Komarr

around,' Miles replied. He tapped the ImpSec issue chrono-comm link, which looked oversized strapped around his left wrist. 'Let's stick with our original compromise, for now. I'll yelp for help if I need you, I promise.'

'As you wish, my lord,' said Tuomonen disapprovingly. 'Is there anything else you need?'

'Not tonight,' said Vorthys, yawning.

I need all this to make sense. I need half a dozen eager informers. I want to be alone in a locked room with Marie Trogir and a hypo of fast-penta. I wish I might fast-penta that poor bitter widow, even. Rigby would require a court order for such an invasive and offensive step; Miles could do it on whim and his borrowed Imperial Voice, if he didn't mind being a very obnoxious Lord Auditor indeed. The justification was simply not yet sufficient. But Soudha had better watch his step, tomorrow. Miles shook his head. 'No. Get some sleep.'

'Eventually.' Tuomonen smiled wryly. 'Good night, my lords, Administrator.'

They left the widow's building in opposite directions.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Ekaterin half-dozed, curled on the sunken living room couch, waiting for the men to return. She pushed back her sleeves and studied the deep bruises darkening on her wrists in the pattern of Lord Vorkosigan's grip.

She was not normally very body-conscious, she thought. She watched people's faces, giving a bare glance to anything below the neck beyond the social language of clothing. This . . . not aversion, screening . . . seemed a mere courtesy, and a part of her sexual fidelity as automatic as breathing. So it was doubly disturbing to find herself so very aware of the little man. And probably very rude, as well, given the oddness of his body. Vorkosigan's face, once she'd penetrated his first wary opacity, was . . . well, charming, full of dry wit only waiting to break into open humor. It was disorienting to find that face coupled with a body bearing a record of appalling pain. Was it some kind of perverse voyeurism, that her second reaction after shock had been a suppressed desire to persuade him to tell her all the stories about his war wounds? Not from around here, those hieroglyphs carved in his flesh had whispered, exotic with promise. And, I have survived. Want to know how?

Yes. I want to know how. She pressed her fingers to the bridge of her nose, as if she might press back the incipient headache gathering behind her eyes. Her body jolted at the faint snick and shirr of the hall door opening. But familiar voices, Tien's and her uncle's, reassured her it was only the expected return of the information-hunting party. She wondered what strange prey they had made a prize of. She sat up, and pushed down her sleeves. It was well after midnight.

Tuomonen was no longer with them, she found to her relief as she rounded the corner into the hallway. She could lock her household down for the night, like a proper chatelaine. Tien looked tense, Vorkosigan looked tired, and Uncle Vorthys looked the same as ever. Vorkosigan was murmuring, 'I trust it goes without saying, Vorsoisson, that tomorrow will be a surprise inspection?'

'Certainly, my Lord Auditor.'

'Did you find out anything interesting?' Ekaterin inquired generally, resetting the lock behind them.

'Mm, Madame Radovas had no suggestions as to how her wandering husband had wandered into our soletta wreck,' said Uncle Vorthys. 'I'd been hoping she might.'

'It's so sad. They had seemed like such a nice couple, the few times I met them.'

'Well, you know middle-aged men.' Tien shrugged reprovingly, clearly excluding himself from the class.

Ah, Tien. Why couldn't you be the one to run off with a younger, richer woman? Maybe you'd be happier. You could scarcely be less happy. Why does your one virtue have to be fidelity? As far as she knew, anyway. Though she had wondered, during that thankfully-over weird period when he'd been accusing her, why an act she found unthinkable had so obsessed him. Maybe he didn't find it so unthinkable at all? She hardly had the energy to care.

She offered a late-night snack, an invitation only Uncle Vorthys accepted, and they all parted company for their respective sleeping quarters. By the time her uncle had finished eating and said good night, and she tidied up and made her way to her own bedroom, checking on Nikolai on the way, Tien was already in bed on his side with his eyes closed. Not sleeping yet; he had a very distinctive near-snore when he was truly asleep. When she slipped in beside him, he rolled over and flung his arm over her, and snugged her in tight.

He does love me, in some inept way. The thought almost made her want to weep. Yet what other human connections did Tien have, aside from her and Nikolai? His distant mother, remarried, and the ghost of his dead brother. Tien clutched her at night sometimes like a drowning man clutching his log.

If there was a hell, she hoped Tien's brother was in it. A Vor hell. He had done the proper thing, oh yes he had, cutting out his own mutation, and setting an example for Tien impossible to—so to speak—live up to. Tien had tried to emulate him, twice early on and once later, running up to suicide attempts so half-hearted as to barely qualify as gestures. The first two times she had been utterly terrified. For a period she had believed her loyalty and dependency were the only things holding him to life. By the third, she was numb. Much more of this, and she wouldn't be human at all. She felt barely human now.

Hoping to pretend her way to the real thing, she let her breathing slow, and feigned sleep. After a time, Tien, who was no more asleep than she, got up and went to the bathroom. But instead of returning to bed, he plodded quietly across the bedroom and out toward the kitchen. Maybe he'd changed his mind about that snack. Would he like it if she heated him some milk with brandy and spices in it? It was an old family recipe and remedy her great-aunt had brought to South Continent; comfort-drink for a visiting sick niece, though the larger of the generous portions had always somehow seemed to find its way into the old lady's own cup. Ekaterin smiled in memory, and padded after Tien.

Not the refrigerator but the kitchen comconsole terminal made the only faint light ahead of her. She paused in the doorway, puzzled. In her parents' household, the only allowable reason to call anyone at this hour of the night was to announce either a birth or a death, a rule she'd found she had internalized.

'What the hell was Radovas's body doing up there?' Tien, his back to her, spoke hoarsely and lowly to the torso over the vid-plate. Startled, Ekaterin recognized his subordinate, Administrator Soudha. Soudha was not, as she would have expected, in pajamas, but still dressed for the day. Working this late at home? Well, engineers were like that. She drew back a little more into the shadows in the hallway. 'You told me he'd quit.'

'He did,' said Soudha. 'It's not our problem what happened to him afterward.'

'The hell it's not. We're going to have frigging ImpSec all over the department tomorrow. The real thing, not just a VIP tour we can run around in circles and feed dinner and wave good-bye to. I could see Tuomonen getting this shitty-eyed look just thinking about it.'

'We'll handle them. Go back to bed, Vorsoisson.'

Lord Auditor Vorkosigan told you point-blank he wanted to make a surprise inspection, Tien. He speaks with the Emperor's Voice. What are you doing? She began to breathe through her mouth, soundlessly, starting to feel sick to her stomach.

'They're going to find out all about your sweet little scheme, and then we'll all be in it to our eyebrows,' said Tien.

'No, they won't. We're tight in town. Just keep them away from the experiment station, and we'll grease them in and out without a squeak.'

'The experiment station is a hollow shell. You haven't got a department, except in the files. What if they want to interview one of your ghost employees?'

'Such as yourself?' Soudha's mouth twisted in a thin smile. 'Relax.'