She smiled, a real smile, not a fast-penta grin. We did not break her after all.
"No, you can't put it back together," she said. "The only way is to start over. What I could do is take the strongest root fragments—several of them, to make sure," her long hands sorted through his pile, "and set them to soak in a hormone solution. And then when it starts to put out new growth, repot it."
"I saved the dirt," Miles pointed out hopefully. Idiot. Do you know what an idiot you sound like?
But she merely said, "Thank you." Following up on her words, she rummaged in her shelves and found a shallow basin, and filled it with water from the work bench's little sink. Another cupboard yielded a box of white powder; she sprinkled a tiny amount into the water and stirred it with her fingers. Taking a knife from her tool drawer, she trimmed the most promising root fragments and pushed them into the solution. "There. Maybe something will come of that." She stretched to set the basin carefully out of the way on the shelf Miles had had to reach by standing on the chair, and shook the pan of dirt into a plastic bag, which she sealed and put next to the basin. She then rolled up the decaying remains in their tarp again, to take over and shake into another bin; the plastic went back into the trash. "By the time I'd thought of this poor skellytum again, it would have gone out with the organic recycle, and been too late. I'd abandoned hope for it last night, when I thought I had to leave with just what I could carry."
"I didn't mean to burden you. Will it be awkward, to carry home on the jumpship?"
"I'll put it in a sealed container. By the time I reach my destination, it should be just about ready to replant." She washed and dried her hands; Miles followed suit.
Damn Tuomonen anyway, for forcing to Miles's consciousness a desire his back-brain had known very well was too unripe and out of season for any fruitful result. Time is out of joint, she'd said. Now he was going to have to deal with it. Now he was going to have to wait. How long? How about till after Tien is buried, for starters? His intentions were honorable enough, at least some of them were, but his timing was lousy. He shoved his hands deep into his pockets and rocked on his heels.
Ekaterin folded her arms, leaned against the counter, and stared at the floor. "I wish to apologize, Lord Vorkosigan, for anything I might have said under fast-penta that was not appropriate."
Miles shrugged. "I invited myself along. But I thought you could use a spotter. You did as much for me, after all."
"A spotter." She looked up, her expression lightening. "I had not thought of it like that."
He opened his hand and smiled hopefully.
She smiled briefly in return, but then sighed. "I'd been so frantic, all day, for ImpSec to be done so I could go get Nikki. Now I think they were doing me a favor. I dread this part. I don't know what to tell him. I don't know how much I should tell him about Tien's mess. As little as possible? The whole truth? Neither feels right."
Miles said slowly, "We're still in the middle of a classified case, here. You can't burden a nine-year-old boy with government secrets, or that kind of judgment call. I don't even know yet how much of this will eventually become public knowledge."
"Things not done right away get harder." She sighed. "As I'm finding now."
Miles drew up the comconsole chair for her, and motioned her into it, and pulled out the stool from under the work bench. He perched on it, and asked, "Had you told him you were leaving Tien?"
"Not even that, yet."
"I think . . . that for today, you should only tell him that his father suffered an accident with his breath mask. Leave the Komarrans out of it. If he asks for more details than you know how to deal with, send him to me, and I'll take the job of telling him he can't know, or can't know yet."
Her level look asked, Can I trust you? "Take care you don't stir up more curiosity than you quell."
"I understand. The problem of the whole truth is as much a question of when as what. But after we both get back to Vorbarr Sultana, I would like, with your permission, to take you to talk with Gr—with a close friend of mine. He's Vor, too. He had the experience of being in something like Nikki's position. His father died under, ah, grievous circumstances, when he was much too young to be told the details. When he stumbled across some of the uglier facts, in his early twenties, it was pretty traumatic. I'll bet he'll have a better feel than either of us for what to tell Nikki and when. He has a fine judgment."
She gave him a provisional nod. "That sounds right. I would like that very much. Thank you."
He returned her a half-bow, from his perch. "Glad to be of service, Madame." He'd wanted to introduce her to Gregor the man, his foster-brother, not Emperor Gregor the Imperial Icon, anyway. This might serve more than one purpose.
"I also have to tell Nikki about his Vorzohn's Dystrophy, and I can't put that off. I made an appointment for him at a clinic in Solstice for the day after tomorrow."
"He does not know he carries it?"
She shook her head. "Tien would never let me tell him." She studied him gravely. "I think you were in something like Nikki's position, too, when you were a child. Did you have to undergo a great many medical procedures then?"
"God, yes, years of 'em. What can I say that's useful? Don't lie about whether it's going to hurt. Don't leave him alone for long periods." Or you, either . . . There was finally something he could do for her. "Events permitting, may I ride along with you to Solstice and render what assistance I can? I can't spare your uncle to you—he's going to be buried in technical problems by day after tomorrow, if my parts list takes shape."
"I can't take you away from your duties!"
"My experience suggests to me that if Soudha hasn't been arrested by then, what I will be doing by day after tomorrow is spinning my mental wheels. A day away from the problems may be just what I will need to give me a fresh approach. You would be doing me a service, I assure you."
