Diplomatic Immunity b-13

by Lois McMaster Bujold

  “Good. Get me a list of everything that went out a lock in that period.” For the sake of the listening quaddie guards he remembered to add a formal, “If you please, Portmaster Thorne.”

  “Certainly, Lord Auditor Vorkosigan.”

  “Seems damned odd to go to all that trouble to remove the body but leave the blood, though. Timing? Tried to get back to clean up, but it was too late? Something very, very strange to hide about the body?”

  Maybe just blind panic, if the murder had not been planned in advance. Miles could imagine someone who was not a spacer shoving a body out an airlock, and only then realizing what poor concealment it really was. That didn't exactly jibe with a subsequent swift and handy outside pickup, though. And no quaddie qualified as not-a-spacer.

  He sighed. “This is not getting us much forwarder. Let's go talk to my idiots.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Graf Station Security Post Three lay on the border between the free fall and the grav sides of the station, with access to both. Construction quaddies in yellow shirts and shorts, and a few legged downsiders similarly dressed, were at work on repairs around the main grav-side entrance. Miles, Ekaterin, and Roic were escorted through by Bel and one of their quaddie outriders, the other having been left on dour guard at the Kestrel 's docking hatch. The workers turned their heads to stare, frowning, as the Barrayarans passed.

  They wound via a couple of corridors down one level, where they found the control booth at the portal to the grav-side detention block. A quaddie and a downsider were just collaborating on raising a new, possibly more plasma-fire-resistant, window into place in its frame; beyond, another yellow-clad quaddie could be seen putting the finishing touches on a monitor array while a uniformed quaddie in a Security floater, upper arms crossed, watched glumly.

  In the tool-cluttered staging area in front of the booth they found Sealer Greenlaw and Chief Venn, now supplied with floaters, awaiting them. Venn immediately made sure to point out to Miles all the repairs completed and still in progress, in detail, with approximate costs, with a chronicle appended of all the quaddies who had been injured in the imbroglio, including names, ranks, prognoses, and the distress suffered by their family members. Miles made acknowledging yet neutral noises, and went into a short counter-riff on the missing Solian and the sinister testimony of the blood on the loading bay deck, with a brief dissertation on the logistics of his ejected body being spirited away by a possible outboard coconspirator. This last gave Venn pause, at least temporarily; his face twinged, like a man in stomach pain.

  While Venn went to arrange Miles's entry to the cellblock with the guard in the control booth, Miles glanced at Ekaterin, and a little doubtfully around the less-than-inviting staging area. “Do you want to wait here, or sit in?”

  “Do you want me to sit in?” she asked, with a lack of enthusiasm in her voice that even Miles could sense. “Not that you don't draft anyone in sight, as needed, but surely I'm not needed for this.”

  “Well, perhaps not. But it looks like it might be a trifle boring out here.”

  “I don't have quite your allergic response to boredom, love, but to tell the truth, I was rather hoping I could get more of a look around the station while you were tied up here this afternoon. The glimpses we saw on the way in seemed quite enticing.”

  “But I want Roic.” He hesitated, the security triage problem turning in his head.

  She glanced across in friendly speculation at Bel, listening. “I admit I would be glad for a guide, but do you really think I need a bodyguard here?”

  Insult seemed possible, though only from quaddies who knew whose wife she was, but assault, Miles had to admit, seemed unlikely. “No, but . . .”

  Bel smiled cordially back at her. “If you would accept my escort, Lady Vorkosigan, I would be pleased to show you around Graf Station while the Lord Auditor conducts his interviews.”

  Ekaterin brightened still further. “I would like that very much, yes, thank you, Portmaster Thorne. If things go well, as we must hope they do, we might not be here very long. I feel I should seize my opportunities.”

  Bel was more experienced than Roic in everything from hand-to-hand combat to fleet maneuvers, and vastly less likely to blunder into trouble here through ignorance. “Well . . . all right, why not? Enjoy.” Miles touched his wrist com. “I'll call when I'm about finished. Maybe you can go shopping.” He waved them off, smiling. “Just don't haul home any severed heads.” He glanced up to find Venn and Greenlaw both staring at him in some dismay. “Ah—family joke,” he explained weakly. The dismay did not abate.

