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

"You will take a guard," said Tuomonen, a little dangerously.

"I have to get the flyer back," said Ekaterin. "It's rented." She squinted, realizing how stupid that sounded. But it was the only fragment of order in this mortal chaos it was presently in her power to restore. And then, belatedly, the realization came: I can go home. It's safe to go home. Her voice strengthened. "Certainly, Lord Vorkosigan."

The presence of the hulking young guard crowded into the flyer behind them, Vorkosigan's exhaustion, and Ekaterin's emotional disorientation combined to blunt conversation on the flight back to Serifosa. She drew stares, turning the flyer back in at the rental desk while trailed politely by a large, fully-armed, half-armored soldier and a dwarfish man with bloody clothes and bandages on his wrists, but on the other hand, they had a bubble-car all to themselves for the ride back to the apartment. There were no delays in the system on this return leg, Ekaterin noted with weary irony. She wondered if there would be any point, later when this all got sorted out, to check if Vorkosigan's insistence that it had already been too late for Tien when Foscol had called her was precisely true.

Her steps quickened in the hallway of her apartment; she felt like an injured animal, wanting nothing more than to go hide in her burrow. She came to an abrupt halt at her door, and her breath drew in. The palm-lock panel was hanging partway out of the wall, and the sliding door was not entirely closed. A thin line of light leaked along its edge. She backed up a step, and pointed.

Vorkosigan took it all in at once and motioned to the guard who, equally silently, stepped up to the door and drew his stunner. Vorkosigan put his finger to his lips, took her by the arm, and drew her back halfway to the lift-tubes. The automatic door wasn't working; the guard had to grasp it awkwardly and lean, to push it back into its slot. Stunner raised and visor lowered, he slipped inside. Ekaterin's heart hammered.

After a few minutes, the ImpSec guard, his visor up again, poked his head back out the door. "Someone's been through here right enough, m'lord. But they're gone now." Vorkosigan and Ekaterin followed him inside.

Both Vorkosigan's cases and her own, which she had left sitting by the door in the vestibule, had been broken open. Their clothing was scattered in mixed heaps all around on the floor. Little else in the apartment appeared to have been touched; some drawers were opened, their contents stirred, but aside from the disorder nothing had been vandalized. Was it a violation, when she herself had all but vacated this space, abandoned those possessions? She scarcely knew.

"This is not how I left my things," Vorkosigan observed mildly to her when they fetched up in the vestibule again after their first short survey.

"It's not how I left them either," she said a bit desperately. "I thought you would be coming back with Tien, and then leaving, so I'd packed them all for you, ready to take away."

"Touch nothing, especially the comconsoles, till the forensics folks get here," Vorkosigan told her. She nodded understanding. They both shucked their heavy jackets; automatically, Ekaterin hung them up.

Vorkosigan then proceeded to ignore his own dictate, and kneel in the vestibule to sort through the heaps. "Did you pack my code-locked data case?"

"Yes."

"It's gone now." He sighed, rose, and raised his wrist-comm to report these new developments to Captain Tuomonen, still at the experiment station. The overburdened Tuomonen, apprised, swore briefly and ordered his soldier to stick with the Lord Auditor like glue until relieved. For once, Vorkosigan didn't object.

Vorkosigan returned to the mess, turning over an untidy pile of Ekaterin's clothing. "Ha!" he cried, and pounced on the gel-pack case which contained that odd device. He opened it hurriedly, his hands shaking a little. "Thank God they didn't take this." He looked up at her, measuringly. "Madame Vorsoisson..." his normally forceful tone grew uncertain. "I wonder if I could trouble you to... assist me in this."

She almost said Yes, without thinking, but managed to alter the word to "What?" before it left her mouth.

He smiled tightly. "I mentioned my seizure disorder to you. It doesn't have a cure, unfortunately. But my Barrayaran doctors came up with a palliative, of sorts. I use this little machine to stimulate seizures, bleed them off in a controlled time and place, so they don't happen in an uncontrolled time and place. They tend to be exacerbated by stress." By his grimace, she could see him picturing the cold walkway on the backside of the Engineering building. "I suspect I'm now overdue. I would like to get it over with at once."

"I understand. But what do I do?"

"I'm supposed to have a spotter. To see I don't spit out my mouth guard, or, or injure myself or damage anything while I'm out. There shouldn't be much to it."

"All right..."

Under the dubious eye of the ImpSec guard, she followed him to the living room. He headed for the curved couch. "If you lie on the floor," Ekaterin suggested diffidently, still not sure how spectacular a show to expect, "you can't fall any further."

"Ah. Right." He settled himself on the carpet, the case open in his hand. She made sure the space around them was clear, and knelt beside him.

He unfolded the device, which resembled a set of headphones with a pad on one end and a mysterious knob on the other. He fitted it over his head and adjusted it to his temples. He smiled at Ekaterin in what she belatedly realized was extreme embarrassment, and muttered, "I'm afraid this looks a little stupid," fitted a plastic mouthguard onto his teeth, and lay back.

"Wait," said Ekaterin suddenly as his hand reached for his temple.

"Wha'?"

"Could... whoever came in here have tampered with that thing? Maybe it ought to be checked first."