"Now, was that nice?" asked Ekaterin, amused in spite of herself. "They loaned that money to Tien in all good faith."
"Nevertheless, don't sign anything till you take legal advice. If you knew nothing of the loan, it's possible Tien's estate is liable for it, and not you. His creditors must squabble with each other for the pieces, and when it's gone, it's gone."
"But there's nothing in Tien's estate but debts." And dishonor.
"Then the squabble will be short."
"But is it fair?"
"Death is an ordinary business risk—in some businesses more than others, of course. . . ." He smiled briefly. "Ser Anafi was getting ready to have you sign on the spot. This suggests to me that he was perfectly aware of his risk, and thought he might hustle you into taking over a debt not rightfully yours while you were still in shock. Not fair. In fact, not ethical at all. Yes, I think we can leave him to ImpSec."
This was all rather high-handed, but . . . it was hard not to respond to the enthusiastic glint in Vorkosigan's eye as he'd annihilated her adversary.
"Thank you, Lord Vorkosigan. But I really need to learn how to do these things for myself."
"Oh, yes," he agreed without the least hesitation. "I wish Tsipis were here. He's been my family's man of business for thirty years. He adores tutoring the uninitiated. If I could turn him loose on you, you'd be up to speed in no time, and he'd be just ecstatic. I'm afraid he found me a frustrating pupil in my youth. I only wanted to learn about the military. He finally managed to smuggle in some economic education by presenting it as logistics and supply problems." He leaned against the comconsole desk, and crossed his arms, and tilted his head. "Do you think you will be returning to Barrayar anytime soon?"
"Just as soon as I possibly can. I can hardly bear being in this place."
"I think I understand. Where, ah, would you go, on Barrayar?"
She stared broodingly at the empty vid-plate. "I'm not sure yet. Not to my father's household." To be crammed back into the status of a child again. . . . She pictured herself arriving penniless and without resources, to batten upon her father or one of her brothers. They'd let her batten, all right, generously, but they would also act as if her dependence deprived her of rights and dignity and even intelligence. They would then arrange her life for her own good. . . . "I'm sure I'd be welcome, but I'm afraid his solution to my problems would be to try to marry me off again. The idea makes me gag, just now."
"Oh," said Lord Vorkosigan.
A brief silence fell.
"What would you do if you could do anything?" he asked suddenly. "No limited resources to juggle, no practical considerations. Anything at all."
"I don't . . . I usually start with the possible, and pare away from there."
"Try for more scope." A vague wave of his arm taking in the planet from zenith to horizon indicated his idea of scope.
She thought back, all the way back, to the point in her life where she had made that fatal wrong turn. So many years lost. "Well. I suppose . . . I would go back to university. But this time, I'd know what I was about. Formal training in horticulture and in art, for garden design; chemistry and biochemistry and botany and genetic manipulation. Real expertise, the kind that means you can't be intimidated or, or . . . persuaded to go along with something stupid because you think everyone in the universe knows more than you do." She frowned ruefully.
"So you could design gardens for pay?"
"More than that." Her eyes narrowed, as she struggled for her inner vision.
"Planets? Terraforming?"
"Oh, good heavens. That training takes ten years, and another ten years of internship beyond it, before you can even begin to grasp the complexities."
"So? They have to hire someone. Good God, they hired Tien."
"He was only an administrator." She shook her head, daunted.
"All right," he said cheerfully. "Bigger than a garden, smaller than a planet. That still leaves sufficient scope, I'd say. A Barrayaran District could be a good start. One with incomplete terraforming, say, and, and forestry projects, and, oh, damaged land reclamation, and a crying need for a touch of beauty. And," he went on, "you could work up to planets."
She had to laugh. "What is this obsession with planets? Will nothing smaller do, for you?"
