Memory (14 page)

He settled himself at his comconsole in his bedroom. A message to his parents, ah God. And he ought to send one to Elli Quinn, too. Would he ever get the chance to make it right again with her? Face-to-face, body to body? It was a horribly complex thing to attempt via a comconsole message: just his thin electronic ghost, mouthing words ill-chosen or misunderstood, weeks out of synchrony. And all his messages to the Dendarii were monitored by ImpSec censors.

I can't face this now. I'll do it later. Soon. I promise.

He turned his thoughts instead to the less daunting problem of Vorkosigan House staffing. So what was the budget for this project? His lieutenant's medical-discharge half-pay would barely cover the salary and board of one full-time servant, even with a free room thrown in, at least of the sorts of superior folk normally employed by the aristocracy in the capital—he would be competing with sixty other District Counts' households in that labor market here, a host of lesser lordlings, and the sort of new industrial wealthy non-Vor who were presently carrying off such a distressing percentage of eligible Vor maidens to preside over their homes in the style to which they aspired.

Miles tapped in a comconsole code. The pleasant, smiling face of the Vorkosigans' business manager, Tsipis, appeared with startling promptness over the vid plate upon Miles's call reaching his office in Hassadar. "Good morning, Lord Vorkosigan! I was not aware you had returned from your off-planet duty. How may I serve you?"

He was not yet aware of Miles's medical discharge, either, apparently. Miles felt too weary to explain even the edited-for-public-consumption version of events, so only said, "Yes. I got in a few weeks ago. It . . . looks like I'm going to be downside longer than I'd anticipated. What funds can I draw upon? Did Father leave you any instructions?"

"All of it," said Tsipis.

"Excuse me? I don't understand."

"All of the accounts and funds were made joint with you, just before the Count and Countess departed for Sergyar. Just in case. You are your father's executor, you know."

"Yes, but . . ." He hadn't thought Sergyar was that wild a frontier. "Um . . . what can I do?"

"It's much easier to say what you can't do. You can't sell the entailed properties, namely the residence at Hassadar and Vorkosigan House. You can buy whatever you wish, of course, or sell anything your grandfather left you solely in your own name."

"So . . . can I afford to hire a full-time driver?"

"Oh, my, yes, you could afford to staff Vorkosigan House in full. The funds are there, piling up."

"Aren't they needed for the Viceroy's Palace on Sergyar?"

"Countess Vorkosigan has tapped a certain amount of her private moneys, apparently for some redecorating project, but your father is only maintaining his twenty Armsmen at present. Everything else on Sergyar comes out of the Imperial budget."

"Oh."

Tsipis brightened. "Are you thinking of reopening Vorkosigan House, my lord? That would be splendid. It was such a fine sight, last year at Winterfair, when I dined there."

"Not . . . at present."

Tsipis drooped. "Ah," he murmured, in a tone of disappointment. Then a look of belated enlightenment came over his face. "My lord . . . do you need
money
?"

"Er . . . yes. That was what I had in mind. To, like, pay a driver, maybe a cook, pay bills, buy things . . . a suitable living allowance, you know." His ImpSec pay, accumulating in his lengthy absences on duty, had always been more than enough. He wondered how much to ask Tsipis for.

"But of course. How would you like it? A weekly deposit into your Service account, perhaps?"

"No . . . I'd like a new account. Separate. Just . . . to me as Lord Vorkosigan."

"Excellent thinking. Your father is always very careful to keep his personal and Imperial funds identifiably separated. It's a good habit to start. Not that the most foolhardy Imperial Auditor would ever have dared to take him on, of course. Nor have looked anything but a fool afterwards, when the numbers were laid out." Tsipis tapped on his comconsole, and glanced aside at some data readout. "Suppose I transfer the entire accumulated unused Household fund over into your new account, for seed money. And then just send the usual weekly allotment to follow."

"Fine."

"Now, if you need any more, do call me right away."

"Sure."

"I'll send you your new account chit by courier within the hour."

"Thank you." Miles reached to cut the com, then added as an afterthought, "How much is it?"

"Five thousand marks."

"Oh, good."

"And eighty thousand marks to start," Tsipis added.

Miles did a quick mental reversal, and calculation. "This place was sucking down five thousand marks a
week
?"

