Cryoburn

by Lois M. Bujold

  Vorlynkin's face was all washed, and Nefertiti's claw marks were now three thin red lines beneath a shiny layer of transparent plastic bandage. There was a lot of drying blood soaked on his shirt collar, though, and spattered elsewhere on his clothes, and Jin cringed in guilt for his new pet.

  "You will have some magnificent bruises," Raven-sensei continued.

  "A crowbar will do that. I'm lucky I didn't get my face bashed in."

  "Vorlynkin-san found more ninjas," Mina confided to Jin. "They had a fight. Vorlynkin-san won."

  Vorlynkin looked over and smiled rather ruefully at her. "Fortunately for me, not ninjas. They were just a couple of borrowed thugs from the local chapter of the N.H.L.L. Finally trying to carry out their slogan, I suppose."

  "I thought they were all arrested after the conference kidnappings," said Raven-sensei.

  "That was an especially radical splinter group, apparently. Their organization is not very unified at the best of times, I gather." Vorlynkin added to Jin, "I found the pair of them around the far end of the next building over from your hideout, trying to pry the door open and get down into the tunnels with more fire-starter. If they'd succeeded it would have been a major mess."

  Raven-sensei's eyebrows lifted. "Would the arsonists even have gotten themselves out alive?"

  "Hard to say. It seems awfully easy to get turned around down there. But the department was able to get the fire in the exchanger building under control quickly, once I'd told them it was asterzine. Ugly product, asterzine. You don't want to put water on it, and it would have been a horrible surprise for the firefighters if they had. You can believe they'll be going after the N.H.L.L. in the morning."

  Jin's brow wrinkled. "Why a crowbar? The door around the next side after that is always left unlocked."

  Vorlynkin blinked, then laughed, then winced, touching his scratched face. "Just as well that none of us knew that, I suppose. After I confiscated the crowbar, I was able to hold them till the police arrived. Some of the firemen were more than eager to help. The pair fingered the NewEgypt security guards as having engaged them, evidently just to create a diversion for Dr. Leiber's re-kidnapping, though I gather that some of the Liberators grew over-eager and exceeded their instructions. But it should lead back nicely to the senior men Lord Auditor Vorkosigan wished to target."

  Their mother rubbed her forehead, frown-lines deepening around her eyes. "If they don't manage to suppress it all, again."

  "Not this time, I suspect," said Vorlynkin, smiling at her in reassurance.

  "Where's Nefertiti?" asked Jin in sudden alarm.

  Mina pointed at the desk built into the far wall, along with a lot of cupboards. From the shadows beneath came a mumbling sort of growl. "She's hiding. Maybe you can get her to come out after she calms down. I tried some food, but I don't think she's hungry right now."

  Raven-sensei stepped around the tables to smile at Jin, peer into his eyes, thumb back his eyelids, and feel his pulse. "Headache? Nausea?"

  "Not really." Jin felt down his tingling face to find a strip of plastic bandage across his neck.

  "Just a nick," Raven-sensei assured him.

  "My face is a little numb."

  "That's normal. It'll pass in another hour. If it doesn't, let me know." Raven-sensei paused and cleared his throat. "Lord Vorkosigan said to tell you when you woke up, those few minutes of delay you and Mina caused with those NewEgypt thugs made all the difference to us. The rescue party, as it turned out."

  "Oh," said Mina, sounding pleased.

  Raven-sensei nodded. "If they'd hustled you out of the building before we arrived, he said, it would have been a long stern chase-one of his military turns of phrase, that-meaning, we'd have had a hell of a time catching up with you. Although I imagine he would have, somehow. He, ah . . . ​tends to be persistent."

  For the first time, Jin sat all the way up. In the glass booth next to his mother's, the two big NewEgypt guys were penned, and Jin flinched in fear, till he saw that Hans was still out cold on the floor, and Oki was sitting with his hands fastened behind his back and his shoulders slumped, not paying attention to anything.

  Jin pictured it-all of them dragged away in some windowless van to who-knew-where, and Mom taken away again . . .  He gulped, which made the bandage tug on his skin. His desperate struggle with those big men hadn't seemed to do much good at the time, had seemed utterly futile in fact, but maybe . . . ​

  Miles-san himself blew in then, his step brisk, with Armsman Roic in tow. Oki still didn't look up, and Jin was reminded that you couldn't hear anything in those booths.

