Mirror Dance

what she thinks you ought to know about me, before we get better acquainted. Tell her I asked you to.”

“All right. I like to talk with Lady Cordelia. She’s sort of been my mentor. She makes me think I can do anything.” Kareen hesitated. “If you’re back by Winterfair, will you dance with me again at the Imperial Residence Ball? And not hide in the corner this time,” she added sternly.

“If I’m back by Winterfair, I won’t have to hide in the corner. Yes.”

“Good. I’ll hold you to your word.”

“My word as Vorkosigan,” he said lightly.

Her blue eyes widened. “Oh. My.” Her soft lips parted in a blinding smile.

He felt like a man who’s gone to spit, and had a diamond pop accidentally from his lips instead. And he couldn’t call it back and re-swallow it. There must be a Vorish streak in the girl, to take a man’s word so seriously.

“I have to go now,” he said.

“All right. Lord Mark—be careful?”

“I—why do you say that?” He hadn’t said a word about where he was going or why, he swore.

“My father is a soldier. You have that same look in your eyes that he gets, when he’s lying through his teeth about some difficulty he’s heading into. He can never fool my mother, either.”

No girl had ever told him to be careful, like she meant it. He was touched beyond measure. “Thank you, Kareen.” Reluctantly, he cut the comm, with a gesture that was nearly a caress.

Chapter Twenty-One

Mark and Bothari-Jesek hitched a ride from Barrayar back to Komarr on an ImpSec courier vessel very like the one they’d ridden before, the last favor, Mark swore, that he would ever ask of Simon Illyan. This resolve lasted till they arrived at Komarr orbit, where Mark found that the Dendarii had given him his Winterfair gift early. All of Medic Norwood’s personal effects had finally arrived, shipped from the main Dendarii fleet.

ImpSec being ImpSec, they had opened it first. So much the better; they would hardly have let Mark touch it if they had not convinced themselves they’d already emptied it of all its secrets. With Bothari-Jesek’s backing, Mark begged, bluffed, bullied and whined his way to access to it. With obvious reluctance, ImpSec admitted him under supervision to a locked room in their orbital HQ. But they admitted him.

Mark turned Bothari-Jesek loose to oversee the arrangements for the ship the Countess’s agent had located. As a Dendarii shipmaster Bothari-Jesek was not only the most logical person for the logistical tasks, she was probably overkill. With barely a pang of conscience Mark dismissed her from his thoughts to plunge into his examination of his new treasure box. Alone in an empty room. Heavenly.

After his first excited pass through the material—which included old clothing, a disk library, letters, and souvenir knickknacks from Norwood’s four years of Dendarii service—Mark, depressed, was inclined to allow ImpSec was right. There was nothing here of value. Nothing up any of the sleeves—ImpSec had checked; Mark set aside clothing, boots, mementos, and all the physical effects. It gave him a queer feeling to handle the old clothes, marked with the wear of a body that was gone forever. Too damn much mortality around here. He turned his attention instead to the more intellectual detritus of the medic’s life and career: his library and technical notes. ImpSec had gone through this same focusing before him, he noted glumly.

He sighed, and settled back in his station chair for a long slog. He desperately wanted Norwood to yield him the clue, if only so that a man he had inadvertently led to his death might not have died so in vain. I never want to be a combat commander again. Ever.

He hadn’t expected it to be obvious. But his connector, when he finally ran across it hours later, was just about as subliminal as they came. It was a note hand-jotted on a plastic flimsy stuck in a pile of similar notes, interspersed in a cryo-prep training manual for emergency medical technicians. All it said was, See Dr. Durona at 0900 for laboratory materials.

Not the Durona … ?

Mark back-pedaled to Norwood’s certifications and transcripts, part of the medic’s computerized records he’d already seen in the ImpSec files on Barrayar. Norwood had taken his Dendarii cryonics training at a certain Beauchene Life Center, a respected commercial cryo-revival facility on Escobar. The name “Dr. Durona” did not appear anywhere among his immediate instructors. It did not appear on a listing of the Life Center’s staff. It did not, in fact, appear anywhere at all. Mark checked it all again, to be sure.

There are probably lots of people named Durona on Escobar. It’s not that rare a name. He clutched the flimsy anyway. It itched in his palm.

He called Quinn, aboard the Ariel moored nearby.

“Ah,” she said, eyeing him without favor in the vid. “You’re back. Elena said you were. What do you think you’re doing?”

“Never mind that. Look, is there anyone here among the Dendarii, any medics or medtechs, who were trained at the Beauchene Life Center? Preferably at the same time as Norwood? Or near his time?”

She sighed. “There were three in his group. Red Squad’s medic, Norwood, and Orange Squad’s medic. ImpSec has already asked us about that, Mark.”

“Where are they now?”

“Red Squad’s medic was killed in a shuttle crash several months ago—”

“Agh!” He ran his hands through his hair.

“Orange Squad’s man is here on the Ariel.”

“Right!” Mark crowed happily. “I have to talk to him.” He almost said, Put him on, then remembered he was on ImpSec’s private line and certainly being monitored. “Send a personnel pod to pick me up.”

“One, ImpSec has already interrogated him, at great length, and two, who the hell are you to give orders?”

“Elena hasn’t told you much, I see.” Curious. Did Bothari-Jesek’s dubious Armsman’s oath then outrank her loyalties to the Dendarii? Or was she just too busy to chat? How much time had he been—he glanced at his chrono. My God. “I happen to be on my way to Jackson’s Whole. Very soon. And if you are very nice to me, I might ask ImpSec to release you to me, and let you ride along as my guest. Maybe.” He grinned breathlessly at her.

The smoldering look she gave him in return was more eloquent than the bluest string of swear words he’d ever heard. Her lips moved—counting to ten?—but no sound came out. When she did speak, her tone was clipped to a burr. “I’ll have your pod at the station’s hatch ring in eleven minutes.”

“Thank you.”

The medic was surly.

“Look, I’ve been through this. For hours on end. We’re done.”

“I promise I’ll keep it brief,” Mark assured him. “Just one question.”

The medic eyed Mark malignantly, perhaps correctly identifying him as the reason why he’d been stuck ship-bound in Komarr orbit for the last dozen weeks.

“When you and Norwood were taking your cryonics training at Beauchene Life Center, do you ever remember meeting a Dr. Durona? Handing out lab supplies, maybe?”

“The place was knee-deep in doctors. No. Can I go now?” The medic made to rise.

“Wait!”

“That was your one question. And the ImpSec goons asked it before you.”

“And that was the answer you gave them? Wait. Let me think.” Mark bit his lip anxiously. The name alone was not enough to hare off on, not even for him. There had to be more. “Do you ever remember … Norwood being in contact with a tall, striking woman with Eurasian features, straight black hair, brown eyes … extremely smart.” He didn’t dare to suggest an age. It could be anywhere between twenty and sixty.

The medic stared at him in astonishment. “Yeah! How did you know?”

“What was she? What was her relation with Norwood?”