don't you go on. Don't wait your dinner." A mental picture of Madame Vorsoisson, moving gracefully about preparing delectable aromatic food for her husband's return, flashed unbidden in his brain. He suppressed it. "I'll be along later to collect my things." Or better yet . . . "Or I may send one of Tuomonen's corporals for them. Give your lady wife my best thanks for the hospitality of her household." There. That finished that. He wouldn't even have to say good-bye to her.

  "Certainly, my Lord Auditor. Do you, ah, expect to be here again tomorrow?"

  "That rather depends on what turns up overnight. Good evening, Administrator."

  "Good evening, my lord." Tien withdrew quietly.

  A few minutes later, Tuomonen wandered in, his hands full of data disks. "Finding anything, my lord?"

  "I got all excited for a moment when I found a personal seal, but it turned out to be just Venier's file of Barrayaran jokes. Some of them are pretty good. Do you want a copy?"

  "Is that the one that starts out: 'ImpSec Officer: What do you mean he got away? Didn't I tell you to cover all the exits?—ImpSec Guard: I did sir! He walked out through one of the entrances.'"

  "Yep. And the next one goes, 'A Cetagandan, a Komarran, and a Barrayaran walked into a genetic counselor's clinic—' "

  Tuomonen grimaced. "I've seen that collection. My mother-in-law sent it to me."

  "Ratting on her disaffected Komarran comrades, was she?"

  "I don't think that was her intent, no. I believe it was more of a personal message." Tuomonen looked around the empty office and sighed. "So, my Lord Auditor. When do we break out the fast-penta?"

  "I've found nothing, here, really." Miles frowned thoughtfully. "I've found too much of nothing here. I may have to sleep on this overnight, let my back-brain play with it. The library analysis may provide some direction. And I certainly want to see Waste Heat's experiment station tomorrow morning, before I go back topside. Ah, Captain, it's tempting. Call out the guards, descend in force, freeze everything, full financial audit, fast-penta everyone in sight . . . turn this place upside down and shake it. But I need a reason."

  "I would need a reason," said Tuomonen. "With full documentation, and my career on the line if I spent that much of ImpSec's budget and guessed wrong. But you, on the other hand, speak with the Emperor's Voice. You could call it a drill." There was no mistaking the envy in his voice.

  "I could call it a quadrille." Miles smiled wryly. "It may come to that."

  "I could call HQ, have them put a flying squad on alert," murmured Tuomonen suggestively.

  "I'll let you know by tomorrow morning," Miles promised.

  "I need to stop by my own office and tend to some routine matters," said Tuomonen. "Would you care to accompany me, my Lord Auditor?"

  So you can guard me at your convenience? "I still want to potter around here a bit. There's something . . . something that's bothering me, and I haven't figured out what it is yet. Though I would like a chance to talk to the Professor on a secured channel before the evening is out."

  "Perhaps, when you're ready to leave, you could call me and I can send one of my men to escort you."

  Miles considered refusing this ingenuous offer, but on the other hand, they could swing by the Vorsoissons' apartment and collect Miles's clothes on the return trip; Tuomonen would have his security, and Miles would have a minion to carry his luggage, a win-win scenario. And having the guard in tow would give Miles an excuse not to linger. "All right."

  Tuomonen, partially satisfied, nodded and took himself off. Miles turned his attention to the next layer of Venier's corn-console. Who knew, maybe there would be another joke list.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Ekaterin finished folding the last of Lord Vorkosigan's clothing into his travel bag, rather more carefully than their owner was wont to, judging from the stirred appearance of the layers beneath. She sealed his toiletries case and fitted it in, then the odd, gel-padded case containing that peculiar medical-looking device. She trusted it wasn't some sort of ImpSec secret weapon.

  Vorkosigan's war story of his Sergeant Beatrice burned in Ekaterin's mind, as the marks on her wrists seemed
to burn. O fortunate man, that his missed grasp had passed in a fraction of a second. What if he had had years to think about it first? Hours to calculate the masses and forces and the true arc of descent? Would it have been cowardice or courage to let go of a comrade he could not possibly have saved, to save himself at least? He'd had a command, he'd had responsibilities to others, too. How much would it have cost you, Captain Vorkosigan, to have opened your hands and deliberately let go?