  "Ah," said Roic, smiling at Jin and giving him a friendly wave. "You're awake. Good."

  Jin scowled back, not quite able to get that new picture out of his mind's eye of Roic looking through him like he wasn't there while he aimed the stunner. Roic's face fell, a little, though he then tried his smile on Mina to better effect. Was it all a fake, that smile? Which was the real Roic, the big smiling man or that cold, intent, scary one?

  "You're all here, excellent," said Miles-san to the room at large. He hopped up on a chair like a teacher about to give a lecture, commanding everyone's attention, and making himself quite as tall as Roic. It should have looked silly, and Jin wasn't sure why it didn't.

  "The Northbridge police will be here in minutes to start recording statements, and to take delivery of our NewEgypt guests," Miles-san went on, with a wave at the jail-booth. "We should be getting a couple of sleepy lawyers by then, too. Madame Xia has categorically insisted she has no expertise in criminal law, but we've woken up a couple of associates from her firm's criminal department. We'll have the senior partner in later today, when we're all back at the consulate and have rested up a bit."

  Jin's mother stiffened. "We never had good luck with lawyers before."

  "This time, they'll be on your side," Miles-san promised. "Meanwhile, Raven, Dr. Leiber, Consul Vorlynkin, we have just time to get our stories straight."

  Raven-sensei looked interested, Leiber-sensei alarmed, and Consul Vorlynkin resigned.

  Miles-san went on, "This whole chain of events is too complex and interlocking to adjust much, but on the whole I'd prefer to be less prominent in it, for reasons having to do with the other half of my investigations on Kibou. Which do not concern and should not impinge on your affairs, Madame Sato, so don't be alarmed. Fortunately, Raven and Dr. Leiber, here, are well positioned to be the local heroes."

  Raven-sensei's brows rose. Leiber's stare at Miles-san grew glumly suspicious.

  "Short version is, when Raven and I visited you that first day, Dr. Leiber, it was because Raven was head-hunting a top cryo-preservatives chemist for the Durona Group's proposed new expansion to this Northbridge facility. Which is a position you will in fact be offered, by the way, assuming we can keep you out of jail."

  "Oh!" said Leiber-sensei, sitting up, his sudden smile surprised but gratified.

  "At that time, Dr. Leiber explained his renewed plans to blow the whistle on NewEgypt for the decomposed cryo-solution and commodified contracts scandal, and that he had abstracted Madame Sato's cryo-corpse to assure her safety as a future witness. Seizing his opportunity, he engaged Dr. Durona to revive her, as part of his price for employment, and Dr. Durona, anxious to secure his services, agreed."

  "And carried her stolen cryochamber off to my secret laboratory on the spot?" inquired Raven-sensei, a bit dryly.

  "Precisely." Miles-san smiled cheerfully at him. "Though let's not use the term stolen in your statements, should the issue arise. Rescued would be all right, or secured."

  Raven-sensei waved assent. "And then what?"

  "Dr. Leiber's attempt to leave Kibou for Escobar was a feint, to draw NewEgypt off, and out, till Madame Sato was revived and ready to testify. Unfortunately, it worked a little too well. But his rescue by Roic, at Raven's request, was allowed by me as a nepotistic favor to my brother's company.

  "I was along for the ride tonight merely t
o keep an eye on Mark, whose movements are of on-going interest to Barrayaran Imperial Security for purely Barrayaran political reasons. Which also happens to be true, by the way. Having concluded that there is no current threat to the Imperium from Mark's new enterprise, I shall be withdrawing from Kibou-daini shortly to tend to my own urgent affairs."

  Jin blinked at this news. Yah, well . . . ​of course it had to be that way. People always left. Nothing was ever really secure, or safe. He bit his lip.

  "I suggest we not volunteer any information on the late Alice Chen tonight, and I think her existence is unlikely to come up as yet, but if it does, Raven abstracted her at Dr. Leiber's request as well, as independent physical evidence for the effects of the bad cryo-solution. Raven being enough of both a scientist and a businessman not to put his company at risk on mere hearsay."

  Raven tilted his head and grinned at this. "That works for me."

