Miles in Love - Lois McMaster Bujold [126]
Nosing around the plant while the Professor went off to speak High Engineering to the bilingual, Miles felt himself increasingly drawn to the hypothesis that the chief designer had gone missing voluntarily. Upon closer examination it had been found that many of the man's personal notes had apparently gone with him. Bollen's plant security was not military grade, but it would be a stretch to imagine Soudha's hurried Komarrans first murdering the man, then smoothly and surgically removing quite so many comconsole records from quite so many locations without inside help. Anyway, Miles didn't wish the man dead in a ditch. He wished him very much alive, at the business end of Tuomonen's hypospray. That was the trouble, people anticipated fast-penta now. Modern conspirators were a lot more tight-lipped than back in the bad old days of mere physical torture. Three days ago, if someone had told Miles that Gibbs was going to hand him what amounted to complete design specs of Soudha's secret weapon on a platter, he would have been delighted to imagine his case nearly solved. Ha.
Miles and Vorthys arrived back at Ekaterin's apartment that night too late for dinner, but in time for a hand-made dessert obviously tailored to the Professor's tastes, involving chocolate, cream, and quantities of hydroponic pecans. They all sat around Ekaterin's kitchen table to devour it. Whatever Nikki had encountered from his playmates today, it hadn't been unpleasant enough to affect his appetite, Miles noted with approval.
"How was school today?" Miles asked him, ashamed to let such a deadly boring triteness fall from his lips, but how else was he supposed to find out?
"All right," Nikki said around a mouthful of cream.
"Think you'll have any trouble tomorrow?"
"Naw." The tone of his monosyllables had returned to their normal preadolescent adult-wary indifference; no more the breathy panicked edge of this morning.
"Good," Miles said affably. Ekaterin's eyes were smiling, Miles noted out of the corner of his own. Good.
When Nikki finished bolting his dessert and galloped off, she added wryly, "And how was work today? I wasn't sure if the extra hours represented progress, or the reverse."
How was work today. Her tone seemed to apologize for the prosaic quality of the question. Miles wondered how to explain to her that he found it altogether delightful, and wished she'd do it again. And again and . . . Her perfume was making his reptile-brain want to roll over and do tricks, and he wasn't even sure she was wearing any. This mind-melting mixture of lust and domesticity was entirely novel to him. Well, half novel; he knew how to handle lust. It was the domesticity that had ambushed his guard. "We have advanced to new and surprising levels of bafflement," Miles told her.
The Professor opened his mouth, closed it, then said, "That about sums it up. Lord Vorkosigan's hypothesis has proved correct; the embezzlement scheme was got up to support the production of a, um, novel device."
"Secret weapon," Miles corrected. "I said secret weapon."
The Professor's eyes glinted in amusement. "Define your terms. If it's a weapon, then what's the target?"
"It's so secret," Miles explained to Ekaterin, "we can't even figure out what it does. So I'm at least half right." He glanced after Nikki. "I take it once Nikki got into his usual routine, things smoothed out?"
"Yes. I'd been almost certain they would," said Ekaterin. "Thank you so much for your help this morning, Lord Vorkosigan. I'm very grateful that—"
Miles was saved from certain embarrassment by the chime of the hall door. Ekaterin rose and went to answer it and the Professor followed, blocking Miles from his planned counterbid, How did things go with the estate law counselor? I was sure you could