Fic: It's a long way to Escobar (11/20)
It's a long way to Escobar
by jetta_e_rus aka Georgette
Vorkosiverse. Slash, PG-13. Drama, action, a detective story.
Translated from Russian.
The table of contents is here
Chapter Eleven,
where Illyan finds the real culprit of the disaster but it's fully useless.
***
So the poisoning had taken place during today's lunch, hadn't it?
This idea seemed so logical, melodramatic and sinister that it had to have some radical defect. Before he would accuse (even mentally) Ges Vorrutyer of attempting to poison Vorkosigan with the aid of his batman Bothari, Illyan had to sift through all other possibilities. Illyan remembered the instruction ordering to test for poison all remaining food and drink that had been available to the victim. What did he have now?
Simon pulled out the notorious pouch of candied nuts from its drawer, and put it on the console. Then he thought better and brought the tooth-paste from the bathroom; Vorkosigan could have brushed his teeth after lunch, so he shouldn't rule out this way of administering the medicine. Plates and glasses had been washed up after the lunch long ago, but the wine stain still remained on the trouser-leg. It was most likely that the preparation had been in the new wineglass, not the shattered one, but he needed to check all possible modes of delivery. He drew out from the closet the recently put away uniform trousers; then he imagined himself with the Commodore's pants in his hands, took a garment bag of dress greens and packed them up carefully.
Then he looked at chrono, clicked his tongue and quickly tapped Zarowski's number on the comconsole. The surgeon had probably tired of him recently.
"I need your help, sir. Could you meet me in infirmary?"
Zarowski frowned. "Are you OK? What has happened?"
"Nothing serious, but it's important."
"In a quarter of an hour, lieutenant," the colonel ordered and disconnected.
Illyan gather his trophies, checked the presence of the note on the comconsole and went to the corridor. He thought in passing that he looked quite strange now, with a puzzled face, a tube of toothpaste in his breast pocket, Vorkosigan's packed trousers in one hand and a transparent cone of sweeties in the other.
Of course, he wasn't so lucky as to reach his target unnoticed.
"Illyan?" the amazed voice of Commander Vorinnis called to him when he had nearly stepped into the lift tube. Serg's aide-de-camp would be the last straw. "Are you about to leave?"
Neither a sense of humor nor common sense allowed him just to pass by with the traditional ImpSec grumbling "Classified; Service affairs." Besides, Vorinnis had usually been taciturn before; Illyan wondered what the reason for this change was. Could it be concerning a call from a few hours ago?
Illyan pretended that it befitted an officer to walk along a ship's corridors at night with part of a uniform in his hands. "I have a clean-up," he explained.
Vorrinis' narrow face grew perplexed. He glanced at his chrono, "Between twelve and one?"
It is a pity that we are aboard a ship now. If this encounter had taken place at the Residence, I could have said that I was returning from a date at this time of night. But considering the masculine ship crew, this explanation would be right for Vorrutyer only.
Illyan smiled, leaned a bit forward confidently and said, "Please, it's private; I'm going to the infirmary, at once."
Vorinnis glanced aside to the toothpaste, and his aide's solidarity suggested a conclusion to him. "Are you going to hide out in the sick-bay, as far as possible from the Big Brass? I understand you. Some say, people suffering from stomach ulcer become too hypercritical." And the Commander added with a sigh, "For example, when the Crown Prince has a headache, sometimes one might as well wish one had never been born."
"I could keep nothing from you," Illyan admitted. "Indeed, you are right. Until I persuaded my boss that he was sick, I had my own headache."
Vorinnis wasn't able not to take this hint, but his curiosity overcame his tactfulness. Or it could be a result of a talking-to that his august boss had given him after the last scanty news about Vorkosigan. "Well, Commodore Vorkosigan will remain disabled for a long time, won't he?"
"Ask me something easier," Illyan shrugged and smiled. "The final verdict is in the medics' hands, but if the Commodore had his way, he would be on duty tomorrow morning."
"Oh," Vorinnis said with either envy or sympathy, "it's difficult to work with a job maniac. I hope you escape an ulcer yourself; you risk one with this work schedule and dry food... would you allow me?" Before Illyan had time to say anything against squandering the evidence, he fished out from the transparent cone one sweet nut and began to crunch it with open pleasure. "Lovely. Is it from your home purveyance?"
"The candy store two quarters from the Residence." Illyan opportunely remembered the nearest shop-windows. He had seen this expensive capital store outside but never crossed its threshold, avoiding temptations, because its prices had been beyond his lieutenant's means. "Sweets are bad for the teeth but good for the brain. Although nothing would help my head now but painkillers and sleep."
"Good night, then, lieutenant," Vorinnis said politely.
"As to you, commander." Illyan stepped into the lift tube at last.
A hour later he was back, yawning and disappointed, with the same burden in his hands. All the food had been checked and proved to be clear, include the red wine. The surgeon had eyed the trousers meant for tests very expressively puzzled, though. It would have been silly to explain to him that Aral had changed his clothes before he passed out, and that Illyan hadn't had to undress him. Perhaps, Zarowski hadn't thought of this aspect at all, and Illyan had been the only person who had seen any risque subtext in the stained trousers.
