Miles, Mutants, and Microbes

by Lois McMaster Bujold

  Miles blinked in surprise. When, under his old covert ops identity, he had run a supposedly independent mercenary fleet for ImpSec's galactic operations, Fleet Legal had been a major department; just negotiating the peaceful passage of armed ships through all the varied local space legal jurisdictions had been a full-time job of nightmarish complexity. "Ensign." Miles returned the nod, and chose his wording carefully. "You, ah . . . would seem to have a considerable responsibility, for your rank and age."

  Deslaurier cleared his throat, and said in a nearly inaudible voice, "Our department chief was sent home earlier in the voyage, my Lord Auditor. Compassionate leave. His mother'd died."

  I think I'm getting the drift of this already. "This your first galactic voyage, by chance?"

  "Yes, my lord."

  Vorpatril put in, possibly mercifully, "I and my staff are entirely at your disposal, my Lord Auditor, and are ready with our reports as you requested. Would you care to follow me to our briefing room?"

  "Yes, thank you, Admiral."

  Some shuffling and ducking through the corridors brought the party to a standard military briefing room: bolted-down holovid-equipped table and station chairs, friction matting underfoot harboring the faint musty odor of a sealed and gloomy chamber that never enjoyed sunlight or fresh air. The place smelled military. Miles suppressed the urge to take a long, nostalgic inhalation, for old times' sake. At his hand signal, Roic took up an impassive guard's stance just inside the door. The rest waited for him to seat himself, then disposed themselves around the table, Vorpatril on his left, Deslaurier as far away as possible.

  Vorpatril, displaying a clear understanding of the etiquette of the situation, or at least some sense of self-preservation, began, "So. How may we serve you, my Lord Auditor?"

  Miles tented his hands on the table. "I am an Auditor; my first task is to listen. If you please, Admiral Vorpatril, describe for me the course of events from your point of view. How did you arrive at this impasse?"

  "From my point of view?" Vorpatril grimaced. "It started out seeming no more than the usual one damned thing after another. We were supposed to be in dock here at Graf Station for five days, for contracted cargo and passenger transfers. Since there was no reason at that time to think that the quaddies were hostile, I granted as many station leaves as possible, which is standard procedure."

  Miles nodded. The purposes of Barrayaran military escorts for Komarran ships ranged from overt to subtle to never-spoken. Overtly, escorts rode along to repel hijackers from the cargo vessels and supply the military part of the fleet with maneuvering experience scarcely less valuable than war games. More subtly, the ventures provided opportunity for all sorts of intelligence gathering—economic, political, and social, as well as military. And it provided cadres of young provincial Barrayaran men, future officers and future civilians, with seasoning contact with the wider galactic culture. On the never-spoken side were the lingering tensions between Barrayarans and Komarrans, legacy of the, in Miles's view, fully justified conquest of the latter by the former a generation ago. It was the Emperor's express policy to move from a stance of occupation to one of full political and social assimilation between the two planets. That process was proving slow and rocky.

  Vorpatril continued, "The Toscane Corporation's ship Idris put into dock for jump drive adjustments, and ran into unexpected complications when they pulled things apart. Repaired parts failed to pass calibration tests when reinstalled and were sent back to the Station shops for refabrication. Five days became ten, while that bickering was going back and forth. Then Lieutenant Solian turned up missing."

  "Do I understand correctly that the lieutenant was the Barrayaran security liaison officer aboard the Idris?" Miles said. Fleet beat cop, charged with maintaining peace and order among crew and passengers, keeping an eye out for any illegal or threatening activities or suspicious persons—not a few historic hijackings were inside jobs—and being first line of defense in counterintelligence. More quietly, keeping an ear out for potential disaffection among the Emperor's Komarran subjects. Obliged to render all possible assistance to the ship in physical emergencies, coordinating evacuation or rescue with the military escort. Liaison officer was a job that could shift from yawningly boring to lethally demanding in an eyeblink.

  Captain Brun spoke for the first time. "Yes, my lord."

  Miles turned to him. "One of your people, was he? How would you describe Lieutenant Solian?"

  "He was newly assigned," Brun answered, then hesitated. "I did not have a close personal acquaintance with him, but all his prior personnel evaluations gave him high marks."

  Miles glanced at the cargomaster. "Did you know him, sir?"

  "We met a few times," said Molino. "I mostly stayed aboard the Rudra, but my impression of him was that he was friendly and competent. He seemed to get along well with crew and passengers. Quite the walking advertisement for assimilation."

  "Excuse me?"

  Vorpatril cleared his throat. "Solian was Komarran, my lord."

  "Ah." Argh. The reports hadn't mentioned this wrinkle. Komarrans were but lately permitted admittance into the Barrayaran Imperial Service; the first generation of such officers was handpicked, and on their marks to prove their loyalty and competence. The Emperor's pets, Miles had heard at least one Barrayaran fellow-officer describe them in covert disgruntlement. The success of this integration was a high personal priority of Gregor's. Admiral Vorpatril certainly knew it, too. Miles moved the mysterious fate of Solian up a few notches in his mental list of most-urgent priorities.

