Lois Bujold - Cryoburn

“Not that NewEgypt is likely to bring charges.”

“Naw, they’d do something else.”

“I am reminded. I could have Suze freeze and store them for us, I suppose. Technically.”

Roic gave him the Look.

“If push came to shove. As a Kibou-daini problem-solving technique, there seems to be precedent.”

Roic said nothing, firmly.

“Ah, well,” sighed Miles. “Lock the door and let them nap, for now. Onwards.”

Working around Madame Sato’s bio-isolation proved only a brief challenge. Miles set up his interrogation chamber in the empty booth next to hers, and lent her Raven’s wristcom to listen in. With his booth brightly lit, hers not, and the curtain mostly drawn on her side of the glass wall, it was as good as a one-way mirror as long as she didn’t move around too much. She understood, if perhaps did not entirely approve, his plan to split the interrogation into two parts, the first with Leiber unaware of her presence, to see if the same story was extracted both ways. Miles wasn’t sure when to spring her on Leiber for maximum utility. It would doubtless come to him.

Leiber was still woozy when Raven and Roic guided him into the booth and sat him in a chair. Roic took a wall-propping pose against the door. With no bed, the booth wasn’t exactly crowded even with the four of them, but its slightly claustrophobic air was more of a feature than a failing, in Miles’s view.

“You again!” Leiber said, staring at Miles.

Raven, with a benevolent air, bent to press a hypospray against Leiber’s arm.

Leiber jerked. “Fast-penta?” he growled, looking helpless and angry.

“Synergine,” Raven soothed. “That headache should clear right up.”

Leiber rubbed his arm and scowled, but, after pressing a suspicious hand to his forehead, blinked in surprise and, in a moment more, belief.

So, and when did you ever have fast-penta, that you can tell the difference? Miles added the question to his long list. Miles waved Raven to a chair against the wall, and took one himself at a not-too-looming distance from his subject. Although to loom properly, he supposed he’d have to stand on the chair, which just wouldn’t have the same effect. Best to delegate that task to Roic.

“So, Dr. Leiber. We might have saved steps by having this conversation day before yesterday, but I suppose your living room might have been monitored like your comconsole. Maybe it’s just as well. Here, I can assure you, we are totally private.” Miles smiled toothily. Imperial Auditor, threat or menace? You decide .

Leiber’s lips moved, My comconsole! “Dammit, I thought I’d taken care of that. So that’s how you traced me?”

“That’s how the two gentlemen dressed in the medical kit traced you, I imagine. Armsman Roic, here”—Miles waved his hand; Roic nodded amiably—“I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to introduce you two properly earlier—Roic followed them. More or less. And took you away from them. Did you recognize them, by the way?”

“Hans and Oki? Of course. The Gang of Four’s pet muscle.”

“Highly paid, these coworkers of yours?”

“Oh, yah.” Leiber smiled sourly. “And great job security, too.”

“As good as yours?”

“Not as far as I know. Lucky for them.” Leiber squinted. “Took me away how?”

“Stunner,” said Roic.

“That’s illegal!”

“No, actually, I have a local permit. Bodyguard, y’know.”

Official government bodyguard, in point of fact. Which was as close as Vorlynkin had been able to get to Armsman on the Prefecture’s application form. Roic had acquired even odder designations in past ventures, true.

“Who the hell are you people, anyway?” Leiber sat up indignantly; Roic tensed a trifle. “Did you steal Lisa from me?”

“Her cryochamber is safe,” said Miles, truthfully. It was still tucked away down the hall.

“Not for long if NewEgypt’s onto me!”

“You’re safe too, for the moment. We’re holed up in an old decommissioned cryofacility on the south side of town, if you want to know. Out of sight, out of mind.”

“Not likely,” muttered Leiber, subsiding.

“How about this,” said Miles. “I’ll tell you what I know, and you tell me what I don’t know.”

“Why should I?”

“We’ll come to that. To start with, I really was a Barrayaran delegate to the cryo-conference.”

“You’re no doctor. Or academic.” Leiber frowned. “Prospective patron?”

Not if I can help it . “No, I’m an Imperial Auditor. A high-level investigator for my government. Among my several tasks here is to study the social and legal problems Kibou-daini faces as a result of its deep engagement with cryonics. I shall inevitably be tapped as an advisor to upgrading Barrayar’s admittedly-archaic legal codes, to avoid repeating your mistakes, if we can.” Granted, that wasn’t his explicit task, but Gregor was bound to think of it sooner or later. Miles shuddered to foresee another few years of arm-wrestling subcommittees from the Councils of Counts and Ministers, just like his last gig about galactic reproductive and cloning technologies. On the bright side, he could go home every night; on the less bright, work would follow him there… “The punishment for a job well done, as it were. But it didn’t take long to figure out that the only troubles the conference seriously addressed were the technical ones.”

Raven waved agreement.

Miles went on, “The rest was pretty much cryocorps sales pitches. So I went looking on my own.”

“For troubles? Well, you’ve found mine.”

“Indeed, and instructive they are.”

Leiber hunched, looking offended.

“So far, I’ve discovered that Kibou’s scheme of proxy votes for the frozen, originally devised on the assumption that people would be revived sooner and in greater numbers, has proved a fascinating demographic trap. Still thinking about that one. Also, that a certain brand of cryo-preservative from about a generation ago turned out not to be good for more than about thirty years, and that NewEgypt and presumably all the other corps are sitting on a financial time-bomb of unrevivable corpses, for which, sooner or later, someone is going to have to pony up. And NewEgypt has gone to great lengths to insure that the someone won’t be them.”

Leiber went rigid. “How—!”

He’d doubtless twig to how Miles knew in a bit; Miles had no intention of hurrying his thought processes. “I know that you figured this out, that you went to Lisa Sato’s political action group for help, and that the result was a riot at their rally that ended with three of her people frozen and two murdered. Did you set them up at NewEgypt’s behest?”

“No!” cried Leiber indignantly. But then, deflating, “Not on purpose.”

“Betray them for money?”

“No! The bribe came later, just to make it look that way.”

Miles hadn’t even gone looking for evidence of bribes, yet. Ah, yes, deliver yourself into my hands, Doctor. You know you want to. “Then what did happen? In your own words.”

Leiber clasped his hands and stared at his feet for so long that Miles began to fancy fast-penta, with or without his subject’s permission, but at last began, “It all started about two years ago. I was assigned the problem of figuring out the unusual number of bad revivals we were getting from that era. When I’d narrowed it down to the decomposing cryo-fluid, I went to my boss, who went to his bosses to report. I thought they’d do something about it, I mean, right away, but weeks went by and nothing happened.”

“Who were these bosses? Which men were told about this?”

“The Gang of Four? There was my R & D supervisor, Roger Napak. And Ran Choi, the chief operating officer, and Anish Akabane, he’s chief of finance, and Shirou Kim, the NewEgypt president. They clamped down and kept the information tight right away.