Komarr

Oh hell. Have you fallen in love with this woman, idiot boy?

Um. Yeah.

He'd been falling for days, he realized in retrospect. It was just that he'd finally hit the ground. He should have recognized the symptoms. Oh, Tuomonen. The things we learn under fast- penta.

He could finally see what Tuomonen was getting at, though, all complete. A nice neat little conspiracy: murder Tien, blame it on the Komarrans, run off with his wife over his dead body … 'A most flattering scenario, Tuomonen,' Miles breathed to the ImpSec captain. 'Quick work on my part, considering I only met her five days ago. I thank you.' Was ever woman in this humor wooed? Was ever woman in this humor won? I think not.

Tuomonen shot him a flat-lipped glower. 'If my guard could think of it, and I could think of it, so could someone else. Best to knock the notion in the head as soon as possible. It's not as though I could fast-penta you. My lord.'

No, not even if Miles volunteered. His known idiosyncratic reaction to the drug, so historically useful in evading hostile interrogation, also made it impossible for him to use it to clear himself of any accusation. Tuomonen was just doing his job, and doing it well. Miles leaned back, and growled, 'Yeah, yeah, all right. But you're optimistic, if you think even fast-penta is fast enough to compete with titillating rumor. As a courtesy to his Imperial Majesty's Auditors' reputations, do have a word with that guard of yours after this.'

Tuomonen didn't argue, or pretend to misunderstand. 'Yes, my lord.'

Temporarily undirected, Ekaterin was burbling along on her free-association tangent. 'I wonder if the scars below his belt are as interesting as the ones above. I could hardly have got him out of his trousers in that bubble- car, I suppose. I had a chance last night, and I didn't even think of it. Mutie Vor. How does he do it . . . ? I wonder what it would be like to sleep with someone you actually liked . . . ?'

'Stop,' said Tuomonen belatedly. She fell silent and blinked at him.

Just when it was getting really interesting . . . Miles quelled a narcissistic, or perhaps masochistic, impulse to encourage her to go on in this strain. He'd invited himself along on this interrogation to keep ImpSec from abusing its opportunities.

'I'm finished, my lord,' Tuomonen said aside to him in a low voice. He did not quite meet Miles's eyes. 'Is there anything else you think I should ask, or that you wish to ask?'

Could you ever love me, Ekaterin? Alas, questions of future probability were unanswerable, even under fast-penta.

'No. I would ask you to note, nothing she's said under fast-penta substantially contradicts anything she's told us straight out. The two versions are in fact unusually congruent, compared to other interrogations in my experience.'

'Mine as well,' Tuomonen allowed. 'Very good.' He motioned to the silently waiting medtech. 'Go ahead and administer the antagonist.'

The woman stepped forward, adjusted the new hypospray, and pressed it against the inside of Ekaterin's arm. The lizard-hiss of the anti-drug going in licked Miles's ears. He counted Ekaterin's heartbeats again, one, two, three . . .

It was a horribly vampiric thing to watch, as if life itself were being sucked out of her. Her shoulders drew in, her whole body hunched in renewed tension, and she buried her face in her hands. When she raised it again, it was flushed and damp and strained, but she was not weeping, merely utterly exhausted, and closed again. He had thought she would weep. Fast-penta doesn't hurt, eh? Couldn't prove it now.

Oh, Milady. Can I ever make you look that happy without drugs? Of more immediate importance, would she forgive him for being a party to her ordeal?

'What a very odd experience,' Madame Vorsoisson said neutrally. Her voice was hoarse.

'It was a well-conducted interview,' Miles assured the room at random. 'All things considered. I've . . . seen much worse.'

Tuomonen gave him a dry look, and turned to Ekaterin. 'Thank you, Madame Vorsoisson, for your cooperation. This has been extremely useful to the investigation.'

'Tell the investigation it is welcome.'

Miles was not just sure how to interpret that one. Instead he said to Tuomonen, 'That will be all for her, won't it?'

Tuomonen hesitated, obviously trying to sort out whether that was a question or an order. 'I hope so, my lord.'

Ekaterin looked across at Miles. 'I'm sorry about the suitcases, Lord Vorkosigan. I never thought how it might look.'

'No, why should you have?' He hoped his voice didn't sound as hollow as it felt.

Tuomonen said to Ekaterin, 'I both suggest and request you rest for a while, Madame Vorsoisson. My medtech will stay with you for about half an hour, to be sure you're fully recovered and don't have any further drug reactions.'

'Yes, I … that would probably be wise, Captain.' Rubbery-legged, she rose; the medtech went to her side and escorted her off toward her bedroom.

Tuomonen shut down his vid recorder. He said gruffly, 'Sorry about that last round of questions, my Lord Auditor. It was not my intention to offer an insult to either you or Madame Vorsoisson.'

'Yeah, well . . . don't worry about it. What's next, from ImpSec's point of view?'

Tuomonen's weary brow wrinkled. 'I'm not sure. I wanted to make certain I conducted this interrogation myself. Colonel Gibbs has everything in hand at the Terraforming offices, and Major D'Emorie hasn't called to complain yet about anything at the experiment station. What we need next, preferably, is for the field agents to catch up with Soudha and his friends.'

'I can't be in all three places,' Miles said reluctantly. 'Barring an arrest coming through … the Professor is en route, and has had the advantage of a full night's sleep. You, I believe, have had none. My field instincts say this is the time to knock off for a while. Do I need to make that an order?'

'No,' Tuomonen assured him earnestly. 'You have your wrist-comm, I have mine . . . Field has our numbers and orders to report the news. I'll be glad to get home for a meal, even if it is last night's dinner. And a shower.' He rubbed his stubbled chin.

He finished packing the recorder, exchanged farewells with Miles, and went off to consult with his guards, hopefully to apprise them of Madame Vorsoisson's change of status from suspect/witness to free woman.

Miles considered the couch, rejected it, and wandered into Ekaterin's—Madame Vorsoisson's. . . . Ekaterin's, dammit, in his mind if not on his lips—Ekaterin's workroom. Automatic lighting still sustained the assortment of young plantings on the trellised shelves in the corners. The grav-bed was gone; oh yes, he'd forgotten she'd had it removed. The floor looked remarkably inviting, though.

A flash of scarlet in the trash bin caught his eye. Investigating, he found the remains of the bonsai'd skellytum bundled up in a square of plastic sheeting, mixed with pieces of its pot and damp loose dirt. Curiously, he dug it out and cleared a place on Ekaterin's work table, and unrolled the plastic . . . botanical body bag, he supposed.

The fragments put him in mind of the soletta array and the ore ship, and also of a couple of the more distressing autopsies he'd recently reviewed. Methodically, he began to sort them out. Broken tendrils in one pile, root threads in another, shards of the poor burst barrel of the thing in another. The five-floor plunge had had something of the same effect on the liquid-conserving central structure of the skellytum as a sledgehammer applied to a watermelon. Or a needle-grenade exploding inside someone's chest. He picked out sharp potsherds, and made tentative tries at piecing the bits of plant into place, like a jigsaw puzzle. Was there a botanical equivalent of