Miles in Love

by Lois McMaster Bujold

  "Settled in her father's mind equated with married, I take it. Not, say, graduated from University and employed at an enormous salary?"

  "Only for the boys. My brother-in-law can be more Old Vor than you high Vor, in a lot of ways." Vorthys sighed. "But Tien sent a reputable Baba to arrange the contracts, the young people were permitted to meet . . . Ekaterin was excited. Flattered. The Professora was distressed that Vorvayne hadn't waited a few more years, but . . . young people have no sense of time. Twenty is old. The first offer is the last chance. All that nonsense. Ekaterin didn't know how attractive she was, but her father was afraid, I think, that she might settle on some inappropriate choice."

  "Non-Vor?" Miles interpreted this.

  "Or worse. Maybe even a mere tech, who knew?" Vorthys permitted himself one tiny ironic glint. Ah, yes. Until his Auditorial apotheosis three years ago, so startling to his relatives, Vorthys had had a most un-Vorish career himself. And marriage. And he'd started both back when the Old Vor were a lot more Old Vor than they were now—Miles thought of his grandfather, by way of exemplar, and suppressed a shudder.

  "And the marriage seemed to start out well," the Professor went on. "She seemed busy and happy, there was little Nikki come along . . . Tien changed jobs rather often, I thought, but he was new in his career; sometimes it takes a few false starts to find your legs. Ekaterin grew out of touch with us, but when we did see her, she was . . . quieter. Tien never did settle down, always chasing some rainbow no one else could see. I think all the moves were hard on her." He frowned, as if thinking back for missed clues.

  Miles did not dare explain about the Vorzohn's Dystrophy without Ekaterin's express permission, he decided. It was not his right. He confined himself to remarking, "I think Ekaterin may feel free to explain more of it now."

  The Professor squinted worriedly at him. "Oh . . . ?"

  I wonder what answers I'd get to those same questions if I could ask the Professora? Miles shook his head, and went to call Ekaterin to the comconsole.

  Ekaterin. He tasted the syllables of her name in his mind. It had been so easy, speaking with her uncle, to slip into the familiar form. But she had not yet invited him to use her first name. Her late husband had called her Kat. A pet name. A little name. As if he hadn't had time to pronounce the whole thing, or wished to be bothered. It was true her full array, Ekaterin Nile Vorvayne Vorsoisson, made an impractical mouthful. But Ekaterin was light on the teeth and the tip of the tongue, yet elegant and dignified and entirely worth an extra second of, of anyone's time.

  "Madame Vorsoisson?" he called quietly down the hall.

  She emerged from her workroom; he gestured to the secured vid-link. Her face was grave, and her steps reluctant; he closed the office door softly on her, and left her and her uncle in private. Privacy was going to be a rare and precious element for her in the days to come, he could foresee.

  The repair tech arrived at last, along with another duty guard. Miles took them aside for a word.

  "I want you both to stay here till I get back, understand? Madame Vorsoisson is not to be left unguarded. Um . . . when you're done with the door, find out from her if there are any other repairs she needs done around here, and take care of them for her."

  "Yes, my lord."

  Trailed by his own guard, Miles took himself off to the Terraforming Project offices. He passed ImpSec guards on the bubble-car platform, in the building lobby, and at the corridor entrances to Terraforming's floors. Miles was put glumly in mind of an Old Vor aphorism about posting a guard on the picket line after the horses were stolen. Once within, the ImpSec personnel shifted from steely-eyed goons to intent techs and clerks, efficiently downloading comconsoles and examining files. Terraforming Project employees watched them in suppressed terror.

  Miles found Colonel Gibbs set up in Vorsoisson's outer office, with his own imported comconsole planted firmly therein; rather to his surprise, the rabbity Venier was dancing worried attendance upon the ImpSec financial analyst. Venier shot Miles a look of dislike as he strode in.

  "Good morning, Vennie; I didn't expect to see you, somehow," Miles greeted him cordially. He was oddly glad the fellow hadn't been one of Soudha's. "Hello, Colonel. I'm Vorkosigan. Sorry for dragging you out on such short notice."

  "My Lord Auditor. I am at your disposal." Gibbs stood, formally, and took Miles's proffered hand for a dry handshake. Gibbs was a delight to Miles's eye; a spare, middle-aged man with graying hair and a meticulous manner who despite his Imperial undress greens looke7d every bit an accountant. Even having held his new rank for almost three whole months, it still felt odd to Miles to accept the older man's deference.

  "I trust Captain Tuomonen has briefed you, and passed on the interesting data packet we acquired last night."

  Gibbs, drawing up a chair for the Lord Auditor, nodded. Venier took the opportunity to excuse himself, and fled without further prompting at Gibbs' wave of permission. They seated themselves, and Miles went on, "How are you doing so far?" He glanced at the stacks of flimsies the comconsole desk had already acquired.

  Gibbs gave him a faint smile. "For the first three hours work, I am reasonably pleased. We have managed to sort out most of Waste Heat Management's fictitious employees. I expect tracking their false accounts to go quickly. Your Madame Foscol's report on the late Administrator Vorsoisson's receipts is very clear. Verifying its truth should not present a serious problem."

