Lois Bujold - Komarr

Tuomonen dispatched the two guards to the perimeter, namely the hallway and the balcony, and set up a vid recorder on a tripod. He then turned to Vorkosigan, and with a rather odd emphasis, said, “May I remind you, Lord Vorkosigan, that more than one questioner can create unnecessary confusion in a fast-penta interrogation.”

Vorkosigan gave him an acknowledging hand wave. “Quite. I know the drill. Go ahead, Captain.”

Tuomonen glanced at the medtech, who stared closely at Ekaterin’s wrist, then released it. “She’s clear,” the woman reported.

“Proceed, please.”

At the medtech’s direction, Ekaterin rolled up her sleeve. The hypospray hissed against her skin with a cold bite.

Count backwards slowly from ten,” Tuomonen told her.

“Ten,” Ekaterin said obediently. “Nine… eight… seven…”

Two… one…” Ekaterin’s voice, almost inaudible at first, grew more firm as she counted down.

Miles thought he could almost mark Ekaterin’s heartbeats, as the drug flooded her system. Her tightly clenched hands loosened in her lap. Tension in her face, neck, shoulders, and body melted away like snow in the sun. Her eyes widened and brightened, her pale cheeks flushed with soft color; her lips parted and curved, and she looked up at Miles, beyond Tuomonen, with an astonished sunny smile.

“Oh,” she said, in a surprised voice. “It doesn’t hurt.”

“No, fast-penta doesn’t hurt,” said Tuomonen, in a level, reassuring tone.

That isn’t what she means, Tuomonen. If a person lived in hurt like a mermaid in water, till hurt became as invisible as breath, its sudden removal-however artificial-must come as a stunning event. Miles breathed covert relief that Ekaterin apparently wasn’t going to be a giggler or a drooler, nor was she one of the occasional unfortunates in whom the drug released a torrent of verbal obscenities, or an almost equally embarrassing torrent of tears.

No. The kicker here is going to be when we take it away again. The realization chilled him. But my God, isn’t she beautiful when she is not in pain? Her open, smiling warmth looked strangely familiar to him, and he tried to remember just when he’d seen that sweet air about her before. Not today, not yesterday…

It was in your dream.

Oh.

He sat back and rested his chin in his hand, fingers across his mouth, as Tuomonen started down the list of standard neutral questions: name, birth date, parents’ names, the usual. The purpose was not only to give the drug time to take full effect, but also to set up a rhythm of question-and-answer which would help carry the interrogation along when the questions, and answers, became more difficult. Ekaterin’s birthday was just three weeks before his own, Miles noted in passing, but the War of Vordarian’s Pretendership, which had so disrupted their mutual birth year in the regions around Vorbarr Sultana, had scarcely touched the South Continent.

The medtech had settled herself on a chair drawn up outside the conversation circle, out of the line of sight between interrogator and subject, but not, alas, entirely out of earshot. Miles trusted she had suitable top security clearances. He didn’t know, and decided not to ask, if her gender represented delicacy on Tuomonen’s part, tacit acknowledgment that a fast-penta interrogation could be a mind-rape. Physical brutality did not mix with fast-penta interrogation, which had helped to eliminate certain unsavory psychological types from successful careers as interrogators. But physical assault was not the only possible kind, nor even necessarily the worst. Or maybe she’d just been next up on the roster of available personnel.

Tuomonen moved on to more recent history. Exactly when had Tien acquired his Komarran post, and how? Had he known anyone in his department-to-be, or met with anyone in Soudha’s group, before they’d left Barrayar? No? Had she seen any of his correspondence? Ekaterin, growing ever more cheerful in fast-penta elation, rattled on as confidingly as a child. She’d been so excited about the appointment, about the promised proximity to good medical facilities, certain she would get galactic-class help for Nikki at last. She had agonized over Tien’s application and helped him to write it. Well, yes, written most of it for him. Serifosa Dome was fascinating, and their assigned apartment much larger and nicer than she’d been led to expect. Tien said the Komarrans were all techno-snobs, but she had not found them to be so…

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?”