Cryoburn

Chapter Seven

Two days after his dawn return to the consulate, Miles’s party assembled on the front walk and watched the WhiteChrys groundcar pull up to collect them. It was long, sleek, gleaming, and settled to the pavement with a sigh like a satisfied lover.

Roic’s eyebrows rose. “Better t’n that bus-thing they ferried us conference delegates around in, I’ll give it that.”

“Indeed,” said Miles. “Good job, Vorlynkin. It looks like WhiteChrys means to grovel in style.”

This won an uncertain head-duck from the consul, who had spent a good part of yesterday in repeated calls to and from their would-be host to set all this up, while Miles played hard-to-get. At least the delay had given him time to recover from the induced seizure.

But while it would do no harm to Miles’s cause if Barrayar’s own diplomat plainly found him alarming, he was not altogether sure if the man was under control. Or sure whose control he’s under? He favored the consul with a brief smile. “By the by, Vorlynkin, please refrain from commenting on anything you hear me say or see me do today. For the duration, you’re the yes-man.”

An unreadable pause. “Yes, my Lord Auditor.”

Capable of irony, was he? Good. Probably.

“It’ll be just like watching a play,” Roic reassured him. Vorlynkin’s brows quirked, albeit not in an especially reassured way. Dr. Durona, engaged in examining the variegated hostas lining the walk, straightened and turned his braided head with interest as the groundcar’s rear compartment canopy rose and a woman exited.

She was as sleek as the groundcar, if considerably more delicate. Her long black hair was drawn back and bundled with enameled combs in an elegant construction that Miles was sure Raven must envy. Kibou natives wore a variety of fashions both local and galactic-inspired; Miles had been here just long enough to decode her garb as business-traditional, female version. A skin-skimming top, a fitted undercoat, and the loose cord-fastened outer coat might be worn by either men or women, but then, instead of the wide trousers tied in at the ankles adopted by men, she showed off trim calves with a short skirt and leggings. All in subtle autumnal shades that set off her deep brown eyes. The overall effect was simultaneously upper-class and sexy, like a very expensive courtesan—Miles had once had the geisha tradition explained to him on a visit to Earth itself, on its island of origin, a side-benefit of having a bride with a mania for gardens. The sense that this woman was a weapon aimed directly at him came mainly from her diminutive height, which nearly matched his own, and the fact that she wore flat sandals.

“Good morning, ohayo gozaimasu.” She favored them all with a formal bow, but her smile zeroed in on Miles. “Lord Vorkosigan, Consul Vorlynkin, Durona-sensei, Roic-san. Wonderful, you’re all here. I am Aida, Mr. Ron Wing’s personal assistant for today. I will escort you to WhiteChrys’s new facility, and answer any questions you may have along the way.”

I’ll bet not mine, thought Miles, but returned appropriate greetings and allowed the pretty young lady to shepherd them all into the spacious groundcar. Miles wondered how much her boss had scrambled to find a hostess of that height on such short, as it were, notice.

Ron Wing was the man Miles had been holding out for yesterday, while Vorlynkin fielded oblique messages and visibly refrained from tearing his hair. Wing’s official title was Head of Development; he was one of WhiteChrys’s chief operating officers, and the man in ultimate charge of the Komarr expansion effort. It was his underlings who had spent so much effort cultivating Miles, and vice versa, during the cryonics conference. Now we’ll see what’s on the other end of their string.

Roic, Aida, and Raven took the rear-facing seat; Miles and Vorlynkin settled opposite. No one even risked bumping heads with each other in the shuffle.

“Reminds me of my Da’s old groundcar,” Miles murmured to Roic.

“Nah,” Roic whispered back, as the driver in the front compartment, who had not been introduced, set them smoothly in motion. “This isn’t even half the mass. No armor plating.”

