It was all rubbish. Miles-san wasn’t a professor, or their uncle of any kind, great or regular, and for all Jin knew he lived in a cramped city apartment and wasn’t lonely at all. Jin decided he didn’t like that country daydream. It hurt too much when it stopped. He frowned at Mina. “Nobody’s going to adopt us and take us away from here. That’s a stupid idea.”
Mina looked offended. She turned one shoulder to him and began pulling on her socks. They were blotched with pinkish-brown stains where her blisters had popped and bled, and Jin gulped faint guilt. They both donned their shoes, Lady Murasaki was safely lodged in Mina’s backpack, where, Jin argued, she would endure less bouncing than in his pocket, and they sneaked out onto the street once more.
A winding kilometer farther on, during which Jin kept looking for, and not getting, a glimpse of the downtown towers for orientation, they came upon a busier street with a tube-tram station entry.
Mina’s footsteps had grown short and gimpy already. She looked at the entrance in some longing. “If you want to go on the tram”—she swallowed a bit—“I’ll pay our fares.”
“No, the police have vidcams in the stations. That’s how I got trapped day before yesterday. We can’t go in there.” But Jin’s eye was caught by a big colorful display on the outside of the entry kiosk. A map! He peered up carefully for scanning vidcams on this side, didn’t spot any, and ventured nearer, Mina trailing.
The lighted You Are Here arrow horrified Jin. They were nowhere near the south side of town, as he’d hoped from how far they’d trudged. They’d somehow ended up on the residential east side, instead, and still had maybe thirty kilometers left to hike before they reached the light industrial zone of the south, quite as far as they’d already come. Well, that explained why the houses were so nice around here. Jin stepped closer, squinting.
Just two stops farther on this line was the very station he’d exited to reach the Barrayaran consulate. It was about a three-kilometer walk above ground. Jin stared, thinking. He had dimly planned to offer Mina’s money to Miles-san, when they arrived at their destination, but his sister was proving pretty tight-fisted, in Jin’s view. She was sure to set up a screech, even though Jin was nearly certain Miles-san would replace it as soon as he could. But if he stopped at the consulate first and explained his loss, editing his situation a bit maybe, would they give him more money for the Barrayaran? Miles-san seemed fairly important to them. And they wouldn’t turn Jin in, because they were protecting their own secrets, right?
Contemplating this confession made him feel a little sick, but not as sick as going all the way back to Miles-san empty-handed as well as three days late. He stared harder at the map, trying to memorize the streets and turns.
“I know where we’re going now,” he said to Mina, trying to sound confident and big-brotherly. “Come on.”
After the WhiteChrys groundcar dropped them all off again at the consulate, Roic followed m’lord upstairs and watched him down two headache tabs and several glasses of water. Returning to the entry hall, m’lord stuck his head into the room Roic thought of as the parlor, where Raven Durona had been left to cool his heels, and said, “Debriefing downstairs again, I think.”
Raven nodded and unfolded himself to tag along. There had been little conversation on the way home; Aida had still been escorting, m’lord had settled into himself heavy-eyed, Vorlynkin had stared out the canopy with a set jaw, Roic considered himself an observer, and Raven had been disinclined to buck the obvious trend. They arrived downstairs at the door to the tight-room to discover it closed and locked.
M’lord hit the intercom. “Vorlynkin? Are you in there? Open up.”
“Just a moment, m’lord,” Vorlynkin’s voice came from the speaker. The moment turned into several minutes, while m’lord tapped his foot and Raven sat on the nearby step and yawned.
“Reminds me of a house with only one bathroom when the relatives have come to visit,” remarked Roic, as the wait stretched.
M’lord cast him a dry look. “I wouldn’t know. I’ve never lived in a house with only one bathroom.” Roic returned him an ironic head-tilt.
At length, the doorseal popped, the vaultlike door swung open, and the consul admitted them. His eyes seemed electric blue, and he was breathing fast, as though he had been running. “You’re too late,” he announced.
M’lord’s brows rose. “Not a first. What for this time?”
