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followed Miles into the hall and down the corridor.
"Major, do you have a fast-penta interrogation kit available?"
D Emorie s brows rose. "I can check, my lord."
"Do so. Get one and bring it to me, please."
"Yes, my lord."
D Emorie went off. Miles lingered by the window. It was twenty minutes before
D Emorie returned, but he had the familiar case in his hand.
Miles took it. "Thank you. Now I would like you to take Dr. Yuell for a walk.
Discreetly. I ll let you know when you can come back in."
"My lord... if it s a matter for fast-penta, I m sure ImpSec would want me to
observe."
"I know what ImpSec wants. You may be assured, I will tell them what they need
to know, afterward." Turnabout, hah, for all those briefings with vital pieces
missing Lieutenant Vorkosigan had once endured... life was good, sometimes.
Miles smiled a little sourly; D Emorie, intelligently, veered off.
"Yes, my Lord Auditor."
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Miles stood aside for D Emorie to exit with Dr. Yuell. When he entered the
long room, he locked the door after himself. Both
Professor Vorthys and Dr. Riva looked up at him in puzzlement.
"What s that for?" Dr. Riva asked, as he set the case on the table and opened
it.
"Dr. Riva, I request and require a somewhat franker conversation with you than
the one we had earlier." He held up the hypospray and calibrated the dosage
for her estimated body mass. Allergy check? He didn t think he needed it, but
it was standard operating procedure; if he didn t have to guess, he didn t
have to guess wrong. He tore off a test-dot from the coiled strip of them and
walked over to her station chair. She was too startled to resist at first when
he took her hand, turned it over, and pressed the tester to the inside of her
wrist, but she jerked back her arm at the prickle. He let it go.
"Miles," said Professor Vorthys in an agitated voice, "what is this? You can t
fast-penta... Dr. Riva is my invited guest!"
That wording was one step away from the sort of Vor challenge that used to
result in duels, in the bad old days. Miles took a deep breath. "My Lord
Auditor. Dr. Riva. I have made two serious errors of judgment on this case so
far. If I d avoided either of them, your nephew-in-law would still be alive,
we d have nailed Soudha before he got away with all his equipment, and we
would not now all be sitting at the bottom of a deep tactical hole playing
with jigsaw puzzles. They were both at heart the same error.
The first day we toured the Terraforming Project, I did not insist on Tien
landing the aircar here, though I wanted to see the place.
And on the second night, I did not insist on a fast-penta interrogation of
Madame Radovas, though I wanted to. You re the failure analyst, Professor; am
I wrong?"
"No... But you could not have known, Miles!"
"Oh, but I could have known. That s the whole point. But I didn t choose to do
what was necessary, because I did not want to appear to use or abuse my
Auditorial power in an offensive way. Especially not on here on Komarr, where
everyone is watching me, the son of the Butcher, to see what I ll do. Besides,
I spent a career fighting the powers-that-be. Now I am them. Naturally, I
was a little confused."
Riva s hand was to her mouth; there was no hive or red streak on the inside of
her arm. Well and good. Miles returned to the table and picked up the
hypospray.
"Lord Vorkosigan, I do not consent to this!" said Riva stiffly as he
approached her.
"Dr. Riva, I did not ask you to." His left hand guarded his right as in
knife-play; the hypospray darted in to touch her neck even as she turned and
began to rise from her chair. "It would be too cruel a dilemma." She sank
back, glaring at him. Angry, but not desperate; she was divided in her own
mind, then, which had doubtless saved them both the embarrassment of him
chasing her around the room. Even at her age and dignity she could probably
outrun him if she were truly determined to do so.
"Miles," said the Professor dangerously, "it may be your Auditorial privilege,
but you had better be able to justify this."
"Hardly a privilege. Only my duty." He stared into Riva s eyes as her pupils
dilated and she sank back limply in her chair. He didn t bother with the
standard opening litany of neutral questions while waiting for the drug to cut
in, but merely watched her lips. Their thin tension slowly softened to the
stereotypical fast-penta smile. Her eyes remained more focused than those of
the usual subject; he bet she could make this a lengthy and circuitous
interrogation, if she chose. He d do his best to cut that circuit as short as
possible. The shortest way across a hostile District was around three sides.
"This was a really interesting five-space problem that Professor Vorthys set
you," Miles observed to her. "Sort of a privilege to be brought in on it."
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"Oh, yes," she agreed cordially. She smiled, frowned, her hands twitched, then
her smile settled in more securely.
"Could be prizes and academic preferment, when it s all sorted out at last."
"Oh, better than that," she assured him. "New physics only come along once in
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