Cryoburn-ARC

by Lois M. Bujold

  Mark sat down, swept up the last bulb, popped the cap with his thumb, took a swig, and grimaced. When he had time, Mark was a bit of a gourmet, finicky in his tastes for food and drink. Miles didn't think the flavor was so bad, for transfer station bulb coffee. As a practical matter, you had to allow the modifiers.

  "Sorry I'm late," said Mark. "At the last moment before disembarking, I got a message from Kareen, and I wanted to play it right away."

  In the privacy of his cabin. Miles nodded understanding. Mark had left Kareen and Raven behind to start the set-up for the new Durona clinic, and incidentally keep an eye on the progress of Jin's affairs, while Mark went ahead to deal with the details on the Escobar end. The separation from his partner, temporary though it was, left him notably cranky. Miles thought of Ekaterin and sighed.

  "News good or news bad?" Miles asked. Though if there were anything very bad, he should have received a tight-beam from Vorlynkin.

  "Not bad. Kareen reports Raven successfully revived those two missing friends of Madame Sato's, and they've given some useful testimony to their authorities. Legal actions against NewEgypt proceed apace, by legal standards, which means glacially by human standards, but they are apparently moving in the right directions, so far. With the murder charges laid, the NewEgypt execs remain in custody. The locals accepted a plea bargain of some sort from your friend Oki, whatever you call it when you rat out your comrades in exchange for a lighter sentence." Mark didn't sound especially disapproving.

  Roic, listening, raised his coffee bulb in salute and drank. Oki hadn't been the worst of the bunch, to be sure.

  "I trust my name hasn't turned up in the proceedings," said Miles.

  "They don't know you from a hole in the ground," Mark assured him, and grinned like a fat shark at his pained expression. "Did Kareen really have to sit on you to keep you from giving interviews?"

  "That was a joke, and she knew it," Miles said austerely.

  "Yeah, right."

  "What's next for you?"

  "I descend on the Durona Group with a long list of chores not in their prior schedule, much as you will when you hit home, no doubt. I hope to have the set-up team for our first off-Escobar satellite clinic assembled and on their way in a week. Fuwa's repairs are in hand, which is a relief; most contractors in my experience are only just barely faster than lawyers. Kareen says his work looks good so far, so we'll be able to employ his company some more. Seems the least I can do for the man."

  "How little did you get him down to, that night?"

  Mark gave a smug duck of his chin. "That's proprietary information. But to thwart seller's remorse, I plan to swing him a lot of construction business."

  "Bet he'll try to pad his estimates."

  "Oh, of course." Mark waved this away as a given.

  Miles wondered if sending Mark to batten on Kibou-daini would prove adequate revenge for WhiteChrys's ploy on Komarr. On the whole, he thought it might.

  "And you?" asked Mark. "Are you going straight back to Barrayar, or will you stop at Sergyar to see our parents?"

  Miles rubbed his knuckles across his mouth, and frowned. "There was no chance to go downside on my outbound trip, of course. Though I did snatch twenty minutes to talk in real time with Mother, from the orbital transfer station."

  "How was she?"

  "No more harried than usual. I'd promised to stop on the way back, but my case ran a couple of weeks over what I'd initially planned—did that one to myself, true—and I might need to spend a few days on Komarr, setting up the trap for WhiteChrys with some folks, which also wasn't in my initial plan. So I may have to wait till they come home for Winterfair, if they do, this year. Will you and Kareen be coming home then?"

  "Not sure yet."

  "I was thinking you could pitch your new procedure to the Count-our-father in person."

  "We'll see how good it's looking at that point. We might actually have some preliminary results. Or not."

  A few passers-by turned their heads to stare at the two not-quite-twins, slouching, for the moment, in identical poses in their bolted-down chairs opposite each other. Miles studied his clone, in a little frisson of wonder he'd never quite lost.

  "What?" said Mark, tilting his head in an invitation to be amused by his progenitor-brother's infamous babble.

