"Lies, lies, all lies," he muttered wildly to his comconsole. It seemed to blink and hum back at him, sly and demure.
With a decisive punch, he turned off the comconsole with its endless babble of voices and fountains of data, and sat for a while in darkness and silence, till his ears stopped ringing.
ImpSec hasn't. Hasn't found Miles.
He didn't need all this data. Nobody did. He just needed one piece.
Let's cut this down to size.
Start with a few explicit assumptions. One. Miles is recoverable.
Let ImpSec look for a rotted body, unmarked grave, or disintegration record all they wanted. Such a search was no use to
him
, even if successful. Especially if successful.
Only cryo-chambers, whether permanent storage banks or other portables, were of interest. Or—less likely, and notably less common—cryo-revival facilities. But logic put an upper cap on his optimism. If Miles had been successfully revived by friendly hands, the first thing he would do would be to report in. He hadn't, ergo: he was still frozen. Or, if revived, in too bad a shape to function. Or not in friendly hands. So. Where?
The Dendarii cryo-chamber had been found in the Hegen Hub. Well . . . so what? It had been sent there after it was emptied. Sinking down into his station chair with slitted eyes, Mark thought instead about the opposite end of the trail. Were his particular obsessions luring him into believing what he wanted to believe?
No, dammit. To hell with the Hegen Hub. Miles never got off the planet.
In one stroke, that eliminated over three-fourths of the trash-data clogging his view.
We look at Jackson's Whole reports only, then. Good. Then what?
How had ImpSec checked all the remaining possible destinations? Places without known motivations or connections with House Bharaputra? For the most part, ImpSec had simply asked, concealing their own identity but offering a substantial reward. All at least four weeks after the raid. A cold trail, so to speak. Quite a lot of time for someone to think about their surprise package. Time to hide it, if they were so inclined. So that, in those cases where ImpSec did a second and more complete pass, they were even more likely to come up empty.
Miles is in a place that ImpSec has already checked off, in the hands of someone with hidden motivations to be interested in him.
There were still hundreds of possibilities.
I need a connection. There has to be a connection.
ImpSec had torn apart Norwood's available Dendarii records down to the level of a word-by-word analysis. Nothing. But Norwood was medically trained. And he hadn't sent his beloved Admiral's cryo-chamber off at random. He'd sent it
someplace
to
someone.
If there's a hell, Norwood, I hope you're roasting in it right now.
Mark sighed, leaned forward, and turned the comconsole back on.
A couple of hours later, Illyan stopped by Mark's cubicle, closing the soundproof door behind him. He leaned, falsely casual, on the wall and remarked, "How is it going?"
Mark ran his hands through his hair. "Despite your amiable attempt to bury me, I think I'm actually making some progress."
"Oh? What kind?" Illyan did not deny the charge, Mark noticed.
"I am absolutely convinced Miles never left Jackson's Whole."
"So how do you explain our finding the cryo-chamber in the Hegen Hub?"
"I don't. It's a diversion."
"Hm," said Illyan, non-committally.
"And it worked," Mark added cruelly.
Illyan's lips thinned.
Diplomacy, Mark reminded himself. Diplomacy, or he'd never get what he needed. "I accept that your resources are finite, sir. So put them to the point. Everything that you do have available for this, you ought to send to Jackson's Whole."
The sardonic expression on Illyan's face said it all. The man had been running ImpSec for nearly thirty years. It was going to take a lot more than diplomacy for him to accept Mark telling him how to do his job.
"What did you find out about Captain Vorventa?" Mark tried another line.
"The link was short, and not too sinister. His younger brother was my Galactic Operations supervisor's adjutant. These are not disloyal men, you understand."
"So . . . what have you done?"
"About Captain Edwin, nothing. It's too late. The information about Miles is now out on the Vorish net, as whispers and gossip. Beyond damage control. Young Vorventa has been transferred and demoted. Leaving an ugly hole in my staffing. He was good at his job." Illyan did not sound very grateful to Mark.
"Oh." Mark paused. "Vorventa thought I did something to the Count. Is that out on the gossip net too?"
"Yes."
Mark winced. "Well . . . at least
you
know better," he sighed. He glanced up at Illyan's stony face, and felt a nauseated alarm. "Don't you, sir?"
