Ten minutes delay downside at Bharaputra's had been all the difference. If they'd been ten minutes faster, the Dendarii would have made it back to their drop shuttle before the Bharaputrans had a chance to blow it up, and all would have unfolded into another future. Thousands of ten-minute intervals had passed in his life, unmarked and without effect. But that ten minutes had been all it took to transform him from would-be hero to permanent scum. And he could never recover the moment.
Was that, then, the commander's gift: to recognize those critical minutes, out of the mass of like moments, even in the chaos of their midst? To risk all to grab the golden ones? Miles had possessed that gift of timing to an extraordinary degree. Men and women followed him, laid all their trust at his feet, just for that.
Except once, Miles's timing had failed. . . .
No. He'd been screaming his lungs out for them to keep moving. Miles's timing had been shrewd. His feet had been fatally slowed by others' delays.
Mark climbed up off the floor, washed his face in the bathroom, and returned and sat in the comconsole's station chair. The first layer of secured functions was entered by a palm-lock. The machine did not quite like his palm-print; bone growth and subcutaneous fat deposits were beginning to distort the pattern out of the range of recognition. But not wholly, not yet; on the fourth try it took a reading that pleased it, and opened files to him. The next layer of functions required codes and accesses he did not know, but the top layer had all he needed for now: a private, if not secured, comm channel to ImpSec.
ImpSec's machine bounced him to a human receptionist almost immediately. "My name is Lord Mark Vorkosigan," he told the corporal on night duty, whose face appeared above the vid plate. "I want to speak with Simon Illyan. I suppose he's still at the Imperial Residence."
"Is this an emergency, my lord?" the corporal asked.
"It is to me," growled Mark.
Whatever the corporal thought of that, he patched Mark on through. Mark insisted his way past two more layers of subordinates before the ImpSec chief's tired face materialized.
Mark swallowed. "Captain Illyan."
"Yes, Lord Mark, what is it?" Illyan said wearily. It had been a long night for ImpSec, too.
"I had an interesting conversation with a certain Captain Vorventa, earlier this evening."
"I am aware. You offered him some not-too-oblique threats."
And Mark had assumed that ImpSec guard/servant had been sent to protect him . . . ah, well.
"So I have a question for you, sir. Is Captain Vorventa on the list of people who are supposed to know about Miles?"
Illyan's eyes narrowed. "No."
"Well, he does."
"That's . . . very interesting."
"Is that helpful for you to know?"
Illyan sighed. "It gives me a new problem to worry about. Where is the internal leak? Now I'll have to find out."
"But—better to know than not."
"Oh, yes."
"Can I ask a favor in return?"
"Maybe." Illyan looked extremely non-committal. "What kind of favor?"
"I want in."
"What?"
"I want in. On ImpSec's search for Miles. I want to start by reviewing your reports, I suppose. After that, I don't know. But I can't stand being kept alone in the dark any more."
Illyan regarded him suspiciously. "No," he said at last. "I'm not turning you loose to romp through my top-secret files, thank you. Good night, Lord Mark."
"Wait, sir! You complained you were understaffed. You can't turn down a volunteer."
"What do you imagine you can do that ImpSec hasn't?" Illyan snapped.
"The point is, sir—ImpSec hasn't. You haven't found Miles. I can hardly do less."
He hadn't put that quite as diplomatically as he should have, Mark realized, as Illyan's face darkened with anger. "Good night, Lord Mark," Illyan repeated through his teeth, and cut the link with a swipe of his hand.
Mark sat frozen in Miles's station chair. The house was so quiet the loudest sound he could hear was his own blood in his ears. He should have pointed out to Illyan how clever he'd been, how quick on the uptake; Vorventa had revealed what he knew, but in no way had Mark cross-revealed that he knew Vorventa knew. Illyan's investigation must now take the leak, whatever it was, by surprise. Isn't that worth something? I'm not as stupid as you think I am.
You're not as smart as I thought you were, either, Illyan. You are not . . . perfect. That was disturbing. He had expected ImpSec to be perfect, somehow; it had anchored his world to think so. And Miles, perfect. And the Count and Countess. All perfect, all unkillable. All made out of rubber. The only real pain, his own.