"Oh, much more than that, with the Armsmen, and the Countess's personal account. And this does not include major repairs, which are budgeted separately."

"I . . . see."

"Now, should you take an interest, I should be happy to go over all your financial affairs with you in
much
more detail," Tsipis added eagerly. "There's so much that could be done with a somewhat more aggressive, entrepreneurial, and, dare I say, less conservative and more attentive approach."

"If . . . I ever have the time. Thank you, Tsipis." Miles cut the com much less casually.

Good God. He could buy . . . damn near anything he wanted. He tried to think of something he wanted.

The Dendarii.

Yeah. We know.
But their price, for him, wasn't measured in money.
What else?

Once, in his increasingly distant youth, he'd lusted briefly after a lightflyer, faster and redder than Ivan's. A particularly fine model, albeit several years old now, sat in the garage downstairs, only lightly used. Of course, he couldn't fly it at all now.

It was never what I wanted to buy that held my heart's hope. It was what I wanted to be.

What had that been? Well, an admiral, of course, a real one, a Barrayaran one, by age 35, one year younger than when his father had become the youngest in post-Isolation history at age 36. Despite Miles's height, and in the teeth of his handicaps. But even had he been born normal of body, his era had brought him no convenient major wars to speed promotion. ImpSec covert ops had been the best he could do, not just the one branch of the Service that would take him, but the only one that could put him in the forefront of the only significant action presently available. How could you be a Great Man if history brought you no Great Events, or brought you to them at the wrong time, too young, too old?
Too damaged
.

He turned to his list of five retired Vorkosigan Armsmen living in the Vorbarr Sultana area. Though elderly, an Armsman, with his wife perhaps to cook, would be the ideal solution to his problem. He wouldn't have to teach them anything about Vorkosigan House's routine, and they'd have no objection to a short-term gig. He began coding his calls.
Maybe I'll get lucky on the first try.

One was too doddering to drive anymore himself. The other four's wives all said no, or rather,
No!

It wasn't as if he were in the heat of battle; he could not justify invoking certain archaic loyalty oaths. With a snort, he gave it up, and went to collect last night's scraps from the kitchen in his ongoing campaign to convince Zap the Cat to not snatch food with razor claws, run under a chair, and growl through her gorge, but rather, eat daintily, and sit on one's lap and purr gratefully afterwards, like a proper Vor cat. In all, there was a lot about Zap that reminded Miles of his clone-brother Mark, and he'd done all right with Mark in the end. It wouldn't hurt to let the gate guard know about Tsipis's courier, too.

Miles arrived to find the gate guard had a visitor, a tall, blond young man who bore a notable, if softer, resemblance to the sharper-featured Corporal Kosti. He also bore a large lacquered box.

"Good morning, or should I say, afternoon, sir," the guard greeted him with a vague aborted salute almost worthy of an HQ analyst, belatedly recognizing the fact that Miles wore no uniform. "Um . . . may I introduce my younger brother Martin?"

You're not old enough to have a younger brother. "Hello." Miles stuck out his hand.

The blond youth shook it without hesitation, though his eyes did widen a bit, looking down at Miles. "Uh . . . hello. Lieutenant. Lord Vorkosigan."

Nobody'd briefed Kosti either, it appeared. The corporal was too far down in the hierarchy, maybe. Miles glanced away from the ImpSec silver eyes on Kosti-the-elder's stiff collar. Well, get it over with. "No more the lieutenant, I'm afraid. I've just mustered out of the Service altogether. Medical discharge."

"Oh. I'm sorry to hear that, si—my lord." The gate guard sounded quite sincere. But he did not demand embarrassing explanations. Nobody, looking at Miles, would question the medical discharge story.

Zap oozed from under the kiosk's chair, and growled slightly at Miles, whom she was growing to recognize. "That hairy beast isn't getting any friendlier, is she?" said Miles. "Just fatter."

"I'm not surprised," said Corporal Kosti. "Every time we change shifts she tries to convince whoever's coming on duty she's been starved by the last man."

Miles offered a scrap, which Zap deigned to accept in the usual manner, and then retreated to scarf her spoils. Miles sucked on the scratch on the back of his thumb. "Clearly, she's training to be a guard cat. If only we could teach her to tell friend from foe." He stood up again.

