Cryoburn-ARC (20 page)

Mina drew a huge breath and shot to her feet, staring wildly at Miles-san. "You could
do
that? You could get my mommy back?
Really
?"

Miles-san stopped short. "Er."

Jin's heart jumped in his chest; Mina's imploring look made him feel sick. "No, of course he can't," he said angrily. "It was just a stupid joke."

Miles-san's hand went to his throat, clutching something through his shirt; some kind of pendant, Jin thought. "Damn. If I were on Barrayar, I could just
order
it done."

"But we're not
on
Barrayar," Armsman Roic muttered under his breath, almost the first Jin had heard the big man speak. Miles-san waved a hand as if to say,
Yah, yah
, though whether in agreement or protest Jin was not sure.

Mina looked crushed; her lower lip quivered. "It wasn't
.
.
.
wasn't a very
nice
thing to make a joke about it, if you didn't really mean it!"

"No," said Miles-san, staring, for some reason, at Raven-sensei. "It wasn't.
Could
I, ah
.
.
.
really mean it? Technically?"

Raven-sensei scratched his chin. "
Technically,
yes. You will forgive me if I point out that the medical aspects would seem to be the least of it?"

Miles-san waved a hand in easy pardon.

"Assuming," Raven-sensei went on, "the cryoprep was done correctly in the first place, of course. Or at all."

Miles-san's eyes narrowed, and he resumed his pacing. "Mm
.
.
.
no reason why it shouldn't have been. We're not on Jackson's Whole, either, I note. What all would you need to do the trick? Technically."

"A decently-equipped revival facility. This isn't something I'd choose to do out of the consulate basement's laundry tub, if that's what you're thinking. Not if there were any complications."

"We couldn't afford complications, no. Emphatically not." He glanced at Jin and Mina.

Raven-sensei nodded. "Some standard medical supplies, synthesized blood and so on."

"If I secured you a facility, could you scrounge the supplies?"

Raven-sensei got a faraway look. "Legally, or otherwise?"

A pause. "I've no intrinsic objection to legally, but it can't leave a data trail back to us. Otherwise, alternate suppliers would do. If their merchandise was of proper quality, of course."

"That goes without saying. How would you propose to gain custody of my patient?"

Miles-san's expression grew equally faraway. "Now, that's where it becomes quite interesting—"

"Lord Vorkosigan!" Vorlynkin interrupted. "What the hell are you
thinking
?" Jin wasn't sure if he really didn't know, or knew and objected. Strenuously.

Miles-san waved that airy hand again. "Any number of threads in my cat's cradle of Kibou-daini mysteries seem to run back to Lisa Sato—and stop. I'm thinking I might be able to cut the whole knot right through if I had her to interrogate. Er, talk to. Grant you, it seems a little imaginative at first glance, but the more I think about it
.
.
."

"Imaginative! It seems outright mad!"

Miles-san cast the consul a soulful look. "But Vorlynkin, it would solve all your problems with asylum for minors at a blow. Their mother being their closest possible adult next-of-kin."

"When did those become
my
.
.
.
never mind."

Miles-san grinned in a glinty way that Jin did not entirely understand. "Very good, Vorlynkin."

"What are you all
talking
about?" Mina practically wailed.

Miles-san lost his glintiness at once, and dropped to one knee in front of her swivel chair. "Unpack, right. Um. You see, Mina, I was sent here by my government to check out some sneaky, nasty things that a Kibou cryocorp is trying to do back on one of my home worlds. I think your mommy might be able to answer some of my questions, or at least give me some interesting new information. Now, it just so happens that Dr. Durona over there"—Raven-sensei waved his long fingers kindly at Mina—"is a top cryorevival specialist, and he already works for me, which is what gives me this idea. See, there are three things that have to be in place before I could undertake to wake up your mommy. I have to be sure it would be medically safe for her, and I think Raven could see to that. I have to be able to secure her cry—I have to be able to get hold of her, get her away from the place where she's now held without kicking up a dust, and I think I can do that. And afterward, I have to be able to protect her from being arrested and taken away again, or it will all be for nothing, and that will be Consul Vorlynkin's job."

Vorlynkin looked startled at this news. But when Mina's anxious gaze targeted him, he returned her a flicker of a smile, the first Jin had seen lighten his face. Girls, hah. Nobody handed
Jin
smiles like that when
he
was scared
.
.
.
he more usually got some sort of unsympathetic and bracing advice to buck up.

"Which reminds me, Vorlynkin," Miles-san went on over his shoulder in a more clipped tone, "what are the limits of the political and legal protection this consulate can offer, once it becomes known that Madame Sato has, er, escaped custody, as it were? You're not a full-scale embassy
.
.
."

Vorlynkin said reluctantly, "By our budget, we're a branch of the embassy on Escobar. But we're legally more than a consulate, because we're the only full-time diplomatic facility Barrayar maintains here. It would be
.
.
.
it could be an ambiguous argument."

"And ambiguous legal arguments burn lots of time, ah. That might just be good enough." Miles-san rose to pace again.

Mina sank back into her swivel chair, her expression caught between hopeful and confused. Jin realized he'd been gripping the arms of his own chair so hard his fingernails were white, and slowly released his clutch. Mina's words whirled around and around in his head,
You could get my mommy back? Really? Really? Really
.
.
.
?
Who did this half-sized galactic think he was? When he'd said he was a delegate to the cryo-conference, but didn't seem to be a doctor, and the others had all called him an auditor, Jin had vaguely assumed his job had something to do with insurance. Or maybe, less boringly, insurance fraud. He seemed to know a lot about fraud, anyway.

"First things first. Johannes, what vehicles does the consulate maintain?"

Johannes jerked, as if he'd been a watcher of a play unexpectedly addressed by one of the characters. "Uh, the official groundcar, of course. And we have a lift van. I have a float bike, myself."

