Cryoburn-ARC by Lois McMaster Bujold
There was a crowd in the strange sealable basement room where, Jin had figured out by now, the consulate kept all the nifty secret spy stuff. Miles-san and Vorlynkin sat at one comconsole. Raven-sensei had returned, and was bent over the long table along with Johannes, attending upon a small machine.
Jin dodged over to them. "What's that?"
"DNA scanner," said Johannes.
"Is that what you used to check Miles-sa—Lord Vorkosigan's thumbprint, that first day?"
"Yes."
"Handy," said Raven-sensei. "There should have been one at Madame Suze's, but evidently it was sold off or broken some time ago. I was afraid I was going to have to take the tissue sample to a commercial lab for even this basic data."
Jin's interest rose. "Could I make scans of my creatures' DNA on it?"
"It's not a toy," said Johannes. "We use it for making positive IDs of people wanting travel documents and so on." He looked at Jin and weakened. "You'll have to ask Counsel Vorlynkin."
Miles-san called Jin over to his comconsole, where Mina was already standing and shifting from foot to foot. Still-shots of four different men hovered in a row above the vid plate. Two had gray hair. One wore a white laboratory coat.
"Miss Mina, I'm hoping you can help us out, here," said Miles-san. "All these men are different Dr. Leibers who live around greater Northbridge. We've already eliminated the female Dr. Leibers, trusting none has made a trip to Beta Colony lately." His mouth twisted up at some joke that Jin didn't understand, although Roic did, judging from his short smile. "Do any of them look like the man you overheard talking to your mommy, that night? Or, do any of them definitely not look like him?"
Mina peered anxiously at the scans. "It was a long time ago. I don't really remember."
"Do you remember anything at all? Was your Dr. Leiber young, or old?"
"Oh, old."
"Gray hair?"
"No, black. I do remember that much. I'm not too good at telling grownups' ages. But he was real old. Thirty, maybe?"
Miles-san and Vorlynkin exchanged a look; the consul's lips twitched, but he didn't say anything.
"So, old but not gray." Miles-san tapped the vid controls, and the two gray-haired men vanished. The other two looked rather alike, with similar haircuts, except one's face was bonier and the other's more round.
"When I was a wee little kid," remarked Roic, watching over their shoulders, "there was a time I thought that any skinny old man I saw was my grandfather. It was pretty confusing."
"Nevertheless," said Miles-san. "Jin, do you remember ever seeing either of these two men in your mother's company? Even if you weren't introduced?"
Jin shook his head.
After a long hesitation, Mina pointed at bony-face. "That one. Maybe. The other one seems too fat."
"He might have gained weight," Jin offered helpfully, getting into the spirit of this.
"Show her scans of a hundred fellows," said Roic, "or even ten, and I doubt she'd be able to tell, m'lord. You're leading your witness."
"If we had to look at the entire pool of elderly gents of thirty on Kibou, that would doubtless be true," said Miles-san. "Fortunately, we have some other sorting constraints." He pointed at round-face. "This Dr. Leiber is an obstetrician at a replicator clinic in a northern suburb." His finger swung to bony-face. "This Dr. Leiber is a biochemist working for NewEgypt Cryonics. Given that Mina's witness does not positively eliminate him, that combination puts him at the top of my to-do list."
"What happened to your theory that the fellow must have fled?" asked Roic. "This Leiber doesn't look much like an activist. I mean—good salary, stock options, cryo-insurance. A company man, belike."
Miles-san sat back and rubbed his chin. "That is a problem, true. Maybe I was wrong, before."
Roic gave him a head-tilt, which induced a fleeting grin on Miles-san's face for no reason that Jin could see.
Johannes and Raven-sensei had finished their task at the table and taken over the satellite comconsole. Now Raven-sensei said, "Ah! Is there a face scan of her? I have fingerprints and footprints for back-up, but—no, we're not going to need them, are we."
Miles-san shoved his chair back with his feet and swung around. "What have you found over there?"
Roic bent and peered. "Aye, that does look like our woman, doesn't it? Look at her cheek bones. And her ears. And that same mole above her left eyebrow. This scan must have been taken pretty near the time she was frozen."
