Miles in Love - Lois McMaster Bujold [91]
The tech nodded and trod out through the, Miles noticed, still-ruined door.
"And, oh yes, would you please detail a tech to repair Madame Vorsoisson's front door," Miles added to Tuomonen. "Possibly he could install a somewhat better-quality locking system while he's about it." She shot him a quietly grateful look.
"Yes, my lord. I will of course keep a guard on duty while you are here."
A duenna of sorts, Miles supposed. He must try to get Madame Vorsoisson something rather better. Suspecting he'd loaded poor sleepless Tuomonen with enough chores and orders for one session, Miles requested only that he be notified at once if ImpSec caught up with Soudha or any member of his group, and let the captain go off to his suddenly multiplied duties.
By the time he'd showered and dressed in his last good gray suit, the painkillers had achieved their full effect, and Miles felt almost human. When he emerged, Madame Vorsoisson invited him to her kitchen; Tuomonen's door guard stayed in the living room.
"Would you care for some breakfast, Lord Vorkosigan?"
"Have you eaten?"
"Well, no. I'm not really hungry."
Likely not, but she looked as pale and washed-out as he felt. Tactically inspired, he said, "I'll have something if you will. Something bland," he added prudently.
"Groats?" she suggested diffidently.
"Oh, yes please." He wanted to say, I can get them—mixing up a packet of instant groats was well within his ImpSec survival-trained capabilities, he could have assured her—but he didn't want to risk her going away, so he sat, an obedient guest, and watched her move about. She seemed uneasy, in what should have been this core place of her domain. Where would she fit? Someplace much larger.
She set up and served them both; they exchanged commonplace courtesies. When she'd eaten a few bites, she worked up an unconvincing smile, and asked, "Is it true fast-penta makes you . . . rather foolish?"
"Mm. Like any drug, people have varied reactions. I've conducted any number of fast-penta interrogations in the line of my former duties. And I've had it given to me twice."
Her interest was clearly piqued by this last statement. "Oh?"
"I, um . . ." He wanted to reassure her, but he had to be honest. Don't ever lie to me, she'd said, in a voice of suppressed passion. "My own reaction was idiosyncratic."
"Don't you have that allergy ImpSec is supposed to give to its—well, no, of course not, or you wouldn't be here."
ImpSec's defense against the truth drug was to induce a fatal allergic response in its key operatives. One had to agree to the treatment, but as it was a gateway to larger responsibilities and hence promotions, the security force had never lacked for volunteers. "No, in fact. Chief Illyan never asked me to undergo it. In retrospect, I can't help wondering if my father had a hand, there. But in any case, it doesn't make me truthful so much as it makes me hyper. I babble. Fast-foolish, I guess. The one, um, hostile interrogation I underwent, I was actually able to beat, by continually reciting poetry. It was a very bizarre experience. In normal people, the degree of, well, ugliness, depends a lot on whether you fight it or go along with it. If you feel that the questioner is on your side, it can be just a very relaxing way of giving the same testimony you would anyway."
"Oh." She did not look reassured enough.
"I can't claim it doesn't invade your reserve," and she possessed a reserve oceans-deep, "but a properly conducted interview ought not to," shame you, "be too bad." Though if last night's events had not shaken her out of her daunting self-control . . . He hesitated, then added, "How did you learn to underreact the way you do?"
Her face went blank. "Do I underreact?"
"Yes. You are very hard to read."
"Oh." She stirred her black coffee. "I don't know. I've been this way for as long as I can remember." A more introspective look stilled her features for a time. "No . . . no, there was a time . . . I suppose it goes back