• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 2601 0

Heat department. There seemed to be a lot of personnel, compared to some of the other departments; Waste Heat was definitely a favored child in the Project budget. Presumably most of them spent the bulk of their time out at the experiment station, since Waste Heat's offices here were modest. In hindsight, always acute, Miles wished he'd begun his survey of Radovas's life out there today, where there might have been some action to observe, instead of in this tower of bureaucratic boredom. More, he wished he'd dropped in on the experiment station during their first tour . . . well, no. He would not have known what to look for then.

And you know now? He shook his head in wry dismay and brought up another file. Tuomonen had taken a copy of the personnel list, and in due time would be interviewing most of these people, unless something happened to take the investigation off in another direction. Such as finding Marie Trogir—that was the first item now on Miles's wish list for ImpSec. Miles shifted to ease the twinge in his back; he could feel his body stiffening from sitting still in a cool room too long. Didn't these Serifosans know they needed to waste more heat?

Quick steps in the hallway paused and turned in at the outer office, and Miles glanced up. Tien Vorsoisson, a little out of breath, hung a moment in his office doorway, then plunged inside. He was carrying two heavy jackets, his own and the one of his wife's that Miles had used the other day, and a breath mask labeled Visitor, Medium. He smiled at Miles in suppressed agitation. "My Lord Auditor. So glad to still find you here."

Miles shut down the file and regarded Vorsoisson with interest. "Hello, Administrator. What brings you back tonight?"

"You, my lord. I need to talk with you right away. I have to . . . to show you something I've discovered."

Miles opened his hand, indicating the comconsole, but Vorsoisson shook his head. "Not here, my lord. Out at the Waste Heat experiment station."

Ah ha. "Right now?"

"Yes, tonight, while everyone is gone." Vorsoisson laid the spare breath mask on the comconsole, rummaged in a cabinet in the far wall, and came up with his own personal mask. He yanked the straps over his neck and hastily adjusted his chest harness to hold the supplementary oxygen bottle in place. "I've requisitioned a lightflyer, it's waiting downstairs."

"All right . . ." Now what was this going to be all about? Too much to hope Vorsoisson had found Marie Trogir locked in a closet out there. Miles checked his own mask—power and oxygen levels indicated it was fully recharged—and slipped it on. He took a couple of breaths in passing, to test its correct function, then slid it down out of the way under his chin and shrugged on the jacket.

"This way . . ." Vorsoisson led off with long strides, which annoyed Miles considerably; he declined to run to keep up with the man. The Administrator perforce waited for him at the lift tube, bouncing on his heels in impatience. This time, when they reached the garage sub-level, the vehicle was ready. It was a less-than-luxurious government issue two-passenger flyer, but appeared to be in perfectly good condition.

Miles was less certain of the driver. "What's this all about, Vorsoisson?"

Vorsoisson put his hand on the canopy and regarded Miles with an intensity of expression that was almost alarming. "What are the rules for declaring oneself an Imperial Witness?"

"Well . . . various, I suppose, depending on the situation." Miles was not, he realized belatedly, nearly as well up on the fine points of Barrayaran law as an Imperial Auditor ought to be. He needed to do more reading. "I mean . . . I don't think it's exactly something one does for oneself. It's usually negotiated between a potential witness and whatever prosecuting authority is in charge of the criminal case." And rarely. Since the end of the Time of Isolation, with the importation of fast-penta and other galactic interrogation drugs, the authorities no longer had to bargain for truthful testimony, normally.

"In this case, the authority is you," said