"Can't say as I'd noticed her ears . . ." Miles-san grabbed his cane and stood up to get a better view.
Jin wriggled in to look, too. Comparing the picture of the live, smiling woman with that still, alien figure they'd seen on the treatment table made him queasy all over again. Would his mother look all strange like that if she died for real?
"Good, this file has it all," said Raven-sensei. "Biographical data, medical history, date of cryoprep . . . well, her contract and her financial data would seem to be cross-referenced elsewhere. Alice Chen, poor unlucky woman. I suppose I'm glad to know her name."
"That was fast work," said Miles-san. "Good job."
"These patron data bases are pretty open to the public," said Johannes, though he straightened a little at the praise. "Anyone from lawyers to academics doing demographic studies to medical researchers to just genealogists scouting their family trees can get in." He sat back, staring into the screen of data the vid plate had flung up. "Looks like she was frozen about forty-five years ago. That's lucky. You get back more than about a century and the data banks tend to have holes, from one cause or another."
"Yeah, when I was, uh, working in my prior career, this planet used to be a favored source for untraceable false ID's," said Miles-san. "It was the only reason I'd ever heard of the place, before this investigation." He squinted and pointed to a line. "What the devil's that unpronounceable polysyllable?"
Raven-sensei looked. "Debilitating blood disease. Might have been why she chose to freeze a bit early."
"Cause of death, do you think?"
Raven-sensei shook his head. "No, it shouldn't have affected her revival. She would have needed treatment later, though."
"Could she have had it? Effective treatment, that is?"
"Oh, yes, that one's under control these days."
"So what," said Miles-san, "was a woman frozen nearly half a century ago doing in Lisa Sato's cryo-drawer with Lisa Sato's ID tag on her foot? It's plain she didn't get there by herself. While someone could have just cooked the drawer file numbers in the data banks, that damn tag pretty much guarantees it must have been a physical switch."
"Where are your Madame Chen's remains now, by the way?" said Consul Vorlynkin. "They really ought to be returned to her next of kin at some point. There may be an inheritance tied up, or who knows what. And her death is recent enough that someone still alive may have an emotional interest in her fate." He hesitated. "Not that I'm looking forward to the lawsuits."
"She's tucked away downstairs at Madame Suze's, for now," said Raven-sensei. "Tenbury helped out."
"Will she keep?" asked Miles-san.
"Indefinitely."
Miles-san opened his hand to Vorlynkin. "Keep she must, till I've untangled all this. But hold that thought. So, now we have two ends, our straying dead lady and Dr. Leiber. It remains to follow them up and see if they meet in the middle. Was she frozen by NewEgypt, by the way?"
Johannes scrolled down. "By one of the cryocorps that NewEgypt later took over, I think."
"On that same site?"
"I don't think it was built out there yet, forty-five years back." Johannes bent to a flurry of searches. "Ah, here we go. The place she was originally kept seems to have been decommissioned about ten years ago. Torn down. They moved her out to the new facility at the Cryopolis then."
"That would certainly have made it easy for someone to swap her out," said Miles-san. "Especially if the swapper was already on the inside, like an employee. I'm thinking Madame Chen was chosen at rando
"Are you saying somebody stole Mommy?" asked Mina, a quaver in her voice.
"It's beginning to look that way . . ." Miles-san narrowed his eyes at the vid screen.
Vorlynkin's grip on his shoulder and exasperated head-jerk toward Mina returned Miles-san's attention to her. She looked like she was trying not to cry.
Miles-san made quick revision. "Although you have to figure, whoever took her had to care about her. You don't steal something you don't value. Suggests they would be careful with her."
Grownup lies? On the whole, Jin liked that Miles-san didn't talk down to him and Mina, but this was all just too weird.
As Mina failed to look encouraged, Miles-san babbled on, "After all, the portable cryochamber I was in was lost for a time, but it all came out right in the end."
"Lost from your side's point of view," said Raven-sensei. "From our point of view, it was found."
Miles-san gave Mina a big There, see? sort of smile, which faltered at her blank stare. Vorlynkin and Johannes were gazing at him in horrified fascination.
