"Oh." Nikki seemed to contemplate this vast span of time, equal again to his whole life so far, stretching out before him. Miles could empathize; suppose someone told him he had to wait thirty more years for something he passionately desired? He tried to think of something he passionately desired. That he could have. The field was depressingly blank.
Nikki began to replace his models in their padded box. As he nestled the Falcon-9 into its space, his fingers caressed its Imperial military decals. He asked, "Do you still have your ImpSec silver eyes?"
"No, they made me give 'em back when I was fi—when I resigned."
"Why d'you quit?"
"I didn't want to. I had health problems."
"So they made you be an Auditor instead?"
"Something like that."
Nikki groped around for some way to continue this polite adult conversation. "Do you like it?"
"It's a little early to tell. It seems to involve a lot of homework." He glanced up guiltily at the stack of report disks waiting for him on the comconsole.
Nikki gave him a look of sympathy. "Oh. Too bad."
Tien Vorsoisson's voice made them both jump. "Nikki, what are you doing in here? Get up off the floor!"
Nikki scrambled to his feet, leaving Miles sitting cross-legged and abruptly conscious that his recently-chilled body had stiffened up again.
"Are you pestering the Lord Auditor? My apologies, Lord Vorkosigan! Children have no manners." Vorsoisson entered and loomed over them.
"Oh, his manners are fine. We were having an interesting discussion on the subject of jump ships." Miles contemplated the problem of standing gracefully in front of a fellow Barrayaran, without any unfortunate lurch or stumble to give a false impression of disability. He stretched, sitting, by way of preparation.
Vorsoisson grimaced wryly. "Ah, yes, the most recent obsession. Don't step barefoot on one of those damn things, it'll cripp—it'll hurt. Well, every boy goes through that phase, I suppose. We all outgrow it. Pick up all that mess, Nikki."
Nikki's eyes were downcast, but narrowed in brief resentment at this, Miles could see from his angle of view. The boy bent to scoop up the last of his miniature fleet.
"Some people grow into their dreams, instead of out of them," Miles murmured.
"That depends on whether your dreams are reasonable," said Vorsoisson, his lips twitching in rather bleak amusement. Ah, yes. Vorsoisson must be fully aware of the secret medical bar between Nikki and his ambition.
"No, it doesn't." Miles smiled slightly. "It depends on how hard you grow." It was difficult to tell just how Nikki took that in, but he heard it; his eyes flicked back to Miles as he carried his treasure box toward the door.
Vorsoisson frowned, suspicious of this contradiction, but said only, "Kat sent me to tell everyone supper is ready. Go wash your hands, Nikki, and tell your Uncle Vorthys."
Miles's last family dinner with the Vorsoisson clan was a strained affair. Madame Vorsoisson made herself very busy with serving admittedly excellent food, her faintly harried pose as effective as a placard saying Leave me alone. The conversation was left to the Professor, who was abstracted, and Tien, who, bereft of direction, spoke forcefully and without depth of local Komarran politics, authoritatively explaining the inner workings of the minds of people he had never, so far as Miles could discern, actually met. Nikolai, wary of his father, did not pursue the subject of jumpships in front of him.
Miles wondered now how he could have mistaken Madame Vorsoisson's silence for serenity, that first night, or Etienne Vorsoisson's tension for energy. Until seeing those brief glimpses of her animation earlier today, he had not guessed how much of her personality was missing from view, or how much went underground in the presence of her husband.
Now that he knew what clues to look for, he could see the faint grayness underlying Tien's dome-pallor, and spot his betraying tiny physical twitches masked as a big man's clumsiness with small objects. At first Miles had feared the illness was hers, and he'd been nearly ready to challenge Tien to a duel for his failure to take immediate and massive measures to solve the problem. If Madame Vorsoisson had been his wife . . . But apparently Tien was playing these little delaying head-games with his own condition. Miles knew, none better, the bone-deep Barrayaran fear of any genetic distortion. Mortal embarrassment was more than a turn of phrase. He didn't exactly go around advertising his own invisible seizure-disorder, either—though he'd been privately relieved to have that secret out with her. Not that it mattered, now that he was leaving. Denial was Tien's choice, stupid though it seemed; maybe the man was hoping to be hit by a meteor before his disease manifested itself. Miles's stifled impulse toward homicide was renewed with the thought, But he's chosen the same for her Nikolai.
Halfway through the main course—exquisitely aromatic vat-raised fish fillets baked on a bed of garlic potatoes—the door chimed. Madame Vorsoisson hastily rose to answer it. Feeling obscurely that it was bad security to send her off by herself, Miles followed. Nikolai, perhaps sensing adventure, tried to accompany them, but was roped back to face the remains of his dinner by his father. Madame Vorsoisson glanced at Miles over her shoulder, but said nothing.
She checked the welcome monitor beside the door. "It's another courier. Oh, it's a captain this time. Usually you get a sergeant." Madame Vorsoisson keyed open the hall door to reveal a young man in Barrayaran undress greens, with ImpSec's eye-of-Horus pins on his collar. "Do come in."