Soft-voiced Aida offered a startling variety of drinks from the car’s bar, which everyone politely refused after Miles did. Miles tilted his face to the polarized canopy to get a better look at the capital from an above-ground vantage for a change. No actual mountains cradled Northbridge, but it had been long enough since the glaciers had retreated here for streams to have carved the moraines into something other than scraped-flat. The native plant species, rudimentary at best, had pretty much been displaced by urban landscaping based on Earth imports. The city was city, grown up around an infrastructure of galactic-standard transport and technology. If Miles hadn’t walked through it himself, he’d have no guess of what strangeness lay below.

The view grew more interesting when they reached the west end and approached the Cryopolis proper.

“The Cryopolis began to be developed some forty years ago,” Aida informed them in good guide style, “when further extension of cryofacilities beneath the city grew too expensive. Now Northbridge has grown out to meet it, and it has become its own municipality, named Western Hope.”

“And how many representatives does Western Hope field to the Territorial Prefecture’s legislature?” Miles inquired.

“Fourteen,” she replied brightly.

As many as the parent-city itself, though it occupied a fraction of the area. “Interesting.”

Roic’s head swiveled around. “What t’ heck… ?”

“Pyramids!” said Dr. Durona happily, craning too. “Dozens of ’em! Is there a river around here called Denial?”

Miles reminded himself to repress Raven, too, at the earliest private opportunity.

Aida’s permanent smile grew briefly pained, but recovered at once. “Those are the facilities of our largest cryonics services competitor, NewEgypt.”

About a kilometer of sandstone wall was pierced by a high gate, flanked by huge statues of somber seated figures sporting slim canine heads.

“I saw those before,” said Roic, “back at the conference. There was a fellow wandering around in a skimpy costume with a big plastic dog head, handing out flyers. Seemed more like an advertisement for a Jackson’s Whole bioengineering firm.”

Miles could fill in that one. “The figures are of Anubis, the Egyptian god of the dead,” he explained. “They had a number of other gods with animal heads—hawks, cats, cows—that had various figurative meanings. That’s actually not a dog but a jackal, which was a carrion-eating scavenger in their ancient deserts. A natural association with death for a preindustrial folk, I suppose.” He glanced at Aida and refrained from expanding the parallel, though he did wonder if anyone had bothered to check the translations on those hieroglyphs decorating the walls, or whether they really read something like Ptah-hotep is a louse! or Unas owes Teti one hundred wheat sheaves and a firkin of figs.

Aida glanced at the receding figures and sniffed. “As you can see, they’ve taken up that era from Old Earth as their corporate theme.”

More of a theme park, Miles thought.

Aida added with reluctant admiration, “The pyramids are their cryo-storage facilities. NewEgypt has found that patrons will pay a premium for the more limited luxury space on the upper levels.”

“Luxury space?” said Roic. “Isn’t it all t’ same, once you’re frozen? I mean, technologically?”

He glanced at Raven, who murmured, “One certainly trusts so…”

“Yes, but the cryo-contracts are selected and signed by the living people,” Aida explained. “It has been a very appealing and successful program for NewEgypt. They’ve trademarked that entire historical period to block imitators.” She added in a tone of some disappointment, “They were giving away live sphinxes at the conference this year, but our department head was too late to get us one.”

With effort, Miles didn’t blink, and so he had a good view of the next facility along their route, which featured glass towers and glittering spires wrapped with lines of colored light. The groundcar was well sound-insulated, but he could have sworn a faint bass beat penetrated the canopy. “Music?”

“Shinkawa Consolidated,” their guide explained. Sure enough, they passed another gate, with the cryocorp’s name displayed over it in shifting rainbow hues. “I believe they are trying to appeal to a younger crowd.”

Miles tried to digest that. It wasn’t going down. “Surely that would be the smallest market segment.”

“Patrons are normally older when their contract is activated, yes,” said Aida. “But personal affordability is improved the sooner you sign on and begin your payments. It’s actually been a very effective strategy for Shinkawa. If I didn’t have a cryo-contract through my own employer, as part of my benefits package, I’d consider them myself.” She hid a giggle behind one well-manicured hand. “Though I probably shouldn’t tell you that.”

