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"You puzzle me, Dr. Canaba," said Miles lightly. "Why this mid-career switch?
I m pretty well acquainted with your new employers, and frankly, I don t see
how they could out-bid House Bharaputra." There, that was a properly mercenary
way to put it.
"They offered me protection from House Bharaputra. Although, if you re it..."
he looked doubtfully down at Miles.
Ha. And, hell. The man really was ready to bolt. Leaving Miles to explain the
failure of his mission to Chief of Imperial
Security Illyan in person. "They bought our services," said Miles, "and
therefore you command our services. They want you safe and happy. But we can t
begin to protect you when you depart from a plan designed to maximize your
safety, throw in random factors, and ask us to operate in the dark. I need
full knowledge of what s going on if I m to take full responsibility for the
results."
"No one is asking you to take responsibility."
"I beg your pardon, doctor, but they surely have."
"Oh," said Canaba. "I... see." He paced to the window, back. "But will you do
what I ask?"
"I will do what I can."
"Happy," Canaba snorted. "God..." he shook his head wearily, inhaled
decisively. "I never came here for the money. I came here because I could do
research I couldn t do anywhere else. Not hedged round with outdated legal
restrictions. I dreamed of breakthroughs... but it became a nightmare. The
freedom became slavery. The things they wanted me to do... ! Constantly
interrupting the things I wanted to do. Oh, you can always find someone to do
anything for money, but they re second-raters.
These labs are full of second-raters. The very best can t be bought. I ve done
things, unique things, that Bharaputra won t develop because the profit would
be too small, never mind how many people it would benefit - I get no credit,
no standing for my work -
every year, I see in the literature of my field galactic honors going to
lesser men, because I cannot publish my results..." He stopped, lowered his
head. "I doubtless sound like a megalomaniac to you."
"Ah..." said Miles, "you sound quite frustrated."
"The frustration," said Canaba, "woke me from a long sleep. Wounded ego - it
was only wounded ego. But in my pride, I
rediscovered shame. And the weight of it stunned me, stunned me where I stood.
Do you understand? Does it matter if you understand? Ah!" He paced away to the
wall, and stood facing it, his back rigid.
"Uh," Miles scratched the back of his head ruefully, "yeah. I d be glad to
spend many fascinating hours listening to you explain it to me - on my ship.
Outbound."
Canaba turned with a crooked smile. "You are a practical man, I perceive. A
soldier. Well, God knows I need a soldier now."
"Things are that screwed up, eh?"
"It... happened suddenly. I thought I had it under control."
"Go on," sighed Miles.
"There were seven synthesized gene-complexes. One of them is a cure for a
certain obscure enzyme disorder. One of them will increase oxygen-generation
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in space station algae twenty-fold. One of them came from outside Bharaputra
Labs, brought in by a man - we never found out who he really was, but death
followed him. Several of my colleagues who had worked on his project were
murdered all in one night, by the commandos who pursued him - their records
destroyed - I never told anyone I d borrowed an unauthorized tissue sample to
study. I ve not unravelled it fully yet, but I can tell you, it s absolutely
unique."
Miles recognized that one, and almost choked, reflecting upon the bizarre
chain of circumstances that had placed an identical tissue sample in the hands
of Dendarii Intelligence a year ago. Terrence See s telepathy complex - and
the main reason why
His
Imperial Majesty suddenly wanted a top geneticist. Dr. Canaba was in for a
little surprise when he arrived at his new Barrayaran laboratory. But if the
other six complexes came anywhere near matching the value of the known one,
Security Chief Illyan would peel Miles with a dull knife for letting them slip
through his fingers. Miles s attention to Canaba abruptly intensified. This
side-
trip might not be as trivial as he d feared.
"Together, these seven complexes represent tens of thousands of hours of
research time, mostly mine, some of others - my life s work. I d planned from
the beginning to take them with me. I bundled them up in a viral insert and
placed them, bound and dormant, in a live..." Canaba faltered, "organism, for
storage. An organism, I thought, that no one would think to look at for such a
thing."
"Why didn t you just store them in your own tissue?" Miles asked irritably.
"Then you couldn t lose em."
Canaba s mouth opened. "I... never thought of that. How elegant. Why didn t I
think of that?" His hand touched his forehead wonderingly, as if probing for
systems failure. His lips tightened again. "But it would have made no
difference. I would still need to..." he fell silent. "It s about the
organism," he said at last. "The... creature." Another long silence.
"Of all the things I did," Canaba continued lowly, "of all the interruptions
this vile place imposed on me, there is one I regret the most. You understand,
this was years ago. I was younger, I thought I still had a future here to
protect. And it wasn t all my doing - guilt by committee, eh? Spread it
around, make it easy, say it was his fault, her doing... well, it s mine now."
You mean it s mine now, thought Miles grimly. "Doctor, the more time we spend
here, the greater the chance of compromising this operation. Please get to the
point."
"Yes... yes. Well, a number of years ago, House Bharaputra Laboratories took
on a contract to manufacture a... new species.
Made to order."
"I thought it was House Ryoval that was famous for making people, or whatever,
to order," said Miles.
"They make slaves, one-off. They are very specialized. And small - their
customer base is surprisingly small. There are many rich men, and there are, I
suppose, many depraved men, but a House Ryoval customer has to be a member of
both sets, and the overlap isn t as large as you d think. Anyway, our contract
was supposed to lead to a major production run, far beyond Ryoval s
capabilities. A certain subplanetary government, hard-pressed by its
neighbors, wanted us to engineer a race of super-soldiers for them."
"What, again?" said Miles. "I thought that had been tried. More than once."
"This time, we thought we could do it. Or at least, the Bharaputran hierarchy
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