He put all of Vorkosigan's property in its place, set in plain view a bottle of soda water and a few pills and then went into his own cabin.
Yawning racked him to an extent that his cheekbones cramped, but sleep didn't come, and his thoughts ran in an endless loop. He had only two versions; Aral had either taken the pill knowingly during the two hours alone in his cabin or been poisoned secretly and purposely during the lunch. He wouldn't be able to verify the former hypothesis until next morning, but it was the latter one that worried him. What should he do if it should prove to be the truth?
He first assumed that he would take advantage of his ImpSec status and arrest Sergeant Bothari on the charge of assault upon an officer. But that would certainly lead him into a military court, and according to Zarowski, Captain Negri wanted Bothari kept in his post attached to Vorrutyer. Well, Illyan could modify the charge to contain only Bothari's assault on his recently injured elbow. One would be punished for such misdeeds only by imprisonment in the guardhouse, not a discharge.
The next assumption was that Bothari, despite his disease, would have a typical reaction to fast-penta and would answer all the questions, giggling inanely and fuming inwardly. "Why did you take the wineglass from the bottom shelf of the teacart?" - "Because there were glasses here." - "Why did you bring this glass to Vorkosigan?" - "Because the Vice Admiral ordered me to wait upon the officers during lunch." - "What was there in the wineglass?" - "Nothing, it was empty". And so on. A man dosed with a truth drug would answer with a sincere stupid submission, but the Sergeant had hardly been a deliberate companion in this crime. And after returning from the interrogation session, Vorrutyer would necessarily ask him about all the details. The Vice Admiral was vengeful. As a result, Illyan would be revealed before his enemy's eyes and take at best a pawn, and endanger his own king.
Frankly speaking, Illyan didn't like chess.
He imagined an unlikely situation where he might have legal grounds to prefer a charge of poisoning against Vorrutyer. What would follow? Nothing. He vividly imagined Ges' casual remark, when he retorted, "It was only a joke of an old friend." A rude one, yes, but it wasn't deathly dangerous. "Are you also playing here the role of the moral police, Illyan?"
He fell asleep just in the middle of this thought. So he had an odd dream about Ges in an unbuttoned velvet dressing gown (the effect of Vorkosigan's caricature, for sure) who gave a lesson in five-dimensional math at his military school, and thirty-years-old Illyan was among the young cadets. Vorrutyer shouted at Illyan, threatening him with kitchen duty of washing up glasses for lagging behind. Thankfully it was a nightmare only.
by jetta_e_rus aka Georgette
Vorkosiverse. Slash, PG-13. Drama, action, a detective story.
Translated from Russian.
The table of contents is here
Chapter Eleven,
where Illyan finds the real culprit of the disaster but it's fully useless.
***
So the poisoning had taken place during today's lunch, hadn't it?
This idea seemed so logical, melodramatic and sinister that it had to have some radical defect. Before he would accuse (even mentally) Ges Vorrutyer of attempting to poison Vorkosigan with the aid of his batman Bothari, Illyan had to sift through all other possibilities. Illyan remembered the instruction ordering to test for poison all remaining food and drink that had been available to the victim. What did he have now?
Simon pulled out the notorious pouch of candied nuts from its drawer, and put it on the console. Then he thought better and brought the tooth-paste from the bathroom; Vorkosigan could have brushed his teeth after lunch, so he shouldn't rule out this way of administering the medicine. Plates and glasses had been washed up after the lunch long ago, but the wine stain still remained on the trouser-leg. It was most likely that the preparation had been in the new wineglass, not the shattered one, but he needed to check all possible modes of delivery. He drew out from the closet the recently put away uniform trousers; then he imagined himself with the Commodore's pants in his hands, took a garment bag of dress greens and packed them up carefully.
Then he looked at chrono, clicked his tongue and quickly tapped Zarowski's number on the comconsole. The surgeon had probably tired of him recently.
"I need your help, sir. Could you meet me in infirmary?"
Zarowski frowned. "Are you OK? What has happened?"
"Nothing serious, but it's important."
"In a quarter of an hour, lieutenant," the colonel ordered and disconnected.
Illyan gather his trophies, checked the presence of the note on the comconsole and went to the corridor. He thought in passing that he looked quite strange now, with a puzzled face, a tube of toothpaste in his breast pocket, Vorkosigan's packed trousers in one hand and a transparent cone of sweeties in the other.
Of course, he wasn't so lucky as to reach his target unnoticed.
"Illyan?" the amazed voice of Commander Vorinnis called to him when he had nearly stepped into the lift tube. Serg's aide-de-camp would be the last straw. "Are you about to leave?"
Neither a sense of humor nor common sense allowed him just to pass by with the traditional ImpSec grumbling "Classified; Service affairs." Besides, Vorinnis had usually been taciturn before; Illyan wondered what the reason for this change was. Could it be concerning a call from a few hours ago?
Illyan pretended that it befitted an officer to walk along a ship's corridors at night with part of a uniform in his hands. "I have a clean-up," he explained.
