Memory (8 page)

Elli Quinn. Or Taura. Or Rowan Durona. Or even Elena, Baz and all. Bel Thorne, whom he still missed. All of the above. Somebody. The inner vision of the Dendarii occupying Vorkosigan House gave him vertigo, but there was no doubt they'd know how to liven the place up.

By the next evening, he was desperate enough to call his cousin Ivan.

Ivan answered his comconsole promptly enough. Lieutenant Lord Ivan Vorpatril was still wearing undress greens, identical to Miles's except for the symbol of Ops instead of ImpSec pinned to his collar in front of the red lieutenant's rectangles. At least Ivan hadn't changed, still holding down the same desk at Imperial Service headquarters by day, and leading the pleasant life of a Vor officer in the capital by night.

Ivan's handsome, affable face brightened into a genuine smile when he saw Miles. "Well, coz! I didn't know you were back in town."

"I got in a few days ago," Miles confessed. "I've been sampling the somewhat bizarre sensations of having Vorkosigan House to myself."

"Dear God, you're all alone in that mausoleum?"

"Except for the gate guard, and Zap the Cat, who keep to themselves."

"It ought to suit
you
, back from the dead as you are," said Ivan.

Miles touched his chest. "Not really. I never noticed before how much the old place
creaks
at night. I spent this afternoon . . ." He couldn't very well tell Ivan he'd spent the day plotting a secret medical foray without Ivan asking
why
; he continued smoothly, "looking through the archives. I got to wondering how many people had actually died on the premises, over the centuries. Besides my grandfather, of course. There were a lot more than I'd thought." A fascinating question, actually; he
would
have to scan the archives.

"Yech."

"So . . . what's happening in Town? Any chance of you stopping by?"

"I'm on duty all day, of course . . . there's not too much going on, really. We're at that odd cusp, done with the Emperor's Birthday and not time yet for Winterfair."

"How was the Birthday bash this year? I just missed it. I was still en route, three weeks out. Nobody even got drunk to celebrate."

"Yes, I know. I got stuck delivering your District's bag of gold. It was the usual crush. Gregor retired early, and things sort of trickled off to nothing before dawn." Ivan pursed his lips, looking like he was being seized with a bright idea. Miles braced himself.

"I tell you what, though. In two nights Gregor is having a State dinner. There's two or three major new galactic ambassadors, and a couple of minor counsels, who've presented their portfolios in the last month, and Gregor figured to round them up all at once and get it over with. As usual, Mother is playing hostess for him."

Lady Alys Vorpatril was widely acknowledged as the premier social arbiter of Vorbarr Sultana, not least because of her frequent duties at the Imperial Residence as official welcomer for wifeless, motherless, sisterless Emperor Gregor.

"There's going to be dancing, after. Mother asked me if I couldn't round up some younger people to warm up the ballroom. By
younger
I gather she means under forty. Appropriate ones, you know the drill. If I had known you were in town, I'd have nailed you before this."

"She wants you to bring a date," Miles interpreted this. "Preferably, a fiancée."

Ivan grinned. "Yeah, but for some reason most fellows I know won't lend me theirs."

"Would I be supposed to provide a dance partner too? I hardly know any women here anymore."

"So, bring one of the Koudelka girls. I am. Sure, it's like taking your sister, but they are decorative as hell, especially en masse."

"Did you ask Delia?" said Miles thoughtfully.

"Yeah. But I'll cede her to you if you like, and take Martya. But if you're escorting Delia, you have to promise not to make her wear high heels. She hates it when you make her wear high heels."

"But she's so . . . impressive in them."

"She's impressive out of them, too."

"True. Well . . . yes, all right." Miles entertained a brief flashing vision of himself having a seizure right on the Imperial ballroom floor, in front of half the Vorish social cream of the capital. But what was the alternative? Stay home by himself yet another night with nothing to do but dream about his after-the-next-mission escape to Escobar, evolve nineteen more impractical ways to defeat ImpSec's observation of him on ImpSec's home turf, or brainstorm how to steal the gate guard's cat for company? And Ivan might solve his transportation dilemma.

"I don't have a car," Miles said.

"What happened to your lightflyer?"

"It's . . . in the shop. Adjustments."

"Want me to pick you up?"

His brains were lagging. That would leave
Ivan
driving, to the terror of all prudent passengers, unless Miles could bully Delia Koudelka into taking over. Miles sat up, seized with a bright idea of his own. "Does your mother really want extra bodies?"