A muscle jumped by Vorlynkin’s scowling mouth. “I just sent a full report of what I witnessed by tight-beam to General Allegre at ImpSec HQ, Barrayar. I never thought I’d live to see a Vorkosigan sell himself for money. My career may be slagged, but so will yours, my Lord Auditor.”
“Ah, excellent. That’s done.” M’lord kicked the door shut; it sealed with a sigh that seemed insufficiently dramatic for Vorlynkin’s mood.
“What?” Vorlynkin’s fists clenched.
“Not that every man doesn’t have his price,” m’lord went on amiably. “As I’m sure Wing-san would agree. I was more afraid that if he didn’t come up to scratch today, I’d have that whole parade at the conference to do over again.”
If the consul didn’t stop inhaling, he was going to pop a lung, Roic thought. He put in peaceably, “Stop baiting the poor fellow, m’lord.” Now that you have what you want, anyway. Roic didn’t want to have to wrestle the man to the floor if he went for m’lord’s throat, which he seemed on the verge of doing. Was that old phrase about being mad enough to spit nails supposed to apply to, like, roofing nails, or fingernails? Around m’lord, Roic had never been sure.
M’lord added a trifle impatiently, “Men like Wing don’t go around throwing their money at potential opponents at random, Vorlynkin. First they have to figure out that the target is bribable. I did my best to help him decide. Have a seat, Consul, Doctor. It’s time we talked.”
Vorlynkin’s mouth, which had opened to emit some hot remark, sagged. “Lord Vorkosigan—is this a sting?”
“It is now.” M’lord pulled out a station chair and plunked into it. “We weren’t sure at first, which is why they sent me—I could be bait and trap at the same time, saving the Imperium on jumpship fares if nothing else.”
Vorlynkin sank more slowly into a chair opposite; Roic breathed easier. The consul glanced in dismay at the secured comconsole. “M’lord—I sent the report.”
“Don’t apologize. Your next official visitor might really be on the take, after all. I don’t intend to apologize to you, either, if it makes you feel any better. I’ve seen our diplomatic personnel bought out before. I had to make sure.”
“You were… testing me?” That disturbing heat in Vorlynkin’s eyes, which had started to fade, flared once more.
“Why do you suppose I hauled you along today and let you see all this?”
Vorlynkin’s hands clenched on his knees, but slowly eased again. “I see. Very efficient.”
“Do try to keep up.” M’lord added more kindly, “It won’t be easy; this case has baffled a few ImpSec analysts.” He turned to Raven. “So, what did you learn of interest during the time you had with Storrs?”
Raven’s mouth twisted in doubt. “I’m not sure I learned anything new. Their cryofreezing program seems perfectly legitimate—nothing wrong with their procedures from a technical standpoint. I asked to see a revival, but Storrs said there weren’t any scheduled today, which by then didn’t surprise me. He did show me the revival facilities. They looked quite adequate. He angled to find out if I would be interested in employment with WhiteChrys, and tried to find out my current pay rate. I said my main interests lay with cryorevival, as it’s more medically challenging. He said he’d pass that along, although he didn’t say who to. We came back and joined your show in progress, where you’d finished the dogs and were on to the ponies. Eh.” Raven shrugged.
Vorlynkin blinked. “Lord Vorkosigan, is Dr. Durona your agent?”
“Civilian contract consultant,” m’lord clarified, “being paid out of my case budget. Are you s
till collecting your Durona Group salary simultaneously, Raven?”
Raven smirked. “That’s personal information.”
“I’ll take that as a yes. So don’t hesitate to use Dr. Durona on double shifts, if needed.”
Raven grinned and rose to prod the automatic beverage maker, strategically positioned near the secured comconsole and its satellite console. It coughed up something coffee-ish, judging by the smell. Raven picked up the cup and gestured politely toward his chair; Roic waved him back to it and took up a position propping the wall with his arms crossed, in a pose copied from a certain former ImpSec chief.
