Vorlynkin shrugged. “It wasn’t anyone’s fault, really. She was an Escobaran. I met her when I was stationed at the embassy there as a junior secretary. When we first married, I thought it was understood that she would follow where my career took me. But by the time I was offered the promotion and the transfer to the Barrayaran embassy on Pol, Annah had come along. And my wife changed her mind. With a baby to look out for, she didn’t want to leave the security of her family and her homeworld. Or she didn’t trust me enough. Or something.”
After a silence, which Jin endured in faint embarrassment and Mina, apparently, in deep fascination, Vorlynkin added, “My ex-wife remarried recently. Another Escobaran. She wrote me that her new husband wants to adopt Annah. I don’t know. It might be better for her than a father she sees for maybe three days every three years. It’s hard to decide. To let go.” He had been talking to his lap but, unexpectedly, he raised his shrewd blue glance to Jin and Mina. “What do you think?”
Mina blinked, and blurted, “I’d want my real daddy.”
Vorlynkin didn’t look terribly cheered by this reply. Jin said more cautiously, “It depends, I guess. If he’s a nice guy or not.”
“I assume so. I haven’t met him yet. I suppose I ought to take some time and go do that, before signing off. Maybe visiting again would just confuse Annah. Surely she can’t remember much about me.”
“Don’t you send her messages and stuff?” asked Mina, frowning.
“Sometimes.”
Jin said slowly, “Couldn’t you have chosen to stay with your wife back then? Instead of going to Pol?” Wherever that was. Pretty far from Escobar, it sounded like. “Being a diplomat isn’t like being a soldier, is it? Aren’t you allowed to quit?”
Vorlynkin gave Jin an ironic salute, just a finger-touch to his forehead, and Jin felt even more uncomfortable. Maybe he shouldn’t have pointed that out?
“Yes, I could have made that choice. Then. I couldn’t go back now, of course. That chance has gone beyond recall.”
Mina’s frown deepened to a scowl. “It sounds like you already picked.”
“My younger self did, yes. I have to wonder about him, some days…” The autopilot beeped as they approached the consulate, and somewhat to Jin’s relief Vorlynkin turned away to re-take the controls.
Back in the consulate kitchen, Vorlynkin fixed them all a snack, then went off to the officelike front room to see about something his clerk wanted. Mina snitched Lucky and went upstairs. Jin went outside to check on all his creatures. By the time he arrived in the bedroom he shared with his sister, she was curled up on her bed around the cat, possessively. Lucky endured being clutched like a stuffed toy without protest beyond a lazy tail-twitch or two.
Jin was much too old to take a nap in the daytime, but his bed did look awfully inviting. He supposed if he tried to take Lucky away from Mina, she’d just set up a screech. Maybe wait till she fell asleep? Her face was stiff and blotchy, her eyes red, as if she’d been crying.
As he sat on his bed and plotted his recapture of the cat, Mina sniffed and said, “They lied.”
“Grownups always lie.” Jin brooded. “Mom lied. She always said everything was going to be all right, and it wasn’t.”
“Huh.” Mina curled tighter, face scrunching, and sniffed again. In a little while, both face and grip relaxed, and Jin bent over and fished Lucky back, careful not to wake Mina. He stroked the cat till she purred in concession to the trade, then went to curl up with her on his own bed. It was a nice bed, nicer than anything he’d had at Suze-san’s, but he still wished he was back there. Maybe grouchy old Yani had been right after all to want to leave Miles-san in the street…
He was wakened by Roic calling his name, big hand gently shaking his shoulder. Mina was already sitting up and rubbing the creases from her pillow out of her face. Lucky had gone off somewhere. The light on the carpet had shifted around. Jin glanced at the clock and realized that a couple of hours had slipped away.
“Sorry to wake you,” said Roic. “M’lord wants you to take a look at something on the comconsole in the tight-room.”
Roic waited patiently while both children visited the bathroom, making sure they’d washed their hands before following him downstairs. Now that he was getting used to the big man, Jin kind of liked Roic. For Miles-san, it must be like owning your own private grownup, following you around and doing stuff for you. Except you got to tell him what to do, instead of the other way around. Jin wished he owned a Roic.
There was a crowd in the strange sealable basement room where, Jin had figured out by now, the consulate kept all the nifty secret spy stuff. Miles-san and Vorlynkin sat at one comconsole. Raven-sensei had returned, and was bent over the long table along with Johannes, attending upon a small machine.
Jin dodged over to them. “What’s that?”
“DNA scanner,” said Johannes.
“Is that what you used to check Miles-sa—Lord Vorkosigan’s thumbprint, that first day?”
“Yes.”
“Handy,” said Raven-sensei. “There should have been one at Madame Suze’s, but evidently it was sold off or broken some time ago. I was afraid I was going to have to take the tissue sample to a commercial lab for even this basic data.”
Jin’s interest rose. “Could I make scans of my creatures’ DNA on it?”
“It’s not a toy,” said Johannes. “We use it for making positive IDs of people wanting travel documents and so on.” He looked at Jin and weakened. “You’ll have to ask Counsel Vorlynkin.”
Miles-san called Jin over to his comconsole, where Mina was already standing and shifting from foot to foot. Still-shots of four different men hovered in a row above the vid plate. Two had gray hair. One wore a white laboratory coat.
“Miss Mina, I’m hoping you can help us out, here,” said Miles-san. “All these men are different Dr. Leibers who live around greater Northbridge. We’ve already eliminated the female Dr. Leibers, trusting none has made a trip to Beta Colony lately.” His mouth twisted up at some joke that Jin didn’t understand, although Roic did, judging from his short smile. “Do any of them look like the man you overheard talking to your mommy, that night? Or, do any of them definitely not look like him?”
Mina peered anxiously at the scans. “It was a long time ago. I don’t really remember.”
“Do you remember anything at all? Was your Dr. Leiber young, or old?”
“Oh, old.”
“Gray hair?”
“No, black. I do remember that much. I’m not too good at telling grownups’ ages. But he was real old. Thirty, maybe?”
Miles-san and Vorlynkin exchanged a look; the consul’s lips twitched, but he didn’t say anything.
“So, old but not gray.” Miles-san tapped the vid controls, and the two gray-haired men vanished. The other two looked rather alike, with similar haircuts, except one’s face was bonier and the other’s more round.
“When I was a wee little kid,” remarked Roic, watching over their shoulders, “there was a time I thought that any skinny old man I saw was my grandfather. It was pretty confusing.”
“Nevertheless,” said Miles-san. “Jin, do you remember ever seeing either of these two men in your mother’s company? Even if you weren’t introduced?”
Jin shook his head.
After a long hesitation, Mina pointed at bony-face. “That one. Maybe. The other one seems too fat.”
“He might have gained weight,” Jin offered helpfully, getting into the spirit of this.
“Show her scans of a hundred fellows,” said Roic, “or even ten, and I doubt she’d be able to tell, m’lord. You’re leading your witness.”
“If we had to look at the entire pool of elderly gents of thirty on Kibou, that would doubtless be true,” said Miles-san. “Fortunately, we have some other sorting constraints.” He pointed at round-face. “This Dr. Leiber is an obstetrician at a replicator clinic in a northern suburb.” His finger swung to bony-face. “This Dr. Leiber is a biochemist working for NewEgypt Cryonics. Given that Mina’s witness does not positively eliminate him, that combination puts him at the top of my to-do list.”