He thought of Ivan, crying in the shadows. Of the Count, dying in the woods. The Countess had kept her mask up better than any of them. She had to. She had more to hide. Miles himself, the man who had created a whole other personality just to escape into. . . .
The trouble, Mark decided, was that he had been trying to be Miles Vorkosigan all by himself. Even Miles didn't do Miles that way. He had co-opted an entire supporting cast. A cast of thousands. No wonder I can never catch up with him.
Slowly, curiously, Mark opened his tunic and removed Gregor's comm card from his inner breast pocket, and set it on the comconsole desk. He stared hard at the anonymous plastic chip, as if it bore some coded message for his eyes only. He rather fancied it did.
You knew. You knew, didn't you, Gregor you bastard. You've just been waiting for me to figure it out for myself.
With spasmodic decision, Mark jammed the card into the comconsole's read-slot.
No machines this time. A man in ordinary civilian clothing answered immediately, though without identifying himself. "Yes?"
"I'm Lord Mark Vorkosigan. I should be on your list. I want to talk to Gregor."
"Right now, my lord?" said the man mildly. His hand danced over a keypad array to one side.
"Yes. Now. Please."
"You are cleared." He vanished.
The vid plate remained dark, but the audio transmitted a melodious chime. It chimed for quite a long time. Mark began to panic. What if—but then it stopped. There was a mysterious clanking sound, and Gregor's voice said, "Yes?" in a bleary tone. No visuals.
"It's me. Mark Vorkosigan. Lord Mark."
"Yeah?"
"You told me to call you."
"Yes, but it's . . ." a short pause, "five in the bleeding morning, Mark!"
"Oh. Were you asleep?" he caroled frantically. He leaned forward and beat his head gently on the hard cool plastic of the desk. Timing. My timing.
"God, you sound just like Miles when you say that," muttered the Emperor. The vid plate activated; Gregor's image came up as he turned on a light. He was in some sort of bedroom, dim in the background, and was wearing nothing but loose black silky pajama pants. He peered at Mark, as if making sure he wasn't talking to a ghost. But the corpus was too corpulant to be anyone but Mark. The Emperor heaved an oxygenating sigh and blinked himself to focus. "What do you need?"
How wonderfully succinct. If he answered in full, it could take him the next six hours.
"I need to be in on ImpSec's search for Miles. Illyan won't let me. You can override him."
Gregor sat still for a minute, then barked a brief laugh. He swiped a hand through sleep-bent black hair. "Have you asked him?"
"Yes. Just now. He turned me down."
"Mm, well . . . it's his job to be cautious for me. So that my judgment may remain untrammeled."
"In your untrammeled judgment, sir. Sire. Let me in!"
Gregor studied him thoughtfully, rubbing his face. "Yes . . ." he drawled slowly after a moment. "Let's . . . see what happens." His eyes were not bleary now.
"Can you call Illyan right now, sire?"
"What is this, pent-up demand? The dam breaks?"
I am poured out like water . . . where did that quote come from? It sounded like something of the Countess's. "He's still up. Please. Sire. And have him call me back
at this console to confirm. I'll wait."
"Very well," Gregor's lips twisted up in a peculiar smile, "Lord Mark."
"Thank you, sire. Uh . . . good night."
"Good morning." Gregor cut the comm.
Mark waited. The seconds ticked by, stretched out of all recognition. His hangover was starting, but he was still slightly drunk. The worst of both worlds. He had started to doze when the comconsole chimed at last, and he nearly spasmed out of his chair.
He slapped urgently at the controls. "Yes. Sir?"
Illyan's saturnine face appeared over the vid plate. "Lord Mark." He gave Mark the barest nod. "If you come to ImpSec headquarters at the beginning of normal business hours tomorrow morning, you will be permitted to review the files we discussed."
"Thank you, sir," said Mark sincerely.
"That's two-and-one-half hours from now," Illyan mentioned with, Mark thought, an understandable hint of sadism. Illyan hadn't slept either.
"I'll be there."
Illyan acknowledged this with a shiver of his eyelids, and vanished.
