Suppressing the first idiocy that came to his lips, which was, Any time is a good one for you, milady, Miles managed a, "Well, good afternoon, Madame Vorsoisson, Nikolai. I wasn't expecting you. Are you to accompany us?" I hope? "Your husband has just gone off to fetch an aircar."
"Yes, Uncle Vorthys suggested it would be educational for Nikolai. And I haven't had much chance to see outside the domes myself. I jumped at the invitation." She smiled, and pushed back a strand of dark hair escaping its confinement, and almost dropped her bundle. "I wasn't sure if we were to land anywhere and get outside on foot, but I brought jackets for everyone just in case."
A large two-compartment sealed aircar hissed around the corner and sighed to the pavement beside them. The front canopy opened, and Vorsoisson clambered out, and greeted his wife and son. The Professor watched from the front seat with some amusement as the question of how to distribute six passengers among the two compartments was taken over by Nikolai, who wanted to sit both by his great-uncle and by his Da.
"Perhaps Venier could fly us today?" Madame Vorsoisson suggested diffidently.
Vorsoisson gave her an oddly black look. "I'm perfectly capable."
Her lips moved, but she uttered no audible protest. Take your pick, my Lord Auditor, Miles thought to himself. Would you rather be chauffeured by a man just possibly suffering the first symptoms of Vorzohn's Dystrophy, or by a Komarran, ah, patriot, with a car full of tempting Barrayaran Vor targets? "I have no preference," he murmured truthfully.
"I brought coats—" Madame Vorsoisson handed them out. She and her husband and Nikolai had their own; a spare of her husband's did not quite meet around the Professor's middle. The heavily padded jacket she handed Miles had been hers, he could tell immediately by the scent of her, lingering in the lining. He concealed a deep inhalation as he shrugged it on. "Thank you, that will do very well."
Vorsoisson dove into the rear compartment and came up with a double handful of breath masks, which he distributed. Both he and Venier had their own, with their names engraved on the cheek-pieces; the others wer. all labeled "Visitor": one large, two medium, one small.
Madame Vorsoisson hung hers over her arm, and bent to adjust Nikolai's, and check its power and oxygen levels. "I already checked it," Vorsoisson told her. His voice hinted a suppressed snarl. "You don't have to do it again."
"Oh, sorry," she said. But Miles, running through his own check in drilled habit, noticed she finished inspecting it before turning to adjust her own mask. Vorsoisson noticed too, and frowned.
After a few more moments of Betan-style debate, the group sorted themselves out with Vorsoisson, his son, and the Professor in the front compartment, and Miles, Madame Vorsoisson, and Venier in the rear. Miles was uncertain whether to be glad or sorry with his lot in seatmates. He felt he could have engaged either of them in fascinating, if quite different, conversations, if the other had not been present. They all pulled heir masks down around their necks, out of the way but instantly ready to hand.
They departed the garage's vehicle-lock without further delay, and the car rose in the air. Venier returned to his initial stiffly professional lecture mode, pointing out bits of project scenery. You could begin to see the terraforming from this modest altitude, in the faint smattering of Earth-green in the damp low places, and a fuzziness of lichen and algae on the rocks. Madame Vorsoisson, her face plastered to the canopy, asked enough intelligent questions of Venier that Miles did not have to strain his tired brain for any, for which he was very grateful.
"I'm surprised, Madame Vorsoisson, with your interest in botany, that you haven't leaned on your husband for a job in his department," said Miles after a while.
"Oh," she said, as if this was a new idea to her. "Oh, I couldn't do that."
"Why not?"
"Wouldn't it be nepotism? Or some kind of conflict of interest?"
"Not if you did your job well, which I'm sure you would. After all, the whole Barrayaran Vor system runs on nepotism. It's not a vice for us, it's a lifestyle."
Venier suppressed an unexpected noise, possibly a snort, and glanced at Miles with increased interest.
"Why should you be exempt?" Miles continued.
"It's only a hobby. I don't have nearly enough technical training. I'd need much more chemistry, to start."
"You could start in a technical assistant position—take evening classes to fill in your gaps. Bootstrap yourself up to something interesting in no time. They have to hire someone." Belatedly, it occurred to Miles that if she, not Vorsoisson, was the carrier of the Vorzohn's Dystrophy, there might be quelling reasons why she had not plunged into such a time– and energy-absorbing challenge. He sensed an elusive energy in her, as if it were tied in knots, locked down, circling back to exhaust itself destroying itself; had fear of her coming illness done that to her? Dammit, which of them was it? He was supposed to be such a hotshot investigator now, he ought to be able to figure this one out.
Well, he could do so easily; all he had to do was cheat, and call ImpSec Komarr, and request a complete background medical check on his hosts. Just wave his magical Auditor-wand and invade all the privacy he wanted to. No. All this had nothing to do with the accident to the soletta array. As this morning's embarrassment with her comconsole had demonstrated, he needed to start keeping his personal and professional curiosity just as strictly separated as his personal and Imperial funds. Neither a peculator nor a voyeur be. He ought to get a plaque engraved with that motto and hang it on his wall for a reminder. At least money didn't tempt him. He could smell her faint perfume, organic and floral against the plastic and metal and recycled air. . . .
To Miles's surprise, Venier said, "You really should consider it, Madame Vorsoisson."
Her expression, which during the flight had gradually become animated, grew reserved again. "I … we'll see. Maybe next year. After … if Tien decides to stay."
Vorsoisson's voice, over the intercom from the front compartment, interrupted to point out the upcoming peat bog, lining a long narrow valley below. It was a more impressive sight than Miles had expected. For one thing, it was a true and bright Earth-green; for another, it ran on for kilometers.
"This strain produces six times the oxygen of its Earth ancestor," Venier noted with pride.
"So … if you were trapped outside without a breath mask, could you crawl around in it and survive till you were rescued?" Miles asked practically.
"Mm … if you could hold your breath for about a hundred more years."
Miles began to suspect Venier of concealing a sense of humor beneath that twitchy exterior. In any case, the aircar spiraled down toward a rocky outcrop, and Miles's attention was taken up by their landing site. He'd had unpleasant and deep, so to speak, personal experience with the treachery of arctic bogs. But Vorsoisson managed to put the car down with a reassuring crunchy jar on solid rock, and they all adjusted their breath masks. The canopy rose to admit a blast of chill unbreathable outside air, and they exited for a clamber over the rocks and down to personally examine the squishy green plants. They were squishy green plants, all right. There were lots of them. Stretching to the horizon. Lots. Squishy. Green. With an effort, Miles stopped his back-brain from composing a lengthy Report to the Emperor in this style, and tried instead to appreciate Venier's highly technical disquisition on potential deep-freeze damage to the something-chemical cycle.
After a little more time spent regarding the view—it didn't change, and Nikki, though he sprang around like a flea, with his mother laboring after him, didn't quite manage to fall into the bog—they all reboarded the aircar. After a flyover of a neighboring green valley, and a pass across another dull brown unaltered one for comparison and contrast, they turned for the Serifosa Dome.