  "Thinking about the uncle we neither of us ever knew. Our father's older brother, who was killed in that same attack that took out our Barrayaran grandmother, in the opening salvo of Mad Yuri's war. He was in his mid-teens, I believe. I was thinking how strange it was that I had a brother I never knew till I was an adult, and our father had a brother everyone had forgotten by the time he was an adult. Were you ever told anything about him at all, when you were being trained about Barrayar?"

  Mark shrugged. "Just a name. No time was spent on him, when there was so much else to learn."

  "That's about all I've ever gotten from Da, either. A painful period of his life, I gather. Maybe if you and Kareen do Winterfair, we can tag-team him and get him to disgorge more. Because I'm thinking . . . ​there's hardly anyone else alive who knows anything about the fellow, by now."

  Mark nodded. "It's a deal. If we come. Could be interesting. Or hair-raising."

  "Or both. I sometimes wonder how different things would be if he'd lived. Our father would never have become the count, for one. Maybe not even Lord Vorkosigan, if his brother had managed to pop an heir before our grandfather died. He'd have spent his life as Lord Aral."

  "I'll bet he'd still have had a military career, though," said Mark judiciously.

  "Perhaps. Or perhaps, with the responsibility for our House taken up by someone else, he'd have felt freer to rebel. Do something else, be someone else."

  "Huh," said Mark.

  Miles fingered the holocube in his pocket. There was no point in pulling it out and showing it to Mark again, as he'd already done so. Twice. "You and Kareen planning kids yet? Not to mention marriage," Miles added in an afterthought. The couple's informal partnership, which would have been unremarkable on Beta Colony, had been a difficult pill for Kareen's very Barrayaran parents to swallow, but after several years the senior Koudelkas seemed pretty reconciled. And Kareen had three older married sisters, all of whom had sprung at least one sprog, so there wasn't the family pressure on her that there had been on, say, Miles.

  "Children frighten me," Mark confessed. "You had your Da as a role model, but all I ever had growing up was an insane Komarran terrorist who spent all his time trying to train me to be you."

  "Da spent a good bit of time trying to train me to be me, too," said Miles, "but it wasn't at all the same thing."

  Mark snorted. "Indeed."

  We can laugh about this now, sort of, Miles thought, pleased and bemused. What a journey that's been. "You'd have Kareen for a co-parent," Miles offered. "She's one of the sanest people I know."

  "There is that," Mark admitted. "So what's your greatest terror, now you're a Da yourself?"

  "What if . . ." Miles pulled at his hair, looking up cross-eyed to see if he could spot any of the sneaky gray ones, but this cut was still too short. "What if my children find out I'm not really a grownup? How dreadfully disappointed would they be?"

  This time, Mark laughed out loud. It was a very good sound, Miles thought, and he grinned back ruefully at his brother.

  "I think your wife already knows," said Mark.

  "I'm afraid so." Miles rubbed his lips. "Heh. D'you think Vorlynkin and Madame Sato will make a match of it?"

  "Good God, how would I know?"

  "I thought he had that look in his eye. Not as sure about her . . ." Which gave Miles a rather comradely feeling toward Vorlynkin, now he considered it. He wished the man luck.

  Roic stiffened, peering down into the concourse.

  "What?" said Miles.

  "There's Colonel Vorventa," Roic answered. "Wonder what he wants?"

  Miles leaned toward the railing and craned to see. The Barrayaran officer was, among other duties, sen
ior ImpSec liaison from the local Barrayaran embassy on this main transfer station; Miles had dealt with him before, though more often with his predecessors. The colonel looked up, saw Roic, then Miles, waved in a wait-right-there sort of fashion, and made for the lift tubes at the end of the concourse. "Us, I'll bet. Or me." ImpSec would have known when their ship was coming in, of course.

  "You, I hope," said Mark. "I've had a few conversations with him. I don't think he trusts me."

  "He's actually pretty cosmopolitan, for a Barrayaran," said Miles. "One of Da's New Men. Blast, I hope he's not bringing me more work."