  "What were the circumstances of his original disappearance?"

  Brun answered, "Very quiet, my lord. He signed off-shift in the usual manner, and never showed up for his next watch. When his cabin was finally checked, it seemed that some of his personal effects and a valise were missing, although most of his uniforms were left. There was no record of his finally leaving the ship, but then . . . he'd know how to get out without being seen if anyone could. Which is why I posit desertion. The ship was very thoroughly searched after that. He has to have altered the records, or slipped out with the cargo, or something."

  "Any sense that he was unhappy in his work or place?"

  "Not—no, my lord. Nothing special."

  "Anything not special?"

  "Well, there was the usual chronic chaff about being a Komarran in this"—Brun gestured at himself—"uniform. I suppose, where he was placed, he was in position to get it from both sides."

  We're trying to all be one side, now. Miles decided this was not the time or place to pursue the unconscious assumptions behind Brun's word-choice. "Cargomaster Molino—do you have any sidelights on this? Was Solian subject to, ah, reproof from his fellow Komarrans?"

  Molino shook his head. "The man seemed to be well liked by the crew of the Idris as far as I could tell. Stuck to business, didn't get into arguments."

  "Nevertheless, I gather that your first . . . impression, was that he had deserted?"

  "It seemed possible," Brun admitted. "I'm not casting aspersions, but he was Komarran. Maybe he'd found it tougher than he thought it would be. Admiral Vorpatril disagreed," he added scrupulously.

  Vorpatril waved a hand in a gesture of judicious balance. "The more reason not to think desertion. High command's been pretty careful of what Komarrans they admit to the Service. They don't want public failures."

  "In any case," said Brun, "we put all our own security people on alert to search for him, and asked for help from the Graf Station authorities. Which they were not especially eager to offer. They just kept repeating they'd had no sign of him in either the gravity or null-gee sections, and no record of anyone of his description leaving the station on their local-space carriers."

  "And then what happened?"

  Admiral Vorpatril answered, "Time ran on. Repairs on the Idris were completed and signed off. Pressure," he eyed Molino without favor, "grew to leave Graf Station and continue on the planned route. Me—I don't leave my men behind
if I can help it."

  Molino said, rather through his teeth, "It made no economic sense to tie up the entire fleet over one man. You might have left one light vessel or even a small team of investigators to pursue the matter, to follow on when they were concluded, and let the rest continue."

  "I also have standing orders not to split the fleet," said Vorpatril, his jaw tightening.

  "But we haven't suffered a hijacking attempt in this sector for decades," argued Molino. Miles felt he was witnessing round n-plus-one of an ongoing debate.

  "Not since Barrayar began providing you with free military escorts," said Vorpatril, with false cordiality. "Odd coincidence, that." His voice grew firmer. "I don't leave my men. I swore that at the Escobar debacle, back when I was a milk-faced ensign." He glanced at Miles. "Under your father's command, as it happened."

  Uh-oh. This could be trouble. . . . Miles let his brows climb in curiosity. "What was your experience there, sir?"

  Vorpatril snorted reminiscently. "I was a junior pilot on a combat drop shuttle, orphaned when our mothership was blown to hell by the Escos in high orbit. I suppose if we'd made it back during the retreat, we'd have been blown up with her, but still. Nowhere to dock, nowhere to run, even the few surviving ships that had an open docking cradle not pausing for us, a couple of hundred men on board including wounded—it was a right nightmare, let me tell you."

  Miles felt the admiral had barely clipped off a "son," at the end of that last sentence.

  Miles said cautiously, "I'm not sure Admiral Vorkosigan had much choice left, by the time he inherited command of the invasion after the death of Prince Serg."

  "Oh, none at all," Vorpatril agreed, with another wave of his hand. "I'm not saying the man didn't do all he could with what he had. But he couldn't do it all, and I was among those sacrificed. Spent almost a year in an Escobaran prison camp, before the negotiators finally got me mustered home. The Escobarans didn't make it a holiday for us, I can tell you that."

  It could have been worse. You might have been a female Escobaran prisoner of war in one of our camps. Miles decided not to suggest this exercise of the imagination to the admiral just now. "I would expect not."

  "All I'm saying is, I know what it is to be abandoned, and I won't do it to men of mine for any trivial reason." His narrow glance at the cargomaster made it clear that evaporating Komarran corporate profits did not qualify as a weighty enough reason for this violation of principle. "Events proved—" He hesitated, and rephrased himself. "For a time, I thought events had proved me right."

  "For a time," Miles echoed. "Not any more?"

  "Now . . . well . . . what happened next was pretty . . . pretty disturbing. There was an unauthorized cycling of a personnel airlock in the Graf Station cargo bay next to where the Idris was locked on. No ship or personnel pod was sighted at it, however—the tube seals weren't activated. By the time the Station security guard got there, the bay was empty. But there was a quantity of blood on the floor, and signs of something dragged to the lock. The blood came up on testing as Solian's. It looked like he was trying to make it back to the Idris, and someone jumped him."