Vorrinis' narrow face grew perplexed. He glanced at his chrono, "Between twelve and one?"
It is a pity that we are aboard a ship now. If this encounter had taken place at the Residence, I could have said that I was returning from a date at this time of night. But considering the masculine ship crew, this explanation would be right for Vorrutyer only.
Illyan smiled, leaned a bit forward confidently and said, "Please, it's private; I'm going to the infirmary, at once."
Vorinnis glanced aside to the toothpaste, and his aide's solidarity suggested a conclusion to him. "Are you going to hide out in the sick-bay, as far as possible from the Big Brass? I understand you. Some say, people suffering from stomach ulcer become too hypercritical." And the Commander added with a sigh, "For example, when the Crown Prince has a headache, sometimes one might as well wish one had never been born."
"I could keep nothing from you," Illyan admitted. "Indeed, you are right. Until I persuaded my boss that he was sick, I had my own headache."
Vorinnis wasn't able not to take this hint, but his curiosity overcame his tactfulness. Or it could be a result of a talking-to that his august boss had given him after the last scanty news about Vorkosigan. "Well, Commodore Vorkosigan will remain disabled for a long time, won't he?"
"Ask me something easier," Illyan shrugged and smiled. "The final verdict is in the medics' hands, but if the Commodore had his way, he would be on duty tomorrow morning."
"Oh," Vorinnis said with either envy or sympathy, "it's difficult to work with a job maniac. I hope you escape an ulcer yourself; you risk one with this work schedule and dry food... would you allow me?" Before Illyan had time to say anything against squandering the evidence, he fished out from the transparent cone one sweet nut and began to crunch it with open pleasure. "Lovely. Is it from your home purveyance?"
"The candy store two quarters from the Residence." Illyan opportunely remembered the nearest shop-windows. He had seen this expensive capital store outside but never crossed its threshold, avoiding temptations, because its prices had been beyond his lieutenant's means. "Sweets are bad for the teeth but good for the brain. Although nothing would help my head now but painkillers and sleep."
"Good night, then, lieutenant," Vorinnis said politely.
"As to you, commander." Illyan stepped into the lift tube at last.
A hour later he was back, yawning and disappointed, with the same burden in his hands. All the food had been checked and proved to be clear, include the red wine. The surgeon had eyed the trousers meant for tests very expressively puzzled, though. It would have been silly to explain to him that Aral had changed his clothes before he passed out, and that Illyan hadn't had to undress him. Perhaps, Zarowski hadn't thought of this aspect at all, and Illyan had been the only person who had seen any risque subtext in the stained trousers.
He put all of Vorkosigan's property in its place, set in plain view a bottle of soda water and a few pills and then went into his own cabin.
Yawning racked him to an extent that his cheekbones cramped, but sleep didn't come, and his thoughts ran in an endless loop. He had only two versions; Aral had either taken the pill knowingly during the two hours alone in his cabin or been poisoned secretly and purposely during the lunch. He wouldn't be able to verify the former hypothesis until next morning, but it was the latter one that worried him. What should he do if it should prove to be the truth?
He first assumed that he would take advantage of his ImpSec status and arrest Sergeant Bothari on the charge of assault upon an officer. But that would certainly lead him into a military court, and according to Zarowski, Captain Negri wanted Bothari kept in his post attached to Vorrutyer. Well, Illyan could modify the charge to contain only Bothari's assault on his recently injured elbow. One would be punished for such misdeeds only by imprisonment in the guardhouse, not a discharge.
The next assumption was that Bothari, despite his disease, would have a typical reaction to fast-penta and would answer all the questions, giggling inanely and fuming inwardly. "Why did you take the wineglass from the bottom shelf of the teacart?" - "Because there were glasses here." - "Why did you bring this glass to Vorkosigan?" - "Because the Vice Admiral ordered me to wait upon the officers during lunch." - "What was there in the wineglass?" - "Nothing, it was empty". And so on. A man dosed with a truth drug would answer with a sincere stupid submission, but the Sergeant had hardly been a deliberate companion in this crime. And after returning from the interrogation session, Vorrutyer would necessarily ask him about all the details. The Vice Admiral was vengeful. As a result, Illyan would be revealed before his enemy's eyes and take at best a pawn, and endanger his own king.
Frankly speaking, Illyan didn't like chess.
He imagined an unlikely situation where he might have legal grounds to prefer a charge of poisoning against Vorrutyer. What would follow? Nothing. He vividly imagined Ges' casual remark, when he retorted, "It was only a joke of an old friend." A rude one, yes, but it wasn't deathly dangerous. "Are you also playing here the role of the moral police, Illyan?"
He fell asleep just in the middle of this thought. So he had an odd dream about Ges in an unbuttoned velvet dressing gown (the effect of Vorkosigan's caricature, for sure) who gave a lesson in five-dimensional math at his military school, and thirty-years-old Illyan was among the young cadets. Vorrutyer shouted at Illyan, threatening him with kitchen duty of washing up glasses for lagging behind. Thankfully it was a nightmare only.