Miles in Love (15 page)

She checked the welcome monitor beside the door. "It's another courier. Oh, it's a captain this time. Usually you get a sergeant." Madame Vorsoisson keyed open the hall door to reveal a young man in Barrayaran undress greens, with ImpSec's eye-of-Horus pins on his collar. "Do come in."

"Madame Vorsoisson." The man nodded to her, trod inside, and shifted his gaze to Miles. "Lord Auditor Vorkosigan. I'm Captain Tuomonen. I head up ImpSec's office here in Serifosa." Tuomonen appeared to be in his late twenties, dark haired and brown eyed like most Barrayarans, and a bit more trim and fit than the average desk soldier, though with dome-pale skin. He had a disk case in one hand and a larger case in the other, so nodded cordially rather than offering any salutelike gesture.

"Yes, General Rathjens mentioned you. We're honored to have such a courier."

Tuomonen shrugged. "ImpSec Serifosa is a very small office, my lord. General Rathjens directed you were to be informed as soon as possible after the new body was identified."

Miles's eye took in the secured disk case in the captain's hand. "Excellent. Come sit down." He led the captain to the conversation circle, a deeply-padded sunken bench which was the centerpiece of the Vorsoisson's living room. Like most of the rest of the furnishings, it was Komarran dome standard-issue. Did Madame Vorsoisson sometimes feel she was camping in a hotel, rather than making a home here? "Madame Vorsoisson, would you ask your uncle to join us? Let him finish eating first, though."

"I would like to speak with Administrator Vorsoisson, also, when he's finished," Tuomonen called after her. She nodded and withdrew, eyes dark with interest but posture still self-effacing, self-erasing, as if she wished she might become invisible to Miles's eyes.

"What do we have?" continued Miles, settling himself. "I told Rathjens I might like to accompany and observe the first ImpSec contact on this matter." He could pack his bag and take it along tonight, and not have to come back.

"Yes, my lord. That's why I'm here. Your mysterious body turns out to be a local fellow, from Serifosa. He is, or was, listed as an employee of the Terraforming Project here."

Miles blinked. "Not an engineer named Dr. Radovas, is it?"

Tuomonen stared at him, startled. "How did you know?"

"Wild-ass guess, because he went missing a few weeks ago. Oh, hell, I'll bet Vorsoisson could have identified him at a glance. Or . . . maybe not. He was pretty battered. Hm. Radovas's boss thought he'd eloped with his tech, a young lady named Marie Trogir.
Her
body hasn't turned up topside, has it?"

"No, my lord. But it sounds as though we ought to start looking for it."

"Yes. A full ImpSec search and background check, I think. Don't assume she's dead—if she's alive, we surely want to question her. Do you need a special order from me?"

"Not necessarily, but I'll bet it would expedite things." A faint enthusiastic gleam lit Tuomonen's eye.

"You have it, then."

"Thank you, my lord. I thought you'd want this." He handed Miles the secured case. "I pulled the complete dossier on Radovas before I left the office."

"Does ImpSec keep files on every Komarran citizen, or was he special?"

"No, we don't keep universal files. But we have a search program that can pull records of good depth from the information net very quickly. The first part of this is his public biography, school records, medical records, financial and travel documents, all the usual. I only had time to glance over it. But Radovas also does have a small ImpSec file, dating back to his student days during the Komarr Revolt. It was closed at the amnesty."

"Is it interesting?"

"I would not draw too many inferences from it alone. Half the population of Komarr of that age group was part of some student protest or would-be revolutionary group back then, including my mother-in-law." Tuomonen waited stiffly to see what response Miles would make to this tidbit.

"Ah, you married a local girl, did you?"

"Five years ago."

"How long have you been posted to Serifosa?"

"About six years."

"Good for you."
Yes! That leaves one more Barrayaran woman for the rest of us.
"You get along well with the locals, I take it."

Tuomonen's stiffness eased. "Mostly. Except for my mother-in-law. But I don't think that's entirely political." Tuomonen suppressed a small grin. "But our little daughter has her under complete control, now."

"I see." Miles smiled back at him. With a more thoughtful frown, he turned the case over, dug his Auditor's seal out of his pocket, and keyed it open. "Has your Analysis section red-flagged anything in this for me?"