  Miles-san rolled his shoulders and stretched. He did look a little gray-faced, a very four-o'clock-in-the-morning look, if no more tired than anyone else here. His eyes were bright, though. He turned to Jin's mother. "I have an experienced forensic economics analyst already en route from the Barrayaran embassy on Escobar. As it happens, my need for him has been largely short-circuited the events of the last day, but to justify the expenses of his journey I will make you a loan of him for a few days. I expect he could be of considerable help in strategizing your next moves, should you decide to try to revive your political action committee. Or even if you don't."

  Jin's mother rubbed her forehead. In a rather thick voice, she said, "But what if the police try to take Jin and Mina?"

  It was a horrible thought, one that Jin had been trying not to think ever since Miles-san had announced the imminent arrival of the authorities.

  "I think they are unlikely to question minors when abundant adult witnesses are ready-to-hand. You are next-of-kin; they'll have to request your permission to interrogate your children, which I suggest you deny for now on the grounds that the pair are too traumatized by the recent fright of their thwarted kidnapping."

  Mina made a faint indignant noise at this. Jin wasn't so sure.

  "The lawyer will support you," Miles-san went on. "If it becomes an issue, which I doubt it will in this immediate aftermath, tell the police to come see them later at the consulate if needed-which, by then, I suspect it won't be, and in any case we'll be on home ground there."

  Vorlynkin nodded reassurance at her. She shook her head in doubt, but Jin thought some of the strain eased around her eyes.

  Jin glanced up to find Armsman Roic eyeing him closely. Jin shrugged uncomfortably and turned his head away.

  "Madame Sato," came Roic's slow, deep voice, "can Jin and Mina come out in the corridor with me for a moment? I'd like to show them something."

  Jin looked back, about to decline, but Mina was already hopping up and down in agreement, readily prevailing over their mother who seemed to want to say something to the consul anyway, so Jin ended up letting himself be shepherded out with his sister. Roic closed the door firmly behind them.

  To Jin's surprise, Roic went down on one knee, which made him, well, not much shorter than Jin and still taller than Mina.

  "I thought," said Roic, "that you might like to try firing my stunner." He drew the weapon that had hurt so shockingly out of the holster under his jacket, and Jin flinched.

  "Ooh, ooh!" said Mina. "Wow, can we?"

  Which made it impossible for Jin to say No. He nodded warily.

  "You must never point a weapon at a person unless you intend to fire," Roic began a short tutorial. "No matter if you think it's uncharged, or the safety lock is on, or what. Make it an absolute habit, and it will never be a question." He pointed out the various features of the device, including a sensor in the grip that was keyed to his own palm, and which he turned off with a code. Then he let Jin take it, making sure it was pointed up the empty corridor.

  The grip was still warm from Roic's hand, like a chair you'd sat down in too soon after someone else got out of it. The stunner was lighter than Jin expected, but solid enough. The power pack in the grip gave it the most of its heft. It didn't feel like a toy.

  Jin stared down the sight the way Roic told him too, and squeezed the trigger. The buzz in his hand startled him, but there was no recoil, and he managed not to drop it.

  Encouraged, Jin let Roic show him how the automatic laser sight worked, and fired again. This time, he didn't jump. And again. The charge hit the wall pretty nearly just where he'd intended, this time. Jin didn't exactly smile, but he felt his jaw ease.

  Mina was by this time eager to try, Let me! Let me! so Jin reluctantly gave the device up to her. Roic went through his instructions once more, prudently kneeling behind Mina and keeping a hand hovering to help steady her-she had to hold the thing up in both fists-and the drill was repeated.

  Roic stood up, reset the code, and holstered the weapon. "Better?" he asked Jin.

  "Yah," said Jin, in some wonder. "It's like a tool. It's just a tool."

  "That's right."

  This time, when Roic smiled down at him, Jin smiled up. He let the armsman lead them back into the recovery room.

  Miles leaned forward and spoke earnestly into the secure holovid recorder. "I just want you to know, Gregor, that if the planet melts down over all this, it wasn't my fault. The trip-wire was laid long before I stumbled across it."

  He considered the opening remark of his report cover for a moment, then reached out and deleted it. The one good thing about the very asynchronous vid communication entailed by Nexus info-squirts, moving at light speed between jump points and ship-carried through them, was that if you didn't think before you spoke, you could at least think before you hit send. Not that he hadn't generated some of his best ideas as his brain raced to catch up with his moving mouth. Also, some of my worst. He wondered which kind his recent examples would ultimately prove to be.

