Lois Bujold - Weatherman

“No. You?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

Miles hesitated. Events of three years ago flickered through his memory. The brief months he’d been caught in desperate combat far from home, having accidently fallen in with a space mercenary force, was not a secret to be mentioned or even hinted at here. Regular Imperial troops despised mercenaries anyway, alive or dead. But the Tau Verde campaign had surely taught him the difference between practice and real , between war and war games, and that death had subtler vectors than direct touch. “Before,” said Miles dampingly. “Couple of times.”

Pattas shrugged, veering off. “Well,” he allowed grudgingly over his shoulder, “at least you’re not afraid to get your hands dirty. Sir.”

Miles’s brows crooked, bemused. No. That’s not what I’m afraid of .

Miles marked the drain “cleared” on his report panel, turned the scat-cat, their equipment, and a very subdued Olney and Pattas back in to Sergeant Neuve in Maintenance, and headed for the officers’ barracks. He’d never wanted a hot shower more in his entire life.

He was squelching down the corridor toward his quarters when another officer stuck his head out a door. “Ah, Ensign Vorkosigan?”

“Yes?”

“You got a vid call a while ago. I encoded the return for you.”

“Call?” Miles stopped. “Where from?”

“Vorbarr Sultana.”

Miles felt a chill in his belly. Some emergency at home? “Thanks.” He reversed direction, and beelined for the end of the corridor and the vidconsole booth that the officers on this level shared.

He slid damply into the seat and punched up the message. The number was not one he recognized. He entered it, and his charge code, and waited. It chimed several times, then the vidplate hissed to life. His cousin Ivan’s handsome face materialized over it, and grinned at him.

“Ah, Miles. There you are.”

“Ivan! Where the devil are you? What is this?”

“Oh, I’m at home. And that doesn’t mean my mother’s. I thought you might like to see my new flat.”

Miles had the vague, disoriented sensation that he’d somehow tapped a line into some parallel universe, or alternate astral plane. Vorbarr Sultana, yes. He’d lived in the capital himself, in a previous incarnation. Eons ago.

Ivan lifted his vid pick-up and aimed it around, dizzyingly. “It’s fully furnished. I took over the lease from an Ops captain who was being transferred to Komarr. A real bargain. I just got moved in yesterday. Can you see the balcony?”

Miles could see the balcony, drenched in late-afternoon sunlight the color of warm honey. The Vorbarr Sultana skyline rose like a fairy-tale city, swimming in the summer haze beyond. Scarlet flowers swarmed over the railing, so red in the level light they almost hurt his eyes. Miles felt like drooling into his shirt pocket, or bursting into tears. “Nice flowers,” he choked.

“Yeah, m’girlfriend brought ’em.”

“Girlfriend?” Ah yes, human beings had come in two sexes, once upon a time. One smelled much better than the other. Much. “Which one?”

“Tatya.”

“Have I met her?” Miles struggled to remember.

“Naw, she’s new.”

Ivan stopped waving the vid pick-up around and reappeared over the vid-plate. Miles’s exacerbated senses settled slightly. “So how’s the weather up there?” Ivan peered at him more closely. “Are you wet? What have you been doing?”

“Forensic . . . plumbing,” Miles offered after a pause.

“What?” Ivan’s brow wrinkled.

“Never mind.” Miles sneezed. “Look, I’m glad to see a familiar face and all that”—he was, actually, a painful, strange gladness—“but I’m in the middle of my duty day, here.”

“I got off-shift a couple of hours ago,” Ivan remarked. “I’m taking Tatya out for dinner in a bit. You just caught me. So just tell me quick, how’s life in the infantry?”

“Oh, great. Lazkowski Base is the real thing, y’know.” Miles did not define what real thing. “Not a . . . warehouse for excess Vor lordlings like Imperial Headquarters.”

“I do my job!” said Ivan, sounding slightly stung. “Actually, you’d like my job. We process information. It’s amazing, all the stuff Ops accesses in a day’s time. It’s like being on top of the world. It would be just your speed.”

“Funny. I’ve thought that Lazkowski Base would be just yours, Ivan. Suppose they could have got our orders reversed?”

Ivan tapped the side of his nose and sniggered. “I wouldn’t tell.” His humor sobered in a glint of real concern. “You, ah, take care of yourself up there, eh? You really don’t look so good.”

“I’ve had an unusual morning. If you’d sod off, I could go get a shower.”

“Oh, right. Well, take care.”

“Enjoy your dinner.”

“Right-oh. ’Bye.”

Voices from another universe. At that, Vorbarr Sultana was only a couple of hours away by sub-orbital flight. In theory. Miles was obscurely comforted, to be reminded that the whole planet hadn’t shrunk to the lead-gray horizons of Kyril Island, even if his part of it seemed to have.

Miles found it difficult to concentrate on the weather, the rest of that day. Fortunately his superior didn’t much notice. Since the scat-cat sinking Ahn had tended to maintain a guilty, nervous silence around Miles except when directly prodded for specific information. When his duty day ended Miles headed straight for the infirmary.

The surgeon was still working, or at least sitting, at his desk console when Miles poked his head around the door frame. “Good evening, sir.”

The surgeon glanced up. “Yes, Ensign? What is it?”

Miles took this as sufficient invitation despite the unencouraging tone of voice, and slipped within. “I was wondering what you’d found out about that fellow we pulled from the culvert this morning.”

The surgeon shrugged. “Not that much to find out. His ID checked. He died of drowning. All the physical and metabolic evidence—stress, hypothermia, the hematomas—are consistent with his being stuck in there for a bit less than half an hour before death. I’ve ruled it death by misadventure.”

“Yes, but why?”

“Why?” The surgeon’s eyebrows rose. “He slabbed himself; you’ll have to ask him, eh?”

“Don’t you want to find out?”

“To what purpose?”

“Well . . . to know, I guess. To be sure you’re right.”

The surgeon gave him a dry stare.

“I’m not questioning your medical findings, sir,” Miles added hastily. “But it was just so damned weird. Aren’t you curious?”

“Not anymore,” said the surgeon. “I’m satisfied it wasn’t suicide or foul play, so whatever the details, it comes down to death from stupidity in the end, doesn’t it?”

Miles wondered if that would have been the surgeon’s final epitaph on him, if he’d sunk himself with the scat-cat. “I suppose so, sir.”

Standing outside the infirmary afterward in the damp wind, Miles hesitated. The corpse, after all, was not Miles’s personal property. Not a case of finders-keepers. He’d turned the situation over to the proper authority. It was out of his hands now. And yet . . .

There were still several hours of daylight left. Miles was having trouble sleeping anyway, in these almost-endless days. He returned to his quarters, pulled on sweat pants and shirt and running shoes, and went jogging.

The road was lonely, out by the empty practice fields. The sun crawled crabwise toward the horizon. Miles broke from a jog back to a walk, then to a slower walk. His leg-braces chafed, beneath his pants. One of these days very soon he would take the time to get the brittle long bones in his legs replaced with synthetics. At that, elective surgery might be a quasi-legitimate way to lever himself off Kyril Island, if things grew too desperate before his six months were up. It seemed like cheating, though.