"Elli Qu—a friend of mine used to say, `Aim high. You may still miss the target but at least you won't shoot your foot off.' " His grin winked at her. He hesitated, then said more slowly, "You know . . . your father and brothers aren't your only relatives. The Professor and the Professora are boundless in their enthusiasm for education. You can't convince me they wouldn't be pleased to shelter you and Nikki in their home while you got your new start. And you'd be right there in Vorbarr Sultana, practically next door to the University and, um, everything. Good schools for Nikki."
She sighed. "It would be such a lovely change for him to stay in one place for a while. He could finally cultivate friends he wouldn't have to abandon. But . . . I've come to despise dependency."
He eyed her shrewdly. "Because it betrayed you?"
"Or lured me into betraying myself."
"Mm. But surely there is a qualitative difference between, um, a greenhouse and a cryochamber. Both provide shelter, but the first promotes growth, while the second merely, um . . ." He seemed to have become a little tangled in his metaphor.
"Retards decay?" Ekaterin politely tried to help unwind him.
"Just so." His brief grin again. "Anyway, I'm pretty sure the Professors are a human greenhouse. All those students—they're used to people growing up and moving on. They regard it as normal. I'd think you'd like it there." He wandered to her window and glanced out.
"I did like it there," she admitted wistfully.
"Then it all sounds perfectly possible to me. Good, that's settled. Have you had lunch?"
"What?" She laughed, and clutched her hair.
"Lunch," he repeated, deadpan. "Many people eat it at about this time of day."
"You're mad," she said with conviction, ignoring this willful piece of misdirection. "Do you always dispose of people's futures in that offhand fashion?"
"Only when I'm hungry."
She gave up. "I suppose I have something I can fix—"
"Certainly not!" he said indignantly. "I sent a minion. I just spotted him returning across the park, with a very promising large bag. The guards have to eat too, you see."
She contemplated, briefly, the spectacle of a man who casually sent ImpSec for carry-out. There probably were security concerns about meals on duty, at that. She let Vorkosigan shepherd her into her own kitchen, where they selected from a dozen containers. Ekaterin snitched a flaky apricot tart to set aside for Nikki, and they sent the remainder to the living room for the guards to picnic off. The only thing Vorkosigan permitted her to do was supply fresh tea.
"Did you find out anything new this morning?" she asked him, when they were settled at the table. She tried not to think about her last conversation here with Tien. Oh, yes, I want to go home. "Any word on Soudha and Foscol?"
"Not yet. Part of me expects ImpSec to catch up with them at any moment. Part of me . . . is not so optimistic. I keep wondering just how long they had to plan their departure."
"Well . . . I don't think they were expecting Imperial Auditors to arrive in Serifosa. That, at least, came as a surprise to them."
"Hm. Ah! I know why this whole thing feels so odd. It's as though my entire brain is suffering a time lag, and it's not just the bloody seizures. I'm on the wrong side. I'm on the damned defense, not the offense. One step behind all the time, reacting not acting—and I'm horribly afraid it may be an intrinsic condition of my new job." He downed a bite of sandwich. "Unless I can sell Gregor on the idea of an Auditor Provocateur . . . Well, anyway, I did have one idea, which I propose to spring on your uncle when he gets downside." He paused; silence fell. After a moment he added, "If you make an encouraging noise, I'll go on."
He'd caught her with her mouth full. "Hmm
?"
"Lovely, yes. You see, suppose . . . suppose this thing of Soudha's is more than a mere embezzlement scheme. Maybe they were diverting all those Imperial funds to support a real research and development project, although nothing to do with Waste Heat Management. It may be a prejudice of my military background, but I keep thinking they might have been building a weapon. Some new variation on the gravitic imploder lance, I don't know." He gulped tea.
"I never had the impression that Soudha or any of the other Komarrans in the Terraforming Project were very military-minded. Quite the opposite."
"They needn't be, for an act of sabotage. Some grand stupid vile gesture—I keep worrying about Gregor's wedding coming up."
"Soudha isn't grandiose," said Ekaterin slowly. "Nor vile, particularly." She didn't doubt that Tien's death had been unintended.