"She says so."

"Captain Duv Galeni is in town. I saw him the other day at ImpSec HQ. He's stuck down in the Analysis section, except that he seems to regard it as a rare treat."

"Oh, yeah, I knew that! I would have remembered to tell you eventually. He came over to our side of town a few weeks ago in tow of General Allegre, for some consultation by the upper-ups. I meant to do something to welcome him to Vorbarr Sultana, but I hadn't got around to it yet. You ImpSec boys tend to keep to yourselves over there in Paranoia Central."

"But anyway, he's trying to impress this Komarran girl," Miles forged on. "Not girl, woman I suppose, some kind of high-powered wheel in a trade delegation. She's strong on brains rather than beauty, I gather, which doesn't surprise me, knowing Galeni. And she has interesting Komarran connections. How many points d'you think he would score for getting her into an Imperial State dinner?"

"Many," said Ivan decisively. "Especially if it's one of my mother's exclusive little soirees."

"And we both owe him one."

"More than one. And he's not nearly as sarcastic as he used to be, either, I noticed. Maybe he's mellowing out. Sure, invite him along," said Ivan.

"I'll give him a call, and get back to you, then." Happy in his inspiration, Miles cut the com.

Miles climbed from Captain Galeni's groundcar, which was stopped at the east portico of the Imperial Residence, and turned to assist Delia Koudelka, who scarcely needed help. She swung out her long athletic legs, and bounced to her feet. The flowing skirts of her dress, in her favorite blue, revealed a glimpse of her matching dancing slippers, sensible, comfortable, and flat. She was the tallest of Commodore Koudelka's four daughters; the top of Miles's head was a good ten centimeters below the level of her shoulder. He grinned up at her. She returned a somewhat twisted smile, companionable and sporting.

"I don't know why I let you and Ivan talk me into this," she sighed to his ear.

"Because you like to dance," Miles stated with certainty. "Give me the first two, and I promise I'll find you a nice tall galactic diplomat for the rest of the evening."

"It's not that," she denied, eyeing his shortness.

"What I lack in height, I make up in speed."

"
That's
the trouble." She nodded vigorously.

Galeni turned over his modest vehicle to the waiting Imperial servant, who drove it away, and arranged his own lady's hand upon his arm. It took some knowledge of Galeni to read his saturnine features; Miles made him out as a little proud, a little smug, and a little embarrassed, as a man who arrives at a party wildly overdressed. Since Galeni, albeit almost painfully neat, scrubbed, shaved, and polished, wore the same dress green Service uniform with glittering insignia as Miles did, it could only be the effect of his companion.

He ought to be smug, thought Miles. Wait'll Ivan sees this.

If Laisa Toscane possessed more brains than beauty, she had to be some kind of genius. Yet the exact source of her intense physical impression was elusive. Her face was softly molded and pleasant, but not nearly as striking as, say, Elli Quinn's expensive sculpture. Her eyes were unusual, a brilliant blue-green, though whether the color was cosmetically or genetically conferred Miles could not tell. She was short even for a Komarran woman, two handspans shorter than Galeni, who was almost as tall as Delia. But her most distinctive feature was her skin, milk-white and almost seeming to glow—
zaftig
, Miles thought, was the word for that rich flesh.
Plump
was misleading, and not nearly enthusiastic enough. He had never seen anything so edibly female outside a Cetagandan haut-lady's force screen.

Wealth did not always confer taste upon its possessor, but when it did, the results could be impressive. She wore dark red, loose trousers in the Komarran style and a matching, low-cut top, made subtle with a boxy open jacket in cream and blue-green. Understated jewelry. Her hair was too dark to be called blond, too silvery to be called brown, and curled in short wisps in a forthrightly Komarran fashion. Her smile seemed pleased and excited, as she glanced up at her escort, but by no means overwhelmed.
If she makes it past Aunt Alys,
Miles decided,
she's going to do just fine.
He lengthened his stride to match Delia's, and bowed his little party indoors, as if Emperor Gregor's State dinner was his personal gift to them.

