He sighed, and settled back in his station chair for a long slog. He desperately wanted Norwood to yield him the clue, if only so that a man he had inadvertently led to his death might not have died so in vain. I never want to be a combat commander again. Ever.
He hadn’t expected it to be obvious. But his connector, when he finally ran across it hours later, was just about as subliminal as they came. It was a note hand-jotted on a plastic flimsy stuck in a pile of similar notes, interspersed in a cryo-prep training manual for emergency medical technicians. All it said was, See Dr. Durona at 0900 for laboratory materials.
Not the Durona … ?
Mark back-pedaled to Norwood’s certifications and transcripts, part of the medic’s computerized records he’d already seen in the ImpSec files on Barrayar. Norwood had taken his Dendarii cryonics training at a certain Beauchene Life Center, a respected commercial cryo-revival facility on Escobar. The name “Dr. Durona” did not appear anywhere among his immediate instructors. It did not appear on a listing of the Life Center’s staff. It did not, in fact, appear anywhere at all. Mark checked it all again, to be sure.
There are probably lots of people named Durona on Escobar. It’s not that rare a name. He clutched the flimsy anyway. It itched in his palm.
He called Quinn, aboard the Ariel moored nearby.
“Ah,” she said, eyeing him without favor in the vid. “You’re back. Elena said you were. What do you think you’re doing?”
“Never mind that. Look, is there anyone here among the Dendarii, any medics or medtechs, who were trained at the Beauchene Life Center? Preferably at the same time as Norwood? Or near his time?”
She sighed. “There were three in his group. Red Squad’s medic, Norwood, and Orange Squad’s medic. ImpSec has already asked us about that, Mark.”
“Where are they now?”
“Red Squad’s medic was killed in a shuttle crash several months ago—”
“Agh!” He ran his hands through his hair.
“Orange Squad’s man is here on the Ariel.”
“Right!” Mark crowed happily. “I have to talk to him.” He almost said, Put him on, then remembered he was on ImpSec’s private line and certainly being monitored. “Send a personnel pod to pick me up.”
“One, ImpSec has already interrogated him, at great length, and two, who the hell are you to give orders?”
“Elena hasn’t told you much, I see.” Curious. Did Bothari-Jesek’s dubious Armsman’s oath then outrank her loyalties to the Dendarii? Or was she just too busy to chat? How much time had he been—he glanced at his chrono. My God. “I happen to be on my way to Jackson’s Whole. Very soon. And if you are very nice to me, I might ask ImpSec to release you to me, and let you ride along as my guest. Maybe.” He grinned breathlessly at her.
The smoldering look she gave him in return was more eloquent than the bluest string of swear words he’d ever heard. Her lips moved—counting to ten?—but no sound came out. When she did speak, her tone was clipped to a burr. “I’ll have your pod at the station’s hatch ring in eleven minutes.”
“Thank you.”
The medic was surly.
“Look, I’ve been through this. For hours on end. We’re done.”
“I promise I’ll keep it brief,” Mark assured him. “Just one question.”
The medic eyed Mark malignantly, perhaps correctly identifying him as the reason why he’d been stuck ship-bound in Komarr orbit for the last dozen weeks.
“When you and Norwood were taking your cryonics training at Beauchene Life Center, do you ever remember meeting a Dr. Durona? Handing out lab supplies, maybe?”
“The place was knee-deep in doctors. No. Can I go now?” The medic made to rise.
“Wait!”
“That was your one question. And the ImpSec goons asked it before you.”
“And that was the answer you gave them? Wait. Let me think.” Mark bit his lip anxiously. The name alone was not enough to hare off on, not even for him. There had to be more. “Do you ever remember … Norwood being in contact with a tall, striking woman with Eurasian features, straight black hair, brown eyes … extremely smart.” He didn’t dare to suggest an age. It could be anywhere between twenty and sixty.
The medic stared at him in astonishment. “Yeah! How did you know?”
“What was she? What was her relation with Norwood?”
“She was a student too, I think. He was chasing her for a time, playing off his military glamour to the hilt, but I don’t think he caught her.”
“Do you remember her name?”
“Roberta, or something like that. Rowanna. I don’t remember.”
“Was she from Jackson’s Whole?”
“Escobaran, I thought.” The medic shrugged. “The clinic had post-doc trainees from all over the planet to take residencies in cryo-revival. I never talked to her. I saw her with Norwood a couple of times. He might have figured we’d try to cut him out with her.”
“So the clinic is a top place. With a wide reputation.”
“We thought so.”
“Wait here.” Mark left the medic sitting in the Ariel’s little briefing room, and rushed out to find Quinn. He hadn’t far to rush. She was waiting in the corridor, her boot tapping.
“Quinn, quick! I need a visual off Sergeant Taura’s helmet recorder from the drop mission. Just one still.”
“ImpSec confiscated the originals.”
“You kept copies, surely.”
She smiled sourly. “Maybe.”
“Please, Quinn!”
“Wait here.” She returned promptly, and handed him a data disk. This time she followed him into the briefing room. Since the secured console wouldn’t take his palm-print any more no matter how he wriggled it, Mark perforce let her power it up. He fast-forwarded Taura’s visuals to the image he wanted. A close-up of a tall, dark-haired girl, her head turning, eyes wide. Mark blurred the background of the clone-creche, in the view.
Only then did he motion the medic to look.
“Hey!”
“Is it her?”
“It’s …” the medic peered. “She’s younger. But it’s her. Where did you get that?”
“Never mind. Thank you. I won’t take any more of your time. You’ve been a great help.”
The medic exited as reluctantly as he had entered, staring back over his shoulder.
“What’s this all about, Mark?” Quinn demanded.
“When we’re on my ship and on our way, I’ll tell you. Not before.” He had a head-start on ImpSec, and he wasn’t going to give it up. If they were anything less than desperate, they’d never let him go, Countess or no Countess. It was quite fair; he didn’t have any information ImpSec didn’t, potentially. He’d just put it together a little differently.
“Where the hell did you get a ship?”
“My mother gave it to me.” He tried not to smirk.
“The Countess? Rats! She’s turning you loose?”
“Don’t begrudge me my little ship, Quinn. After all, my parents gave my big brother a whole fleet of ships.” His eyes gleamed. “I’ll see you on board, as soon as Captain Bothari-Jesek reports it ready.”
His ship. Not stolen, nothing faked or false. His by right of legitimate gift. He who’d never had a birthday present, had one now. Twenty-two years’ worth.
The little yacht was a generation old, formerly owned by a Komarran oligarch in the balmy days before the Barrayaran conquest. It had been quite luxurious, once, but obviously had been neglected for the past ten years or so. This did not represent hard times for the Komarran clan, Mark understood; they were in process of replacing it, hence the sale. The Komarrans understood business, and the Vor understood the relation between business and taxation. Business under the new regime had recovered much of its former vigor.