  Ekaterin smiled back, and sailed out on Bel's cheerfully proffered arm. It occurred to Miles belatedly that Bel was notably universal in its sexual tastes, and that maybe he ought to have warned Ekaterin that she needn't be especially delicate in redirecting Bel's attentions, should any be offered. But surely Bel wouldn't . . . on the other hand, maybe they'd just take turns trying things on.

  Reluctantly, he turned back to business.

  The Barrayaran prisoners were stacked three to a cell in chambers meant for two occupants, a circumstance about which Venn half complained, half apologized. Security Post Three, he gave Miles to understand, had been unprepared for such an abnormal influx of recalcitrant downsiders. Miles murmured comprehension, if not necessarily sympathy, and refrained from observing that the quaddies' cells were larger than the sleeping cabins housing four aboard the Prince Xav .

  Miles began by interviewing Brun's squad commander. The man was shocked to find his exploits receiving the high-powered attention of an actual Imperial Auditor, and as a result defaulted to a thick MilSpeak in his account of events. The picture Miles unpacked behind such formal phrases as penetrated the perimeter and enemy forces amassed still made him wince. But allowing for the changed point of view, his testimony did not materially contradict the Stationer version of the events. Alas.

  Miles spot-checked the squad commander's story with another cell full of fellows, who added details unfortunate but not surprising. As the squad had been attached to the Prince Xav , none of them were personally acquainted with Lieutenant Solian, posted on the Idris .

  Miles emerged and tested an argument on the hovering Sealer Greenlaw. “It is quite improper for you to continue holding these men. The orders they were following, though perhaps ill thought out, were not in fact illegal in Barrayaran military definition. If their orders had been to plunder, rape, or massacre civilian quaddies, they would have been under a legal military obligation to resist them, but in fact they were specifically ordered not to kill. If they had disobeyed Brun, they could have faced court-martial. It's double jeopardy, and seriously unfair to them.”

  “I will consider this contention,” said Greenlaw dryly, with the For about ten seconds, after which I shall toss it out the nearest airlock hanging unspoken.

  “And, looking ahead,” added Miles, “you can't wish to be stuck housing these men indefinitely. Surely it would be preferable for us to take them,” he just managed to convert off your hands to, “with us when we leave.”

  Greenlaw looked even dryer; Venn grunted disconsolately. Miles gathered Venn would be just as glad for the Imperial Auditor to take them away now , except for the politics of the larger situation. Miles didn't push the point, but stored it up for near-future reference. He entertained a brief, wistful fantasy of trading Brun for his men, and leaving Brun here, to the net benefit of the Emperor's Service, but did not air it aloud.

  His interview with the two service security men who'd initially been sent to pick up Corbeau was, in its way, even more wince-worthy. They were sufficiently intimidated by his Auditor's rank to give full and honest, if muttered, accounts of the contretemps. But such infelicitous phraseology as I wasn't trying to break her arm, I was trying to bounce the mutie bitch off the wall , and All those clutching hands gave me the creeps—it was like having snakes wrapping around my boot , convinced Miles that here were two men he wouldn't care to have testify in public, at least no
t in public in Quaddiespace. However, he was able to establish the significant point that at the time of the clash they, too, had been under the impression that Lieutenant Solian had just been murdered by an unknown quaddie.

  He emerged from this interrogation to say to Venn, “I think I'd better speak privately to Ensign Corbeau. Can you find us a space?”

  “Corbeau already has his own cell,” Venn informed him coolly. “As a result of his being threatened by his comrades.”

  “Ah. Take me to him, then, if you please.”

  * * *

  The cell door slid aside to reveal a tall young man sitting silently on a bunk, elbows on knees, his face propped in his hands. The metallic contact circles of a jump pilot's neural implant gleamed at his temples and mid-forehead, and Miles mentally tripled the young officer's recent training costs to the Imperium. He looked up and frowned in confusion at Miles.