They were vetted through by the Imperial guards, and a majordomo who determined that they had no wraps to be relieved of, nor, under Miles's escort, further need of guidance. The next person they encountered was indeed Lady Alys Vorpatril, who stood at the foot of the staircase. Tonight she'd chosen a gown of dark blue velvet trimmed with gold, in salute perhaps to the Vorpatril colors of her long-deceased husband. She'd worn a widow's dove gray all through Miles's childhood, he seemed to recall, but had at length given it up, possibly about the same time she had finally forgiven Lord Vorpatril for getting himself killed in that particularly outrageous fashion during the War of Vordarian's Pretendership.

"Hello, Miles dear, Delia," she greeted them. Miles bowed over her hand, and introduced Captain Galeni and Dr. Toscane with more formality. Lady Alys nodded approval—Miles was relieved that Ivan had indeed followed through and arranged their addition to the guest list as promised, and not forgotten till some embarrassing last minute, or later. "Gregor is receiving everyone in the Glass Hall as usual," Lady Alys went on. "You'll be seated at his table for dinner, down from the Escobaran Ambassador and her husband—I thought we ought to intersperse the galactics with a few natives this time."

"Thanks, Aunt Alys." Miles glanced past her shoulder at a slight, familiar figure in officer's dress greens, standing in the shadows in the door to the left of the staircase and talking in low tones with an ImpSec guard. "Uh, Delia, would you show Duv and Laisa to the Glass Hall? I'll be right along."

"Sure, Miles." Delia smiled at Laisa, swept up her long skirts with the ease of practice, and led the Komarrans up the wide stairs.

"What a lovely young woman," stated Lady Alys, gazing after them.

"Ah, you mean Dr. Toscane?" Miles hazarded. "She was all right to bring, I take it."

"Oh, yes. She is the principal heiress of
those
Toscanes, you know. Quite appropriate," Alys spoiled this encomium somewhat by adding, "for a Komarran."

We all have our little handicaps.
Lady Alys was employed by the Emperor to see that the Right people were admitted; but Miles had spotted the other member of the team, the man Gregor employed to see that the Safe people were admitted. Chief of Imperial Security Simon Illyan glanced up at last from his conversation with the ImpSec guard, who saluted him and disappeared through the doorway. Illyan did not smile or beckon Miles, but Miles ducked around Lady Alys and made for him anyway, trapping him before he could follow the guard.

"Sir." Miles gave him an analyst's salute; Illyan returned an even more modified version, a slightly frustrated wave more repelling than acknowledging. The ImpSec chief was a man in his early sixties, with brown hair going gray, a deceptively placid face, and a permanent habit of blending quietly into the background. Illyan was clearly on duty tonight supervising the Emperor's personal security, evidenced by the comm link earbug in his right ear and the charged lethal weapons on both hips. This meant either that there was more going on here tonight than Miles had been briefed about, or that there wasn't much going on anywhere else to nail Illyan down at HQ, and he'd left the routine to his bland and steady second-in-command Haroche. "Did your secretary give you my message, sir?"

"Yes, Lieutenant."

"He'd told me you were out of town."

"I was. I came back."

"Have you . . . seen my latest report?"

"Yes."

Damn
. The words,
There's something important I left out of it
seemed to choke in Miles's throat. "I need to talk with you."

Illyan, always closed, seemed more expressionless than usual. "This is neither the time nor the place, however."

"Quite, sir. When?"

"I'm waiting on further information."

Right. If it wasn't hurry up and wait, it was wait and hurry up. But something must be about to break soon, or Illyan wouldn't have Miles dancing attendance in Vorbarr Sultana on a one-hour report-for-duty notice.
If it's a new mission, I wish to hell he'd let me in on it. I could at least be starting some contingency planning.
"Very good. I'll be ready."

Illyan nodded dismissal. But as Miles turned away, he added, "Lieutenant . . ."

Miles turned back.

"Did you drive here tonight?"

"Yes. Well, Captain Galeni did."

"Ah." Illyan seemed to find something mildly interesting to look at over the top of Miles's head. "Sharp man, Galeni."

"
I
think so." Giving up on prying anything further out of Illyan tonight, Miles hurried to catch up with his friends.

He found them all waiting for him in the broad corridor outside the Glass Hall; Galeni was chatting amiably with Delia, who seemed in no hurry to go in and find Ivan and her sister. Laisa was gazing around with obvious fascination at the handmade antiques and subtly colored patterned carpets lining the corridor. Miles strolled along with her to study the elaborate and painstaking inlay on a polished tabletop, a scene of running horses in the natural hues of the various woods.