Another cryocorp campus appeared on the opposite side of the highway. It seemed to have a lot of trees, but neither walls nor gates—nor gate guards—though a low stone divider bore the name Northern Spring. What buildings Miles could spot through the vegetation looked blocky and utilitarian. Miles pointed. “How about those folks?”

“Ah, Northern Spring,” said Aida. “They have the distinction of being one of the oldest cryocorps in the region, and one of the first to develop a facility out here, but they are not what we would call top tier.”

Actually, according to Miles’s not-always-inadequate preliminary reports on Kibou-daini, they were the sixth largest publicly-owned cryocorp presently doing business, which would certainly make them what he would call top tier. But the general look of their place was staid to the point of stodgy.

A lot of money was being spent to woo… not the dead, Miles supposed, but the living. Although for personal long-term cryo-sequestration, one might well want an immortal entity like a corporation left in charge. Their impressive fronts promised a number of things, but mostly continuity. If only one didn’t know that at the secret heart of all such organizations, corporations and governments alike, it still came down to a finite number of fallible people talking to each other…

The big groundcar slowed and turned, passing under an enormous red torii gate—WhiteChrys lost no time in asserting its chosen corporate style. The security beeped them through electronically without a pause. They rounded a stand of pine trees and pulled up before the headquarters building. An efficient tower block rose behind, but the visitor first threaded an imitation-traditional garden, all water and walkways, moss clumps, raked pebbles, and delicate red maples. The theme continued inside the big glass lobby with gnarled miniature trees and severe flower arrangements. Amid all this tasteful splendor their hosts awaited, bowing, and Miles shook off the last of his lingering seizure fatigue and gathered his wits.

Ron Wing in person proved middle-aged and trim in formal business attire: undercoat, wide-sleeved outer coat with just a hint of winged shoulders, and baggy trousers in subtle muted blues, complete right down to the split-toe socks and sandals. Style, fabric and cut all signaled status, money, and mode as surely as a Barrayaran Vor male’s quasi-military tunic, trousers, and half-boots. The calculated dress was backed up by shrewd eyes and a sober attention.

At Wing’s elbow hovered the fellow who had delicately conveyed WhiteChrys’s bribe to the Lord Auditor at the party the night before the terrorists/activists/idiotists had struck, so rudely interrupting their promising exchange. Hideyuki Storrs bore the title of executive vice president for development. He wore a slimmer version of his boss’s garb, much like Vorlynkin’s studiously local dress, tradition modified by utility; Miles had pegged him as a high-ranking minion, but not quite inner circle.

The development department plainly wanted to take up where they’d left off, and Miles was reminded not to let himself be unruffled too soon. No point in wasting a free edge. Half of Miles’s maneuvering yesterday had been to climb the chain of command up to One Who Knows. As Aida passed the party on to Storrs, who made the formal introductions to Wing, Miles thought with satisfaction, Target acquired. Locked on. By Wing’s smile, Miles wondered if his opposite was thinking something similar.

I am more important to you than I ought to be. Why?

“I’m so pleased,” said Wing, “that you have allowed us to make up for some of the inconveniences you have lately suffered, Lord Vorkosigan.”

Miles made an it’s-not-your-fault wave of his free hand, undercut by a thin grimace, and returned, “We can only be grateful that no one was seriously injured or killed in the whole escapade.”

“Truly,” agreed Wing. “In exchange, this does allow us to give you a much more detailed look at our facility than the general tour would have.”

“Some exchange does seem due, yes.”

“Would you care for some refreshments? Tea? Or shall we follow galactic custom and begin right away?”

“I’d prefer to jump straight in, actually. My time here is not unlimited.”

