Cryoburn

by Lois M. Bujold

  Ah. Gregor. The cover message would go to the Emperor's eyes and ears only. For inspiration, Miles called up a still vid of Gregor in full uniform and his sternest glower, the official pose that Gregor had dubbed the rod up my Imperial butt look. Alas, it only inspired Miles to want to clown till he made that grave face crack a smile. No, Gregor had clowns enough in his life. Starting with about half of the Council of Counts, though they seldom made him smile.

  Miles hit record once more, and began with crisp efficiency.

  "Good day, Gregor. As my follow-up note to Vorlynkin's little misguided emergency message last week indicated, suspicions of WhiteChrys chicanery on Komarr have proven correct. The raw data and my summations are in the main body of my report. I'm not sure what to do with the bribe. I'm not going to give it back, but it's not going to be worth what Ron Wing promised, either, which makes dumping it directly onto the Imperial Service Veterans' Hospice a questionable proposition. But we can deal with that later. I'll stop at Solstice on my return trip if ImpSec Komarr and the Imperial Councilor want to ask further questions, though really, this should be enough to get them started.

  "Oh, and with respect to Vorlynkin, I want a suitable Auditorial commendation to go on his diplomatic department record for exemplary assistance during my visit, or, ah, visitation. And after, as I'm running away tomorrow and dumping all of the cleanup on the poor fellow." Better him than me.

  "Meanwhile, I suppose I'd better give you a quick synopsis of the erupting NewEgypt scandal, as it has impinged on my investigation. It all started when the local loony party broke into the cryo-conference and failed to carry me off, which I described in brief in my last report, but after that . . ."

  As succinctly as he could, Miles summarized the events of the past days, from Jin's arrival at the consulate's back door through the successful arrest of the NewEgypt crew. He was a little out of breath by the time he finished. Miles tried not to wince as he imagined the look on Gregor's face as he heard all this out. Nonplussed? Pained? Bland? Gregor could out-bland Pym.

  "So far, no criminal charges have been leveled against me, and I trust I'll be long gone from Kibou-daini before anyone on the other side thinks of it," he concluded in cheerful reassurance.

  He sought for an upbeat note on which to end. "In the department of only on Kibou, we actually got to summon the dead to testify against the bad guys, which is a moment of cosmic justice if ever there was one."

  What was that creepy old quote . . . ​? Something read in his Academy days, or more likely on one of his Academy leaves, an ancient tale from Old Earth. Before cryonics was invented or even imagined, so seeming strangely prescient. The words were branded in his brain, though their literary source was long forgotten, buried under the chaos of his intervening decades and possibly a touch of lingering cryo-amnesia. I will break the door of hell and smash the bolts; I will summon the dead to take food with the living, and the living shall be outnumbered by the host of them . . . ​

  Ah, not something he cared to share with Gregor, that. Gregor, as Miles had reason to know, already had enough creepy crap stuffed into his Imperial head that it was a wonder his skull hadn't exploded. But it did bring Miles to his finale.

  "I shouldn't wonder if Mark's rejuvenation research here doesn't turn out to be more important, in the long run, than my mission. Too early to judge, but the Durona Group will be something to keep an eye on, and not just ImpSec's spy-eyes, either. A private word in the ear of Laisa's great-aunt, if she's looking for a better investment than WhiteChrys Solstice, might be a suitable reward for her first bringing the affair to our attention, come to think.

  "I missed today's commercial jumpship to Escobar, but I've snagged berths on tomorrow's. I'm eager to get home.

  "And oh, tell Laisa from me-Good catch."

  Miles closed the recording, security-sealed it, attached it to his coded report, and sent it on its way.

  Chapter Twenty

  The afternoon sun warmed the consulate's back garden, murmurous with creatures. Gyre preened and muttered on his perch. The chickens scratched in the grass or dozed in their nest boxes. The sphinx nosed and mumbled among the flower beds, occasionally sneezing just like Jin's mom. Gracing the tabletop, the turtle slowly crunched a piece of lettuce, donated from Mina's lunch salad. Lucky sat in Jin's mother's lap and purred, unsheathing her claws whenever the stroking hand stopped, apparently demanding to be petted bald. Granted that the rats, let out for a run earlier and then fed special tidbits, just curled up and slept in their cages, but then they never made much noise in the first place. It was all very alive out here, Jin thought with satisfaction.