She pursed her lips doubtfully. "I admit . . . I would be grateful for the company."
Did she mean any company, generally, or his company particularly? Down, boy. Don't even think about it. "Good."
Voices drifted in from the vestibule: one of the guards, and a familiar rumble. Ekaterin jumped up. "My uncle is here!"
"He made very good time." Miles followed her into the hallway.
Professor Vorthys, his broad face wrinkled with concern, gave his valise over to the guard and folded his niece in his arms, murmuring condolences. Miles watched in exquisite envy. Her uncle's warm sympathy almost broke her down, as all of ImpSec's cool professionalism had not; Miles made a mental note. Cool and practical, that was the ticket. She dashed tears from her eyes, dispatched the guard with his case to Tien's old office as before, and led her uncle to the living room.
After a very brief conference, it was decided the Professor would accompany her to go collect Nikolai. Miles seconded this despite what he ironically recognized as his present lovesick mania for volunteerism. Vorthys had a family right, and Miles himself was too close to Tien's death. He was also swaying on his feet as the set of painkillers and stimulants he'd taken before lunch wore off. Taking a third dose today would be a bad mistake. Instead he saw the Professor and Ekaterin out, then checked in with ImpSec HQ in Solstice on the secured comconsole.
No new news. He wandered back toward the living room. Ekaterin's uncle was here; Miles should go, now. Collect his things and decamp to that mythical hotel he'd been gassing about for the last week. There was no room for him in this little apartment, with Vorthys reinstalled in the guest room. Nikki would need his own bed back, and he was damned if he was going to trouble Ekaterin to rustle up another grav-bed, or worse, for his Vor lordly use. What had she been expecting, when she'd ordered in that thing? He should definitely go. He was obviously not being as civilly neutral toward his hostess as he'd imagined, if that blasted guard could make whatever comment it had been that had set off Tuomonen on that list of embarrassing questions about the suitcases.
"Do you need anything, my lord?" The doo
r guard's voice at Miles's elbow startled him awake.
"Um . . . yeah. Next time one of your boys comes over from Solstice HQ, have him bring me a standard military-issue bedroll."
In the meanwhile, Miles staggered over and curled up on the couch after all. He was asleep in minutes.
Miles awoke when the little party returned with Nikki He sat up and managed to be reasonably composed by the time he had to face the boy. Nikki looked subdued and scared, but was not weeping or hysterical; he evidently turned his reactions inward rather than outward. Like his mother.
In the absence of female friends of Ekaterin's bearing casseroles and cakes in the Barrayaran manner, Miles caused ImpSec to supply dinner. The three adults kept the conversation neutral in front of Nikki, after which he went off to play by himself in his room, and Miles and the Professor retired to the study for a data-exchange. The new equipment found topside was indeed peculiar, including some power-transfer equipment heavy-duty enough for a small jumpship, parts of which had ripped apart, melted, and apparently exploded in a shower of plasma. The Professor called it, "Truly interesting," an engineering code-phrase that caught Miles's full attention.
In the middle of this, Colonel Gibbs reported in via comconsole. He smiled dryly at both Imperial Auditors, an expression which Miles was beginning to recognize as Gibbs's version of ecstasy.
"My Lord Vorkosigan. I have the first documented connection you were looking for. We've traced the serial numbers of a pair of hastings converters my Lord Vorthys's people found topside back through the chain to a Waste Heat purchase eight months ago. The converters were originally delivered to their experiment station."
"Right," breathed Miles. "Finally, more of a link than just Radovas's body. We have hold of the real string, all right. Thank you, Colonel. Carry on."
Chapter Fifteen
Ekaterin slept better than she'd expected to, but woke to the realization that she'd got through most of yesterday on adrenaline. Today, with its enforced wait for action, was going to be harder. I've been waiting nine years. I can manage nineteen more hours. Lying in bed allowed a kind of numb, foggy grief to descend, despite her release from the late chaos of Tien's life. So she rose, dressed carefully, ducked around the guard in her living room, made breakfast, and waited.
The Auditors stirred soon thereafter and came out gratefully for food, but carried off their coffee to the secured comconsole. She ran out of things to clean up, and went out to her balcony, but found the presence of another guard on post inhibited her from resting there. So she gave the guards coffee, and retreated to her kitchen, and waited some more.
Lord Vorkosigan emerged again. He fended off her offers of more coffee, and instead seated himself at her table. "ImpSec sent me the autopsy report on Tien this morning. How much do you want to know about it?"
The vision of Tien's congealed body, hanging in the frost, flashed in her memory. "Was there anything unexpected?"
"Not with respect to cause of death. They found his Vorzohn's Dystrophy, of course."
"Yes. Poor Tien. To spend all those years in a suppressed panic over his disease, only to die of another cause altogether." She shook her head. "So much effort, so misplaced. How far advanced was it, could they tell?"
"The nervous lesions were very distinct, according to the examiner. Though how they can tell one microscopic blob from another . . . The outward symptoms, if I interpret the medical jargon correctly, would have been impossible to conceal very soon."