"I
am
Serifosa's Analysis section," Tuomonen admitted ruefully. His glance at Miles sharpened. "I understand you're former ImpSec yourself, my lord. I think I'd rather let you read it over first, before I comment."

Miles's brows twitched up. Did Tuomonen not trust his own judgment, had the arrival of two Imperial Auditors in his sector unnerved him, or was he merely seizing the opportunity for some mutual brainstorming? "And what sort of dossier did you pull off the net on one Miles Vorkosigan, and speed-read before you left the office just now?"

"I did that day before yesterday, actually, my lord, when I was notified you would be arriving in Serifosa."

"And what was your analysis of it?"

"About two-thirds of your career is locked under a need-to-know seal that requires clearance from ImpSec HQ in Vorbarr Sultana to access. But your publicly recorded awards and decorations appear in a statistically significant pattern following supposedly routine courier missions assigned to you by the Galactic Affairs office. At approximately five times the density of the next most decorated courier in ImpSec history."

"And your conclusion, Captain Tuomonen?"

Tuomonen smiled faintly. "You were never a bloody courier, Captain Vorkosigan."

"Do you know, Tuomonen, I believe I am going to enjoy working with you."

"I hope so, sir." He glanced up as the Professor entered the living room, flanked by Tien Vorsoisson.

Vorthys finished wiping his mouth with his dinner napkin, stuffed it absently into his pocket, and greeted Tuomonen with a handshake, then introduced his nephew-in-law. As they all sat again, Miles said, "Tuomonen has brought us the identification of our extra body."

"Oh, good," said Vorthys. "Who was the poor fellow?"

Miles watched Tuomonen watch Tien and say, "Strangely enough, Administrator Vorsoisson, one of your employees. Dr. Barto Radovas."

Tien's grayness became a shade paler. "Radovas! What the hell was he doing up
there
?" The shock and horror on Tien's face was genuine, Miles would have sworn, the surprise in his voice unfeigned.

"I was hoping you might have some ideas, sir," said Tuomonen.

"My God. Well . . . was he aboard the station, or the ship?"

"We haven't determined that yet."

"I really can't tell you that much about the man. He was in Soudha's department. Soudha never made any complaints about his work to me. He got all his merit raises right to schedule." Tien shook his head. "But what the hell was he doing . . ." He glanced worriedly at Tuomonen. "He's not actually my employee, you know. He resigned several weeks ago."

"Five days before his death, according to our calculations," said Tuomonen.

Tien's brows wrinkled. "Well . . . he couldn't have been aboard that ore ship, then, could he? How could he have gotten all the way out to the second asteroid belt and boarded it before he even left Komarr?"

"He might have joined the ore ship en route," said Tuomonen.

"Oh. I suppose that's possible. My God. He's married. Was married. Is his wife still here in town?"

"Yes," said Tuomonen. "I'll be meeting shortly with the dome civil security officer who's taking the official notification of death to her."

"She's waited three weeks with no word from him," said Miles. "Another hour can't matter much at this point. I think I'd like to review your report before we leave, Captain."

"Please do, my lord."

"Professor, will you join me?"

They all ended up trooping into Vorsoisson's study. Miles privately felt he could do without Tien, but Tuomonen made no move to exclude him.

The report was not yet an in-depth analysis, but rather a wad of raw data bundled logically, with hasty preliminary notes and summations supplied by Tuomonen. A full analysis would doubtless arrive eventually from ImpSec-Komarr HQ. They all pulled up chairs and crowded around the vid display. After the initial overview, Miles let the Professor follow the thread of Radovas's career.

"He lost two years out of the middle of his undergraduate schooling to the Revolt," Vorthys noted. "Solstice University was shut down entirely, for a time then."

"But it looks like he made up some points with that two-year postgraduate stint on Escobar," Miles said.

"Anything could have happened to him there," opined Tien.

"But not much did, according to this," said Vorthys a bit dryly. "Commercial work in their orbital shipyards . . . he didn't even get a good research topic out of it. Solstice University did not renew his contract. Not a man with a gift for teaching, one feels."

"He was refused a job in the Imperial Science Institute because of his associations in the Revolt," Tuomonen pointed out, "despite the amnesty."