Miles drew himself up. "I'm going to go talk to this Dr. Leiber. In person. Not at his work, I think," he added, his voice slowing in thought.
Roic's mouth set in a grim line. "You will have a proper security perimeter."
"Certainly. We'll even take Johannes, so you won't have to be the perimeter all by yourself."
"It's a start."
Miles-san studied Mina, who was still shifting fretfully. "The connection between Dr. Leiber and your mother exists nowhere in the records I've seen so far—only in your witness, Miss Mina. If anything comes of it, it will be entirely due to the valuable intelligence you supplied."
She cheered a little at this, or at least her lip stopped quivering. "Really?"
"Really. And valuable ImpSec informants get paid, you know. So do couriers, I am reminded," he added with a glance at Jin.
"But I didn't finish the job," said Jin.
"Capture by the enemy rates hazard pay, actually."
"How much?" asked Mina, brightening a lot more.
"Ah, I like the way you think, kid. There's actually an official pay schedule. In Barrayaran marks, of course. It has codes for various services. I'll have Roic check it, and do the conversions to Kibou-daini money."
"You propose to pay them adult rates?" asked Vorlynkin. Jin thought he sounded more startled than disapproving, and hoped he wouldn't try to talk Miles-san out of this wonderful idea.
"Damn straight." Miles-san added, "My case budget allows for a lot of discretion, you know."
"Then I wish you'd buy some," snapped Vorlynkin. He shut his mouth abruptly, as if startled at what had fallen out of it.
Miles-san merely grinned at him. His stiff consul-face back in place, Vorlynkin shepherded Jin and Mina back up to the kitchen to feed them again. Jin glanced back over his shoulder at the four men turning intently back to their comconsoles, as that heavy door swung shut. He hoped the consulate had good spy stuff.
Chapter Thirteen
Dr. Seiichiro Leiber proved to live in a rented row-house in a residential district on the west side of Northbridge, not far from his work. Miles had Johannes, driving the lift van, circle the block to give him a feel for the neighborhood. On this pleasant weekend morning, not a few folks were out tending their tiny plots of greenery; a gang of children raced noisily across the lawns, got yelled at by a gardener, and vanished, giggling, around the corner. Jin and Mina might well have grown up in a place much like this.
Miles's more focused researches last night had mainly turned up Leiber's school records, with police records drawing a bland and virtuous blank. He wasn't listed on any of Lisa Sato's rosters of supporters or contributors, nor did his name appear among the arrestees at the rally riot, most of whom had been released without being charged. Charges had been made but later dropped against the two dead and the three, including Sato, who'd been suspiciously frozen. All tidy and quiet now.
This Dr. Leiber had acquired his Ph.D. at the unprecocious age of twenty-eight, and gone directly into employment with NewEgypt for the four years subsequently. His thesis, which Miles had read—well, skimmed—had focused on improvements in cryonics fluids, which, given that a consortium of cryocorps had funded his scholarship, seemed perfectly reasonable. Several of the larger cryocorps maintained research departments that, in addition to overseeing quality control, worked on proprietary advances in their procedures designed to lure customers from their competition. Nothing odd about that, either.
Miles had Johannes pull up at the corner. "I think our biggest problem here is going to be nosy neighbors, not electronic surveillance. You aren't going to be able to sit or stand around without people coming out to see what you're up to. So I'll run an open comlink to you, Johannes"—Miles set his to record while he was at it—"and you find a place to pull in and buy coffee or something. Drop Roic around back on the way." Miles eyed his bodyguard, dressed fairly neutrally but not quite locally. "I wish we could disguise you as a lamp post or something."
"I'll manage," said Roic.
Miles nodded, waved Raven to follow him, and descended to the sidewalk.
The door buzzer was answered by a dark-haired, blinking fellow with a tea mug in his hand, wearing a T-shirt and trousers, barefoot. Despite the weekend jaw shadow and lack of a lab coat, he was immediately recognizable as Miles's quarry.
Miles smiled. "Dr. Leiber?" Not giving the man time to answer, he continued, "My name is Miles Vorkosigan, and this is my associate, Dr. Raven Durona of the Durona Group."
