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

His mouth opened, and closed; he merely gave her a little encouraging wave of his fingers and slumped down a bit more in his chair, listening with an air of uttermost attention. Listening.

She went on hurriedly, not before her nerve broke, for she scarcely felt anything now, but before she dragged to a halt from sheer exhaustion. "He'd had at least forty thousand marks that I couldn't see where they'd come from. Not from his salary, certainly."

"Had?"

"If the information on the comconsole was right, he'd taken all forty thousand and borrowed sixty more, and lost it all on Komarran trade fleet shares."

"All?"

"Well, no, not quite all. About three-quarters of it." At his astonished look, she added, "Tien's luck has always been like that."

"I always used to say you made your own luck. Though I've been forced to eat those words often enough, I don't say it so much anymore."

"Well... I think it must be true, or how else could his luck have been so consistently bad? The only common factor in all the chaos was Tien." She leaned her head back wearily. "Though I suppose it might have been me, somehow." Tien often said it was me.

After a little silence, he said hesitantly, "Did you love your husband, Madame Vorsoisson?"

She didn't want to answer this. The truth made her ashamed. But she was done with dissimulation. "I suppose I did, once. In the beginning. I can hardly remember anymore. But I couldn't stop... caring for him. Cleaning up after him. Except my caring got slower and slower, and finally it... stopped. Too late. Or maybe too soon, I don't know." But if, of course, she had not broken from Tien just then, in just that way, he would not tonight have... and, and, and, along the whole chain of events that led to this moment. That if-only could, of course, be said equally for any link in the chain. Not more, not less. Not repairable. "I thought, if I let go, he would fall." She stared at her hands. "Eventually. I didn't expect it to happen so soon."

It began to be borne in upon her what a mess Tien's death was going to leave in her lap. She would be trading the painful legalities of separation for the equally painful and difficult legalities of sorting out his probably bankrupt estate. And what was she supposed to do about his body, or any kind of funeral, and how to notify his mother, and... yet solving the worst problem without Tien seemed already a thousand times easier than solving the simplest with Tien. No more deferential negotiations for permission or approval or consensus. She could just do it. She felt... like a patient coming out of some paralysis, stretching her arms wide for the first time, and surprised to discover they were strong.

She frowned in puzzlement. "Will there be charges? Against Tien?"

Vorkosigan shrugged. "It is not customary to try the dead, though I believe it was done occasionally in the Time of Isolation. Lord Vorventa the Twice-Hung springs to mind. No. There will be investigations, there will be reports, oh my head the reports, ImpSec's and my own and possibly the Serifosa Sector's security--I anticipate argument over jurisdiction--there may be testimony required of you in the prosecution of other persons..." He broke off, to hitch himself around with difficulty in his chair, and shove a now somewhat less stiff-from-cold hand into his pocket. "Persons who I suppose got away with my stunner..." His expression changed to one of dismay, and he spasmed to his feet and turned out both his trouser pockets, then checked his jacket, shucked it off, and patted his gray tunic. "Damn."

"What?" asked Ekaterin in alarm.

"I think the bastards took my Auditor's seal. Unless it just fell out of my pocket, somewhere in all the horsing around tonight. Oh, God. It'll open any government or security comconsole in the Empire." He took a deep breath, then brightened. "On the other hand, it has a locator-circuit. ImpSec can trace it, if they're close enough--ImpSec can trace them. Ha!" With difficulty, he forced his red and swollen fingers to open a channel on his comm link. "Tuomonen?" he inquired.

"We're on our way, my lord," Tuomonen's voice came back instantly. "We're in the air, about halfway there I estimate. Will you please leave your channel open?"

"Listen. I think my assailants have taken off with my Auditor's seal. Delegate someone to start trying to track it at once. Find it and you'll find them, if it's not just been dropped around here somewhere. You can check that possibility when you get here."

Vorkosigan then insisted on a tour of the building, drafting Ekaterin once more as occasional support, though he stumbled very little now. He frowned at the melted comconsole, and at the empty rooms, and stared with narrowed eyes at the jumbles of equipment. Tuomonen and his men arrived just as they were reentering the lobby.

Lord Vorkosigan's lips twitched in bemusement as two half-armored guards, stunners at the ready, leaped through the airseal door. They gave Vorkosigan anxious nods, which he acknowledged with a wry salutelike gesture, then pelted after each other through the facility for a rather noisy security check. Vorkosigan hitched himself into a deliberately more relaxed posture, leaning against an upholstered chair. Captain Tuomonen, another Barrayaran soldier in half-armor, and three men in medical gear followed into the lobby.

"My lord!" said Tuomonen, pulling down his breath mask. His tone of voice sounded familiarly maternal to Ekaterin's ear, halfway between Thank God you're safe and I'm going to strangle you with my bare hands.

"Good evening, Captain," said Vorkosigan genially. "So glad to see you."

"You didn't notify me!"

"Yes, it was entirely my mistake, and I'll be certain to note your exoneration in my report," Vorkosigan said soothingly.

"It's not that, dammit!" Tuomonen strode over to him, motioning a medic in his wake. He took in Vorkosigan's macerated wrists and bloody hands. "Who did that to you?"

"I did it to myself, rather, I'm afraid." Vorkosigan's pose of studied ease slipped back into his original grimness. "It could have been worse, as I will show you directly. Around back. I want you to record everything, a complete scan. Anything you're in doubt of, leave for the experts from HQ. I want a top forensics team scrambled from Solstice immediately. Two teams, one for out here, one for those royally buggered comconsoles at the Terraforming offices. But first, I think," he glanced at the medtechs, and at Ekaterin, "we should get Administrator Vorsoisson's body down."