  "Be very cautious about any data which may have passed through her hands," Miles warned.

  "Oh, yes. She's quite good. I suspect I am going to find it a pleasure and a privilege to work with her, if you take my meaning, my lord." Gibb's eyes glinted.

  So nice to meet a man who loves his job. Well, he'd asked Solstice HQ to send him their best. "Don't speak too soon about Foscol. I have what promises to be a tedious request for you."

  "Ah?"

  "In addition to fictitious employees, I have reason to believe Waste Heat made a lot of fictitious equipment purchases. Phony invoices and the like."

  "Yes. I've turned up three dummy companies they appear to have used for them."

  "Already? That was quick. How?"

  "I ran a data match of all invoices paid by the Terraforming Project with a list of all real companies in the tax registry of the Empire. Not, you understand, routine for in-house audits, though I believe I'll forward a suggestion that it should be added to the list of procedures in future. There were three companies left over. My field people are checking them out. I should have confirmation for you by the end of today. It is, I believe, not excessively optimistic to hope we may track every missing mark in a week."

  "My most urgent concern is not actually the money." Gibb's brows rose at this; Miles forged on. "Soudha and his coconspirators also left with a large amount of equipment. It has crossed my mind that if we had a reliable list of Waste Heat's equipment and supply purchases, and subtracted from it the current physical inventory of what's out there at their experiment station, the remainder ought to include everything they took with them."

  "So it should." Gibbs eyed him with approval.

  "It's a brute-force approach," Miles said apologetically. "And not, alas, quite as simple as a data match."

  "That," murmured Gibbs, "is why enlisted men were invented."

  They smiled at each other in pleased understanding. Miles continued, "This will only work if the supply list is truly accurate. I want you to hunt particularly for phony invoices covering real, but nonstandard, nonaccounted equipment purchases. I want to know if Soudha smuggled in anything . . . odd."

  Gibbs's head tilted in interest; his eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "Easy enough for them to have used their dummy companies also to launder those."

  "If you find anything like that, red-flag it and notify myself or Lord Auditor Vorthys at once. And especially if you turn up any matches with the equipment Vorthys's probable-cause crew are presently finding at the site of the soletta accident."

  "Ah! The connection begins t
o come clear. I must say, I had been wondering why this intense Imperial interest in a mere embezzlement scheme. Though it's a very nice embezzlement scheme," he hastened to assure Miles. "Professional."

  "Quite. Consider that equipment list your top priority, please, Colonel."

  "Very good, my lord."

  Leaving Gibbs frowning—rather interestedly, Miles thought—at a fountain of data displays on his comconsole, Miles went to find Tuomonen.

  The tired-looking ImpSec captain reported no surprises uncovered so far this morning. The field agents had not yet picked up Soudha's trail. HQ had sent in a major with an interrogation unit, who had taken over the systematic examination of the department's remaining employees; the inquisition was now going on in the conference chamber. "But it's going to take days to work through them all," Tuomonen added.

  "Do you still want to do Madame Vorsoisson this afternoon?"

  Tuomonen rubbed his face. "Yes, in all."

  "I'll be sitting in."

  Tuomonen hesitated. "That is your privilege, my lord."

  Miles considered going to watch the employee interrogations, but decided that in his current physical state he would not contribute anything coherent. Everything seemed to be under control, for the moment, except for himself. The morning's painkillers were beginning to wear off, and the corridor was getting wavery around the edges. If he was going to be useful to anyone later in the day, he'd better give his battered body a rest. "I'll see you back at Madame Vorsoisson's, then," he told Tuomonen.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Ekaterin seated herself at the comconsole in her workroom and began to triage the shambles of her life. It was actually simpler than her first fears had supposed—there was so little of it, after all. How did I grow so small?

  She made a list of her resources. At the top, and most vital: medical care for the dependents of a deceased project employee was guaranteed till the end of the quarter, a few weeks away yet. A time window, of sorts. She counted the days in her head. It would be time enough for Nikki, if she didn't waste any.

  A few hundred marks remained in her household account, and a few hundred marks in Tien's. Her use of this apartment also ran till the end of the quarter, when she must vacate it to make way for the next administrator to be appointed to Tien's position. That was fine; she didn't want to stay here longer. No pension, of course. She grimaced. Guaranteed passage back to Barrayar, unavailable while Tien was alive, was due her and Nikki as another death benefit, and thank heavens Tien hadn't figured out how to cash that in.

  The physical objects she owned were more burden than asset, given that she must transport them by jumpship. The free weight limit was not generous. She'd apportion Nikki the bulk of their weight allowance; his little treasures meant more to him than most of her larger ones did to her. It was stupid to let herself feel overwhelmed by a few rooms of things she'd been willing to abandon altogether bare hours ago. She could still abandon them, if she chose. She'd frequented a certain secondhand shop in a seedier part of the dome to clothe herself and Nikki. She could sell Tien's clothing and ordinary effects there, a chore which need only take a few hours. For herself, she longed to travel light.

