Komarr

Gently, Tuomonen led her back to the issue at hand. Just when had she discovered her husband's involvement in the embezzlement scheme, and how? She repeated the same story about Tien's midnight call to Soudha she had given Miles last night, larded with more extraneous details—among other things she insisted on giving Tuomonen a complete recipe for spiced brandied milk. Fast-penta did do odd things to one's memory, even though it did not, despite rumor, give one perfect recall. Her report of the overheard conversation sounded nearly verbatim, though. Despite his obvious fatigue, Tuomonen was skillful and patient, allowing her to ramble on at length, alert for the hidden gem of critical information in these flowing associations an interrogator always hoped would turn up, but usually didn't.

Her description of breaking into her husband's comconsole the following morning included the mulish side comment, 'If Lord Vorkosigan could do it, I could do it,' which at Tuomonen's alert query triggered an embarrassing detour into her views of Miles's earlier ImpSec-style raid on her own comconsole. Miles bit his lip and met Tuomonen's raised brows blandly.

'He did say he liked my gardens, though. Nobody else in my family wants to even look at them.' She sighed, and smiled shyly at Miles. Dared he hope he was forgiven?

Tuomonen consulted his plastic flimsy. 'If you didn't discover your husband's debts until yesterday morning, why did you transfer almost four thousand marks into his account on the previous morning?' His attention sharpened at Ekaterin's look of drunken dismay.

'He lied to me. Bastard. Said we were going for the galactic treatment. No! He didn't say it, damn it. Fool, me. I wanted it to be true so much. Better a fool than a liar. Is it? I didn't want to be like him.'

Tuomonen sought enlightenment of Miles with a quick baffled glance. Miles blew out his breath. 'Ask her if it was Nikki's money.'

'Nikki's money,' she confirmed with a quick nod. Despite the fast-penta wooze, she frowned fiercely.

'This make sense to you, my lord?' Tuomonen murmured.

'I'm afraid so. She had saved just that sum out of her household accounts toward her son's medical treatment. I saw the account in her files, when I was taking that, um, unfortunate tour. I take it that her husband, claiming to be using it for that purpose, instead relieved her of it to stave off his creditors.' Embezzlement indeed. Miles exhaled, to bring his blood pressure back down. 'Have you traced it?'

'Tien transferred it upon receipt to the Rialto Sharemarket Agency.'

'There's no getting it back, I suppose?'

'Ask Gibbs, but I don't think so.'

'Ah.' Miles bit his knuckle, and nodded for Tuomonen to proceed. Now armed with the right questions, Tuomonen confirmed this interpretation explicitly, and went on to draw out all the intensely personal details about the Vorzohn's Dystrophy.

In exactly the same neutral tone, Tuomonen asked, 'Did you arrange your husband's death?'

'No.' Ekaterin sighed.

'Did you ask anyone, or pay anyone, to kill him?'

'No.'

'Did you know he was to be killed?'

'No.'

Fast-penta frequently made subjects bloody literal-minded; you always asked the important questions, the ones you were hot about, in a number of different ways, to be sure.

'Did you kill him yourself?'

'No.'

'Did you love him?'

Ekaterin hesitated. Miles frowned. Facts were ImpSec's rightful prey; feelings, maybe less so. But Tuomonen wasn't quite out of line yet.

'I think I did, once. I must have. I remember the wonderful look on his face, the day Nikki was born. I must have. He wore it out. I can hardly remember that time.'

'Did you hate him?'

'No . . . yes … I don't know. He wore that out too.' She looked earnestly at Tuomonen. 'He never hit me, you know.'

What an obituary. When I go down into the ground at last, as God is my judge, I pray my best-beloved may have better to say of me than, 'He didn't hit me.' Miles set his jaw and said nothing.

'Are you sorry he died?'

Watch it, Tuomonen. . . .

'Oh, but it was such a relief. What a nightmare today would have been if Tien were still alive. Though I suppose ImpSec would have taken him away. Theft and treason. But I would have had to go see him. Lord Vorkosigan said I could not have saved him. There was not enough time after Foscol called me. I'm so glad. It's so ugly to be so glad. I suppose I should forgive Tien for everything, because he's dead now, but I'll never forgive him for turning me into something so ugly.' Despite the drug, tears were leaking from her eyes now. 'I didn't use to be this kind of person, but now I can't go back.'

Some truths cut deeper than even fast-penta could soak. Expressionlessly, Miles reached past Tuomonen and handed Ekaterin a tissue. She blotted the moisture in owlish distress.

'Does she need more drug?' the medtech whispered.

'No.' Miles made a hand-down gesture for silence.

Tuomonen asked some more neutral questions, till something like his subject's original sunny and confiding air returned. Yeah. Nobody should have to do this much truth all at once.

Tuomonen looked at his flimsy, glanced uneasily at Miles, licked his lips, and said, 'Your cases and Lord Vorkosigan's were found together in your vestibule. Were you planning to leave together?'

Shock and fury flushed through Miles in a hot wave. Tuomonen, you dare—! But the memory of sorting through all that mixed underwear under the eye of the ImpSec guard stopped his words; so, yes, it could have looked odd, to someone who didn't know what was going on. He converted his boiling words to a slow breath, which he let out in a trickle. Tuomonen's eyes flicked sideways, wary of that sigh.

Ekaterin blinked at him in some confusion. 'I'd hoped to.'

What? Oh. 'She means, at the same time,' Miles gritted through his teeth to Tuomonen. 'Not together. Try that.'

'Was Lord Vorkosigan planning to take you away?'

'Away? Oh, what a lovely idea. Nobody was taking me away. Who would? I had to take myself away. Tien threw my aunt's skellytum over the balcony, but he didn't quite dare throw me. He wanted to, I think.'

Miles was diverted to brood on these last words. How much physical courage had it taken her, to stand up to Tien at the last? Miles did not underestimate just what nerve it took to face down large angry men who had the power to pick you up and pitch you across the room. Nerve and wit and never letting yourself get within arm's reach, nor blocked from the door. The calculations were automatic. And you had to stay in practice. For Ekaterin, it must have felt like landing a fully-loaded freight shuttle on her very first flying lesson.

Tuomonen, trying desperately for clarity and still with one eye on Miles, repeated, 'Were you going to elope with Lord Vorkosigan?'

Her brows flew up. 'No!' she said in astonishment.

No, of course not. Miles tried to recapture his first properly stunned reaction to the accusation, except that it now came out, What a great idea. Why didn't I think of it? which rather blunted the fine edge of his outrage. Anyway, she'd never have run off with him. It was all he could do to get a Barrayaran woman to walk down the street with a sawed-off mutie like him. . . .