  They had brought out a table to eat lunch under a tree, Mom and Jin and Mina and Consul Vorlynkin, and Aunt Lorna, invited for the first time to visit her revived sister. Jin had been horrified when he'd learned she was coming, but since she wanted him back in her household quite as little as he wanted to go there, they'd actually ended up on the same side, in a weird sort of way. She still seized the chance to chide him for running off. Both times.

  "She's right, Jin," his mother endorsed this. "They were all very upset when they didn't know what had happened to you. You might have been killed, for all she and your uncle knew."

  "But if I hadn't run away," Jin said, "I'd never have met Miles-san. And Mom would still be frozen."

  Vorlynkin-san grinned at Aunt Lorna's flummoxed expression. "Unassailable logic, I'm afraid." He'd taken off his business coat in the warmth, and leaned back in his chair in his shirtsleeves, looking more relaxed than Jin had ever seen him. But then, most of the time he'd been following Miles-san around, and Miles-san had a way of un-relaxing people.

  Miles-san and Armsman Roic had left yesterday, to board an orbital shuttle and catch a jumpship to Escobar, from where, Consul Vorlynkin had explained to Jin and Mina with the aid of a wormhole map, the Lord Auditor would transfer to a ship bound for the planets Sergyar and Komarr, and finally to Barrayar, where his real home was. The one with all those children and ponies, Jin supposed. Despite the steady procession of lawyers, police, and journalists into and out of the consulate, not to mention Jin and Mina and their mother and now relatives, Jin had to admit it had grown a lot quieter around here since the little man had left. It had all been very exciting for a time, but Jin wasn't sorry for the slow-down. In any case, the parade of people had been closely supervised by the consul, at his most formal and intimidating, not to mention Barrayaran and tall, and nobody had tried to take Jin's mother away again.

  Mina had gone inside to go to the bathroom, but now the back door slammed open and she rushed out in excitement, a familiar box in her hands. Lieutenant Johannes followed warily, saying, "She'll be much happier returned to her natural habitat, I'm sure."

  "Jin! Mommy!" said Mina. "Look! Lady Murasaki's babies all hatched!"

  Their mother valiantly replied, "That's nice, dear," although Aunt Lorna winced. Mom stared down through the transparent lid, and added faintly, "My goodness, she has a lot of children, doesn't she? Perhaps it's time to move them to a larger home."

  Like us? thought Jin. Let it be like us. He eyed Consul Vorlynkin in fresh speculation.

  "Lieutenant Johannes says I have to put them all out in the garden." Mina frowned, evidently trying to decide if this was a good idea or not. Behind her, Johannes made motions that seemed to indicate he didn't want to share the consulate with a hundred active spiderlings, which Jin thought quite narrow-minded of him.

  "Excellent notion," said Vorlynkin, tactfully. "I understand their webs look quite attractive in the morning light, after a heavy dew."

  Jin embarked on a hasty tutorial about what kinds of spiders did and didn't spin webs, and the web designs of various species in relation to their prey, while Mina went off to find some especially pretty flowers on which to release the new family.

  Johannes muttered to Vorlynkin, "When she shoved that box under my nose, I thought I was going to throw up."

  Vorlynkin'
s eyes crinkled. "I didn't know you were arachnophobic, Trev."

  "You realize, the garden is going to be swarming with those gigantic spiders?"

  "Actually," said Jin, "the chickens will probably eat some of them."

  Johannes eyed the chickens with approval for perhaps the first time ever.

  "Don't tell Mina," Jin added.

  "Wouldn't dream of it," said Johannes, and, after a polite nod at Jin's mother and aunt, went back inside.

  Not five minutes later, the back door opened more sedately, and Raven-sensei strolled through. Jin had never been more glad for an interruption, as the grownups had started talking about Jin's missed school, and what was to be done about it, and how soon. Raven-sensei gave a general wave to everyone-Mina waved back enthusiastically-and came to a stop at the table, with a lift of his eyebrows at Aunt Lorna. "Ah. Sister-san?"