"Perhaps. Perhaps not."
"How not?! You have the medical reports!"
"Mm. The cardiac rupture certainly appeared natural. But it could have been artificially created, using a surgical hand-tractor. The subsequent damage to the cardiac region would have masked its traces."
Mark shuddered in helpless outrage. "Tricky work," he choked. "Extremely precise. How did I make the Count hold still, and not notice, while I was doing this?"
"That is one problem with the scenario," Illyan agreed.
"And what did I do with the hand tractor? And the medical scanner, I'd have needed one of those, too. Two or three kilos of equipment."
"Ditched them in the woods. Or somewhere."
"Have you found them?"
"No."
"Have you looked?"
"Yes."
Mark rubbed his face, hard, and clenched and unclenched his teeth. "So. You have all the men you need to quarter and re-quarter several square kilometers of woods looking for a hand tractor that isn't there, but not enough to send to Jackson's Whole to look for Miles, who is.
I
see." No. He had to keep his temper, or he'd lose everything. He wanted to howl. He wanted to beat Illyan's face in.
"A galactic operative is a highly-trained specialist with rare personal qualities," said Illyan stiffly. "Area-searches for known objects can be conducted by low-level troopers, who are more abundant."
"Yes. I'm sorry."
He
was apologizing?
Your goals. Remember your goals.
He thought of the Countess, and drew a deep, calming breath. He drew several.
"I do not hold this as a conviction," Illyan said, watching his face. "I hold it merely as a doubt."
"Thank-you-I-think," Mark snarled.
He sat for a full minute, trying to marshal his scattered thoughts, his best arguments. "Look," he said at last. "You are wasting your resources, and one of the resources you are wasting is me. Send
me
back to Jackson's Whole. I know more about the entire situation than any other agent you have. I have some training, an assassin's training only maybe, but some. Enough to lose your spies three or four times on Earth! Enough to get this far. I know Jackson's Whole, visceral stuff you can only acquire growing up there. And you wouldn't even have to pay me!" He waited, holding his breath in the courage of his terror.
Go back?
Blood sprayed through his memory.
Going to give the Bharaputrans a chance to correct their aim?
Illyan's cool expression did not change. "Your track record so far in covert ops is not notably impressive for its successes, Lord Mark."
"So, I'm not a brilliant combat field commander. I am not Miles. We all know that by now. How many of your other agents are?"
"If you are as, ah, incompetent as you have appeared, sending you would be a further waste. But suppose you are more sly than even I think. All your thrashing around here, a mere smokescreen." Illyan could deliver the veiled insults too. Stiletto-sharp, right between the ribs. "And suppose you get to Miles before we do. What happens then?"
"What do you mean, what happens then?"
"If you return him to us as a room-temperature corpse, fit only for burying, instead of a cryo-stat hopeful—how will we know that was the way you found him? And you will inherit his name, his rank, his wealth, and his future. Tempting, Mark, to a man without an identity. Very tempting."
Mark buried his face in his hands. He sat crushed, infuriated, and wildly frustrated. "Look," he said through his fingers, "look. Either I'm the man who, by your theory, succeeded in half-assassinating Aral Vorkosigan and was so good I left no trace of proof—or I'm not. You can argue that I'm not competent enough to send. Or you can argue that I'm not trustworthy enough to send. But you can't use both arguments at once. Pick one!"
"I await more evidence." Illyan's eyes were like stones.
"I swear," Mark whispered, "excess suspicion makes us bigger fools than excess trust does." It had certainly been true in his case. He sat up suddenly. "So fast-penta me."
Illyan raised his brows. "Mm?"
"Fast-penta me. You never have. Relieve your suspicions." Fast-penta interrogations could be excruciatingly humiliating experiences, by all reports. So what. What was one more humiliation in
his
life? Warm and familiar, that was what.
"I have longed to, Lord Mark," Illyan admitted, "but your, ah, progenitor has a known idiosyncratic response to fast-penta that I assume you share. Not the usual allergy, exactly. It creates an appalling hyperactivity, a great deal of babble, but alas, no overwhelming compulsion to tell the truth. It is useless."
"In Miles." Mark seized the hope. "You assume? You don't know! My metabolism is demonstrably not like Miles's. Can't you at least check?"