Damnation through good works, or grace alone? Mark meditated on Gregor's grace. He knew. He knew it before I did. Lord Mark Vorkosigan was a real person.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The level light of dawn turned the night's lingering mist to gold, a smoky autumnal haze that gave the city of Vorbarr Sultana an almost magical air. The Imperial Security Headquarters building stood windowless, foursquare against the light, a vast utilitarian concrete block with enormous gates and doors certainly designed to diminish any human supplicant fool enough to approach it. In his case, a redundant effect, Mark decided.
"What awful architecture," he said to Pym, beside him, chauffeuring him in the Count's groundcar.
"Ugliest building in town," the armsman agreed cheerfully. "It dates back to Mad Emperor Yuri's Imperial architect, Lord Dono Vorrutyer. An uncle to the later vice-admiral. He managed to get up five major structures before Yuri was killed, and they stopped him. The Municipal Stadium runs this a close second, but we've never been able to afford to tear it down. Still stuck with it, sixty years later."
"It looks like the sort of place that has dungeons in the basement. Painted institutional green. Run by ethics-free physicians."
"It did," said Pym. The armsman negotiated their way past the gate guards and slowed in front of a vast flight of steps.
"Pym . . . aren't those steps a bit oversized?"
"Yep," grinned the armsman. "You'd have a cramp in your leg by the time you reached the top, if you tried to take it in one go." Pym eased the groundcar forward and stopped to let Mark off. "But if you go around the left end, here, you'll find a little door at ground level, and a lift tube foyer. That's where everybody actually goes in."
"Thank you." Pym popped the front canopy, and Mark climbed out. "Whatever happened to Lord Dono, after Mad Yuri's reign? Assassinated by the Architectural Defense League, I hope?"
"No, he retired to the country, lived off his daughter and son-in-law, and died stark mad. There's a bizarre set of towers he built on their estate, that they charge admission to see, now." With a wave, Pym lowered the canopy and pulled away.
Mark trod around to the left, as directed. So here he was, bright and early . . . or at least, early. He'd taken a long shower, donned comfortable dark civilian clothes, and tanked himself on enough painkillers, vitamins, hangover remedies, and stimulants to leave him feeling artificially normal. More artificial than normal, but he was determined not to let Illyan bully him out of his chance.
He presented himself to the ImpSec guards in the foyer. "I'm Lord Mark Vorkosigan. I'm expected."
"Hardly that," growled a voice from the lift tube. Illyan himself swung out. The guards braced; Illyan put them back at ease with an unmilitary wave. Illyan too had showered, and changed back into his usual undress greens. Mark suspected Illyan had eaten pills for breakfast too. "Thank you, Sergeant, I'll take him up."
"What a depressing building to work in," Mark commented, as he rose in the lift tube beside the ImpSec chief.
"Yes," sighed Illyan. "I visited the Investigatif Federale building on Escobar, once. Forty-five stories, all glass . . . I was never closer to emigrating. Dono Vorrutyer should have been strangled at birth. But . . . it's mine now." Illyan glanced around with a dubious possessiveness.
Illyan led him deep into the—yes, this building definitely had bowels, Mark decided. The bowels of ImpSec. Their footsteps echoed down a bare corridor lined with tiny, cubicle-like rooms. Mark glanced through a few half-open doors at highly-secured comconsoles manned by green-uniformed men. One man at least had a bank of non-regulation full spectrum lights blazing away, aimed at his station chair. There was a large coffee dispenser at the end of the corridor. He didn't think it was random chance that Illyan led him to the cubicle numbered thirteen.
"This comconsole has been loaded with every report I've received pertaining to the search for Lieutenant Vorkosigan," said Illyan coolly. "If you think you can do better with it than my trained analysts have, I invite you to try."
"Thank you, sir." Mark slid into the station chair and powered up the vid plate. "This is unexpectedly generous."
"You should have no complaint, my lord," Illyan stated, in the tone of a directive. Gregor must have lit quite a fire under him, earlier this morning, Mark reflected, as Illyan bowed himself out with a distinctly ironic nod. Hostile? No. That was unjust. Illyan was not nearly as hostile as he had a right to be. It's not only obedience to his Emperor, Mark realized with a shiver. Illyan could have stood up to Gregor on a security issue like this if he'd really wanted to. He's getting desperate.