  It was a compelling and unwelcome notion. If some fresh forest fire involving Barrayar's interests had sprung up somewhere on this end of the Nexus, well, here was one of Gregor's most notable firemen already halfway there. Miles's lips twisted. No, I've just been! I want to go home now!

  "That's funny," said Roic, in slow speculation. "I don't think I've ever seen him wearing his dress greens before."

  Miles hadn't either. "That's true. He always wears local civvies, and tries to blend in."

  Not today. Vorventa wore a high-necked military tunic in forest green, all his rank tags and decorations squarely in place, the green trousers with the red side-piping tucked neatly into mirror-polished riding boots, and a more inappropriate garb for a space station Miles could scarcely imagine. "Damn, but he looks shiny. Wonder what's up?"

  "We'll find out in a minute," said Mark, turning in his chair to watch the officer make his way among the tables toward them.

  Vorventa's steps slowed as he approached, and his eyes searched his quarry, though his face remained stiff. He halted at the table's side, cast Mark and Roic a grave nod, came to attention, and offered Miles a very formal salute, though Miles was in no kind of uniform at all except his gray trousers and jacket.

  The messenger moistened his lips, and said, "Count Vorkosigan, sir?"

  Aftermaths

  A drabble is a story in exactly 100 words.

  Aftermaths:

  Five Views, in Drabbles

  1 Mark.

  Mark had once shot a man with a nerve disruptor; seen the surprised eyes go blank as the charge burned out the brain behind them. He didn't know why watching Miles take in the news of their father's death made that black memory surface. No buzz or crackle from a weapon here; just three quiet words.

  It wasn't for hours, after the scramble to rearrange travel, that he realized he'd witnessed the truth. As if harnessed in tandem to the Count-his-father, Lord Vorkosigan had died in that moment, too, old life draining away along with the color from his face.

  2 Miles.

  Count Vorkosigan stared at his face in the mirror. "Fuck."

  Fuck. Fuck. Fuck . . . ​

  "Are you all right, m'lord?" called Roic from the fast courier's cabin.

  "Of course I'm not all right, you idiot!" Miles snarled, and then, in a smaller voice, "Sorry. Sorry. I feel like my brain's been pulled out, and there's nothing in my skull but loose wires waving from my spinal cord. God. Why are we in a hurry now? Days too late?"

  "The Countess, er, the Dowager Coun . . . ​your mother is waiting for you on Sergyar."

  "Ah," said the Count. "Yes." And, "Sorry."

  "We'll manage, m'lord."

  3 Cordelia.

  It wasn't Cordelia who'd found him, but it was she who'd decided. A brain aneurysm, a warm afternoon, two hours gone while the servants assumed the white-haired man had fallen asleep in his armchair, as he did after lunch these days.

  Miles's voice was ragged. "Couldn't you have had him cryoprepped anyway? The technology might progress . . ."

  "To wake without mind or memory, soul in tatters? He told me himself once; no man would want to live on like that."

  Or else wake with the burden of his memories intact, hardly less a horror. Could Miles understand?

  Ensign Dubauer, I'm sorry.

  4 Ivan.

  The state funeral ran for a grueling week. Ivan watched Miles mount the podium to present the eulogy. Gregor'd lent his best speechwriters; Miles had edited. Still, Ivan held his breath when Miles clutched the flimsies in a shaking fist and almost, almost cast them away to deliver his wounded words ex tempore.

  Till his eye fell on his children, squirming and confused in the front row between their mother and grandmother. He hesitated, smoothed out the flimsies, began reading. The new Count's speech was everything it should be; many wept.

  Ivan wondered what the old Miles would have said.

  5 Gregor.

  The interment at Vorkosigan Surleau was private, meaning a hundred or so people milling around. The grave was double but only one side dug; the earth waited like a bridal bed. The pallbearers were six: Ivan, Illyan, and Koudelka, of course; Duv Galeni for Komarr; Admiral Jole for Sergyar. And one other.

  Lady Alys, to whom everyone owed their sanity, pointed out that Gregor's place was with the chief mourners.