  On the other side of the ledger, her debts too were simple, if overwhelming. First were the twenty thousand marks Tien had borrowed and not paid back. Then—was she honor-bound, for the sake of Vor pride and Nikki's family name, to make restitution to the Imperium for the bribe money Tien had accepted? Well, you can't do it today. Pass on to what you can do.

  She had researched the medical resources on Komarr for treating genetic disorders till the information had worn grooves in her brain, fantasized solutions that Tien's paranoias—and his legal control of his heir—had blocked her from carrying out. Technically, Nikki's legal guardian now was some male third cousin of Tien's back on Barrayar whom Ekaterin had never met. Nikki not being heir to a fortune or a Countship, the transfer of his guardianship back to her was probably hers for the asking. She would deal with that legal kink later, too. For now, it took her something under nine minutes to contact the top clinic on Komarr, in Solstice, and browbeat them into setting up Nikki's first appointment for the day after tomorrow, instead of the five weeks from today they first tried to offer her.

  Yes.

  So simple. She shook with a spasm of rage, at Tien, and at herself. This could have been done months ago, when they'd first come to Komarr, as easily as this, if only she'd mustered the courage to defy Tien.

  Next she must notify Tien's mother, his closest living relative. Ekaterin could leave it to her to spread the news to Tien's more distant relatives back on Barrayar. Not feeling up to recording a vid message, she put it in writing, hoping it would not appear too cold. An accident with a breath mask, which Tien had failed to check. Nothing about the Komarrans, nothing about the embezzlement, nothing to which ImpSec could object. Tien's mother might never need to know of Tien's dishonor. Ekaterin humbly requested her preferences as to ceremonies and the disposition of the remains. Most likely she would want them returned to Barrayar to bury beside Tien's brother. Ekaterin could not help imagining her own feelings, in some future scene, if she entrusted Nikki to his bride with all bright promise only to have him returned to her later as a heap of ashes in a box. With a note. No, she would have to see this through in person. All that also must come later. She sent the message on its way.

  The physical was easy; she could be finished and packed in a week. The financial was . . . no, not impossible, just not possible to solve at once. Presumably she must take out a loan on longer terms to pay off the first one—assuming anyone would loan money to a destitute and unemployed widow. Tien's antilegacy clouded the glimmerings of the new future she ached to claim for herself. She imagined a bird, released from ten years in a cage, told she could at last fly free—as soon as these lead weights were attached to her feet.

  This bird's going to get there if she has to walk every step.

  The comconsole chimed, startling her from this determined reverie. A man, soberly dressed in the Komarran style, appeared over the vid-plate at her touch. He wasn't anyone she knew from Tien's department.

  "How do you do, ma'am," he said, looking at her uncertainly. "My name is Ser Anafi, and I represent the Rialto Sharemarket Agency. I'm trying to reach Etienne Vorsoisson."

  She recognized the name of the company whose money Tien had lost on the trade fleet shares. "He's . . . not available. I'm Madame Vorsoisson. What is your question?"

  Anafi's gaze at her grew more stern. "This is the fourth reminder notice of his outstanding loan balance, now overdue. He must either pay in full, or take immediate action to set up a new repayment schedule."

  "How do you normally set up such a schedule?"

  Anafi appeared surprised at this measured response. Had he dealt with Tien before this? He unbent slightly, leaning back in his chair. "Well . . . we normally calculate a percentage of the customer's salary, mitigated by any available collateral they may be able to offer."

  I have no salary. I have no possessions. Anafi, she suspected, would not be pleased to learn this. "Tien . . . died in an accident last night. Things are in some disarray here today."

  Anafi looked taken aback. "Oh. I'm sorry, Madame," he managed.

  "I don't suppose . . . was the loan insured?"

  "I'll check, Madame Vorsoisson. Let us hope . . ." Anafi turned to his comconsole; after a moment, he frowned. "I'm sorry to say, it was not."

  Ah, Tien. "How should I pay it back?"

  Anafi was silent a long moment, as if thinking. "If you would be willing to cosign for the loan, I could set up a payment schedule today for you."

  "You can do that?"

  At a tentative knock on the door frame of her workroom, she glanced around. Lord Vorkosigan had returned and stood leaning in the opening. How long had he been standing there? He gestured inside, and she nodded. He walked in and eyed Anafi over her shoulder. "Who is this guy?" he murmured.

  "His name's Anafi. He's
from the company Tien owes for the fleet shares loan."

  "Ah. Allow me." He stepped up to the comconsole and tapped in a code. The view split, and a gray-haired man with colonel's tabs and Eye-of-Horus pins on his green uniform collar appeared.

  "Colonel Gibbs," said Lord Vorkosigan genially. "I have some more data for you regarding Administrator Vorsoisson's financial affairs. Ser Anafi, meet Colonel Gibbs. ImpSec. He has a few questions for you. Good day."

  "ImpSec!" said Anafi in startled horror. "ImpSec? What does—" He blipped out at Lord Vorkosigan's flourishing gesture.

  "No more Anafi," he said, with some satisfaction. "Not for the next several days, anyway."