  He was a typical enough Barrayaran: dark haired, brown eyed, with an olive complexion made pale by his months in space. His regular features reminded Miles a bit of his cousin Ivan at the same feckless age. An extensive bruise around one eye was fading, turning yellowish green. His uniform shirt was open at the throat, sleeves rolled up. Some paling, irregular pink scars zigzagged over his exposed skin, marking him as a victim of the Sergyaran worm plague of some years back; he had evidently grown up, or at least been resident, on Barrayar's new colony planet during that difficult period before the oral vermicides had been perfected.

  Venn said, “Ensign Corbeau, this is the Barrayaran Imperial Auditor, Lord Vorkosigan. Your emperor sent him out as the official diplomatic envoy to represent your side in negotiations with the Union. He wishes to interview you.”

  Corbeau's lips parted in alarm, and he scrambled to his feet and bobbed his head nervously at Miles. It made their height differential rather spring to the eye, and Corbeau's brow wrinkled in increased confusion.

  Venn added, not so much kindly as punctiliously, “Due to the charges lodged against you, as well as your petition for asylum still pending for review, Sealer Greenlaw will not permit him to remove you from our custody at this time.”

  Corbeau exhaled a little, but still stared at Miles with the expression of a man introduced to a poisonous snake.

  Venn added, a sardonic edge in his voice, “He has undertaken not to order you to shoot yourself, either.”

  “Thank you, Chief Venn,” said Miles. “I'll take it from here, if you don't mind.”

  Venn took the hint, and his leave. Roic took up his silent guard stance by the cell door, which hissed closed.

  Miles gestured at the bunk. “Sit down, Ensign.” He seated himself on the bunk across from the young man and cocked his head in brief study as Corbeau refolded himself. “Stop hyperventilating,” he added.

  Corbeau gulped, and managed a wary, “My lord.”

  Miles laced his fingers together. “Sergyaran, are you?”

  Corbeau glanced down at his arms and made an abortive move to roll down his sleeves. “Not born there, my lord. My parents emigrated when I was about five years old.” He glanced at the silent Roic in his brown-and-silver uniform, and added, “Are you—” then swallowed whatever he'd been about to say.

  Miles could fill in the blank. “I'm Viceroy and Vicereine Vorkosigan's son, yes. One of them.”

  Corbeau managed an unvoiced Oh . His look of suppressed terror did not diminish.

  “I have just interviewed the two fleet patrollers sent to retrieve you from your station leave. In a moment, I'd like to hear your version of that event. But first—did you know Lieutenant Solian, the Komarran fleet security officer aboard the Idris ?”

  The pilot's thoughts were so clearly focused on his own affairs that it took him a moment to parse this. “I met him once or twice at some of our prior stops, my lord. I can't say as I knew him. I never went aboard the Idris .”

  “Do you have any thoughts or theories about his disappearance?”

  “Not . . . not really.”

  “Captain Brun thinks he might have deserted.”

  Corbeau grimaced. “Brun would.”

  “Why Brun especially?”

  Corbeau's lips moved, halted; he looked still more miserable. “It would not be appropriate for me to criticize my superiors, my lord, or to comment on their personal opinions.”

  “Brun is prejudiced against Komarrans.”

  “I didn't say that!”

  “That was my observation, Ensign.”

  “Oh.”

  “Well, let's leave that for the moment. Back to your troubles. Why didn't you answer your wrist com recall order?”

  Corbeau touched his bare left wrist; the Barrayarans' com links had all been confiscated by their quaddie captors. “I'd taken it off and left it in another room. I must have slept through the beep. The first I knew of the recall order was when those two, two . . .” He struggled for a moment, then continued bitterly, “thugs came pounding at Garnet Five's door. They just pushed her aside—”

  “Did they identify themselves properly, and relay your orders clearly?”

  Corbeau paused, his glance at Miles sharpening. “I admit, my lord,” he said slowly, “Sergeant Touchev announcing, 'All right, mutie-lover, this show's over,' did not exactly convey 'Admiral Vorpatril has ordered all Barrayaran personnel back to their ships' to my mind. Not right away, anyway. I'd just woken up, you see.”