  "The man has carried me since I was five years old," answered the Emperor of Barrayar. "It's my turn."

  Alys gave way as Gregor went to help shoulder the bier.

  Miles Vorkosigan/Naismith:

  His Universe and Times

  Chronology

  Events

  Chronicle

  Approx. 200 years before Miles’s birth

  Quaddies are created by genetic engineering.

  Falling Free

  During Beta-Barrayaran War

  Cordelia Naismith meets Lord Aral Vorkosigan while on opposite sides of a war. Despite difficulties, they fall in love and are married.

  Shards of Honor

  The Vordarian

  Pretendership

  While Cordelia is pregnant, an

  attempt to assassinate Aral by poison gas fails, but Cordelia is affected; Miles Vorkosigan is born with bones that will always be brittle and other medical problems. His growth will be stunted.

  Barrayar

  Miles is 17

  Miles fails to pass physical test to get into the Service Academy. On a trip, necessities force him to improvise the Free Dendarii Mercenaries into existence; he has unintended but unavoidable adventures for four months. Leaves the Dendarii in Ky Tung’s competent hands and takes Elli Quinn to Beta for rebuilding of her damaged face; returns to Barrayar to thwart plot against his father. Emperor pulls strings to get Miles into the Academy.

  The Warrior’s Apprentice

  Miles is 20

  Ensign Miles graduates and immediately has to take on one of the duties of the Barrayaran nobility and act as detective and judge in a murder case. Shortly afterwards, his first military assignment ends with his arrest. Miles has to rejoin the Dendarii to rescue the young Barrayaran emperor. Emperor accepts Dendarii as his personal secret service force.

  “The Mountains of Mourning” in Borders of Infinity

  The Vor Game

  Miles is 22

  Miles and his cousin Ivan attend a Cetagandan state funeral and are caught up in Cetagandan internal politics.

  Cetaganda

  Miles sends Commander Elli Quinn, who’s been given a new face on Beta, on a solo mission to Kline Station.

  Ethan of Athos

  Miles is 23

  Now a Barrayaran Lieutenant, Miles goes with the Dendarii to smuggle a scientist out of Jackson’s Whole. Miles’s fragile leg bones have been replaced by synthetics.

  “Labyrinth” in Borders of Infinity

  Miles is 24

  Miles plots from within a Cetagandan prison camp on Dagoola IV to free the prisoners. The Dendarii fleet is pursued by the Cetagandans and finally reaches Earth for repairs. Miles has to juggle both his identities at once, raise money for repairs, and defeat a plot to replace him with a double. Ky Tung stays on Earth. Commander Elli Quinn is now Miles’s right-hand officer. Miles and the Dendarii depart for Sector IV on a rescue mission.

  “The Borders of Infinity” in Borders of Infinity

  Brothers in Arms

  Miles is 25

  Hos
pitalized after previous mission, Miles’s broken arms are replaced by synthetic bones. With Simon Illyan, Miles undoes yet another plot against his father while flat on his back.

  Borders of Infinity

  Miles is 28

  Miles meets his clone brother Mark again, this time on Jackson’s Whole.

  Mirror Dance

  Miles is 29

  Miles hits thirty; thirty hits back.

  Memory

  Miles is 30

  Emperor Gregor dispatches Miles to Komarr to investigate a space accident, where he finds old politics and new technology make a deadly mix.

  Komarr

  The Emperor’s wedding sparks romance and intrigue on Barrayar, and Miles plunges up to his neck in both.

  A Civil Campaign

  Miles is 31

  Armsman Rois and Sergeant Taura defeat a plot to unhinge Miles and Ekaterin’s midwinter wedding.

  “Winterfair Gifts” in Irresistible Forces

  Miles is 32

  Miles and Ekaterin’s honeymoon journey is interrupted by an Auditorial mission to Quaddiespace, where they encounter old friends, new enemies, and a double handful of intrigue.

  Diplomatic Immunity

  Miles is 39

  Miles and Roic go to Kibou‑daini.

  Cryoburn

  THE END

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  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven