Miles in Love - Lois McMaster Bujold [122]
"Yes, very good." With an apologetic smile to Ekaterin, Miles tossed off the last of his coffee and rose. "Will you be all right today, Madame Vorsoisson?"
"Yes, of course. I have a lot to do. I have an appointment with an estate law counselor, and any amount of sorting and packing . . . the guard won't have to go with me, will he?"
"Not unless you wish. We are leaving one man on duty here, by your leave. But if our Komarrans had wanted hostages, they could have taken me and Tien that first night." And bought themselves loads more trouble. If only they had, Miles reflected regretfully. His case could be ever so much further along by now. Soudha was too damned smart. "If I thought you and Nikki were in any possible danger—" I'd figure some way to use you for bait— no, no. "If you are in the least uncomfortable, I'd be happy to assign you a man."
"No, indeed."
That faint smile again. Miles felt he could happily spend the rest of the morning studying all the subtle expressions of her lips. Equipment lists. You're going to go study equipment lists. "Then I bid you good morning, Madame."
Lord Auditor Vorthys, after his first survey of the new situation, had chosen to set up his personal headquarters out at the Waste Heat experiment station. Miles had to admit, the security there was great; no one was likely to blunder in by accident, or wander across its bleak surroundings unobserved. Well, he and Tien had, but the occupants had been distracted at the time, and Tien had apparently possessed a dire luck which amounted to antigenius. Miles wondered which had come first, for Soudha; had the administrative acquisition of such a perfect site for secret work triggered the idea for his shadow project, or had he had the idea first, and then maneuvered himself into the right promotion to capture control of the station? Just one of a long list of questions Miles was itching to ask the man, under fast-penta.
After the ImpSec aircar delivered the two Auditors, Miles went off first to check the progress of his, or rather, ImpSec Engineering Major D'Emorie's, inventory crews. The sergeant in charge promised completion of the tedious identification, counting, and cross-check of every portable object in the station before the end of today. Miles then returned to Vorthys, who had set up a sort of engineer's nest in one of the long upstairs workrooms in the office section, with roomy tables, lots of light, and a proliferating array of high-powered comconsoles. The Professor grunted greetings from behind a multicolored spaghetti-array of mathematical projections, glimmering above his vid-plate. Miles settled down in a comconsole station chair to study the growing list of real objects Colonel Gibbs claimed Waste Heat had paid for, but which were no longer to be found on Waste Heat's premises, hoping some subliminally familiar ordnance pattern might emerge.
After a while, the Professor shut off his holovid display and sighed. "Well, no doubt they built something. The topside crews picked up some more fragments yesterday, mostly melted."
"So does our inventory represent one something, destroyed along with Radovas, or two somethings?" Miles wondered aloud.
"Oh, I should think two, at least. Though the second may not have been assembled yet. If one thinks it through from Soudha's point of view, one realizes he's been having a very bad month."
"Yes, if that whole mess topside wasn't some really bizarre suicide mission, or internecine sabotage, or . . . . and where is Marie Trogir, blast it? I'm not at all sure the Komarrans knew, either. When he talked to me, Soudha seemed to be angling to find out if I knew anything of her. Unless that was just more of his misdirection."
"Are you seeing anything in your inventory yet?" asked Vorthys.
"Mm, not exactly what I'm looking for. The final autopsy report on Radovas revealed some cellular distortions, in addition to the gross, and I use that term advisedly, damage. They reminded me a little of what happens to human bodies which have suffered a near-miss from a gravitic imploder beam. A hit, of course,