  “Did they identify themselves?”

  “Not—not verbally.”

  “Show any ID?”

  “Well . . . they were in uniform, with their patrol armbands.”

  “Did you recognize them as fleet security, or did you think this was a private visit—a couple of comrades taking out their racial offense on their own time?”

  “It . . . um . . . well—the two aren't exactly mutually exclusive, my lord. In my experience.”

  The kid has that one straight, unfortunately. Miles took a breath. “Ah.”

  “I was slow, still half asleep. When they shoved me around, Garnet Five thought they were attacking me. I wish she hadn't tried to . . . I didn't slug Touchev till he dumped her out of her float chair. At that point . . . everything sort of went down the disposer.” Corbeau glowered at his feet, encased in prison-issue friction slippers.

  Miles sat back. Throw this boy a line. He's drowning. He said mildly, “You know, your career is not necessarily cooked yet. You aren't, technically, AWOL as long as you are involuntarily confined by the Graf Station authorities, any more than Brun's strike patrol here is. For a little while yet, you're in a legal limbo. Your jump pilot's training and surgery would make you a costly loss, from command's viewpoint. If you make the right moves, you could still get out of this pretty cleanly.”

  Corbeau's face screwed up. “I don't . . .” He trailed off.

  Miles made an encouraging noise.

  Corbeau burst out, “I don't want my damned career any more. I don't want to be part of”—he waved around inarticulately—”this . This . . . idiocy.”

  Suppressing a certain sympathy, Miles asked, “What's your present status—how far along are you in your enlistment?”

  “I signed up for one of the new five-year hitches, with the option to reenlist or go to reserve status for the next five. I've been in three years, two still to go.”

  At age twenty-three, Miles reminded himself, two years still seemed a long time. Corbeau could be barely more than an apprentice junior pilot at this stage of his career, although his assignment to the Prince Xav implied a superior rating.

  Corbeau shook his head. “I see things differently these days, somehow. Attitudes I used to take for granted, jokes, remarks, just the way things are done—they bother me now. They grate. People like Sergeant Touchev, Captain Brun—God. Were we always this awful?”

  “No,” said Miles. “We used to be much worse. I can personally testify to that one.”

  Corbeau stared searchingly at him.

  “But if all the progressive-minded men had opted out then, as you a
re proposing to do now, none of the changes I've seen in my lifetime could have happened. We've changed. We can change some more. Not instantly, no. But if all the decent folks quit and only the idiots are left to run the show, it won't be good for the future of Barrayar. About which I do care.” It startled him to realize how passionately true that statement had become, of late. He thought of the two replicators in that guarded room in Vorkosigan House. I always thought my parents could fix anything. Now it's my turn. Dear God, how did this happen?

  “I never imagined a place like this.” Corbeau's jerky wave around, Miles construed, now meant Quaddiespace. “I never imagined a woman like Garnet Five. I want to stay here.”

  Miles had a bad sense of a desperate young man making permanent decisions for the sake of temporary stimuli. Graf Station was attractive at first glance, certainly, but Corbeau had grown up in open country with real gravity, real air—would he adapt, or would the techno-claustrophobia creep up on him? And the young woman for whom he proposed to throw his life over, was she worthy, or would Corbeau prove a passing amusement to her? Or, over time, a bad mistake? Hell, they'd known each other bare weeks—no one could know, least of all Corbeau and Garnet Five.

  “I want out,” said Corbeau. “I can't stand it any more.”

  Miles tried again. “If you withdraw your request for political asylum in the Union before the quaddies reject it, it might still be folded into your present legal ambiguity and made to disappear, without further prejudice to your career. If you don't withdraw it first, the desertion charge will certainly stick, and do you vast damage.”

  Corbeau looked up and said anxiously, “Doesn't this firefight that Brun's patrol had with the quaddie security here make it in the heat? The Prince Xav 's surgeon said it probably did.”