A flash of recognition crossed Leiber's face at the latter name, followed by puzzlement. "Durona?" said Leiber. "From the Escobar clinic?"
"Oh, you've heard of us?" Raven smiled sunnily.
"I read the journals."
Miles forged on, "We were both in town for the inter-Nexus cryo-conference last week, and hoped to see you. May we come in?" Leaving implied that the associate was bio-research. Miles would save the insinuation of interstellar cops for after they'd made it through the front door, and only if needed.
At this reasonable-sounding explanation, Leiber gulped down his last swallow of tea and gave way. Miles hustled gratefully inside. He let his host guide them into his little living room, and took a seat promptly, the harder to be dislodged. The others naturally followed suit. "Did you attend the conference? I don't recall seeing you." In fact, Miles had checked—Leiber hadn't been there.
"No, but I was sorry to have missed it. Were you fellows caught up in that mess I saw on the news with the N.H.L.L.?"
"I wasn't, but Raven here was—" Miles gave Raven a go-ahead, and Raven supplied a few ice-breaking anecdotes about his brief adventures as a hostage, with the Barrayaran connections downplayed. Raven then went into a technical riff about the conference, drawing Leiber into questions in turn, equally divided between biochemistry and scurrilous gossip. He also touched on Leiber's thesis, which Raven had actually read all the way through last night without his eyes glazing over. By this time Leiber seemed fully at ease.
Miles decided on a direct approach. "I'm actually here this morning on behalf of the next-of-kin of Lisa Sato. I believe you had some dealings with her eighteen months ago, just before her arrest?"
Shock and dismay bloomed unconcealed on Leiber's face. Well, he was the scientist type, not a con artist, nor, probably, a very good liar. Fine by me.
"How do you know—what makes you think that?" Leiber fumbled, confirming Miles's judgment.
"Eyewitness testimony."
"But no one saw—there wasn't—but Suwabi died."
"There was one other."
Leiber gulped and seemed to pull himself together. "I'm sorry. It was an awkward time. A frightening time."
Miles prepared to utter something soothing, but his witness leaped to his feet. "I'm sorry, you've rattled me a bit. Some tea. I'll fix some more tea. Would you like some tea?"
Miles would rather not have given him time to i
Raven raised an eyebrow at Miles. "Congratulations."
"Indeed, a hit, a palpable hit."
Dishes rattled, water ran. A faint squeak and quiet tick of a door opening and closing . . .
"Whoops." Miles grabbed his cane and lurched to his feet.
The kitchen was empty, silent but for the simmering electric kettle. Only one door led out. Onto the patio, its alley gate swinging.
Miles lifted his wristcom to his lips. "Roic? Our suspect just ran out the back."
"I'm on him, m'lord," Roic said grimly.
The thump of big footsteps, quick gasps. A yelp, not from Roic. More footsteps. "Crap."
That last had been Roic. "What happened?" Miles demanded.
Roic, a little breathless, returned, "He just dodged into a neighbor's place. Gone to ground. There's a woman and two kids staring at me out the glass. Now she's arguing with Leiber. Well, she's arguing, he's wheezing." And, after a moment, "You don't want me to go in there. Trespassing. Assault."
Roic's very firm tone of voice discouraged Miles from descanting on diplomatic immunity. He continued, "Now she's gone off. To call the police, I'm guessing. What did you two do to the fellow?"
Nothing was plainly not the right answer. "I'm not sure," Miles said. "Well, withdraw for now and rendezvous with Johannes."
"Understood."
Miles turned to Raven. "All right, we have maybe five minutes to go over the place here. You take downstairs, I'll take up."
"What are we looking for?"
"Whatever he's hiding."
Upstairs held a bedroom, a bedroom-turned-office, and a bathroom. An endearingly tame, by galactic standards, porn collection in the bedroom was out in plain sight, suggesting Leiber did not have a girlfriend at present. The closets held clothes and shoes, and a residue of old sporting equipment. Miles was just eyeing the comconsole in the next room in frustration—he likely didn't have time for a stealth download before the locals arrived, and besides the ImpSec devices that made such tasks a snap were back at the consulate—when Raven's voice came from his wristcom.