Lois Bujold - Cryoburn

Mina had gone inside to go to the bathroom, but now the back door slammed open and she rushed out in excitement, a familiar box in her hands. Lieutenant Johannes followed warily, saying, “She’ll be much happier returned to her natural habitat, I’m sure.”

“Jin! Mommy!” said Mina. “Look! Lady Murasaki’s babies all hatched!”

Their mother valiantly replied, “That’s nice, dear,” although Aunt Lorna winced. Mom stared down through the transparent lid, and added faintly, “My goodness, she has a lot of children, doesn’t she? Perhaps it’s time to move them to a larger home.”

Like us? thought Jin. Let it be like us . He eyed Consul Vorlynkin in fresh speculation.

“Lieutenant Johannes says I have to put them all out in the garden.” Mina frowned, evidently trying to decide if this was a good idea or not. Behind her, Johannes made motions that seemed to indicate he didn’t want to share the consulate with a hundred active spiderlings, which Jin thought quite narrow-minded of him.

“Excellent notion,” said Vorlynkin, tactfully. “I understand their webs look quite attractive in the morning light, after a heavy dew.”

Jin embarked on a hasty tutorial about what kinds of spiders did and didn’t spin webs, and the web designs of various species in relation to their prey, while Mina went off to find some especially pretty flowers on which to release the new family.

Johannes muttered to Vorlynkin, “When she shoved that box under my nose, I thought I was going to throw up.”

Vorlynkin’s eyes crinkled. “I didn’t know you were arachnophobic, Trev.”

“You realize, the garden is going to be swarming with those gigantic spiders?”

“Actually,” said Jin, “the chickens will probably eat some of them.”

Johannes eyed the chickens with approval for perhaps the first time ever.

“Don’t tell Mina,” Jin added.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” said Johannes, and, after a polite nod at Jin’s mother and aunt, went back inside.

Not five minutes later, the back door opened more sedately, and Raven-sensei strolled through. Jin had never been more glad for an interruption, as the grownups had started talking about Jin’s missed school, and what was to be done about it, and how soon. Raven-sensei gave a general wave to everyone—Mina waved back enthusiastically—and came to a stop at the table, with a lift of his eyebrows at Aunt Lorna. “Ah. Sister-san?”

Jin didn’t think Aunt Lorna looked that much like her older sister, being both shorter and rounder, with bobbed hair, and more peevish, although any peeve evaporated as she stared up, wide-eyed, at the Escobaran surgeon. Vorlynkin hastened to introduce them, and Aunt Lorna actually smiled and shook hands, and, when Raven-sensei turned away to greet Mina, whispered to her sister, “You didn’t tell me your doctor looked like that .”

“Decorative and functional,” Mom murmured back. “His clinic has quite the reputation on Escobar, I’m told.”

For a moment, Consul Vorlynkin frowned, as if worrying whether to try to look decorative or functional, but settled on diplomatic, which suited him better anyway.

Raven-sensei returned from admiring the spider family, and Jin, at a nod from his mother, gave up his chair to the new guest. This wasn’t so bad, as Jin then went to lean on her shoulder, and she slipped her arm around his waist. Lucky, with a grumpy noise at the loss of the petting hand, jumped down.

“I thought you would like the word at once, Madame Sato,” said Raven-sensei. “We retrieved Mr. Kang and Ms. Khosla last night, and I did both revivals this morning. Entirely uneventfully, I’m pleased to report. Both spoke briefly, and about as lucidly as could be expected, before I put them back to sleep. As soon as your head cold passes off, you may come down to the facility and see them.”

Jin felt his mother’s body tremble; her eyes squeezed shut in brief thanksgiving. “Thank you for your excellent work, Doctor.”

“Truly,” said Consul Vorlynkin. He tilted his head in concern at Jin’s mother, but eased back in his chair again when she dabbed her eyes and relaxed. “How soon will they be able to speak to the lawyers and the police detectives?”

“They will, of course, have to stay in biological isolation for a few days, but I’d expect their recoveries to be almost as swift as Madame Sato’s. They may be coherent enough to give depositions through the booth intercoms as early as tomorrow evening, but I told the authorities to come the following morning, to be sure.”

“And their physical security, meantime?”

“Miss Koudelka has arranged that, as part of setting up security for the new clinic. She turns out to have a knack for that sort of thing. Did you know her mother used to be a bodyguard to the Emperor of Barrayar, when he was a child? ImpSec trained, I gather, and she passed it along in the family.”

“Yes, I believe Lord Vorkosigan did say something about that, before he left. He does seem to know the most extraordinary range of people. Only to be expected, given his background.”

“What is this Lord Unpronounceable you keep talking about, anyway?” asked Aunt Lorna.

“What, or who?” said Raven-sensei. “Although I gather that for him, the two are nearly inextricable.”

“Either. Both.”

“He investigates insurance fraud for somebody,” Jin supplied. “His boss is named Gregor. He talks about him a lot.”

Vorlynkin blinked; Raven-sensei laughed, and Jin twisted his toes in unease. “Isn’t that right?” he asked.

“Well, yes,” said Vorlynkin, smiling again. “Emperor Gregor Vorbarra, that is. But a Lord Auditor investigates all kinds of fraud and, er, other difficult situations that may arise that affect the Imperium, on the Emperor’s direct orders. At the highest levels, generally, and with very little oversight.”

“He once called himself the Emperor’s stirrup-man,” Raven-sensei confided. “I wasn’t sure if that meant a guardsman who rides at his leader’s side, or a man who holds the stirrup while he mounts. Very Barrayaran turn of phrase, though, I thought.”

“ Rides at his side is more correct,” said Vorlynkin. “Although the other isn’t out of line.”

Jin’s mother tilted her chin in interest. Aunt Lorna’s eyes widened a bit.

“I didn’t know he was that important,” said Jin, thinking back to his first view of the tattered lost druggie. And a great deal of really strange behavior and babble subsequently. Miles-san had never acted at all high-nosed or stuffy. On the other hand, he’d never acted like the rules applied to him, either.

“His father, Count Aral Vorkosigan, is Viceroy of Sergyar,” Vorlynkin explained to Jin’s interested female relations, “and his mother, the famous Countess, is Vicereine in her own right—her title’s a co-appointment, not a courtesy just because she’s his wife. His viceroyalty caps a long career in service to the Imperium.”

“Very hard act for Miles to follow, I gather,” Raven-sensei put in.

Jin thought of his own father, frozen in time by his death more permanently than by any cryonic procedure. Jin would never be more than seven, in those fading memories. Never seventeen, or twenty-seven, or almost thirty-eight from the other side. What would it be like to have a father when you were both grownups at the same time? It seemed a strange, uncomfortable, tantalizing thought.

“Royalty?” asked Mina, who had drifted back to her mother’s other elbow in time to hear this. “Is Miles-san’s daddy some kind of prince?”

“A viceroy is a—hm,” Vorlynkin paused as if to choose words especially for her. “Emperor Gregor can’t be on all three worlds at once. So he stays on Barrayar, mostly, and sends people to represent him on the other two planets. The Imperial Counselor on Komarr, the Viceroy and Vicereine as a team on Sergyar. Same jobs, really, just under two different titles because the planets are rather different.” He glanced at Jin’s mother, as if to check how she liked this explanation about his home.