Komarr

ragged and tangled mess centered on his chest.

She stared in covert astonishment; his glance caught hers. By way of apology, she said, 'You weren't joking about needle grenades, were you?'

His hand touched his chest. 'No. But most of this is old surgery, from the brittle bones the soltoxin gifted me with. I've had practically every bone in my body replaced with synthetics, at one time or another. Very piecemeal, though I suppose it would not have been medically practical to just whip me off my skeleton, shake me out like a suit of clothes, and pop me back on over another one.'

'Oh. My.'

'Ironically enough, all this show represents the successful repairs. The injury that really took me out of the Service you can't even see.' He touched his forehead and wrapped a couple of the towels around himself like a shawl. The towels had giant yellow daisies on them. His shivering was diminishing now, his skin growing less purple, though still blotchy. 'I didn't mean to alarm you, back there.'

She thought it through. 'You should have told me sooner.' Yes, what if one of his seizures had taken him by surprise, sometime along their route this morning? What in the world would she have done? She frowned at him.

He shifted uncomfortably. 'You're quite right, of course. Um . . . quite right. Some secrets are unfair to keep from . . . people on your team.' He looked away from her, looked back, smiled tensely, and said, 'I started to tell you, earlier, but I rather lost my nerve. When I was working on your comconsole yesterday morning, I accidentally ran across your file on Vorzohn's Dystrophy.'

Her breath seemed to freeze in her suddenly-paralyzed chest. 'Didn't I—how could you accidentally …' Had she somehow left it open last time? Not possible!

'I could show you how,' he offered. 'ImpSec basic training is pretty basic. I think you could pick up that trick in about ten minutes.'

The words blurted out before she could stop and think. 'You opened it deliberately!'

'Well, yes.' His smile now was false and embarrassed. 'I was curious. I was taking a break from looking at vids of autopsies. Your, um, gardens are lovely, too, by the way.'

She stared at him in disbelief. A mixture of emotions churned in her chest: violation, outrage, fear . . . and relief? You had no right.

'No, I had no right,' he agreed, watching her obviously too-open expression; she tried to school her face to blankness. 'I apologize. I can only plead that ImpSec training inculcates some pretty bad habits.' He took a deep breath. 'What can I do for you, Madame Vorsoisson? Anything you need to ask, or ask about … I am at your service.' The little man half-bowed, an absurdly archaic gesture, sitting wrapped in his towels like some wizened old Count from the Time of Isolation in his robes of office.

'There's nothing you can do for me,' Ekaterin said woodenly. She became aware that her legs and arms were tightly crossed, and she was starting to hunch over; she straightened with a conscious effort. Dear God, how would Tien react to her spilling, however inadvertently, his deadly—well, he acted as though it were deadly—secret? Now of all times, when he seemed on the verge of overcoming his denial, or whatever it was, and taking effective action at last?

'I beg your pardon, Madame Vorsoisson, but I'm afraid I'm still uncertain exactly what your situation is. It's obviously very private, if even your uncle doesn't knov, and I'd give odds he doesn't—'

'Don't tell him!'

'Not without your permission, I assure you, Madame. But … if you are ill, or expect to become ill, there is a great deal that can be done for you.' He hesitated. 'The contents of that file tell me you already know this. Is anyone helping you?'

Help. What a concept. She felt as though she might melt through the floor of the bubble car at the mere thought. She retreated from the terrible temptation. 'I'm not ill. We don't require assistance.' She raised her chin defiantly, and added with all the frost she could muster, 'It was very wrong of you to read my private files, Lord Vorkosigan.'

'Yes,' he agreed simply. 'A wrong I do not care to compound by either concealing my breach of trust, or failing to offer what help I can command.'

Just how much help Imperial Auditor Vorkosigan might command . . . was not to be thought about. Too painful. Belatedly, she realized that declaring herself unaffected was tantamount to naming Tien afflicted. She was rescued from her confusion by the bubble-car sliding to a stop at her home station. 'This is very much not your business.'

'I beg you will think of your uncle as a resource, then. I'm certain he would wish it.'

She shook her head, and hit the canopy release sharply.

They walked in stiff and chilled silence back to her apartment building, in awkward contrast, Ekaterin felt, to their earlier odd ease. Vorkosigan didn't look happy either.

Uncle Vorthys met them at the apartment door, still in shirtsleeves and with a data disk in his hand. 'Ah! Vorkosigan! Back earlier than I expected, good. I almost rang your comm link.' He paused, staring at their damp and bizarre bedragglement, but then shrugged and went on, 'We had a visit from a second courier. Something for you.'

'A second courier? Must be something hot. Is it a break in the case?' Vorkosigan shrugged an arm free of his towel-shawl and took the proffered disk.

'I'm not at all sure. They found another body.'

'The missing were all accounted for. A body part, surely– a woman's arm, perhaps?'

Uncle Vorthys shook his head. 'A body. Almost intact. Male. They're working on the identification now. They were all accounted for.' He grimaced. 'Now, it seems, we have a spare.'

CHAPTER SIX

Miles boiled himself in the shower for a long time, trying to regain control of his shocky body and scattered wits. He'd realized quickly, earlier, that all Madame Vorsoisson's anxious questions about his mother camouflaged oblique concerns about her son Nikolai, and he'd answered her as openly and carefully as he could. He'd been rewarded, through the extremely pleasant morning's expedition, by seeing her gradually relax and grow nearly open herself. When she'd laughed, her light blue eyes had sparkled. The animated intelligence had illuminated her face, and spilled over to loosen and soften her body from its original tight defensive density. Her sense of humor, creeping slowly out from hiding, had even survived his dropping them into that idiot pond.

Her brief appalled look when he'd half-stripped in the bubble-car had almost thrown him back into earlier modes of painful somatic self-consciousness, but not quite. It seemed he had grown comfortable at last in his own ill-used body, and the realization had given him a lunatic courage to try to clear things with her. So when all expression in her face shut down as he'd confessed his snooping . . . that had hurt.

He'd handled a bad situation as well as he could, hadn't he? Yes? No? He wished now he'd kept his mouth shut. No. His false stance with Madame Vorsoisson had been unbearable. Unbearable? Isn't that a little strong? Uncomfortable, he revised this hastily downward. Awkward, anyway.

But confession was supposed to be followed by absolution. If only the damned bubble-car had been delayed again, if only he'd had ten more minutes with her, he might have made it come out right. He shouldn't have tried to piss it off with that stupid joke, I could show you how . . .

Her icy, armored We don't require assistance felt like . . . missing a catch. He would be forced onward, she would spin down into the fog and never be seen again.

You're overdramatizing, boy. Madame Vorsoisson wasn't in a combat zone, was she?

Yes, she is. She was just falling toward death in exquisitely slow motion.

He wanted a drink desperately. Preferably several. Instead he dried himself off, dressed in another of his