“To bring you up to speed, Vorlynkin,” m’lord went on. “WhiteChrys was vetted and cleared by ImpSec when its advance teams first scouted Komarr eighteen months ago, but ImpSec was looking for connections with military espionage and the like. Their business plan passed the local Komarran commissions, and they were in. No one would have given them a second look for years, if it hadn’t been for some good old-fashioned nepotism.
“Within the last few months, as the flagship facility we saw in Wing’s vid was nearing completion, WhiteChrys began collecting contracts on future customers. Not unnaturally, they targeted Solstice upper-class elderly women’s clubs. At the same time, another sales team made some limited strategic stock offerings to certain wealthy and influential Komarrans, to give the local powers-that-be a stake in the future success of their operations. I expect the two sales teams didn’t compare hit lists, nor realize that some wealthy old ladies are retired Komarran traders who can read a balance sheet to a gnat’s eyebrow.
“And one of those little old ladies looked at the two proposals before her and said, ‘This smells, but I don’t see how,’ so she took it to her beloved great-niece, who said, ‘You’re right, Auntie, this smells, but I don’t see how,’ who took the problem in turn to her devoted husband, better known as Emperor Gregor Vorbarra. Who handed it to his loyal Imperial Auditor, saying, and I quote, ‘Here, Miles, you’re better at diving into the privy and coming up with the gold ring than anyone I know. Have a go.’ And I said, ‘Thank you, Sire,’ and took ship for Kibou-daini.”
Vorlynkin blinked again. Deeply. Roic reflected that the Imperium’s shrewd Komarran Empress served Gregor in more ways than just the joint production of their several scarily smart children.
M’lord went on blithely, “The other thing wealthy old Komarrans tend to have is an excess of planetary voting shares—er, Raven, do I need to explain these to you?”
“Yes, please,” said Raven, settling back and looking fascinated.
“The system, as usual, is a relict of Komarr’s colonization history. The planet is presently unlivable—though undergoing long-term terraforming—all settlement is in sealed arcologies, the Domes.”
“I knew that much…”
“Right. So to encourage the development of the domes, the early Komarran colonists set up a reward system. In addition to an inalienable one-person-one-vote that every Komarran is born and dies with, the colony awarded additional votes to those taking on the work and risk of creating more living space. These were inheritable, tradable, salable, and in general accumulate-able. The basis of the Komarran oligarchy as it now stands is clan possession of blocks of these planetary voting shares. The place is putatively a democracy, but some are measurably more equal than others. You follow?”
Raven nodded.
“So,” said Vorlynkin, who had, after all, had two years to watch Kibou-daini in operation, “you think WhiteChrys plans to accumulate those votes wholesale?”
“I do now. Mind you, Komarr has a long history of attempted chicanery with its voting system. Over time it’s accumulated a huge number of rules to thwart same. Among other things, voting shares can’t be held outright by corporations—they have to be in the hands of individuals. There are tested systems for proxies, and so on. WhiteChrys’s contracts passed muster with the Komarran regulators, and, if anybody had still been looking by that point, we’d have accepted that.
“My two working hypotheses are either that WhiteChrys has bribed some regulators—a possibility I now find quite compelling—or that they have figured out some way to game the rules system to hide their true intention till too late. Or both.”
Roic couldn’t help thinking that m’lord oughtn’t to look quite so admiring, detailing this in front of the still-gently-steaming Vorlynkin. But, well, m’lord.
“The one thing that gave me pause was that there was no way this could be a get-rich-quick scheme, even if the Komarran system of voting shares gives it a turbo-boost compared to Kibou. The profit margin on what is arguably a service industry is razor-thin, yet WhiteChrys has been spending money like a drunken Vor lord. Why go to all this trouble for a payoff you’ll never live to see? Until the last thing Wing said to me this afternoon, which was that he planned to have himself frozen on Komarr.”
M’lord looked around proudly, as if expecting the room to burst into applause, and was plainly disappointed to receive three blank looks instead.
