around one of the tables in the long room, pushed aside chunks of equipment to make space, and tore off the wrappers from the self-heating trays. The Komarrans eyed their food dubiously; Miles explained how it could have been much worse, getting a giggle from Riva. The conversation became general, touching on husbands and wives and children and tenure and an exchange of scurrilous anecdotes about the fecklessness of former colleagues. D'Emorie had a couple of good ones about early ImpSec cases. Miles was tempted to top them with a few about his cousin Ivan, but nobly refrained, though he did explain how he'd once sunk himself and his personal vehicle in several meters of arctic mud. This led to the subject of the progress of Komarran terraforming, and so by degrees back to work. Riva, Miles noticed, grew quieter and quieter.
She maintained her silence as they all took to the corn-consoles again after lunch. She did not resume her pacing. Miles watched her covertly, then less covertly. She reran several simulations, but did not play with further alterations. Miles knew damn well one couldn't hurry insight. This kind of problem-solving was a lot more like fishing than like hunting: waiting patiently and, to a degree, helplessly, for things to rise up out of the depths of the mind.
He thought about the last time he'd been fishing.
He considered Riva's age. She'd been in her teens at the time of the Barrayaran conquest of Komarr. In her twenties at the time of the Revolt. She'd survived, she'd endured, she'd cooperated; her years under Imperial rule had been good, including an obviously successful life of the mind, and a single marriage. She'd compared children with Vorthys, and spoken of an eldest daughter's upcoming wedding. No Komarran terrorist, she.
Now, the Professora's ship from Barrayar would be getting ready for its final wormhole jump. Now, Ekaterin's ferry would be approaching the jump-point station. Now, Soudha and his crew of earnest techs would be doing . . . what? Where? Now, he was sitting in a room on Komarr watching a quietly brilliant woman who had stopped thinking.
He rose, and went to touch Major D'Emorie on his green-uniformed shoulder. 'Major, can I have a word with you outside.'
Surprised, D'Emorie shut down his comconsole, where he'd been checking out some question about available power transformers Vorthys had put to him. He followed Miles into the hall and down the corridor.
'Major, do you have a fast-penta interrogation kit available?'
D'Emorie's brows rose. 'I can check, my lord.'
'Do so. Get one and bring it to me, please.'
'Yes, my lord.'
D'Emorie went off. Miles lingered by the window. It was twenty minutes before D'Emorie returned, but he had the familiar case in his hand.
Miles took it. 'Thank you. Now I would like you to take Dr. Yuell for a walk. Discreetly. I'll let you know when you can come back in.'
'My lord … if it's a matter for fast-penta, I'm sure ImpSec would want me to observe.'
'I know what ImpSec wants. You may be assured, I will tell them what they need to know, afterward.' Turnabout, hah, for all those briefings with vital pieces missing Lieutenant Vorkosigan had once endured . . . life was good, sometimes. Miles smiled a little sourly; D'Emorie, intelligently, veered off.
'Yes, my Lord Auditor.'
Miles stood aside for D'Emorie to exit with Dr. Yuell. When he entered the long room, he locked the door after himself. Both Professor Vorthys and Dr. Riva looked up at him in puzzlement.
'What's that for?' Dr. Riva asked, as he set the case on the table and opened it.
'Dr. Riva, I request and require a somewhat franker conversation with you than the one we had earlier.' He held up the hypospray and calibrated the dosage for her estimated body mass. Allergy check? He didn't think he needed it, but it was standard operating procedure; if he didn't have to guess, he didn't have to guess wrong. He tore off a test-dot from the coiled strip of them and walked over to her station chair. She was too startled to resist at first when he took her hand, turned it over, and pressed the tester to the inside of her wrist, but she jerked back her arm at the prickle. He let it go.
'Miles,' said Professor Vorthys in an agitated voice, 'what is this? You can't fast-penta … Dr. Riva is my invited guest!'
That wording was one step away from the sort of Vor challenge that used to result in duels, in the bad old days. Miles took a deep breath. 'My Lord Auditor. Dr. Riva. I have made two serious errors of judgment on this case so far. If I'd avoided either of them, your nephew-in-law would still be alive, we'd have nailed Soudha before he got away with all his equipment, and we would not now all be sitting at the bottom of a deep tactical hole playing with jigsaw puzzles. They were both at heart the same error. The first day we toured the Terraforming Project, I did not insist on Tien landing the aircar here, though I wanted to see the place. And on the second night, I did not insist on a fast-penta interrogation of Madame Radovas, though I wanted to. You're the failure analyst, Professor; am I wrong?'
'No . . . But you could not have known, Miles!'
'Oh, but I could have known. That's the whole point. But I didn't choose to do what was necessary, because I did not want to appear to use or abuse my Auditorial power in an offensive way. Especially not on here on Komarr, where everyone is watching me, the son of the Butcher, to see what I'll do. Besides, I spent a career fighting the powers-that-be. Now I am them. Naturally, I was a little confused.'
Riva's hand was to her mouth; there was no hive or red streak on the inside of her arm. Well and good. Miles returned to the table and picked up the hypospray.
'Lord Vorkosigan, I do not consent to this!' said Riva stiffly as he approached her.
'Dr. Riva, I did not ask you to.' His left hand guarded his right as in knife-play; the hypospray darted in to touch her neck even as she turned and began to rise from her chair. 'It would be too cruel a dilemma.' She sank back, glaring at him. Angry, but not desperate; she was divided in her own mind, then, which had doubtless saved them both the embarrassment of him chasing her around the room. Even at her age and dignity she could probably outrun him if she were truly determined to do so.
'Miles,' said the Professor dangerously, 'it may be your Auditorial privilege, but you had better be able to justify this.'
'Hardly a privilege. Only my duty.' He stared into Riva's eyes as her pupils dilated and she sank back limply in her chair. He didn't bother with the standard opening litany of neutral questions while waiting for the drug to cut in, but merely watched her lips. Their thin tension slowly softened to the stereotypical fast-penta smile. Her eyes remained more focused than those of the usual subject; he bet she could make this a lengthy and circuitous interrogation, if she chose. He'd do his best to cut that circuit as short as possible. The shortest way across a hostile District was around three sides.
'This was a really interesting five-space problem that Professor Vorthys set you,' Miles observed to her. 'Sort of a privilege to be brought in on it.'
'Oh, yes,' she agreed cordially. She smiled, frowned, her hands twitched, then her smile settled in more securely.
'Could be prizes and academic preferment, when it's all sorted out at last.'
'Oh, better than that,' she assured him. 'New physics only come along once in a lifetime, and usually you're too young or too old.'
'Strange, I've heard military careerists make the same complaint. But won't Soudha get the credit?'
'I doubt it was Soudha who thought of it. I'd bet it was the mathematician, Cappell, or maybe poor Dr. Radovas. It should be named after Radovas. He died for it, I suspect.'
'I don't want anybody else to die for it.'
'Oh, no,' she agreed earnestly.
'What did you say it was, again, Professor Riva?' Miles did his best to pitch his voice like a bewildered undergraduate's. 'I didn't understand.'
'The wormhole collapsing technique. There ought to be a better name for it. I wonder if your Dr. Soudha calls it something shorter.'