“Right this way, then…”

The whole party shuffled off after Wing at Miles’s cane-pace, not altogether feigned. Between his underground ordeal and the usual after-effects of the damned seizures, his aches and pains were catching up with him. Aida stuck to his side, as if ready to catch him should he fall over. The prettiest public parts of the HQ building were quickly displayed, then they were wafted by float cart over to another building where actual intake of patrons occurred. Both the front lobby and the back loading docks seemed busy.

“Our patrons come from two sources,” Wing explained, leading them down the medically-scented corridors. “Some, who’ve suffered sudden and unexpected metabolic shut-downs, are actually processed by the hospitals, and then transferred to us for long-term storage. Others, who choose a less chancy mode, come in to our clinics and have us do the processing on-site.”

“Wait, they come in alive?” asked Roic.

“The healthier you are when frozen, the better your chances of a healthy revival,” said Storrs.

“That’s quite true,” murmured Raven.

Roic’s brows drew down, and he shot a glance at Miles, who could only say, “Alas, yes.”

“Would you care for a closer look at the technical processes?” said Wing. “That section isn’t normally on the public tours, of course. We have some twenty or so freezings scheduled for today. The transfers are of course usually unscheduled.”

Miles, who had once endured the whole process far too intimately, if not consciously, waved aside the macabre treat; Roic looked relieved. Vorlynkin bore it all with a wooden expression. Raven, at Miles’s thumbs-up behind his back, took the suggestion and went off with Storrs. Miles was glad to exit the processing building; the smell of the place, while not unpleasant, was doing odd jumpy things to his backbrain.

“And how many cryorevivals do you do here in a day?” Miles asked Wing, once they were safely back in the float cart and in motion. He and Wing shared the front seat with the best view, Aida sat facing rearward at their backs, and Vorlynkin and Roic shared the last bench, not quite out of earshot.

Wing hesitated only slightly. “I would have to look that figure up.” He glanced back as the cart bowled along through the well-kept grounds. “How did you come to know Dr. Durona?” Included in this jaunt at Miles’s—well, not request; Raven had simply been announced in the seat count for the groundcar.

“He and my assistant Roic were rather thrown together during the kidnappings. A bonding experience, I gather.”

“Ah, that would explain it. Your Roic looks a fellow I’d want to duck behind in a crisis, too.” It was plain Wing had no trouble translating assistant as bodyguard. No one, looking at Roic and Miles together, ever thought anything else. Miles was fairly sure Wing had not yet decoded the complexities of Armsman. Wing went on, “I was intrigued to learn you have a relative who is a major shareholder in the Durona Group. Unless the name Vorkosigan is common on Barrayar?”

“Mark?” So, you’ve finally caught up with that. Another clue, one of several, that Miles’s Auditorial visit to Kibou had come as a surprise to the cryocorp, and they were still on the scramble to peg him. Miles had met deep-laid plots, years in fruition; Wing’s maneuvers smelled of stop-gap, maybe only days old. “My younger brother, actually.”

“Really!” Wing smiled. “Do you think our Komarr expansion project would be of interest to him, as well?”

Yes, but not in the way you think. “I’d prefer to keep Mark out of this. He’s a very shrewd businessman. While I’ve labored my whole life in public service for very little reward, he’s piled up profits to envy, passing me by. One of the things that most excites me about your project is the chance at last to beat him at his own game.” Miles arranged his lips in a smile of vulpine sibling rivalry.

Wing got it at once, which said something about Wing. “I quite see.” He added after a moment, “And does he have anything like your influence in public affairs, Lord Vorkosigan?”

“No, he pretty much keeps to the shop.”

“Too bad.”

“Not from my point of view.”

“And the rest of your famous family? Are you on warmer terms with them?”

“Oh, yes. Though a chance to show them all up doesn’t come along every day.” Miles let his voice turn faintly whiny. “I’ve always had more to prove, on Barrayar.” There, let Wing digest that. A nice balance between jealous greed and the promise of an influence worth peddling. And it would stand up to surface inquiry. Thank you, Brother.

