Lois Bujold - Komarr

In the middle of this, Colonel Gibbs reported in via comconsole. He smiled dryly at both Imperial Auditors, an expression which Miles was beginning to recognize as Gibbs’s version of ecstasy.

“My Lord Vorkosigan. I have the first documented connection you were looking for. We’ve traced the serial numbers of a pair of hastings converters my Lord Vorthys’s people found topside back through the chain to a Waste Heat purchase eight months ago. The converters were originally delivered to their experiment station.”

“Right,” breathed Miles. “Finally, more of a link than just Radovas’s body. We have hold of the real string, all right, thank you, Colonel. Carry on.”

Ekaterin slept better than she’d expected to, but woke to the realization that she’d got through most of yesterday on adrenaline. Today, with its enforced wait for action, was going to be harder. I’ve been waiting nine years. I can manage nineteen more hours. Lying in bed allowed a kind of numb, foggy grief to descend, despite her release from the late chaos of Tien’s life. So she rose, dressed carefully, ducked around the guard in her living room, made breakfast, and waited.

The Auditors stirred soon thereafter and came out gratefully for food, but carried off their coffee to the secured comconsole. She ran out of things to clean up, and went out to her balcony, but found the presence of another guard on post inhibited her from resting there. So she gave the guards coffee, and retreated to her kitchen, and waited some more.

Lord Vorkosigan emerged again. He fended off her offers of more coffee, and instead seated himself at her table. “ImpSec sent me the autopsy report on Tien this morning. How much do you want to know about it?”

The vision of Tien’s congealed body, hanging in the frost, flashed in her memory. “Was there anything unexpected?”

“Not with respect to cause of death. They found his Vorzohn’s Dystrophy, of course.”

“Yes. Poor Tien. To spend all those years in a suppressed panic over his disease, only to die of another cause altogether.” She shook her head. “So much effort, so misplaced. How far advanced was it, could they tell?”

“The nervous lesions were very distinct, according to the examiner. Though how they can tell one microscopic blob from another… The outward symptoms, if I interpret the medical jargon correctly, would have been impossible to conceal very soon.”

“Yes. I think I knew that. It was the inward progress I wondered about. When did it start. How much of Tien’s, oh, bad judgment and other behavior was his disease.” Should she have somehow held on longer? Could she have? Until what other desperate denouement had played itself out?

“The damage builds slowly for a long time. Which parts of the brain are affected varies from person to person. For what it’s worth, his seemed concentrated in the motor regions and peripheral nervous system. Though it may be possible to blame some of his actions on the disease, later, if a face-saving gesture is needed.”

“How… politic. Face-saving for whom? I don’t wish it.”

He smiled a bit grimly. “I didn’t think you did. But I have the unpleasant conviction that this case is going to shift from its nice clean engineering parameters into some very messy politics sooner or later. I never discard a possible reserve.” He looked down at his hands, clasped loosely before him on the table. His gray sleeves imperfectly concealed the white bandages ringing his wrists. “How did Nikki take the news, last night?”

“That was hard. He started out-before I told him-trying to argue me into letting him stay and play another night. Getting passionate and sulking, you know how kids are. I so much wished I could simply let him go on, not having to know. I wasn’t able to prepare him as much as I would have liked. I finally had to sit him down and tell him straight out, Nikki, you have to come home now. Your Da was killed in a breath mask accident last night. It just… wiped him blank. I almost wished for the whining back.” Ekaterin looked away. She wondered what oblique forms Nikki’s reactions might eventually take, and whether she would recognize them. Or handle them well. Or not… “I don’t know how it’s going to go in the long run. When I lost my mother… I was older, and we knew it was coming, but it was still a shock, that day, that hour. I always thought there would be more time.”

“I’ve not yet lost a parent,” said Vorkosigan. “Grandparents are different, I think. They are old, it’s their destiny, somehow. I was shaken when my grandfather died, but my world was not. I think my father’s was, though.”

“Yes,” she looked up gratefully, “that’s the difference exactly. It’s like an earthquake. Something that isn’t supposed to move suddenly dumps you over. I think the world is going to be a scarier place for Nikki this morning.”

“Have you hit him with his Vorzohn’s Dystrophy news yet?”

“I’m letting him sleep. I’ll tell him after breakfast. I know better than to stress a kid who has low blood sugar.”

“Odd, I feel the same way about troops. Is there anything… can I help? Or would you prefer to be private?”

“I’m not sure. He doesn’t have school today anyway. Weren’t you taking my uncle out to the experiment station this morning?”

“Directly. It can wait an extra hour for this.”

“I think… I would like it if you can stay. It’s not good to make of the disease something all secret that’s too awful to even talk about. That was Tien’s mistake.”

“Yes,” he said encouragingly. “It’s just a thing. You deal with it.”

Her brows rose. “As in, one damn thing after another?”

“Yes, very like.” He smiled at her, his gray eyes crinkling. Through whatever combination of luck and clever surgery, no scars marred his face, she realized. “It works, as tactics if not strategy.”

True to his offer, Lord Vorkosigan drifted back into her kitchen as Nikki was finishing his breakfast. He lingered suggestively, stirring the coffee he took black and leaning against the far counter. Ekaterin took a deep breath and settled beside Nikki at the table, her own half-empty and cold cup a mere prop. Nikki eyed her warily.

“You won’t be going to school tomorrow,” she began, hoping to strike a positive note.

“Is that when Da’s funeral is? Will I have to burn the offering?”

“Not yet. Your Grandmadame has asked that we bring his body back to Barrayar, to bury beside your uncle who died when you were little.” Tien’s mother’s return message had come in by comconsole this morning, beamed and jumped through the wormhole-relays. In writing, as Ekaterin’s had been, and perhaps for similar reasons; writing allowed one to leave so much out. “We’ll do all the ceremonies and burn the offering then, when everyone can be there.”

“Will we have to take him on the jumpship with us?” asked Nikki, looking disturbed.

From the side of the room Lord Vorkosigan said, “In fact, ImpS-the Imperial Civil Service will take care of all those arrangements, with your permission, Madame Vorsoisson. He will probably be back home before you are, Nikki.”

“Oh,” said Nikki.

“Oh,” Ekaterin echoed. “I… I was wondering. I thank you.”

He sketched a bow. “Allow me to pass on your mother-in-law’s address and instructions. You have enough other things to do.”

She nodded, and turned back to her son. “Anyway, Nikki… you and I are going to Solstice tomorrow, to visit a clinic there. We never mentioned this to you before, but you have a condition called Vorzohn’s Dystrophy.”

Nikki made an uncertain face. “What’s that?”