  Jin didn't think Aunt Lorna looked that much like her older sister, being both shorter and rounder, with bobbed hair, and more peevish, although any peeve evaporated as she stared up, wide-eyed, at the Escobaran surgeon. Vorlynkin hastened to introduce them, and Aunt Lorna actually smiled and shook hands, and, when Raven-sensei turned away to greet Mina, whispered to her sister, "You didn't tell me your doctor looked like that."

  "Decorative and functional," Mom murmured back. "His clinic has quite the reputation on Escobar, I'm told."

  For a moment, Consul Vorlynkin frowned, as if worrying whether to try to look decorative or functional, but settled on diplomatic, which suited him better anyway.

  Raven-sensei returned from admiring the spider family, and Jin, at a nod from his mother, gave up his chair to the new guest. This wasn't so bad, as Jin then went to lean on her shoulder, and she slipped her arm around his waist. Lucky, with a grumpy noise at the loss of the petting hand, jumped down.

  "I thought you would like the word at once, Madame Sato," said Raven-sensei. "We retrieved Mr. Kang and Ms. Khosla last night, and I did both revivals this morning. Entirely uneventfully, I'm pleased to report. Both spoke briefly, and about as lucidly as could be expected, before I put them back to sleep. As soon as your head cold passes off, you may come down to the facility and see them."

  Jin felt his mother's body tremble; her eyes squeezed shut in brief thanksgiving. "Thank you for your excellent work, Doctor."

  "Truly," said Consul Vorlynkin. He tilted his head in concern at Jin's mother, but eased back in his chair again when she dabbed her eyes and relaxed. "How soon will they be able to speak to the lawyers and the police detectives?"

  "They will, of course, have to stay in biological isolation for a few days, but I'd expect their recoveries to be almost as swift as Madame Sato's. They may be coherent enough to give depositions through the booth intercoms as early as tomorrow evening, but I told the authorities to come the following morning, to be sure."

  "And their physical security, meantime?"

  "Miss Koudelka has arranged that, as part of setting up security for the new clinic. She turns out to have a knack for that sort of thing. Did you know her mother used to be a bodyguard to the Emperor of Barrayar, when he was a child? ImpSec trained, I gather, and she passed it along in the family."

  "Yes, I believe Lord Vorkosigan did say something about that, before he left. He does seem to know the most extraordinary range of people. Only to be expected, given his background."

  "What is this Lord Unpronounceable you keep talking about, anyway?" asked Aunt Lorna.

  "What, or who?" said Raven-sensei. "Although I gather that for him, the two are nearly inextricable."

  "Either. Both."

  "He investigates insurance fraud for somebody," Jin supplied. "His boss is named Gregor. He talks about him a lot."

  Vorlynkin blinked; Raven-sensei laughed, and Jin twisted his toes in unease. "Isn't that right?" he asked.

  "Well, yes," said Vorlynkin, smiling again. "Emperor Gregor Vorbarra, that is. But a Lord Auditor investigates all kinds of fraud and, er, other difficult situations that may arise that affect the Imperium, on the Emperor's direct orders. At the highest levels, generally, and with very little oversight."

  "He once called himself the Emperor's stirrup-man," Raven-sensei confided. "I wasn't sure if that meant a guardsman who rides at his leader's side, or a man who holds the stirrup while he mounts. Very Barrayaran turn of phrase, though, I thought."

  "Rides at his side is more correct," said Vorlynkin. "Although the other isn't out of line."

  Jin's mother tilted her chin in interest. Aunt Lorna's eyes widened a bit.

  "I didn't know he was that important," said Jin, thinking back to his first view of the tattered lost druggie. And a great deal of really strange behavior and babble subsequently. Miles-san had never acted at all high-nosed or stuffy. On the other hand, he'd never acted like the rules applied to him, either.

  "His father, Count Aral Vorkosigan, is Viceroy of Sergyar," Vorlynkin explained to Jin's interested female relations, "and his mother, the famous Countess, is Vicereine in her own right-her title's a co-appointment, not a courtesy just because she's his wife. His viceroyalty caps a long career in service to the Imperium."

  "Very hard act for Miles to follow, I gather," Raven-sensei put in.

  Jin thought of his own father, frozen in time by his death more permanently than by any cryonic procedure. Jin would never be more than seven, in those fading memories. Never seventeen, or twenty-seven, or almost thirty-eight from the other side. What would it be like to have a father when you were both grownups at the same time? It seemed a strange, uncomfortable, tantalizing thought.