"Nor stupid." Vorkosigan sighed regretfully. "I merely suggest that timetable to make myself nervous. Keeps me awake. But suppose it was a weapon. Did they perhaps attack that ore ship, as a test? Vile enough. Did their smoke test go very wrong? Was the subsequent damage to the mirror accidental, or deliberate? Or was it the other way around? The condition of Radovas's body suggests something backfired. A falling-out among thieves? Anyway, to anchor this spate of speculation to some sort of physical fact, I plan to get a list of every piece of equipment Soudha bought for his department, subtract from it everything they left there, and produce a parts list for their secret weapon. At this point my brilliance fails, and I plan to dump it on your uncle."
"Oh!" said Ekaterin. "He'll like that. He'll growl at you."
"Is that a good sign?"
"Yes."
"Hm. So, positing a secret-weapon sabotage-attack . . . how close are they to success? I keep coming back—sorry—to Foscol's odd behavior in providing that data packet of evidence against Tien. It seems to proclaim: it doesn't matter if the Komarrans are incriminated, because—fill in the blank. Because why? Because they will not be here to suffer the consequences? That suggests flight, which runs counter to the weapon hypothesis, which requires that they linger to use it."
"Or that they believed you would not be here to inflict the consequences," said Ekaterin. Had they meant Vorkosigan to die, too? Or . . . what?
"Oh, nice. That's reassuring." He bit rather aggressively into the last of his sandwich.
She rested her chin on her hand and regarded him with wry curiosity. "Does ImpSec know you babble like this?"
"Only when I'm very tired. Besides, I like to think out loud. It slows it down so I can get a good look at it. It gives you some idea of what living in my head is like. I admit, very few people can stand to listen at length." He shot her an odd sideways look. Indeed, whenever his animation slowed—which was not often—a gray weariness flashed underneath. "Anyway, you encouraged me. You sang Hmm."
She stared in amused indignation and refused to rise to the bait.
"Sorry," he said in a smaller voice. "I think I'm a little disoriented just now." He gave her an apologetic grimace. "I actually came back here to rest. Is that not sensible of me? I must be getting old."
Both their lives were out of phase with their chronological ages, Ekaterin realized bemusedly. She now possessed the education of a child and the status of a dowager. Vorkosigan . . . was young for his post, to be sure. But this whole posthumous second life of his was surely as old as you could be at any age. "Time is out of joint," she murmured; he looked up sharply, and seemed about to speak.
Voices from the vestibule interrupted whatever he'd been about to say. Ekaterin's head turned. "Tuomonen, so soon?"
"Do you want to put this off?" Vorkosigan asked her.
She shook her head. "No. I want to get it over with. I want to go get Nikki."
"Ah." He drained his tea mug and rose, and they both went out to her living room. It was indeed Captain Tuomonen. He nodded to Vorkosigan, and greeted her politely. He had brought a female medtech with him, in the uniform of the Barrayaran military medical auxiliary, whom he also introduced. She carried a medkit, which she placed on the round table and opened. Ampoules and hyposprays glittered in their gel slots. Other first-aid supplies hinted at more sinister possibilities.
Tuomonen indicated Ekaterin should sit on the circular couch. "Are you ready, Madame Vorsoisson?"
"I suppose so." Ekaterin watched with concealed fear and some loathing as the medtech loaded her hypospray and showed it to Tuomonen to cross-check.
The medtech laid a second hypospray out at the ready, and pulled a small, burr-like patch off a plastic strip. "Would you hold out your wrist, Madame?"
Ekaterin did so; the woman pressed the allergy test patch firmly against her skin, then peeled it up again. She continued to hold Ekaterin's wrist while she marked time on her chrono. Her fingers were dry and cold.