"Madame Vorsoisson." The man nodded to her, trod inside, and shifted his gaze to Miles. "Lord Auditor Vorkosigan. I'm Captain Tuomonen. I head up ImpSec's office here in Serifosa." Tuomonen appeared to be in his late twenties, dark haired and brown eyed like most Barrayarans, and a bit more trim and fit than the average desk soldier, though with dome-pale skin. He had a disk case in one hand and a larger case in the other, so nodded cordially rather than offering any salutelike gesture.
"Yes, General Rathjens mentioned you. We're honored to have such a courier."
Tuomonen shrugged. "ImpSec Serifosa is a very small office, my lord. General Rathjens directed you were to be informed as soon as possible after the new body was identified."
Miles's eye took in the secured disk case in the captain's hand. "Excellent. Come sit down." He led the captain to the conversation circle, a deeply-padded sunken bench which was the centerpiece of the Vorsoisson's living room. Like most of the rest of the furnishings, it was Komarran dome standard-issue. Did Madame Vorsoisson sometimes feel she was camping in a hotel, rather than making a home here? "Madame Vorsoisson, would you ask your uncle to join us? Let him finish eating first, though."
"I would like to speak with Administrator Vorsoisson, also, when he's finished," Tuomonen called after her. She nodded and withdrew, eyes dark with interest but posture still self-effacing, self-erasing, as if she wished she might become invisible to Miles's eyes.
"What do we have?" continued Miles, settling himself. "I told Rathjens I might like to accompany and observe the first ImpSec contact on this matter." He could pack his bag and take it along tonight, and not have to come back.
"Yes, my lord. That's why I'm here. Your mysterious body turns out to be a local fellow, from Serifosa. He is, or was, listed as an employee of the Terraforming Project here."
Miles blinked. "Not an engineer named Dr. Radovas, is it?"
Tuomonen stared at him, startled. "How did you know?"
"Wild-ass guess, because he went missing a few weeks ago. Oh, hell, I'll bet Vorsoisson could have identified him at a glance. Or . . . maybe not. He was pretty battered. Hm. Radovas's boss thought he'd eloped with his tech, a young lady named Marie Trogir. Her body hasn't turned up topside, has it?"
"No, my lord. But it sounds as though we ought to start looking for it."
"Yes. A full ImpSec search and background check, I think. Don't assume she's dead—if she's alive, we surely want to question her. Do you need a special order from me?"
"Not necessarily, but I'll bet it would expedite th
ings." A faint enthusiastic gleam lit Tuomonen's eye.
"You have it, then."
"Thank you, my lord. I thought you'd want this." He handed Miles the secured case. "I pulled the complete dossier on Radovas before I left the office."
"Does ImpSec keep files on every Komarran citizen, or was he special?"
"No, we don't keep universal files. But we have a search program that can pull records of good depth from the information net very quickly. The first part of this is his public biography, school records, medical records, financial and travel documents, all the usual. I only had time to glance over it. But Radovas also does have a small ImpSec file, dating back to his student days during the Komarr Revolt. It was closed at the amnesty."
"Is it interesting?"
"I would not draw too many inferences from it alone. Half the population of Komarr of that age group was part of some student protest or would-be revolutionary group back then, including my mother-in-law." Tuomonen waited stiffly to see what response Miles would make to this tidbit.
"Ah, you married a local girl, did you?"
"Five years ago."
"How long have you been posted to Serifosa?"
"About six years."
"Good for you." Yes! That leaves one more Barrayaran woman for the rest of us. "You get along well with the locals, I take it."
Tuomonen's stiffness eased. "Mostly. Except for my mother-in-law. But I don't think that's entirely political." Tuomonen suppressed a small grin. "But our little daughter has her under complete control, now."
"I see." Miles smiled back at him. With a more thoughtful frown, he turned the case over, dug his Auditor's seal out of his pocket, and keyed it open. "Has your Analysis section red-flagged anything in this for me?"
"I am Serifosa's Analysis section," Tuomonen admitted ruefully. His glance at Miles sharpened. "I understand you're former ImpSec yourself, my lord. I think I'd rather let you read it over first, before I comment."
Miles's brows twitched up. Did Tuomonen not trust his own judgment, had the arrival of two Imperial Auditors in his sector unnerved him, or was he merely seizing the opportunity for some mutual brainstorming? "And what sort of dossier did you pull off the net on one Miles Vorkosigan, and speed-read before you left the office just now?"
"I did that day before yesterday, actually, my lord, when I was notified you would be arriving in Serifosa."
"And what was your analysis of it?"
"About two-thirds of your career is locked under a need-to-know seal that requires clearance from ImpSec HQ in Vorbarr Sultana to access. But your publicly recorded awards and decorations appear in a statistically significant pattern following supposedly routine courier missions assigned to you by the Galactic Affairs office. At approximately five times the density of the next most decorated courier in ImpSec history."