  She closed the bag and glanced at her chrono. Getting Nikolai settled at his friend's house "for overnight"—that first, before anything else—had taken longer than she'd planned, as had getting the rental company to come collect their grav-bed. Lord Vorkosigan had talked about removing to a hotel this evening, but done nothing toward it. When he returned with Tien, to find no dinner and his bed gone and his bags packed and waiting in the hall, surely he would take the hint and decamp at once. Their good-bye would be formal and permanent, and above all, brief. She was almost out of time and had not even begun on her own things.

  She dragged Vorkosigan's bag to the vestibule and returned her workroom, staring around at the seedlings and cuttings, lights and equipment. It was impossible to pack all that in bag she could carry. Another garden was going to be abandoned. At least they were getting smaller and smaller. She'd once wanted to cultivate her marriage like a garden; one of the legendary great Vor parks that people came from districts away to admire for color and beauty through the changing seasons, the sort that took decades to reach full fruition, growing richer and more complex each year. When all other desires had died, shreds of that ambition still lingered, to tempt her with, If only I try one more time. . . . Her lips twisted in bleak derision. Time to admit she had a black thumb for marriage. Plow it under, surface it with concrete, and be done.

  She began as a minimum gesture to pull her library off the wall and fit it into a box. The urge to cram a few of her things hastily into some shopping bag and flee before Tien returned as strong. But sooner or later, she would have to face him. Because of Nikki, there would have to be negotiations, formal plans, eventually legal petitions, the uncertainty of which made her sick to her stomach. But she had been years coming to this moment. If she could not do this now, when her anger was high, how could she find the strength to face the rest in colder blood?

  She walked through the apartment, staring at the objects of her life. They were few enough; the major furnishings had all come with the place and would stay with the place. Her spasmodic efforts at decoration, at creating some semblance of a Barrayaran home, the hours of work—it was like deciding what to grab in a fire, only slower. Nothing. Let it all burn. The sole awkward exception was her great-aunt's bonsai'd skellytum. It was her one memento of her life before Tien, and it was in the nature of a sacred trust to the dead. Keeping something that foolish and ugly alive for seventy and more years . . . well, it was a typical Vor woman's job. She smiled bitterly, and brought it off the balcony into the kitchen, and began to look around for some way to transit it. At the sound of the hall door opening, she caught her breath, and schooled her features to as little expression as possible.

  "Kat?" Tien ducked into the kitchen and stared around, "Where's dinner?"

  My first question would have been, Where's Nikolai? I wonder how long it will take that thought to come to him. "Where is Lord Vorkosigan?"

  "He stayed on at the office. He'll be along later, he said, to take his things away."

  "Oh." She realized then that some tiny part of her had been hoping to conduct the impending conversation while Vorkosigan was still finishing up in her workroom or something; his presence providing some margin of safety, of social restraint upon Tien. Maybe it was better this way. "Sit down, Tien. I have to talk with you."

  He raised dubious brows, but sat at the head of the table, around to her left. She would have preferred to have him opposite her.

  "I am leaving you tonight."

  "What?" His astonishment appeared genuine. "Why?"

  She hesitated, reluctant to be drawn into argument. "I suppose . . . because I have come to the end of myself." Only now, looking back over the long draining years, did she become aware of how much of her there had been to use up. No wonder it had taken so long. All gone now.

  "Why . . . why now?" At least he didn't say, You must be joking. "I don't understand, Kat." She could see him begin to grope, not toward understanding, but away from it, as far away as possible. "Is it the Vorzohn's Dystrophy? Damn, I knew—"

  "Don't be stupid, Tien. If that was the issue, I'd have left years ago. I took oath to you in sickness and health."

  He frowned and sat back, his brows lowering. "Is there someone else? There's someone else, isn't there!"

  "I'm sure you wish there were. Because then it would be because of them, and not because of you." Her voice was level, utterly flat. Her stomach churned.

  He was obviously shocked, and beginning to shake a little. "This is madness. I don't understand."

  "I have nothing more to say." She began to rise, wishing nothing more than to be gone at once, away from him. You could have done this over the comconsole, you know.