Wing’s brow furrowed in doubt. “Won’t Dr. Durona report back to him?”

“Let’s just say I’m working on that.” Miles softened his voice so the hum of the cart kept it from carrying. “You know the old saying, Keep your friends close and your enemies closer?”

Wing nodded. “That’s a good one.” He hesitated. “We’ve prepared a presentation on the Komarr Project for you, next. Should we invite the good doctor to view another part of the facility during that?”

“It won’t be necessary. Unless you have some technical innovation you prefer not to disclose to potential rivals?”

“No, the Komarr installation will be based on tried and trusted technology. Our innovations are all to the business model.”

“No problem, then. I gather Raven is one of those techie types—business goes right over his head.” How provincial was this fellow Wing? Raven was from bloody Jackson’s Whole, where the Deal was art, science, war, and survival-till-dawn. “Have you ever been off-world, Mr. Wing?”

“Yes, I had a trip to your Komarr last year, when we were setting up. All business, I’m afraid—I had very little time to tour. I never got outside of the Solstice Dome.”

“Ah, that’s a shame.”

Back in the headquarters building, they were all trundled off to a top-floor conference room, elegantly appointed with more gnarly potted treelets and fine art glass. Aida at last persuaded them to consume assorted beverages—Miles and Vorlynkin stuck to green tea, Roic to coffee—after which they were subjected to a glossy holovid presentation all about the large WhiteChrys cryonics facility presently under construction in the Solstice Dome, Komarr’s planetary capital. Try as he might, Miles could spot nothing about it that was not perfectly aboveboard. Neither, with access to far more detailed data, had ImpSec Komarr. And they’d looked it over closely, incidentally picking up, with WhiteChrys’s full cooperation and applause, two overcharging contractors, an embezzling customs clerk, and a ring of warehouse thieves, although none of that was mentioned in Wing’s snazzy vid.

Raven and Storrs joined them about halfway through. The vid wound up in a burst of optimistic-yet-tasteful music.

Miles leaned back in his incredibly comfortable conference chair, steepling his fingers. “So, why Komarr? If you wanted to expand off-world, wouldn’t Escobar have been closer?”

Wing sat up, looking happy to answer. “We did look into it. But Escobar’s own cryonics services are far more mature, and are further shielded from competition by what I can only call highly protectionist regulation. Our analysts concluded that Komarr, despite the extra distance, offered far more scope for growth, which is, after all, where most profits lie. Profits in which we hope Barrayarans like yourself will share, of course. Indeed, Solstice Dome is sharing already—all the work after the design stage was contracted locally.”

“I expect,” said Miles judiciously, “once everyone on a planet has been sold a cryo-contract, there’s no place left to go but outward.” He didn’t add, Though there’s one born every minute, but it was a struggle.

“It’s the hazard of a mature market, yes, I’m afraid. Although some interesting work has been done in the past year with commodifying contracts.”

“Beg pardon?”

Wing’s voice warmed with genuine enthusiasm. “Cryonics contracts have not been historically uniform, having been collected over many years by many institutions, often under different local laws. They yield on wildly varying bases, any of which might have grown or shrunk since the contract was activated. Companies themselves have split, combined, gone bankrupt or been bought out. Formerly, contracts and the responsibility for them have changed hands only along with the institutions holding them. But it was recently realized that a secondary market in individual contracts could provide considerable opportunity, either for profit-taking or to raise operating capital.”

Miles felt his brow corrugating. “You’re buying and selling the dead?”

“Swapping all those frozen bodies around?” Roic’s horrified expression was much less controlled.

“No, no!” said Wing. Storrs seconded his boss with vigorous headshake, No, no, no!

“That would be absurdly wasteful,” Wing went on. “The patrons mostly stay right where they are, unless a facility is being upgraded or decommissioned, of course. The patrons are held on a reciprocal accounting basis, company to company. It’s only their contracts that are traded.” He added piously, “It’s hoped that, over time, this will result in a more uniform and fairer contract structure industry-wide.”

