"Barrayar 13 - Miles Vorkosigan 11 - Komarr 2.1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bujold Lois McMaster)

"Waste Heat Management. The whole department is a scam, a hollow shell. I'm not really sure how long they've been able to keep this bubble going. They had me fooled for... for months. I mean... a building full of equipment on a quiet day, how was I supposed to know what it did? Or didn't do? Or that there weren't anything but quiet days?"

"How long--" have you known, Miles bit off. That question was premature. "Just what are they doing?"

"They're bleeding off money from the project. For all I know, it may have started small, or by accident--some departed employee mistakenly kept on the roster, an accumulation of pay that Soudha figured out how to pocket. Ghost employees--his department is full of fictitious employees, all drawing pay. And equipment purchases for the ghost employees--Soudha suborned some woman in Accounting to go along with him. They have all the forms right, all the numbers match, they've slid it through I don't know how many fiscal inspections, because the accountants HQ sends out don't know how check the science, only the forms."

"Who does check the science?"

"That's the thing, my Lord Auditor. The Terraforming Project isn't expected to produce quick results, not in any immediately measurable way. Soudha produces technical reports, all right, plenty of them, right to schedule, but I think he mostly does them by copying other sectors' previous-period results and fudging."

Indeed, the Komarran Terraforming Project was a bureaucratic backwater, far down the Barrayaran Imperium's urgent list. Not critical: a good place to park, say, incompetent Vor second sons out of the way of their families. Where they could do no harm to anyone, because the project was vast and slow, and they would cycle out and be gone again before the damage could even be measured. "Speaking of ghost employees--how does Radovas's death connect with this alleged scam?"

Vorsoisson hesitated. "I'm not sure it does. Except to draw ImpSec down on it and burst the bubble. After all, he quit days before he died."

"Soudha said he quit. Soudha, according to you, is a proven liar and data artist. Could Radovas have, say, threatened to expose Soudha and been murdered to assure his silence?"

"But Radovas was in on it. For years. I mean, all the technical people had to know. They couldn't not know they weren't doing the work the reports said."

"Mm, that may depend on how much of an artistic genius Soudha was, arranging his reports." Soudha's own personnel file certainly suggested that he was neither stupid nor second-rate. Might he have cooked those records as well? Oh, God. This means I'm not going to be able to trust any data off any console in the whole damned department. And he'd wasted hours today, decanting comconsoles. "Radovas might have had change of heart."

"I don't know," said Vorsoisson plaintively. His glance flicked aside to Miles. "I want you to remember, I found this. I turned him in. Just as soon as I was sure."

His repeated insistence on that last point hinted broadly to Miles's ear that his knowledge of this fascinating piece of peculation predated his assurance by a noticeable margin. Had Soudha's bribe been not just offered, but accepted? Till the bubble burst. Was Miles witnessing an outbreak of patriotic duty on Vorsoisson's part, or an unseemly rush to get Soudha and Company before they got him?

"I'll remember," Miles said neutrally. Belatedly, it occurred to him that going off alone in the night with Vorsoisson to some deserted outpost, without even pausing to inform Tuomonen, might not be the brightest thing he'd ever done. Still, he doubted Vorsoisson would be nearly this forthcoming in the ImpSec captain's presence. It might be as well not to be too blunt with Vorsoisson about his chances of slithering out of this mess till they were safely back in Serifosa, preferably in the presence of Tuomonen and a couple of nice big ImpSec goons. Miles's stunner was a reassuring lump in his pocket. He would check in with Tuomonen via his wrist comm link as soon as he could arrange a quiet moment out of Vorsoisson's earshot.

"And tell Kat," Vorsoisson added.

Huh? What had Madame Vorsoisson to do with any of this? "Let's see this evidence of yours, then talk about it."

"What you'll mainly see is an absence of evidence, my lord," said Vorsoisson. "A great empty facility... there."

Vorsoisson banked the lightflyer, and they began to descend toward the Waste Heat experiment station. It was well lit with plenty of outdoor floodlamps, switched on automatically at dusk Miles presumed, and in high contrast to the surrounding dark. As they drew closer, Miles saw that its parking lot was not deserted; half a dozen lightflyers and aircars clustered in the landing circles. Windows glowed warmly here and there in the small office building, and more lights snaked through the airsealed tubes between sections. There were two big lift vans, one backing now into an opened loading bay in the large windowless engineering building.

"It looks pretty busy to me," said Miles. "For a hollow shell."

"I don't understand," said Vorsoisson.

Vegetation which actually stood higher than Miles's ankle struggled successfully against the cold here, but it was not quite abundant enough to conceal the lightflyer. Miles almost told Vorsoisson to douse the flyer's lights and bring them down out of sight over a small rise, despite the hike back it would entail. But Vorsoisson was already dropping toward an empty landing circle in the parking lot. He landed and killed the engine, and stared uncertainly toward the facility.

"Maybe... maybe you had better stay out of sight, at first," said Vorsoisson in worry. "They shouldn't mind me."

He was apparently unconscious of the world of self-revelation in this simple statement. They both adjusted their breath masks, and Vorsoisson popped the canopy. The chill night air licked Miles's exposed skin, above his breath mask, and prickled in his scalp. He dug his hands into his pockets as if to warm them, touched his stunner briefly, and followed the Administrator, a little behind him. Staying out of sight was one thing; letting Vorsoisson out of his sight was another.

"Try looking in the Engineering building first," Miles called, his voice muffled by his mask. "See if we can get a look at what's going on before you make contact with the en--er, try to speak to anyone."

Vorsoisson veered toward the loading bay's vehicle lock. Miles wondered if there was a chance anyone glancing out in the uncertain lighting might mistake him at first for Nikolai. The combination of Vorsoisson's dramatic mystery and his own natural paranoia was making him twitchy indeed, despite a better part of his mind that calculated high odds on a harmless scenario involving Vorsoisson being wildly mistaken.

They entered the pedestrian lock into the loading dock and cycled through. The pressure differential in his ears was slight. Miles kept his breath mask up temporarily as they rounded the parked lift van. He would call Tuomonen as soon as he ditched--