  "Someone who didn't leave footprints," added Brun darkly.

  At Miles's inquiring look, Vorpatril explained, "In the gravitational areas where the downsiders stay, the quaddies buzz around in these little personal floaters. They operate 'em with their lower hands, leaving their upper arms free. No footprints. No feet, for that matter."

  "Ah, yes. I understand," said Miles. "Blood, but no body—has a body been found?"

  "Not yet," said Brun.

  "Searched for?"

  "Oh, yes. In all the possible trajectories."

  "I suppose it's occurred to you that a deserter might try to fake his own murder or suicide, to free himself from pursuit."

  "I might have thought that," said Brun, "but I saw the loading bay floor. No one could lose that much blood and live. There must have been three or four liters at least."

  Miles shrugged. "The first step in emergency cryonic prep is to exsanguinate the patient and replace his blood with cryo-fluid. That can easily leave several liters of blood on the floor, and the victim—well, potentially alive." He'd had close personal experience of the process, or so Elli Quinn and Bel Thorne had told him afterward, on that Dendarii Free Mercenary mission that had gone so disastrously wrong. Granted, he didn't remember that part, except through Bel's extremely vivid description.

  Brun's brows flicked up. "I hadn't thought of that."

  "It rather sprang to my mind," said Miles apologetically. I could show you the scars.

  Brun frowned, then shook his head. "I don't think there would have been time before Station security arrived on the scene."

  "Even if a portable cryochamber was standing ready?"

  Brun opened his mouth, then closed it again. He finally said, "It's a complicated scenario, my lord."

  "I don't insist on it," said Miles easily. He considered the other end of the cryo-revival process. "Except that I'd also point out that there are other sources of several liters of nice fresh one's-own-personal blood besides a victim's body. Such as a revival lab's or hospital's synthesizer. The product would certainly light up a cursory DNA scan. You couldn't even call it a false positive, exactly. A bio-forensics lab could tell the difference, though. Traces of cryo-fluid would be obvious, too, if only someone thought to look for them." He added wistfully, "I hate circumstantial evidence. Who ran the identification check on the blood?"

  Brun shifted uncomfortably. "The quaddies. We'd downloaded Solian's DNA scan to them when he first went missing. But the security liaison officer from the Rudra had gone over by then—he was right there in the bay watching their tech. He reported the match to me as soon as the analyzer beeped. That's when I podded across to look at it all myself."

  "Did he collect another sample to cross-check?"

  "I . . . believe so. I can ask the fleet surgeon if he received one before, um, other events overtook us."

  Admiral Vorpatril sat looking unpleasantly stunned. "I thought certainly poor Solian was murdered. By some—" He fell silent.

  "It doesn't sound as though that hypothesis is ruled out either, yet," Miles consoled him. "In any case, you honestly believed it at the time. Have your fleet surgeon examine his samples more thoroughly, please, and report to me."

  "And to Graf Station Security, too?"

  "Ah . . . maybe not them yet." Even if the results were negative, the query would only serve to stir up more quaddie suspicions about Barrayarans. And if they were positive . . . Miles wanted to think about that first. "At any rate, what happened next?"

  "That Solian was himself Fleet Security made his murder—apparent murder—seem especially sinister," Vorpatril admitted. "Had he been trying to get back with some warning? We couldn't tell. So I canceled all leaves, went to alert status, and ordered all ships to detach from dockside."

  "With no explanation of why," put in Molino.

  Vorpatril glowered at him. "During an alert, a commander does not stop to explain orders. He expects to be instantly obeyed. Besides, the way you people had been champing at the bit, complaining about the delays, I hardly thought I'd need to repeat myself." A muscle jumped in his jaw; he inhaled and returned to his narrative. "At this point, we suffered something of a communications breakdown."

  Here comes the smokescreen, at last.

  "Our understanding was that a two-man security patrol, sent to retrieve an officer who was late reporting in—"

  "That would be Ensign Corbeau?"

  "Yes. Corbeau. As we understood it at the time, the patrol and the ensign were attacked, disarmed, and detained by quaddies. The real story as it emerged later was more complex, but that was what I had to go on as I was trying to clear Graf Station of all our personnel and stand off for any contingency up to immediate evacuation from local space."

  Miles leaned forward. "Did you believe it to be random quaddies who had seized your men, or did you understand it to have b
een Graf Station Security?"

  Vorpatril didn't quite grind his teeth, but almost. He answered nonetheless, "Yes, we knew it was their security."

  "Did you ask your legal officer to advise you?"

  "No."

  "Did Ensign Deslaurier volunteer advice?"

  "No, my lord," Deslaurier managed to whisper.

  "I see. Go on."

  "I ordered Captain Brun to send a strike patrol in to retrieve, now, three men from a situation that I believed had just proved lethally dangerous to Barrayaran personnel."

  "Armed with rather more than stunners, I understand?"

  "I couldn't ask my men to go up against those numbers with only stunners, my lord," said Brun. "There are a million of those mutants out there!"

  Miles let his brows climb. "On Graf Station? I thought its resident population was around fifty thousand. Civilians."