Miles in Love - Lois McMaster Bujold [118]
"Yes, yes, Nikki—" said Uncle Vorthys. "Miles. When you are ready, I'll meet you in my room, and we can go over today's progress on the comconsole."
"Have we some? Is it interesting?"
Uncle Vorthys made a balancing gesture with his free hand. "I'd be interested in what pattern you see emerging, if any."
"At your convenience. Knock on my door when you're ready." Vorkosigan smiled at Nikki, gave the Professor a vague salutelike gesture, and withdrew.
Nikki, impatiently waiting his turn, now dragged his great-uncle off to the kitchen as promised; Ekaterin could only be grateful that of his day's events the ImpSec shuttle seemed to loom so much larger than the medical examinations. She followed, satisfied.
Chapter Sixteen
Early the next morning Miles, in shirt and trousers but bare foot, stepped into the hallway with his toiletries case in hand. He must remind Tuomonen to return his medical kit. The ImpSec techs couldn't have found any interesting explosive devices in it, or he would have been informed by now. His bleary meditations suffered a check when he discovered Ekaterin, still dressed in a robe and with her hair in unusual but fetching disarray, leaning against the hall bathroom door.
"Nikki," she hissed. "Open this door at once! You can't hide all day in there."
A muffled young voice returned mulishly, "Yes, I can."
Lips tight, she tapped again, urgently but quietly, then jumped a little as she saw Miles, and clutched the neck of her robe.
"Oh. Lord Vorkosigan."
"Good morning, Madame Vorsoisson," he said civilly. "Ah . . . trouble?"
She nodded ruefully. "I thought yesterday went awfully easily. Nikki tried to insist he was too sick to go to school today, because of his Vorzohn's Dystrophy. I explained again it didn't work that way, but he got more and more stubborn. He begged to stay home. No, not just stubborn. Scared, I think. This isn't the usual malingering." She jerked her head toward the locked door. "I tried getting firm. It was not the right tactic. Now he's panicked."
Miles bent to glance at the lock, which was an ordinary mechanical one. Too bad it wasn't a palm lock; he knew some tricks with those. This one didn't even have screws, but some kind of rivets. It was going to take a pry bar. Or subterfuge . . .
"Nikki," called Ekaterin hopefully. "Lord Vorkosigan is out here. He needs to get washed and dressed, so he can go to work."
Silence.
"I'm torn," murmured Ekaterin in lower tones. "We're leaving in a few weeks. A few missed lessons wouldn't matter, but . . . that's not the point."
"I went to a private Vor school rather like his, when I was his age," Miles murmured back. "I know what he's afraid of. But I think your instincts are correct." He frowned thoughtfully, then set his case down and rummaged for his tube of depilatory cream, which he smeared liberally over his night's bristles. "Nikki?" he called more loudly. "Can I come in? I'm all over depilatory cream, and if I don't wash it off, it'll start eating through my skin."
"Won't he realize you can wash in the kitchen?" Ekaterin whispered.
"Maybe. But he's only nine, I'm gambling depilation is still a bit of a mystery."
After a moment Nikki's voice came, "You can come in. But I'm not coming out. And I'm locking it again."
"That's fair," Miles allowed.
Some rustling near the door. "Should I grab him when it opens?" Ekaterin asked, very dubiously.
"Nope. It would violate our tacit agreement. I'll go in, then we'll see what happens. At least you'll have a spy inside the gate, at that point."
"It seems wrong to use you so."
"Mm, but kids only dare defy those whom they really trust. The fact that I'm still mostly a stranger to him gives me an