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Mark sat on a bench in a crowded pedestrian corridor. His therapy session had been over for--he refused to check his chrono again. He’d been waiting long enough that he’d begun to contemplate the kiosk opposite with nerves-displacing interest, but not long enough that he’d actually gotten up and bought a candy bar. Or five. The door beside him hissed open, and it was as if someone had let a ray of unfiltered sunlight into the corridor--only Kareen was less likely to give you cancer after a brief exposure. He stood, she hugged him decorously, and he snuggled against her front less decorously.
“So, what did you and Dr. Cureth have to talk about for such a long time without me?” Mark tried for a casual tone, but he didn’t think he succeeded.
Kareen broke the hug and grabbed his hand instead, pulling him out into the brisk-stepping traffic. For Mark it was practically a run. “Oh,” said Kareen, matching him false-casual for false-casual, with a mischievous glint in her eye, “she wants me to join her profession.”
“So do half your professors at the university,” Mark grumbled.
Kareen grinned and dimples flashed in her cheeks. “No, I mean her profession.”
“Oh,” said Mark. He would have stopped if Kareen hadn’t had his hand, so it was a good thing she did. They didn’t want to draw any scrutiny from security cameras for this conversation. “Oh.”
It shouldn’t have been such a surprise; Dr. Cureth was a member of the Therapists’ Union, after all. But somehow Mark had always expected the approach, if it came, to come through him. He was the one who was some-small-number-but-let’s-not-mention it in line to the Barrayaran Imperium, after all. Yes, logic pointed out, but everyone likes Kareen.
“I hardly believed it was real,” said Kareen. “How did you know?”
“You just told me.” Mark had always wanted to say that. He was rewarded for the achievement of one of his life’s goals with a punch in the shoulder from Kareen’s free hand. He shrugged unrepentantly, but went on to answer her question. “There were some suggestive things in the files, during the search for Miles. And later, in . . . the effects left behind by an acquaintance.” Miles was a common enough name on Beta Colony and wouldn’t trip any security flags. Ryoval might.
Once you knew what you were looking for, you just had to consider the pattern of conflicts in the Nexus over the last hundred years or so--Beta Colony had sold weapons to all sides in every one. Impartially, most people would say. But looked at carefully, it was the only the partiality of a very deeply-laid strategy.
Mark had had to give up his ideas of becoming an ImpSec analyst--ImpSec was compromised. Everywhere was compromised. But at least he didn’t have to go it alone.
“I didn’t get much, not from a first meeting,” Kareen was saying. She turned her arm, flashing the pink marks of a hypospray on the inside of her elbow. “But I did get this.”
“Is that--” Mark cut himself off. Rejuvenation would definitely trip the security flags.
“Either that or a slow-acting poison. Think Lilly will be able to reverse-engineer it from a blood sample?”
Mark felt his face darken. “If it’s poison--”
Kareen patted his arm. “I’m sure you’ll avenge me. Did you know that Dr. Cureth has an aquarium?”