Komarr

already dropping toward an empty landing circle in the parking lot. He landed and killed the engine, and stared uncertainly toward the facility.

'Maybe . . . maybe you had better stay out of sight, at first,' said Vorsoisson in worry. 'They shouldn't mind me.'

He was apparently unconscious of the world of self-revelation in this simple statement. They both adjusted their breath masks, and Vorsoisson popped the canopy. The chill night air licked Miles's exposed skin, above his breath mask, and prickled in his scalp. He dug his hands into his pockets as if to warm them, touched his stunner briefly, and followed the Administrator, a little behind him. Staying out of sight was one thing; letting Vorsoisson out of his sight was another.

'Try looking in the Engineering building first,' Miles called, his voice muffled by his mask. 'See if we can get a look at what's going on before you make contact with the en—er, try to speak to anyone.'

Vorsoisson veered toward the loading bay's vehicle lock. Miles wondered if there was a chance anyone glancing out in the uncertain lighting might mistake him at first for Nikolai. The combination of Vorsoisson's dramatic mystery and his own natural paranoia was making him twitchy indeed, despite a better part of his mind that calculated high odds on a harmless scenario involving Vorsoisson being wildly mistaken.

They entered the pedestrian lock into the loading dock and cycled through. The pressure differential in his ears was slight. Miles kept his breath mask up temporarily as they rounded the parked lift van. He would call Tuomonen as soon as he ditched—

Miles skidded to a halt a moment too late to avoid being spotted in turn by the couple who stood quietly next to a float-pallet loaded with machinery. The woman, who had the pallet's control lead in her hand as she maneuvered the silently hovering load into the van, was Madame Radovas. The man was Administrator Soudha. They both looked up in shock at their unexpected visitors.

Miles was torn for a moment between whacking his wrist-comm's screamer circuit or going for his stunner; but at Soudha's sudden movement toward his own vest Miles's combat reflexes took over, and his hand dove for his pocket. Vorsoisson half-turned, his mouth round with astonishment and the beginning of some warning cry. Miles would have thought I've just been led into ambush by that idiot, except that Vorsoisson was clearly much more surprised than he was.

Soudha managed to get his stunner out and pointed a half second before Miles did. Oh, shit, I never asked Dr. Chenko what a stunner blast would do to my seizure stimulator— the stunner beam took him full in the face. His head snapped back in an agony that was mercifully brief. He was unconscious before he hit the concrete floor.

Miles woke with a stunner migraine pinwheeling behind his eyes, metallic splinters of pure pain seemingly stuck quivering in his brain from his frontal lobes to his spinal column. He closed his eyes immediately against the too-bright glare of lights. He was nauseated to the point of vomiting. The realization immediately following, that he was still wearing his breath mask, caused his spacer's training to cut in; he swallowed and breathed deeply, carefully, and the dangerous moment passed. He was cold, and held upright in an awkward position by restraints pulling on his arms. He opened his eyes again and looked around.

He was outdoors in the chill Komarran dark, chained to a railing along the walkway on the blank side of what appeared to be the Waste Heat engineering building. Colored floodlights positioned in the vegetation two meters below, prettily illuminating the building and raised concrete walk, were the source of the eye-piercing light. Beyond them, the view was singularly uninformative, the ground falling away from the building and then rising, beyond it, into blank barrenness. The railing was a simple one, metal posts set into the concrete at meter intervals and a round metal handrail running between them. He was slumped to his knees, the concrete hard and cold beneath them, and his wrists were chained—chained? yes, chained, the links fastened with simple metal locks—to two successive posts, holding him half-spread-eagled.

His ImpSec comm-link was still strapped to his left wrist. He could not, of course, reach it with his right hand. Or– he tried—his head. He twisted his wrist around, to press it against the railing, but the screamer-button was recessed to prevent accidental bumps setting it off. Miles swore under his breath, and his breath mask. The mask appeared to be tightly fitted to his face, and he could feel the oxygen bottle still firmly strapped to his chest under his jacket—who had fastened his jacket up to his chin?—but he would have to be exquisitely careful not to jostle the mask till he had his hands free again to readjust it.

So … had the stunner beam induced a seizure while he was unconscious, or was he still working up to one? His next was almost due. He stopped swearing abruptly and took a couple of deep, calming breaths that fooled his body not at all.

A couple of meters to his right, he discovered Tien Vorsoisson similarly chained between two upright posts. His head lolled forward; he evidently wasn't awake yet. Miles tried to convince the knot of stressed terror in his solar plexus that this bit of cosmic justice was at least one bright point in the affair. He smiled grimly under his mask. All things considered, he'd rather Vorsoisson were free and able to try for help. Better still, leave Vorsoisson fastened there, free himself to try for help. But twisting his hands in their tight chains merely scraped his wrists raw.

If they wanted to kill you, you'd be dead now, he tried to convince his hyperventilating body. Unless, of course, they were sadists, out for a slow and studied revenge. . . . What did I ever do to these people? Besides the usual offense of being Barrayaran in general and Aral Vorkosigan's son in particular. . . .

Minutes crept by. Vorsoisson stirred and groaned, then fell back into flaccid unconsciousness, at least assuring Miles he wasn't dead. Yet. At length, the sound of footsteps on the concrete made Miles turn his head carefully.

Because of the approaching figure's breath mask and padded jacket Miles was not at first sure if it was a man or a woman, but as it neared he recognized the curly gray-blond hair and brown eyes of a woman who'd been at that first VIP orientation meeting—it was the accountant, the meticulous one who'd been sure to have a duplicate copy of her department's records for Miles, hah. Foscol, read the name on her breath mask.

She saw his open eyes. 'Oh, good evening, Lord Auditor Vorkosigan.' She raised her voice to a good loud clarity, to be sure her words penetrated the muffling of her mask.

'Good evening, Madame Foscol,' he managed in return, matching her tone. If only he could get her talking, and listening—

She drew her hand from her pocket, and held up something glittering and metallic. 'This is the key to your wrist locks. I'll set it over here, out of the way.' She placed it carefully on the concrete walkway about halfway between Miles and the Administrator, next to the wall of the building. 'Don't let anyone accidentally kick it over the side. You'd have a heck of a time finding it down there.' She glanced thoughtfully over the rail at the dark vegetation below.

Implying that someone might be expected: a rescue party? Also implying that Foscol, Soudha, and Madame Radovas– Madame Radovas, what is she doing here?— did not expect to be around to supply the key in person when that happened.

She rummaged in her pocket again and came up with a data disk wrapped in protective plastic. 'This, my Lord Auditor, is the complete record of Administrator Vorsoisson's acceptance of bribes, in the amount of some sixty thousand marks over the last eight months. Account numbers, data trail, where his money was embezzled in the first place—everything you should need for a successful prosecution. I'd been going to mail it to Captain Tuomonen, but this is better.' Her eyes crinkled in a smile at him, above her breath mask. She bent and taped it securely to the back of Vorsoisson's jacket. 'With my compliments, my lord.' She stepped back and dusted her hands in the gesture of a dirty job well done.

'What are you doing?' Miles began. 'What are you people doing out here, anyway? Why is Madame Radovas with—'

'Come, come, Lord Vorkosigan,' Foscol interrupted him briskly. 'You don't imagine that I'm going to stand around and chat with you, do you?'

Vorsoisson stirred, groaned, and belched. Despite the utter contempt in her eyes, lingering on his huddled figure, she waited a moment to be sure he wasn't going to vomit into his breath mask. Vorsoisson stared wearily at her, blinking in bewilderment and, Miles had no doubt, pain.