  He glanced around the consulate's tight-room, which he had all to himself, having run out the exhausted Johannes before embarking on this private and personal recording. Since Johannes was the closest thing to an ImpSec analyst the out-of-the-way consulate boasted, Miles had spent much of the past two days in training him in just what information, out of the uproar of the local planetary feeds, to screen and forward to Galactic Affairs on Komarr. Multitasking, always a good thing. Johannes proved a diligent enough student. If the attaché had been one of the Imperial Service's brighter stars, he'd have been sent to some hotter posting, but if he'd been less responsible, he wouldn't have been sent to such an autonomous one.

  Miles added a note commending the lieutenant's conscientiousness, while he was thinking of it, which reminded him in turn of his early suspicions of the clerk, Yuuichi Matson. He'd caught the tail end of a short conversation between Matson and his boss Vorlynkin in the kitchen, day-before-yesterday, when the media siege of the consulate was just beginning.

  "People told me I'd be able to pocket a tidy amount of baksheesh in this job," the clerk complained, "but in five years nobody offered me anything. And when they finally do, it's because they want dirt on Sato-san. Sato-san. As if I would! Agh!"

  Vorlynkin's blue eyes crinkled. "You were doing it wrong, Yuuichi. You're not supposed to wait for offers, you're supposed to ask. Or at least hint. You should ask the Lord Auditor for pointers."

  Matson just shook his head and stalked off, nursing his green tea and his umbrage. Miles grinned and bent to add a kind word for the overworked clerk, as well.

  Trying to bring his mind back into focus, Miles scanned down the long index of attachments, both raw data and his synopses, that he'd generated for HQ, a tedious but necessary chore. This should suffice to keep some unfortunate team of ImpSec Galactic Affairs analysts busy and happy for a week or three, till he caught up with them in person. Well, busy, anyway. The Imperial Councilor, as the Barrayaran viceroy on Komarr was dubbed, would be invited into the loop as well when this arrived by coded tight-
beam. A full analysis of the planetary voting shares scam should be awaiting the Lord Auditor by the time he made Komarr orbit, and a plan for suitable countermeasures for the vote-theft, as well.

  Miles indulged himself with a brief fantasy of Ron Wing and friends waking up from cryo-stasis, expecting to have stolen a planet, as destitute and distraught as old Yani. Alas, the affair would doubtless be wound up before matters progressed that far. Cosmic justice was very appealing, but the regular kind would also do.

  Putting together his Auditorial report had also sufficed to keep Miles out of the way of the consulate upstairs, and out of sight of its visitors, as the consequences had spun out from that very useful night at Madame Suze's. The NewEgypt execs were under arrest for conspiracy, and, possibly, murder, and as the degenerated-cryopreservatives-and-commodified-contracts scandal hit the newsfeeds in force, it was likely that enough other charges would be thrown in atop to keep them from wriggling out. The attempted kidnapping involving real kids looked to prove especially damaging to their cause, score another point for Jin and Mina, which Miles must remember to tell them. Lawsuits on behalf of Madame Sato and her group were in preparation, and she'd given her first interview, under the watchful protection of Vorlynkin and with the shrewd advice of her new attorney, who was working, very enthusiastically, on contingency.

  WhiteChrys and a number of other cryocorps, shoved into premature responses by these breaking events, were making noises like outraged victims after all, and Miles, smirking, wished Ron Wing all the luck he deserved in his damage control. Asterzine was all very well for setting a building on fire, but if one wanted to set a world alight . . . ​well.

  Miles hardly needed, he reminded himself for the nth time, to mix in further, above-stairs. Consul Vorlynkin was doing a fine job of looking out for Barrayar's interests, not to mention those of the Sato family, and Mark was atop affairs from the Durona Clinic end. Miles had danced uncomfortably close to jeopardizing his primary mission with WhiteChrys on these fascinating side-issues with NewEgypt, but given Mark's new enterprise, they might not prove so sidewise after all. Miles was not above taking credit for accidental foresight; really, none of this would have come to pass if he hadn't gone on poking just a little farther than he'd needed to. He must be sure to point that out to Gregor.