"Nobody wants to hire me for just two months," Martin said to his brother, evidently continuing a conversation Miles's arrival had interrupted.

Miles's brow rose. "Looking for work, are you, Martin?"

"Looking to turn eighteen, and apply to the Service," said Martin stoutly. "I've two more months to wait. But my mother said if I don't find something for me to do the meanwhile she will. And I'm afraid it has something to do with cleaning."

Wait till you meet your first master sergeant, kid. You'll find out about cleaning.
"I cleaned drains on Kyril Island, once," Miles reminisced. "I was quite good at it."

"You, my lord?" Martin's eyes grew round.

Miles's lips crimped. "It was exciting. I found a body."

"Oh." Martin settled. "ImpSec business, right?"

"Not . . . at the time."

"His first sergeant will straighten him out," the corporal confided confidently to Miles.

He treats me as an honorable veteran. He does not know.
"Oh, yes." The two insiders grinned malevolently at the would-be apprentice. "The Service is getting pickier with its recruits, these days. . . . I hope you didn't slack your schoolwork."

"No, my lord," said Martin.

If true, this one would be a shoo-in. He had the physique for a ceremonial guard; his brother, obviously, had the brains to be a real one. "Well, good luck to you."
Better luck than mine.
No, unjust to use his daily gift of breath to complain about his luck. "So, Martin . . . can you drive?"

"Of course, my lord."

"Lightflyer?"

A slight hesitation. "I've done a bit."

"I happen to be in temporary need of a driver."

"Really, my lord? Do you think—could I—?"

"Perhaps."

The corporal's forehead crinkled in mild dismay. "It's part of my job to keep him alive, Martin. You wouldn't embarrass me, would you?"

Martin gave him a brotherly curl of the lip, but disdained, interestingly, to rise to the bait. His attention was on Miles. "When could I start?"

"Any time, I suppose. Today, if you like." Yes, he needed to at least go to the grocery and get another crate of
Reddi-Meals!
"There probably wouldn't be much to do at first, but I wouldn't know in advance when I wanted you, so I'd like you to live in. You could spend your spare time studying up for your Service entrance evaluations." Plus, of course, the medical watch. Would the acquisition of the possibly-more-pliable Martin be enough to displace Ivan? He would have to apprise Martin of that extra little detail of his job later.

No. Sooner. The next attack could happen any time. Unfair, to hit the kid with a convulsing employer and no warning. Elli Quinn would agree. "I can't drive myself. I've been having trouble with seizures. An aftereffect of an acute case of death I picked up last year, courtesy of . . . a well-aimed needle grenade. The cryo-revival almost worked."

The corporal looked enlightened. "I never thought a courier's job was the feather bed some people make it out to be."

Martin stared down at him in utter fascination, almost as impressed as he'd been by the drain-cleaning confession. "You were
dead
, my lord?"

"So they tell me."

"What was it like?"

"I don't know," said Miles shortly. "I missed it." He relented slightly. "Being alive again hurt, though."

"Wow." Martin shoved the lacquer box toward his brother. Zap the Cat emerged again to roll backwards across the mirror-polished toes of the corporal's boots, purring wildly, waving her claws in the air, and glaring at the box.

"Calm down, Zap, you'll set off the alarms," said the corporal, amused. He set the box down on the kiosk's tiny table and released the lid. Somewhat absently, he tore off the cover of his Service-issue ready-meal lunch, and set it on the floor; Zap sniffed it, and returned to clawing his booted leg and looking longingly at the lacquered box.

The inside of the box lid turned into a clever tray or plate, with little compartments. Onto it Kosti placed two temperature-controlled jugs, a bowl, and cups; there followed an assortment of sandwiches on two different kinds of bread with variously colored fillings, cut into circle, star, and square shapes, the crusts removed; carved fruit on a stick; buttery cookies; and round tarts with flaky, fluted, sugar-sprinkled crusts, oozing dark, thick fruit syrups. From one of the jugs Kosti poured a pinkish cream soup into the bowl; from the other, some spicy hot drink. Both steamed in the cool air. For Zap the Cat there was a wad of prettily tied green leaves that unfolded to reveal a meat paste of some kind, apparently the same as filled one of the sandwiches. Zap dived in the moment Kosti spread it on the floor, growling ecstatically, tail lashing.