"Yes. I think I knew that. It was the inward progress I wondered about. When did it start. How much of Tien's, oh, bad judgment and other behavior was his disease." Should she have somehow held on longer? Could she have? Until what other desperate denouement had played itself out?
"The damage builds slowly for a long time. Which parts of the brain are affected varies from person to person. For what it's worth, his seemed concentrated in the motor regions and peripheral nervous system. Though it may be possible to blame some of his actions on the disease, later, if a face-saving gesture is needed."
"How . . . politic. Face-saving for whom? I don't wish it."
He smiled a bit grimly. "I didn't think you did. But I have the unpleasant conviction that this case is going to shift from its nice clean engineering parameters into some very messy politics sooner or later. I never discard a possible reserve." He looked down at his hands, clasped loosely before him on the table. His gray sleeves imperfectly concealed the white bandages ringing his wrists. "How did Nikki take the news, last night?"
"That was hard. He started out—before I told him—trying to argue me into letting him stay and play another night. Getting passionate and sulking, you know how kids are. I so much wished I could simply let him go on, not having to know. I wasn't able to prepare him as much as I would have liked. I finally had to sit him down and tell him straight out, Nikki, you have to come home now. Your Da was killed in a breath mask accident last night. It just . . . wiped him blank. I almost wished for the whining back." Ekaterin looked away. She wondered what oblique forms Nikki's reactions might eventually take, and whether she would recognize them. Or handle them well. Or not . . . "I don't know how it's going to go in the long run. When I lost my mother . . . I was older, and we knew it was coming, but it was still a shock, that day, that hour. I always thought there would be more time."
"I've not yet lost a parent," said Vorkosigan. "Grandparents are different, I think. They are old, it's their destiny, somehow. I was shaken when my grandfather died, but my world was not. I think my father's was, though."
"Yes," she looked up gratefully, "that's the difference exactly. It's like an earthquake. Something that isn't supposed to move suddenly dumps you over. I think the world is going to be a scarier place for Nikki this morning."
"Have you hit him with his Vorzohn's Dystrophy news yet?"
"I'm letting him sleep. I'll tell him after breakfast. I know better than to stress a kid who has low blood sugar."
"Odd, I feel the same way about troops. Is there anything . . . can I help? Or would you prefer to be private?"
"I'm not sure. He doesn't have school today anyway. Weren't you taking my uncle out to the experiment station this morning?"
"Directly. It can wait an extra hour for this."
"I think . . . I would like it if you can stay. It's not good to make of the disease something all secret that's too awful to even talk about. That was Tien's mistake."
"Yes," he said encouragingly. "It's just a thing. You deal with it."
Her brows rose. "As in, one damn thing after another?"
"Yes, very like." He smiled at her, his gray eyes crinkling. Through whatever combination of luck and clever surgery, no scars marred his face, she realized. "It works, as tactics if not strategy."
True to his offer, Lord Vorkosigan drifted back into her kitchen as Nikki was finishing his breakfast. He lingered suggestively, stirring the coffee he took black and leaning against the far counter. Ekaterin took a deep breath and settled beside Nikki at the table, her own half-empty and cold cup a mere prop. Nikki eyed her warily.
"You won't be going to school tomorrow," she began, hoping to strike a positive note.
"Is that when Da's funeral is? Will I have to burn the offering?"
"Not yet. Your Grandmadame has asked that we bring his body back to Barrayar, to bury beside your uncle who died when you were little." Tien's mother's return message had come in by comconsole this morning, beamed and jumped through the wormhole-relays. In writing, as Ekaterin's had been, and perhaps for similar reasons; writing allowed one to leave so much out. "We'll do all the ceremonies and burn the offering then, when everyone can be there."
"Will we have to take him on the jumpship with us?" asked Nikki, looking disturbed.
From the side of the room Lord Vorkosigan said, "In fact, ImpS—the Imperial Civil Service will take care of all those arrangements, with your permission, Madame Vorsoisson. He will probably be back home before you are, Nikki."
"Oh
," said Nikki.
"Oh," Ekaterin echoed. "I . . . I was wondering. I thank you."
He sketched a bow. "Allow me to pass on your mother-in-law's address and instructions. You have enough other things to do."
She nodded, and turned back to her son. "Anyway, Nikki . . . you and I are going to Solstice tomorrow, to visit a clinic there. We never mentioned this to you before, but you have a condition called Vorzohn's Dystrophy."
Nikki made an uncertain face. "What's that?"
"It's a disorder where, with age, your body stops making certain proteins in quite the right shape to do their job. Nowadays the doctors can give you some retrogenes that produce the proteins correctly, to make up for it. You're too young to have any symptoms, and with this fix, you never will." At Nikki's age, and on the first pass, it was probably not yet necessary to go into the complications it would entail for his future reproduction. She noticed dryly how she had managed to get through the long-anticipated spiel without once using the word mutation. "I've collected a lot of articles about Vorzohn's Dystrophy, which you can read when you want to. Some of them are too technical, but there are a couple I think you could get through with a little help." There. If she could avoid setting off his homework alarms, that ought to set up a reasonably neutral way to give him the information to which he had a right, and he could pursue it at his own pace thereafter.
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