“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.