Komarr - Bujold Lois Mcmaster - Страница 29

"I erased it. Sorry." She frowned at him.

"The plan for this . . . leaving, do you think it was your husband's, or Marie Trogir's?" asked Rigby.

"You know all about them, I see. I have no idea. I was surprised. I don't know." Her voice grew sharper. "I wasn't consulted."

"Did he often make work trips?" asked Rigby.

"He went out on field tests fairly often. Sometimes he went to the terraforming conferences in Solstice. I usually went along on those." Her voice fluttered raggedly, then came back under her control.

"What did he take with him? Anything unusual?" asked Rigby patiently.

"Just what he normally took on a long field trip." She hesitated. "He took all his personal files. That's how I first knew for sure that he wasn't coming back."

"Did you talk to anyone at his work about this absence?"

Tien shook his head, but Madame Radovas replied, "I spoke to Administrator Soudha. After I found the note. Trying to figure out . . . what had gone wrong."

"Was Administrator Soudha helpful to you?" asked Tuomonen.

"Not very." She frowned again. "He didn't seem to feel it was any of his business what happened after Barto resigned."

"I'm sorry," said Vorsoisson. "Soudha didn't tell me about that part of it. I'll reprimand him. I didn't know."

And you didn't ask. But much as Miles would like to, even he found it hard to blame Tien for steering clear of what had looked to be an embarrassing domestic situation. Madame Radovas's frown at Vorsoisson became almost a glower.

"I understand you and your husband moved downside about four years ago," said Tuomonen. "It seemed an unusual change of careers, from five-space to what is effectively a form of civil engineering. Did he have a long-time interest in terra-forming?"

She looked momentarily nonplused. "Barto cared about the future of Komarr. I … we were tired of station life. We wanted something more settled for the children. Dr. Soudha was looking for people for his team with different backgrounds, different kinds of problem-solving experience. He considered Barto's station experience valuable. Engineering is engineering, I suppose."

Professor Vorthys had been wandering gently around the room during this, one ear cocked toward the conversation, examining the travel mementos and portraits of children at various ages that were its principal decorations. He stopped before the library case on one wall, crammed with disks, and began randomly examining their titles. Madame Radovas gave him a brief curious glance.

"Due to the unusual situation in which Dr. Radovas's body was found, the law requires a complete medical examination," Rigby went on. "Given your personally awkward circumstances, when it's concluded, do you wish to have his body or his ashes returned to you, or to some other relative?"

"Oh. Yes. To me, please. There should be a proper ceremony. For the children's sake. For everyone's sake." She seemed very close to losing control now, tears standing in her eyes. "Can you … I don't know. Do you take care of this?"

"The Family Affairs counselor in our department will be glad to advise and assist you. I'll give you her number before we leave."

"Thank you."

Tuomonen cleared his throat. "Due to the mysterious circumstances of Dr. Radovas's death, ImpSec Komarr has also been asked to take an interest in the matter. I wonder if we might have your permission to examine your comconsole and personal records, to see if they suggest anything."

Madame Radovas touched her lips. "Barto took all his personal files. There's not much left but my own."

"Sometimes a technical examination can uncover more."

She shook her head, but said, "Well … I suppose so." She added more tartly, "Though I didn't think ImpSec had to bother with my permission."

Tuomonen did not deny this, but said, "I like to salvage what courtesies I can, Madame, from our crude necessities."

Professor Vorthys added in a distant tone from the far wall, his hands full of disks, "Get the library, too."

With a flash of bewildered anger, Madame Radovas said, "Why do you want to take away my poor husband's library!?"

Vorthys looked up and gave her a kindly, disarming smile. "A man's library gives information about the shape of his mind the way his clothing gives information about the shape of his body. The cross-connections between apparently unrelated subjects may exist only in his thoughts. There is a sad disconnectedness that overcomes a library when its owner is gone. I think I should have liked to meet your husband when he was alive. In this ghostly way, perhaps I can, a little."

"I don't see why …" Her lips tightened in dismay.

"We can arrange for it to be returned to you in a day or two," Tuomonen said soothingly. "Is there anything you need out of it right away?"

"No, but … oh … I don't know. Take it. Take whatever you want, I don't care any more." Her eyes began to spill over at last. Group-Patroller Rigby handed her a tissue from one of her many uniform pockets and frowned at the Barrayarans.

Tien shifted uncomfortably; Tuomonen remained blandly professional. Taking her outburst for his cue, the ImpSec captain rose and carried his case over to the comconsole in the corner by the dining ell, opened it, and plugged an ImpSec standard black box into the side of the machine. At Vorthys's gesture, Rigby and Miles went to assist him in removing the library case intact from the wall, and sealing it for transport. Tuomonen, after sucking dry the comconsole, ran a scanner over the library, which Miles estimated contained close to a thousand disks, and generated a vid-receipt for Madame Radovas. She crumpled the plastic flimsy into the pocket of her gray trousers without looking at it, and stood with her arms crossed till the invaders assembled to depart.

At the last moment, she bit her lip and blurted, "Administrator Vorsoisson. There won't be … will I get . . . will there be any of the normal survivor's benefits coming from Barto's death?"

Was she in financial need? Her two youngest children were still in university, according to Tuomonen's files, and financially dependent on their parents; of course she was. But Vorsoisson shook his head sadly.

"I'm afraid not, Madame Radovas. The medical examiner seems to be quite clear that his death took place after his resignation."

If it had been the other way around, this would be a much more interesting problem for ImpSec. "She gets nothing, then?" asked Miles. "Through no fault of her own, she's stripped of all normal widow's benefits just because of her," he deleted a few pejorative adjectives, "late husband's recklessness?"

Vorsoisson shrugged helplessly, and turned away.

"Wait," said Miles. He'd been of damned little use to anyone today so far. "Gregor does not approve of widows being left destitute. Trust me on this one. Vorsoisson, go ahead and run the benefits through for her anyway."

"I can't—how—do you want me to alter the date of his resignation?"

Thus creating the curious legal spectacle of a man resigning the day after his own death? By what method, spirit writing? "No, of course not. Simply make it by an Imperial order."

"There are no places on the forms for an Imperial order!" said Vorsoisson, taken aback.

Miles digested this. Tuomonen, looking faintly suffused, watched with wide-eyed fascination. Even Madame Radovas's eyebrows crimped with bemusement. She looked directly at Miles as if seeing him for the first time. At last, Miles said gently, "A design defect you shall have to correct, Administrator Vorsoisson."