Tuomonen dispatched the two guards to the perimeter, namely the hallway and the balcony, and set up a vid recorder on a tripod. He then turned to Vorkosigan, and with a rather odd emphasis, said, "May I remind you, Lord Vorkosigan, that more than one questioner can create unnecessary confusion in a fast-penta interrogation."
Vorkosigan gave him an acknowledging hand wave. "Quite. I know the drill. Go ahead, Captain."
Tuomonen glanced at the medtech, who stared closely at Ekaterin's wrist, then released it. "She's clear," the woman reported.
"Proceed, please."
At the medtech's direction, Ekaterin rolled up her sleeve. The hypospray hissed against her skin with a cold bite.
"Count backwards slowly from ten," Tuomonen told her.
"Ten," Ekaterin said obediently. "Nine . . . eight . . . seven . . ."
Chapter Fourteen
Two . . . one . . ." Ekaterin's voice, almost inaudible at first, grew more firm as she counted down.
Miles thought he could almost mark Ekaterin's heartbeats, as the drug flooded her system. Her tightly clenched hands loosened in her lap. Tension in her face, neck, shoulders, and body melted away like snow in the sun. Her eyes widened and brightened, her pale cheeks flushed with soft color; her lips parted and curved, and she looked up at Miles, beyond Tuomonen, with an astonished sunny smile.
"Oh," she said, in a surprised voice. "It doesn't hurt."
"No, fast-penta doesn't hurt," said Tuomonen, in a level, reassuring tone.
That isn't what she means, Tuomonen. If a person lived in hurt like a mermaid in water, till hurt became as invisible as breath, its sudden removal—however artificial—must come as a stunning event. Miles breathed covert relief that Ekaterin apparently wasn't going to be a giggler or a drooler, nor was she one of the occasional unfortunates in whom the drug released a torrent of verbal obscenities, or an almost equally embarrassing torrent of tears.
No. The kicker here is going to be when we take it away again. The realization chilled him. But my God, isn't she beautiful when she is not in pain? Her open, smiling warmth looked strangely familiar to him, and he tried to remember just when he'd seen that sweet air about her before. Not today, not yesterday . . .
It was in your dream.
Oh.
He sat back and rested his chin in his hand, fingers across his mouth, as Tuomonen started down the list of standard neutral questions: name, birth date, parents' names, the usual. The purpose was not only to give the drug time to take full effect, but also to set up a rhythm of question-and-answer which would help carry the interrogation along when the questions, and answers, became more difficult. Ekaterin's birthday was just three weeks before his own, Miles noted in passing, but the War of Vordarian's Pretendership, which had so disrupted their mutual birth year in the regions around Vorbarr Sultana, had scarcely touched the South Continent.
The medtech had settled herself on a chair drawn up outside the conversation circle, out of the line of sight between interrogator and subject, but not, alas, entirely out of earshot. Miles trusted she had suitable top security clearances. He didn't know, and decided not to ask, if her gender represented delicacy on Tuomonen's part, tacit ackn
owledgment that a fast-penta interrogation could be a mind-rape. Physical brutality did not mix with fast-penta interrogation, which had helped to eliminate certain unsavory psychological types from successful careers as interrogators. But physical assault was not the only possible kind, nor even necessarily the worst. Or maybe she'd just been next up on the roster of available personnel.
Tuomonen moved on to more recent history. Exactly when had Tien acquired his Komarran post, and how? Had he known anyone in his department-to-be, or met with anyone in Soudha's group, before they'd left Barrayar? No? Had she seen any of his correspondence? Ekaterin, growing ever more cheerful in fast-penta elation, rattled on as confidingly as a child. She'd been so excited about the appointment, about the promised proximity to good medical facilities, certain she would get galactic-class help for Nikki at last. She had agonized over Tien's application and helped him to write it. Well, yes, written most of it for him. Serifosa Dome was fascinating, and their assigned apartment much larger and nicer than she'd been led to expect. Tien said the Komarrans were all techno-snobs, but she had not found them to be so . . .
Miles in Love Page 24