He took a deep breath and plunged into the files, reading, listening, and viewing. Illyan hadn't been joking about the everything part. There were literally hundreds of reports, generated by fifty or sixty different agents scattered throughout the near wormhole nexus. Some were brief and negative. Others were long and negative. But somebody seemed to have visited, at least once, every possible cryo-facility on Jackson's Whole, its orbital and jump point stations, and several adjoining local space systems. There were even recently-received reports tracing as far away as Escobar.
What was missing, Mark realized after quite a while, were any synopses or finished analyses. He had received raw data only, in all its mass. On the whole, he decided he preferred it that way.
Mark read till his eyes were dry and aching, and his stomach gurgled with festering coffee. Time to break for lunch, he thought, when a guard knocked at his door.
"Lord Mark, your driver is here," the guard informed him politely.
Hell—it was time to break for dinner. The guard escorted him back through the building and delivered him to Pym. It was dark outside. My head hurts.
Doggedly, Mark returned the next morning and started again. And the next. And the next. More reports arrived. In fact, they were arriving faster than he could read them. The harder he worked, the more he was falling behind. Halfway through the fifth day he leaned back in his station chair and thought, This is crazy. Illyan was burying him. From the paralysis of ignorance, he had segued with surprising speed to the paralysis of information-glut. I've got to triage this crap, or I'll never get out of this repulsive building.
"Lies, lies, all lies," he muttered wildly to his comconsole. It seemed to blink and hum back at him, sly and demure.
With a decisive punch, he turned off the comconsole with its endless babble of voices and fountains of data, and sat for a while in darkness and silence, till his ears stopped ringing.
ImpSec hasn't. Hasn't found Miles. He didn't need all this data. Nobody did. He just needed one piece. Let's cut this down to size.
Start with a few explicit assumptions. One. Miles is recoverable.
Let ImpSec look for a rotted body, unmarked grave, or disintegration record all they wanted. Such a search was no use to him, even if successful. Especially if successful.
Only cryo-chambers, whether permanent storage banks or
other portables, were of interest. Or—less likely, and notably less common—cryo-revival facilities. But logic put an upper cap on his optimism. If Miles had been successfully revived by friendly hands, the first thing he would do would be to report in. He hadn't, ergo: he was still frozen. Or, if revived, in too bad a shape to function. Or not in friendly hands. So. Where?
The Dendarii cryo-chamber had been found in the Hegen Hub. Well . . . so what? It had been sent there after it was emptied. Sinking down into his station chair with slitted eyes, Mark thought instead about the opposite end of the trail. Were his particular obsessions luring him into believing what he wanted to believe? No, dammit. To hell with the Hegen Hub. Miles never got off the planet. In one stroke, that eliminated over three-fourths of the trash-data clogging his view.
We look at Jackson's Whole reports only, then. Good. Then what?
How had ImpSec checked all the remaining possible destinations? Places without known motivations or connections with House Bharaputra? For the most part, ImpSec had simply asked, concealing their own identity but offering a substantial reward. All at least four weeks after the raid. A cold trail, so to speak. Quite a lot of time for someone to think about their surprise package. Time to hide it, if they were so inclined. So that, in those cases where ImpSec did a second and more complete pass, they were even more likely to come up empty.
Miles is in a place that ImpSec has already checked off, in the hands of someone with hidden motivations to be interested in him.
There were still hundreds of possibilities.
I need a connection. There has to be a connection.
ImpSec had torn apart Norwood's available Dendarii records down to the level of a word-by-word analysis. Nothing. But Norwood was medically trained. And he hadn't sent his beloved Admiral's cryo-chamber off at random. He'd sent it someplace to someone.
If there's a hell, Norwood, I hope you're roasting in it right now.
Mark sighed, leaned forward, and turned the comconsole back on.
A couple of hours later, Illyan stopped by Mark's cubicle, closing the soundproof door behind him. He leaned, falsely casual, on the wall and remarked, "How is it going?"