"Lift van, perfect. Tomorrow, then, we'll take Jin and Raven and go pick up Jin's creatures, and bring them back here to the consulate, so that'll be off his mind and my conscience."

Jin looked up, caught between thrilled and bewildered. Didn't these Barrayarans mean to let him go
.
.
.
? On the other hand, as long as he had his animals back, and didn't have to go back to Aunt Lorna and school, did it matter where he stayed?

"My consulate isn't exactly set up to host a menagerie," said Vorlynkin.

"No, they'll be fine here!" Jin assured him, panicked at the thought of being separated yet again from all his pets. "There's so much room. And your back garden is all walled in. They won't bother you a bit."

"What kind of—no, never mind. Go on, Lord Vorkosigan."

"At the same time, I will take Raven to meet Suze and company, and inspect the facilities. We might avoid having to retool the consulate laundry room into a cryo revival facility—" though he did not sound as if this proposed renovation gave him much pause "—if, like the installation we saw today, her old place already has one. And it's still in good shape, not stripped."

Jin said doubtfully, "If you want any favors from Suze-san, you better catch her early in the day. When she's still sober."

"Not a problem," Miles-san said. "Then, if everything proves workable, we can go on to the next step."

"What
is
the next step?" asked Consul Vorlynkin, in fascinated tones. He looked like a man staring at a groundcar wreck. In slow motion. That he was in.

"Securing Madame Sato."

"How?"

"I'm going to have to do a spot more research first, to devise the optimum ploy. According to the public records, she's being kept at the NewEgypt facility out in the Cryopolis here in Northbridge, which is actually pretty convenient." Miles-san's lips drew back on a peculiar grin. "It could be just like old times."

Armsman Roic sat up in alarm. He put in, with some urgency, "What about those commodified contracts Ron Wing was going on about? Maybe you could work out a way to just, I dunno,
buy
her. All peaceable and aboveboard." He added after a moment, "Or under the table, but peaceable, anyway."

Miles-san paused again in his pacing, as if arrested by this notion. "Shrewd idea, Roic. But she's not just any cryo-patron. I suspect that any interest in her is likely to send up a big red flag." He fell into motion again. "Still, hold that thought. It might be useful later, for the retroactive tidying up."

Roic sighed.

"The ideal," Miles-san went on, "would be to arrange things so that she wasn't missed at all."

"These commercial cryochambers are all continuously monitored," said Raven-sensei. "You'd need some way to fudge the readouts." He hesitated. "Or go low tech, and just swap in another cryo-corpse. That way, all the readings would be naturally right. They wouldn't know the difference unless they pulled it out and unwrapped it."

Miles-san tilted his head, like Gyre the Falcon contemplating a choice morsel of meat. "The old shell game, eh? That
.
.
.
might actually be highly feasible. I wonder if I could borrow a spare from Suze? God knows, cryo-corpses are not an item in short supply around here."

Vorlynkin choked. "Do you have any idea how many different crimes you've just rattled off?"

"No, but it might not hurt to make up a list, should your lawyer need it. Could speed things up, in a pinch."

"I thought the task of an Imperial Auditor was to
uphold
the law!"

Miles-san's eyebrows flew up. "No, whatever gave you that idea? The task of an Imperial Auditor is to solve problems for Gregor. Those greasy cryocorps bastards just tried to steal a third of his empire.
That's
a problem." Despite his smiling lips, Miles-san's eyes glittered, and Jin realized with a start that underneath, he was really angry about something. "I'm still considering the solution."

Jin wondered who Gregor was. Miles-san's insurance boss?

Mina had scrunched her chair closer and closer to where Jin rocked in his. An audible sniffle escaped her, which made both Miles-san and Vorlynkin crank their heads around. Miles-san lurched and lifted a hand toward her, stopped short, and gestured at Jin instead, who, thus compelled, gave his sister a clumsy pat on the shoulder that only made her eyes fill up and overflow for real.

"Lord Vorkosigan, for pity's sake, enough for tonight," said Consul Vorlynkin. "These children have to be exhausted. Both of them."

Jin could wish he hadn't added that last. His eyes stung in contagion with Mina's. Now he was offered it, Jin wasn't so sure he wanted sympathy—it eroded his resolve as annoying bracing remarks never did.

"To be sure," said Miles-san immediately. "Baths, I think, and we can give them both Roic's room. He can bunk in with me. I expect some clean T-shirts would do for nightclothes. Toothbrushes?"

Miles-san and Vorlynkin arguing, Jin discovered, were not nearly so daunting as the pair of them united in sudden agreement. The ordinary business of bedtime blocked further tears. Jin expected Mina found the consulate house stranger than he did. He'd slept in parks, after all, and in all sorts of odd crannies at Suze-san's. Vorlynkin even donated a fancy sonic toothbrush, though Jin and Mina had then to share it, with a trip through its sterilizing holder between customers.

At last they were tucked up in clean sheets in a warm, quiet room. Jin waited for the door to softly shut, and the grownups' feet to clump away back downstairs, before wriggling up and switching on the bedside lamp. Mina threw back her covers and helped him extract Lady Murasaki's box from her backpack. She watched closely as Jin opened the lid to give their pet a breath of fresh air, and helped by tossing in one of the little powdery beige moths they'd collected earlier, while Jin's fingers blocked the prisoner from escaping. He set the plastic box back on the table between their beds.

"Is she going to eat it?" Mina asked, peering through the lid.

"I'm not sure. She might only go for live prey."

Mina frowned thoughtfully. "They have that big garden out back. I bet we could catch more bugs tomorrow."

A reassuring notion. Jin lay back down and pulled up his sheets, and Mina reached to turn out the lamp again before any betraying line of light showed under the bedroom door.