"And your conclusion, Captain Tuomonen?"
Tuomonen smiled faintly. "You were never a bloody courier, Captain Vorkosigan."
"Do you know, Tuomonen, I believe I am going to enjoy working with you."
"I hope so, sir." He glanced up as the Professor entered the living room, flanked by Tien Vorsoisson.
Vorthys finished wiping his mouth with his dinner napkin, stuffed it absently into his pocket, and greeted Tuomonen with a handshake, then introduced his nephew-in-law. As they all sat again, Miles said, "Tuomonen has brought us the identification of our extra body."
"Oh, good," said Vorthys. "Who was the poor fellow?"
Miles watched Tuomonen watch Tien and say, "Strangely enough, Administrator Vorsoisson, one of your employees. Dr. Barto Radovas."
Tien's grayness became a shade paler. "Radovas! What the hell was he doing up there?" The shock and horror on Tien's face was genuine, Miles would have sworn, the surprise in his voice unfeigned.
"I was hoping you might have some ideas, sir," said Tuomonen.
"My God. Well . . . was he aboard the station, or the ship?"
"We haven't determined that yet."
"I really can't tell you that much about the man. He was in Soudha's department. Soudha never made any complaints about his work to me. He got all his merit raises right to schedule." Tien shook his head. "But what the hell was he doing . . ." He glanced worriedly at Tuomonen. "He's not actually my employee, you know. He resigned several weeks ago."
"Five days before his death, according to our calculations," said Tuomonen.
Tien's brows wrinkled. "Well . . . he couldn't have been aboard that ore ship, then, could he? How could he have gotten all the way out to the second asteroid belt and boarded it before he even left Komarr?"
"He might have joined the ore ship en route," said Tuomonen.
"Oh. I suppose that's possible. My God. He's married. Was married. Is his wife still here in town?"
"Yes," said Tuomonen. "I'll be meeting shortly with the dome civil security officer who's taking the official notification of death to her."
"She's waited three weeks with no word from him," said Miles. "Another hour can't matter much at this point. I think I'd like to review your report before we leave, Captain."
"Please do, my lord."
"Professor, will you join me?"
They all ended up trooping into Vorsoisson's study. Miles privately felt he could do without Tien, but Tuomonen made no move to exclude him.
The report was not yet an in-depth analysis, but rather a wad of raw data bundled logically, with hasty preliminary notes and summations supplied by Tuomonen. A full analysis would doubtless arrive eventually from ImpSec-Komarr HQ. They all pulled up chairs and crowded around the vid display. After the initial overview, Miles let the Professor follow the thread of Radovas's career.
"He lost two years out of the middle of his undergraduate schooling to the Revolt," Vorthys noted. "Solstice University was shut down entirely, for a time then."
"But it looks like he made up some points with that two-year postgraduate stint on Escobar," Miles said.
"Anything could have happened to him there," opined Tien.
"But not much did, according to this," said Vorthys a bit dryly. "Commercial work in their orbital shipyards . . . he didn't even get a good research topic out of it. Solstice University did not renew his contract. Not a man with a gift for teaching, one feels."
"He was refused a job in the Imperial Science Institute because of his associations in the Revolt," Tuomonen pointed out, "despite the amnesty."
"All the amnesty promised was that he'd never be taken out and shot," said Miles a shade impatiently.
"But he was not refused it on the basis of inadequate technical competence," murmured Vorthys. "Here he goes on to a job rather below his educational level, in the Komarran orbital yards."
Miles checked. "He had three small children by then. He had to go for the money."
"Several bland years follow," the Professor droned on. "Changes companies only once, for a respectable increase in salary and position. Then he is hired by—Soudha was fairly new then, but hired by Soudha for the Terraforming Project, and moves downside permanently."
"No pay raise that time. Professor . . ." Miles said plaintively. He touched his finger to air on the vid display at this juncture in the late Dr. Radovas's career. "Doesn't this downside move strike you as a odd for a man trained and experienced in jump technologies? He was a five-space-math man."
Tuomonen smiled tightly, by which Miles deduced he had put his finger rather literally upon the same point that had bothered the captain.
Vorthys shrugged. "There could be many compelling reasons. He could have felt stale in his old work. He could have grown into new interests. Madame Radovas might have refused to live on a space station for one more day. I think you'll have to ask her."
"But it is unusual," said Tuomanen tentatively.
"Maybe," said Vorthys. "Maybe not."
"Well," sighed Miles after a long silence. "Let's go do the hard part."
The Radovas's apartment proved to be about a third of the way across the city fro
m the Vorsoissons', but at this hour of the evening there were no delays in the bubble-car system. With Tuomonen leading, Miles, Vorthys, and Tien—whom Miles did not remember inviting, but who somehow had attached himself to the expedition—entered the lobby, where they found a youngish woman in a Serifosa Dome Security uniform waiting for them, none too patiently.
"Ah, the dome cop is female," Miles murmured to Tuomonen. He looked back over their cavalcade. "Good. We'll seem less like an invading army."