Not troubling to switch on the lift-tube, he hauled both bottles and the valise up the curving stairs to his third-floor bedroom in the side wing, which overlooked the back garden. This time he called up the lights, as true night was lending more danger than melancholy angst to his stumbling around in the dark. The chamber was exactly as he'd left it … only four months ago? Too neat and tidy; no one had really lived here for a long time. Well, Lord Vorkosigan had dragged in for a good period last winter, but he hadn't been in condition then to make many waves.
I could order in some food. Split it with the gate guard. But he really didn't feel that hungry.
I could do anything I wanted. Anything at all.
Except for the one and only thing he did want, which was to depart tonight aboard the fastest jump-ship available bound for Escobar, or some equally medically advanced galactic depot. He growled, wordlessly. What he did instead was unpack his valise and put everything neatly away, shed his boots and hang up his uniform, and shuck on some comfortable old ship-knits.
He sat on his bed and poured some wine into his bathroom tumbler. He'd avoided alcohol and every other possible drug or druglike substance all the way out to that last mission with the Dendarii; it seemed not to have made any difference to the rare and erratic seizures. If he stayed here quietly alone inside Vorkosigan House until his meeting with Illyan, if an episode occurred again at least no one could witness it.
I'll have a drink, then order some food. Tomorrow, he must form another plan of attack on the . . . the damned saboteur lurking in his neurons.
The wine slid down smoky, rich, and warming. Self-sedation seemed to require more alcohol than it used to, a problem easily remedied; the desensitization might be yet another side effect of the cryo-revival, but he was glumly afraid it was simply due to age. He slipped into sleep about two-thirds through the bottle.
By noon the next day the problem of food was becoming acute, despite a couple of painkillers for breakfast, and the absence of coffee and tea turning downright desperate. I'm ImpSec trained. I can figure out this problem. Somebody must have been going for groceries all these years . . . no, come to think of it, kitchen supplies had been delivered daily by a lift-van; he remembered the Armsmen inspecting it. The chief cook had practically had the duties of a company quartermaster, handling the nutritional logistics of Count, Countess, a couple dozen servants, twenty Armsmen, an assortment of their dependents, peckish ImpSec guards not above cadging a snack, and frequent State dinners, parties, or receptions where guests might number in the hundreds.
The comconsole in the cook's cubicle off the kitchen soon yielded up the data Miles sought. There had been a regular supplier—the account was now closed, but he could surely open it again. Their list of offerings was astonishing in its scope, their prices even more so. How many marks had they been paying for eggs?—oh. That was twelve dozen eggs to a crate, not twelve eggs. Miles tried to imagine what he could do with a hundred and forty-four eggs. Maybe back when he'd been thirteen years old. Some opportunities just came too late in life. Instead he turned to the vid directory. The closest purveyor was a small midtown grocery about six blocks away. Another quandary: dare he drive? Walk there. Take a commercial cab home.
The place turned out to be an odd little hole in the wall, but it supplied coffee, tea, milk, a reasonable number of eggs, a box of instant groats, and an array of prepackaged items labeled Reddi-Meals! He stacked up two of each of the five flavors. On impulse, he also snagged a half-dozen foil packets of expensive squishy cat food, the smelly stuff cats liked. So … should he slip it to the gate guard? Or attempt to seduce Zap the Cat to his own following? After the incident with the tangle-field, the beast probably would not be hanging around the back door of Vorkosigan House much.
He gathered up his spoils and took them to the checkout, where the clerk looked him up and down and gave him a peculiar smile. He braced himself inwardly for some snide remark, Ah, mutant? He should have worn his ImpSec uniform; nobody dared sneer at that Horus-eye winking from his collar. But what she said was, "Ah. Bachelor?"
His return home and mid-afternoon breakfast occupied another hour. Five hours till dark. More hours till bedtime. It did not take nearly all that time to look up every cryo-neurology clinic and specialist on Barrayar, and arrange the list in two orders; medical reputation, and the probability of keeping his visit secret from ImpSec. That second requirement was the sticking point. He really didn't want any but the best messing around with his head, but the best were going to be depressingly hard to convince to, say, treat a patient and keep no records. Escobar? Barrayar? Or should he wait until he got out on his next galactic mission assignment, as far from HQ as possible?
He paced the house, restlessly, turning over memories in his mind. This had been Elena's room. That tiny chamber had belonged to Armsman Bothari, her father. Here was where Ivan had slipped through the safety-railing, fallen half a story, and cut his head open, with no discernible effects on his intellect. It had been hoped the fall would make him smarter. . . .
For his evening meal, Miles decided to keep up the standards. He donned his dress greens, pulled all the covers off the furniture in the State dining room, and set up his wine with a proper crystal glass at the head of the meters-long table. He almost hunted up a plate, but reflected he could save the washing up by eating the Reddi-Meal! out of its packet. He piped in soft music. Other than that, dinner took about five minutes. When he'd finished, he dutifully put the covers back on the polished wood and fine chairs.
If I'd had the Dendarii here, I could have had a real party.
Elli Quinn. Or Taura. Or Rowan Durona. Or even Elena, Baz and all. Bel Thorne, whom he still missed. All of the above. Somebody. The inner vision of the Dendarii occupying Vorkosigan House gave him vertigo, but there was no doubt they'd know how to liven the place up.
By the next evening, he was desperate enough to call his cousin Ivan.
Ivan answered his comconsole promptly enough. Lieutenant Lord Ivan Vorpatril was still wearing undress greens, identical to Miles's except for the symbol of Ops instead of ImpSec pinned to his collar in front of the red lieutenants rectangles. At least Ivan hadn't changed, still holding down the same desk at Imperial Service headquarters by day, and leading the pleasant life of a Vor officer in the capital by night.
Ivan's handsome, affable face brightened into a genuine smile when he saw Miles. "Well, coz! I didn't know you were back in town."
"I got in a few days ago," Miles confessed. "I've been sampling the somewhat bizarre sensations of having Vorkosigan House to myself."
"Dear God, you're all alone in that mausoleum?"
"Except for the gate guard, and Zap the Cat, who keep to themselves."