He inhaled, visibly backing up. “Unpack, Miles, right. What I now suspect is going on is a two-tiered scam. I think there is an inner cadre of White Chrys executives who plan to ride out the years in cryo-stasis, and all be revived in time to collect the goodies. In fact, if they’re as smart as I think, they likely plan to take turns, so there’s always someone on the team awake to look after their interests. While they quietly, automatically, bloodlessly buy Komarr. Or maybe not so bloodlessly, depending on whether you consider early freezing to be murder or suicide, or not. The slowest, subtlest, and, I have to say, creepiest planetary conquest scheme ever devised!”
Even Vorlynkin jumped at that, his lips parting in consternation. “Conquest!”
“I hardly know what else to call it. But I still have a hell of a lot of dots to connect before I can sign off on this investigation. As soon as we get your consulate deep data crawlers up and running, that’s the first thing I want to look for—a list of WhiteChrys personnel who have lately shifted all their investments to WhiteChrys Solstice, and are planning to follow them in person. Because, given the numbers, I also think it possible that this is could be a secret group inside WhiteChrys who are gutting their own company to feather their nests.”
“Whew!” said Raven, with proper admiration. M’lord bestowed a pleased smile upon him.
Vorlynkin ran his hands through his hair. “How do you plan to nail the bastards? Bribing an Imperial Auditor may be as illegal as all hell on Barrayar, but we’re on Kibou-daini. Even if you could prove it—and I’m afraid my testimony would be suspect, here—I doubt Wing would get more than a slap on the wrist.”
“Actually, I would prefer not to give the slightest hint to anyone on Kibou that we’ve tumbled to them. The ideal revenge would be to let WhiteChrys get their hand so far into the cookie jar on Komarr that they can’t get it out, then cut it off at the wrist by changing the contract rules just enough on ’em to make them drop the votes. Leaving them to be exactly what they feigned to be, a marginally profitable service company. That would hurt enough to be a warning to others. Brute nationalization is a last resort—it would piss off the rest of the Komarran business community regardless of the rights of the case. It’ll take some study—I’m afraid we’re going to be up to our ears in lawyers before this is done—but with luck my part of the task will be over by then.” M’lord glanced up at Vorlynkin. “So what do you think of your Lieutenant Johannes? He’s young, which makes him both poorer and potentially more gullible. Is he reliable enough for this?”
“I…” Vorlynkin was given pause. “I’ve never had cause to doubt him.”
“And your local clerk, Yuuichi what’s-his-name, Matson?”
“I’ve never had cause to doubt him, either. But we’ve never had a situation like this before.”
“That you knew,” sighed m’lord. “Yet routine travel visas for WhiteChrys personnel have been handled through the consulate all this time.”
“Yes,
but all we ask is business or tourism? Plus a quick background check for criminal records.”
M’lord’s eyes crinkled in speculation. “I wonder if we should add a box to tick off—Reason for travel: creepy planetary conquest… no, I suppose not.”
Vorlynkin said slowly, “What if I hadn’t tried to turn you in just now?”
“Then you wouldn’t be part of this debriefing, and I’d be on the lookout for ways to nail you to the wall, too. In passing.” M’lord stretched and rolled his shoulders. Vorlynkin looked, Roic felt, properly thoughtful at last.
“Now, the other thing,” m’lord began, but was interrupted when the sealed door chimed.
Lieutenant Johannes’s voice issued from the intercom. “Consul? Lord Vorkosigan?”
“Yes?” responded m’lord.
“Um… Your half-sized courier’s just turned up at the back door. And he’s not alone.”
M’lord’s brows rose; Vorlynkin’s drew down. Raven cocked his head in curiosity.
“Don’t let him get away, Johannes,” m’lord called back. “We’ll be right there.”
Motioning Roic to unseal the door, m’lord grabbed his cane and levered to his feet.
Chapter Nine
The kitchen of the consulate seemed homey, if spacious by Jin’s standards. Maybe it was the cool dusk falling in the back garden that made it so warm and bright. Maybe it was all the dishes piled in the sink that made it look so, well, kitchen-y, as if a fellow could wander in and out to snack at will without being yelled at, even. But the noise of all the footsteps clumping up from the basement made Jin shift uneasily, and when Mina’s little hand stole into his and clutched hard, he didn’t shake her off.
Cryoburn b-17 Page 13