"Yes," said Illyan slowly, "I can do that." He pushed himself off from the wall, and exited the cubicle, saying, "Carry on. I'll be back shortly."
Tense, Mark rose and paced the little room, two steps each way. Fear and desire pulsed in his brain. The memory of the inhuman chill of Baron Bharaputra's eyes clashed with hot rage in his throat.
If you want to find something, look where you lost it.
He'd lost it all on Jackson's Whole.
Illyan returned at last. "Sit down and roll up your left sleeve."
Mark did so. "What's that?"
"Patch test."
Mark felt a burr-like prickle, as Illyan pressed the tiny med-pad onto the underside of his forearm, then peeled it away. Illyan glanced at his chrono and leaned on the comconsole, watching Mark's arm.
Within a minute, there was a pink spot. Within two, it was a hive. Within five, it had grown to a hard white welt surrounded by angry red streaks that ran from his wrist to his elbow.
Illyan sighed disappointment. "Lord Mark. I highly recommend that you avoid fast-penta at all costs, in your future."
"That was an allergic reaction?"
"That was a highly allergic reaction."
"Shit." Mark sat and brooded. And scratched. He rolled down his sleeve before he drew blood. "If Miles had been sitting here, reading these files, making these same arguments, would you have listened to him?"
"Lieutenant Vorkosigan has a sustained record of successes that compels my attention. Results speak for themselves. And, as you yourself have
repeatedly
pointed out, you are not Miles. You can't use both arguments at once," he added icily. "Pick one."
"Why did you even bother letting me in here, if nothing I say or do can make any difference?" Mark exploded.
Illyan shrugged. "Aside from Gregor's direct order—at least I know where you are and what you are doing."
"Like a detention cell, except that I enter it voluntarily. If you could lock me in a cell without a comconsole, you'd be even happier."
"Frankly, yes."
"Just. So." Blackly, Mark switched the comconsole back on. Illyan left him to it.
Mark jumped out of his chair, stumbled to the door, and stuck his head out. Illyan's retreating back was halfway down the corridor.
"I have my own name now, Illyan!" Mark shouted furiously.
Illyan glanced back over his shoulder, raised his brows, and walked on.
Mark tried reading another report, but it seemed to turn to gibberish somewhere between his eyes and his brain. He was too rattled to continue his analysis today. He gave up at last, and called Pym for a pick-up. It was still light out. He stared into the sunset, glimpsed between the buildings on the way home to Vorkosigan House, till his eyes burned.
It was the first time that week he had returned from ImpSec in time to join the Countess for dinner. He found her and Bothari-Jesek dining casually in a ground-floor nook that looked onto a sheltered corner of the garden, densely arranged with autumn flowers and plants. Spot lighting kept the display colorful in the gathering dusk. The Countess wore a fancy green jacket and long skirt, a Vor matron's town wear; Bothari-Jesek wore a similar costume in blue obviously borrowed from the Countess's wardrobe. A place was set for him at the table despite the fact that he hadn't shown up for the meal for four straight days. Obscurely touched, he slid into his seat.
"How was the Count today?" he asked diffidently.
"Unchanged," the Countess sighed.
As was the Countess's custom, there was a minute of silence before they plowed in, which the Countess used for an inward prayer that Mark suspected involved more this day than calling blessings upon the bread. Bothari-Jesek and he waited politely, Bothari-Jesek meditating God-knew-what, Mark rerunning his conversation with Illyan in his head and evolving all the smarter things he should have said, too late. A servant brought food in covered dishes and departed to leave them in privacy, which was the way the Countess preferred it when not dining formally with official guests.
Family style. Huh.
In truth, Bothari-Jesek had been lending the Countess the support of a daughter in the days since the Count's collapse, accompanying her on her frequent trips to the Imperial Military Hospital, running personal errands, acting as confidant; Mark suspected the Countess had revealed more of her real thoughts to Bothari-Jesek than to anyone else, and felt a little inexplicable envy. As their favorite armsman's only child, Elena Bothari had been practically the Vorkosigans' foster-daughter; Vorkosigan House had been the home in which she had grown up. So if he was really Miles's brother, did that make Elena his foster-sister too? He would have to try the idea on her. And prepare to duck. Some other time.