Miles translated this as, When we’ve squeezed the sponge dry, we’ll stop. Judging by Raven’s remarkably blank smile, quite as if he hadn’t understood a single word, he was making the exact same construction.

“And, er, will you be applying that model to Komarr?” Miles asked.

“Unfortunately, no. There is no one there to trade with.” Although he sighed, Wing did not seem to be especially distressed by this. Miles read that as, We plan to be a monopoly.

“This is all quite stunning,” Miles said honestly. “And what do you think of it all, Vorlynkin?” He cast the consul a jovial wink. “Ready to sign up? I suppose it’s all old hat to you, though.”

“Not… really,” said Vorlynkin. “Most of my work has dealt with the concerns of the living. I had to expedite returning the remains of one poor Barrayaran tourist who was killed glacier-diving last year—very dangerous sport—and sign off on the delivery of a couple of Kibou business people who’d died of natural causes in the Empire and been shipped home. One frozen, one as ashes. There were complaints about the latter from the kin, which I forwarded to those responsible.” Vorlynkin added diplomatically—how else?—“I do appreciate this behind-the-scenes view, Wing-san. It’s proving an eye-opener for me.” The glance under his lashes was at Miles, though.

They were all gathered up again and conveyed to lunch, which was served in a low building overlooking more gardens and a koi pond. The space was all paper screens and tatami mats, plus more art glass and those flower arrangements consisting of a handful of pebbles, three sticks, two buds, and a blossom. They sat on silk cushions at a couple of low lacquer tables. Miles had Wing on one side and Aida on the other, all to himself; Storrs hosted Vorkynkin, Roic, and Raven at the second table. A pair of servers brought in a succession of delicate dishes all looking like miniature sculptures, and Miles finally allowed Aida to serve him an odd-tasting clear wine in a flat ceramic cup. He wondered if the vessel’s design was meant to be self-limiting; anyone too drunk must spill the contents down their front. He managed not to, barely.

Aida facilitated the conversation onto a series of pleasant, neutral topics, all the while inching nearer, her coat and undercoat loosened to strategically reveal the swell of her breasts beneath her low-cut top. Miles suspected pheromone perfumes, but the message hardly needed the boost; this young lady could be part of his bribe if he wished. Alas, Aida had shown no sign of knowing enough dirt to cultivate, and anyway he didn’t need to look every kind of corruptible. There was such a thing as artistic restraint. Miles pulled out his holovid cube and showed off pictures of his magnificent wife and adorable children, and she backed off, although he also vented a few complaints about the high costs of raising a family, and Wing inched nearer, encouraging him in this vein. Miles drank more weird wine and grinned foolishly.

WhiteChrys would have kept refilling Miles’s cup till he slid under the table, he was sure. He only wound up the party by repeated hints about Vorlynkin needing to get back to his duties. Aida slipped across to entertain the other group, while Wing took Miles on a turn around the pond, “to clear our heads.” Miles’s head, at least, cleared quite quickly when Wing at last got down to some very specific details about how Miles’s new shares were to be secretly transferred. He supposed he shouldn’t think of it as Quick work, my Lord Auditor; from foreplay to coitus in one afternoon. But who was being screwed? And why, why, why was he being bribed?

“I truly believe in the Komarr project,” Wing told him, with apparent sincerity. And a touch of euphoria, though Miles couldn’t tell if it was induced by the wine or the closing of the negotiations; to Wing, he suspected, they were interchangeable. The man harbored an almost Jacksonian passion for winning in the Deal. “In fact, I’ve switched all my own stock and options from WhiteChrys to WhiteChrys Solstice. I’ve even placed my own cryo-contract with the new facility, that’s how much I’m behind it. So you see I’ve put my money and my life where my mouth is.” His dark eyes almost sparkled with this revelation.

And Miles, connections boiling up at last, thought, Ye gods. I think you’ve just handed me your head.