Lois Bujold - Weatherman

Miles stamped experimentally. Wet, but solid. Much as it had felt when he had camped on it.

Bonn, watching him, added, “The ice thickness varies with the weather. From a few centimeters to solid-to-the-bottom. Midwinter, you could park a freight shuttle on this bog. Come summer, it thins out. It can thaw from seeming-solid to liquid in a few hours, when the temperature is just right, and back again.”

“I . . . think I found that out.”

“Lean,” ordered Bonn laconically, and Miles wrapped his hands around the rod and helped shove. He could feel the scrunch as it scraped past the ice layer. And if the temperature had dropped a little more, the night he’d sunk himself, and the mud re-frozen, would he have been able to punch up through the icy seal? He shuddered inwardly, and zipped his parka half-up, over his black fatigues.

“Cold?” said Bonn.

“Thinking.”

“Good. Make it a habit.” Bonn touched a control, and the rod’s sonic probe beeped at a teeth-aching frequency. The readout displayed a bright teardrop shape a few meters over. “There it is.” Bonn eyed the numbers on the readout. “It’s really down in there, isn’t it? I’d let you dig it out with a teaspoon, Ensign, but I suppose winter would set in before you were done.” He sighed, and stared down at Miles as though picturing the scene.

Miles could picture it, too. “Yes, sir,” he said carefully.

They pulled the probe back out. Cold mud slicked the surface under their gloved hands. Bonn marked the spot and waved to his techs. “Here, boys!” They waved back, hopped down off the hovercab, and swung within. Bonn and Miles scrambled well out of the way, onto the rocks toward the weather station.

The hovercab whined into the air and positioned itself over the bog. Its heavy-duty space-rated tractor beam punched downward. Mud, plant matter, and ice geysered out in all directions with a roar. In a couple of minutes, the beam had created an oozing crater, with a glimmering pearl at the bottom. The crater’s sides began to slump inward at once, but the hovercab operator narrowed and reversed his beam, and the scat-cat rose, noisily sucking free from its matrix. The limp bubble shelter dangled repellently from its chain. The hovercab set its load down delicately in the rocky area, then landed beside it.

Bonn and Miles trooped over to view the sodden remains. “You weren’t in that bubble-shelter, were you, Ensign?” said Bonn, prodding it with his toe.

“Yes, sir, I was. Waiting for daylight. I . . . fell asleep.”

“But you got out before it sank.”

“Well, no. When I woke up, it was all the way under.”

Bonn’s crooked eyebrows rose. “How far?”

Miles’s flat hand found the level of his chin.

Bonn looked startled. “How’d you get out of the suction?”

“With difficulty. And adrenaline, I think. I slipped out of my boots and pants. Which reminds me, may I take a minute and look for my boots, sir?”

Bonn waved a hand, and Miles trudged back out onto the bog, circling the ring of muck spewed from the tractor beam, keeping a safe distance from the now water-filling crater. He found one mud-coated boot, but not the other. Should he save it, on the off-chance he might have one leg amputated someday? It would probably be the wrong leg. He sighed, and climbed back up to Bonn.

Bonn frowned down at the ruined boot dangling from Miles’s hand. “You could have been killed,” he said in a tone of realization.

“Three times over. Smothered in the bubble shelter, trapped in the bog, or frozen waiting for rescue.”

Bonn gave him a penetrating stare. “Really.” He walked away from the deflated shelter, idly, as if seeking a wider view. Miles followed. When they were out of earshot of the techs, Bonn stopped and scanned the bog. Conversationally, he remarked, “I heard—unofficially—that a certain motor-pool tech named Pattas was bragging to one of his mates that he’d set you up for this. And you were too stupid to even realize you’d been had. That bragging could have been . . . not too bright, if you’d been killed.”

“If I’d been killed, it wouldn’t have mattered if he’d bragged or not.” Miles shrugged. “What a Service investigation missed, I flat guarantee the Imperial Security investigation would have found.”

“You knew you’d been set up?” Bonn studied the horizon.

“Yes.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t call Imperial Security in, then.”

“Oh? Think about it, sir.”

Bonn’s gaze returned to Miles, as if taking inventory of his distasteful deformities. “You don’t add up for me, Vorkosigan. Why did they let you in the Service?”

“Why d’you think?”

“Vor privilege.”

“Got it in one.”

“Then why are you here? Vor privilege gets sent to HQ.”

“Vorbarr Sultana is lovely this time of year,” said Miles agreeably. And how was his cousin Ivan enjoying it right now? “But I want ship duty.”

“And you couldn’t arrange it?” said Bonn skeptically.

“I was told to earn it. That’s why I’m here. To prove I can handle the Service. Or . . . not. Calling in a wolf pack from ImpSec within a week of my arrival to turn the base and everyone on it inside out looking for assassination conspiracies—where, I judge, none exist—would not advance me toward my goal. No matter how entertaining it might be.” Messy charges, his word against their two words—even if Miles had pushed it to a formal investigation, with fast-penta to prove him right, the ruckus could hurt him far more in the long run than his two tormentors. No. No revenge was worth the Prince Serg.

“The motor pool is in Engineering’s chain of command. If Imperial Security fell on it, they’d also fall on me.” Bonn’s brown eyes glinted.

“You’re welcome to fall on anyone you please, sir. But if you have unofficial ways of receiving information, it follows you must have unofficial ways of sending it, too. And after all, you’ve only my word for what happened.” Miles hefted his useless single boot and heaved it back into the bog.

Thoughtfully, Bonn watched it arc and splash down in a pool of brown meltwater. “A Vor lord’s word?”

“Means nothing, in these degenerate days.” Miles bared his teeth in a smile of sorts. “Ask anyone.”

“Huh.” Bonn shook his head, and started back toward the hovercab.

Next morning, Miles reported to the maintenance shed for the second half of the scat-cat retrieval job, cleaning all the mud-caked equipment. The sun was bright today, and had been up for hours, but Miles’s body knew it was only 0500. An hour into his task he’d begun to warm up, feel better, and get into the rhythm of the thing.

At 0630, the deadpan Lieutenant Bonn arrived and delivered two helpers unto Miles.

“Why, Corporal Olney. Tech Pattas. We meet again.” Miles smiled with acid cheer. The pair exchanged an uneasy look. Miles kept his demeanor absolutely even.

He then kept everyone, starting with himself, moving briskly. The conversation seemed to automatically limit itself to brief, wary technicalities. By the time Miles had to knock off and go report to Lieutenant Ahn, the scat-cat and most of the gear had been restored to better condition than Miles had received it.

He wished his two helpers, now driven to near-twitchiness by uncertainty, an earnest good-day. Well, if they hadn’t figured it out by now, they were hopeless. Miles wondered bitterly why he seemed to have so much better luck establishing rapport with bright men like Bonn. Cecil had been right; if Miles couldn’t figure out how to command the dull as well, he’d never make it as a Service officer. Not at Camp Permafrost, anyway.

The following morning, the third of his official punishment seven, Miles presented himself to Sergeant Neuve. The sergeant in turn presented Miles with a scat-cat full of equipment, a disk of the related equipment manuals, and the schedule for drain and culvert maintenance for Lazkowski Base. Clearly, it was to be another learning experience. Miles wondered if General Metzov had selected this task personally. He rather thought so.