"All the amnesty promised was that he'd never be taken out and shot," said Miles a shade impatiently.

"But he was not refused it on the basis of inadequate technical competence," murmured Vorthys. "Here he goes on to a job rather below his educational level, in the Komarran orbital yards."

Miles checked. "He had three small children by then. He had to go for the money."

"Several bland years follow," the Professor droned on. "Changes companies only once, for a respectable increase in salary and position. Then he is hired by—Soudha was fairly new then, but hired by Soudha for the Terraforming Project, and moves downside permanently."

"No pay raise that time. Professor . . ." Miles said plaintively. He touched his finger to air on the vid display at this juncture in the late Dr. Radovas's career. "Doesn't this downside move strike you as a odd for a man trained and experienced in jump technologies? He was a five-space-math man."

Tuomonen smiled tightly, by which Miles deduced he had put his finger rather literally upon the same point that had bothered the captain.

Vorthys shrugged. "There could be many compelling reasons. He could have felt stale in his old work. He could have grown into new interests. Madame Radovas might have refused to live on a space station for one more day. I think you'll have to ask her."

"But it is unusual," said Tuomanen tentatively.

"Maybe," said Vorthys. "Maybe not."

"Well," sighed Miles after a long silence. "Let's go do the hard part."

The Radovas's apartment proved to be about a third of the way across the city from the Vorsoissons', but at this hour of the evening there were no delays in the bubble-car system. With Tuomonen leading, Miles, Vorthys, and Tien—whom Miles did not remember inviting, but who somehow had attached himself to the expedition—entered the lobby, where they found a youngish woman in a Serifosa Dome Security uniform waiting for them, none too patiently.

"Ah, the dome cop is female," Miles murmured to Tuomonen. He looked back over their cavalcade. "Good. We'll seem less like an invading army."

"So I hoped, my lord."

After brief introductions all around, they took a lift tube to a hallway nearly identical to every other dome residence building Miles had so far seen. The dome cop, who was styled Group-Patroller Rigby, rang the door chime.

After a pause long enough to start Miles wondering,
Is she home?
the door slid open. The woman framed there was slender and neatly dressed, appearing to Miles's Barrayaran eye to be in her mid-forties, which probably meant she was in her late fifties. She wore the usual Komarran trousers and blouse, and hunched into a heavy sweater. She looked pale and chilled, but there was certainly nothing else in her appearance to repel any husband.

Her eyes widened as she took in the uniformed people facing her, radiating the message
bad news
. "Oh," she sighed wearily. Miles, who had braced himself for hysterics, relaxed a little. She was going to be the underreacting type, it appeared. Her response would likely emerge oddly, and obliquely, and later.

"Madame Radovas?" the dome cop said. The woman nodded. "My name is Group-Patroller Rigby. I regret to inform you that your husband, Dr. Barto Radovas, has been found dead. May we please come in?"

Madame Radovas's hand went to her lips; she said nothing for a moment. "Well." She looked away. "I am not so pleased as I thought I'd be. What happened to him? That young woman—is she all right?"

"May we come in and sit down?" Rigby reiterated. "I'm afraid we are going to have to trouble you with some questions. We'll try to answer yours."

Madame Radovas's eye warily took in Tuomonen, in his ImpSec greens. "Yes. All right." She gave way, stepping backward, and gestured them all inside.

Her living room featured another standard conversation circle; Miles seated himself to one side, letting Tuomonen share line-of-sight across from Madame Radovas with the Group-Patroller, who introduced the rest of them. Tien joined them, folding himself onto the bench, a picture of awkward discomfort. Professor Vorthys shook his head slightly and remained standing, his gaze taking in the room.

"What happened to Barto? Was there an accident?" Madame Radovas's voice was husky, barely controlled, now that the news was sinking in.

"We're not certain," said Rigby. "His body was found in space, apparently associated with the disaster to the soletta three weeks ago. Did you know he had gone topside? Had he said anything before he left that would shed some light on this?"

"I . . ." She looked away. "He didn't speak to me before he left. I think he was not very brave about this. He left me a note on the comconsole. Until I found it, I thought this was an ordinary work trip."