  "Royalty?" asked Mina, who had drifted back to her mother's other elbow in time to hear this. "Is Miles-san's daddy some kind of prince?"

  "A viceroy is a-hm," Vorlynkin paused as if to choose words especially for her. "Emperor Gregor can't be on all three worlds at once. So he stays on Barrayar, mostly, and sends people to represent him on the other two planets. The Imperial Counselor on Komarr, the Viceroy and Vicereine as a team on Sergyar. Same jobs, really, just under two different titles because the planets are rather different." He glanced at Jin's mother, as if to check how she liked this explanation about his home.

  "So, they're like . . . ​deputy emperors?" asked Jin.

  Vorlynkin's brows rose in approval. "Yes, actually. Except they are appointed, serve terms, and then stop. Emperor is a life sentence. So to speak." A wry smile crossed his lips.

  "So Miles-san has an important job and an important family," said Mina, testing out these ideas. Jin wondered if she was thinking about those ponies.

  Aunt Lorna grimaced. "Is his important relative why he was given the important job?"

  "No," said Raven-sensei judiciously, "I expect Miles was given his job because he's a damned weasel. There's a reason ferret out means what it does. You have to have noticed that the man is a hyperactive lunatic, surely." With a fair-minded air, he added, "To the benefit of me and mine, to be sure."

  "Well . . ." Vorlynkin trailed off vaguely. And diplomatically, Jin supposed.

  Jin heaved a sigh. "I wish I might have ferret!"

  Jin's mother choked; Vorlynkin glanced at her, and at Nefertiti who was now nosing among the violets, and put in, "You just got a-er-almost a lion, at least. Possibly enough wildlife wishes granted for the moment."

  Mina twined her arms around her mother and rested her head on the maternal shoulder. Mom hugged her back. There's a wish, thought Jin. There's a real big wish, to have granted. Bigger than a ferret any day. Bigger than a lion, even.

  Although-Jin had seen pictures-ferrets were really cute. Cute-and-furry was always an easier sell than carapaced-and-multilegged, for some obscure reason. Grownups, so unreasonable . . . ​

  The grownups started talking about lawyers and lawsuits and NewEgypt's evil executives, all under arrest, and Mom's old political action committee and what would happen to it next, which they'd been doing nonstop for days, practically the whole week since Suze-san's place had almost been burne
d down, so Jin drifted away to watch Nefertiti. Mina, equally bored, followed him.

  The sphinx was crouched down in the patch of purple and white violets.

  "Oh, no!" cried Mina. "She's eating them!"

  Jin, worried that the consul might be attached to his violets-thin green stems, at this point, mostly-grabbed the sphinx and dragged her away, scolding.

  "Fud," mumbled Nefertiti, squashed lavender petals dribbling from her mouth.

  "Vorlynkin-san!" Mina called in anxiety. "Will eating violets make Nefertiti sick?"

  Jin's mother gulped in dismay, except that she was also laughing, but Vorlynkin seemed barely taken aback. "I shouldn't think so. Edible flowers are sometimes put on salads, and violets, I believe, are among them. They're also served candied. It would doubtless be prudent not to let her eat too many at a time, however."

  Jin and Mina both slumped in relief, for slightly different reasons, perhaps. Vorlynkin-san knew all kinds of nifty things. And he smiled at Jin's mom. And Jin's mom smiled back, which wasn't something she'd done much, lately. He was actually an all-right-all-round sort of fellow, though he needed to be brought up to speed on zoolology, if he was . . . ​going to stick around.

  So that's all right, thought Jin.

  Miles selected a table at the edge of the balcony overlooking the Escobar transfer station's main concourse. From here, one had a doubly dizzying view, of the people passing two floors below, and of a broad slice of star-specked space and Escobar's rim, glowing with light and color, through the transparent wall above. He set out three coffee bulbs, took a seat, and gestured Roic to another.

  The armsman accepted a coffee bulb but shook his head at the seat, preferring to lean against the balcony rail and gaze around, appearing, alas, exactly like a bodyguard trying to look like a tourist. Roic was not fond of these exposed positions. Miles always enjoyed this cafe, when passing through here-this addition to the station was about ten years old, he recollected.