  No. I took my oath in the flesh. I will break it to pieces in the same way.

  He rose with her, and his hand closed over hers, gripping it, stopping her. "There's more to it."

  "You would know more about that than I would, Tien." He hesitated now, beginning, she thought, to be really afraid. This might not be any safer for her. He's never hit me yet, I'll give him that much credit. Part of her almost wished he had. Then there would have been clarity, not this endless muddle. "What do you mean?"

  "Let go of me."

  "No."

  She considered his hand on hers, tight but not grinding. But still much stronger than her own. He was half a head taller and outweighed her by thirty kilos. She did not feel as much physical fear as she had thought she would. She was too numb, perhaps. She raised her face to his. Her voice grew edged. "Let go of me."

  A little to her surprise, he did so, his hand flexing awkwardly. "You have to tell me why. Or I'll believe it's to go to some lover."

  "I no longer care what you believe."

  "Is he Komarran? Some damned Komarran?"

  Goading her in the usual spot, and why not? It had worked before to bring her into line. It half-worked still. She had sworn to herself that she wasn't even going to bring up the subject of Tien's actions and inactions. Complaint was a tacit plea for help, for reform, for … continuation. Complaint was to attempt to shuffle off the responsibility for action onto another. To act was to obliterate the need for complaint. She would act, or not act. She would not whine. Still in that dead-level voice, she said, "I found out about your trade shares, Tien."

  His mouth opened, and shut again. After a moment he said, "I can make it up. I know what went wrong now. I can make the losses up again."

  "I don't think so. Where did you get that forty thousand marks, Tien." Her lack of inflection made it not a question.

  "I …" She could watch it in his face, as he ratcheted over his choice of lies. He settled on a fairly simple one. "Part I saved, part I borrowed. You're not the only one who can scrimp, you know."

  "From Administrator Soudha?"

  He flinched at the name, but said ingenuously, "How did you know?"

  "It doesn't matter, Tien. I'm not going to turn you in." She stared at him in weariness. "I take no part in you anymore."

  He paced, agitated, back and forth across the kitchen, his face working. "I did it for you," he said at last.

  Yes. Now he will attempt to make me feel guilty. All my fault. It was as familiar as the steps of some well-practiced, poisonous dance. She watched silently.

  "All for you. You wanted money. I worked my tail off, but it was never enough for you, was it?" His voice rose, as he tried to lash himself into a relieving, self-righteous anger. It fell a little flat to her experienced ear. "You pushed me into taking a chance, with your endless nagging and worrying. So it di
dn't work, and now you want to punish me, is that it? You'd have been quick enough to make up to me if it had paid off."

  He was very good at this, she had to admit, his accusations echoing her own dark doubts. She listened to his patterned litany with a sort of detached appreciation, like a torture victim, gone beyond pain unbeknownst, admiring the color of her own blood. Now he will attempt to make me feel sorry for him. But I'm done feeling sorry. I'm done feeling anything.

  "Money money money, is that what this is all about? What is it that you want to buy so damned much, Kat?"

  Your health, as you may recall. And Nikki's future. And mine.

  As he paced, sputtering, his eye fell on the bright red skellytum, sitting in its basin on the kitchen table. "You don't love me. You only love yourself. Selfish, Kat! You love your damned potted plants more than you love me. Here, I'll prove it to you."

  He snatched up the pot and pressed the control for the door to the balcony. It opened a little too slowly for his dramatic timing, but he strode through nonetheless, and whirled to face her. "Which shall it be to go over the railing, Kat? Your precious plant, or me? Choose!"

  She neither spoke nor moved. Now he will attempt to terrify me with suicide gestures. This made, what, the fourth time around for that ploy? His trump card, which had always before ended the game in his favor.

  He brandished the skellytum high. "Me, or it?" He watched her face, waiting for her to break. An almost clinical curiosity prompted her to say You, just to see how he would wriggle out of his challenge, but she kept silent still. When she did not speak, he hesitated in confusion for a moment, then launched the ancient absurd thing over the side.

  Five floors up. She counted the seconds in her head, waiting for the crash from below. It came as more of a distant, sodden thump, mixed with the crack of exploding pottery.

  "You ass, Tien. You didn't even look to see if there was anyone below."