Miles in Love - Lois McMaster Bujold [26]
"Perhaps Venier could fly us today?" Madame Vorsoisson suggested diffidently.
Vorsoisson gave her an oddly black look. "I'm perfectly capable."
Her lips moved, but she uttered no audible protest.
Take your pick, my Lord Auditor, Miles thought to himself. Would you rather be chauffeured by a man just possibly suffering the first symptoms of Vorzohn's Dystrophy, or by a Komarran, ah, patriot, with a car full of tempting Barrayaran Vor targets? "I have no preference," he murmured truthfully.
"I brought coats—" Madame Vorsoisson handed them out. She and her husband and Nikolai had their own; a spare of her husband's did not quite meet around the Professor's middle.
The heavily padded jacket she handed Miles had been hers, he could tell immediately by the scent of her, lingering in the lining. He concealed a deep inhalation as he shrugged it on. "Thank you, that will do very well."
Vorsoisson dove into the rear compartment and came up with a double handful of breath masks, which he distributed. Both he and Venier had their own, with their names engraved on the cheek-pieces; the others were all labeled "Visitor": one large, two medium, one small.
Madame Vorsoisson hung hers over her arm, and bent to adjust Nikolai's, and check its power and oxygen levels.
"I already checked it," Vorsoisson told her. His voice hinted a suppressed snarl. "You don't have to do it again."
"Oh, sorry," she said. But Miles, running through his own check in drilled habit, noticed she finished inspecting it before turning to adjust her own mask. Vorsoisson noticed too, and frowned.
After a few more moments of Betan-style debate, the group sorted themselves out with Vorsoisson, his son, and the Professor in the front compartment, and Miles, Madame Vorsoisson, and Venier in the rear. Miles was uncertain whether to be glad or sorry with his lot in seatmates. He felt he could have engaged either of them in fascinating, if quite different, conversations, if the other had not been present. They all pulled their masks down around their necks, out of the way but instantly ready to hand.
They departed the garage's vehicle-lock without further delay, and the car rose in the air. Venier returned to his initial stiffly professional lecture mode, pointing out bits of project scenery. You could begin to see the terraforming from this modest altitude, in the faint smattering of Earth-green in the damp low places, and a fuzziness of lichen and algae on the rocks. Madame Vorsoisson, her face plastered to the canopy, asked enough intelligent questions of Venier that Miles did not have to strain his tired brain for any, for which he was very grateful.
"I'm surprised, Madame Vorsoisson, with your interest in botany, that you haven't leaned on your husband for a job in his department," said Miles after a while.
"Oh," she said, as if this was a new idea to her. "Oh, I couldn't do that."
"Why not?"
"Wouldn't it be nepotism? Or some kind of conflict of interest?"
"Not if you did your job well, which I'm sure you would. After all, the whole Barrayaran Vor system runs on nepotism. It's not a vice for us, it's a lifestyle."
Venier suppressed an unexpected noise, possibly a snort, and glanced at Miles with increased interest.
"Why should you be exempt?" Miles continued.
"It's only a hobby. I don't have nearly enough technical training. I'd need much more chemistry, to start."
"You could start in a technical assistant position—take evening classes to fill in your gaps. Bootstrap yourself up to something interesting in no time. They have to hire someone." Belatedly, it occurred to Miles that if she, not Vorsoisson, was the carrier of the Vorzohn's Dystrophy, there might be quelling reasons why she had not plunged into such a time- and energy-absorbing challenge. He sensed an elusive energy in her, as if it were tied in knots, locked down, circling back to exhaust itself destroying itself; had fear of her coming illness done that to her? Dammit, which of them was it? He was supposed to be such a hotshot investigator now, he ought to be able to figure