Miles, Mutants, and Microbes

by Lois McMaster Bujold

  It had been some years since Miles had last glimpsed Bel nude, in a field shower or donning or divesting space armor in a mercenary warship locker room. Fifty-something wasn't old, for a Betan, but still, gravity was clearly gaining on Bel. On all of us. In their Dendarii days Bel had taken out its unrequited lust for Miles in a series of half-joking passes, half-regretfully declined. Miles repented his younger sexual reticence altogether, now. Profoundly. We should have taken our chances back then, when we were young and beautiful and didn't even know it. And Bel had been beautiful, in its own ironic way, living and moving at ease in a body athletic, healthy, and trim.

  Bel's skin was blotched, mottled red and pale; the herm's flesh, sliding and turning in the ice bath under Miles's anxious hands, had an odd texture, by turns swollen tight or bruised like crushed fruit. Miles called Bel's name, tried his best old Admiral Naismith Commands You voice, told a bad joke, all without penetrating the herm's glazed stupor. It was a bad idea to cry in a biotainer suit, almost as bad as throwing up in a pressure suit. You couldn't blot your eyes, or wipe your snot.

  And when someone touched you unexpectedly on the shoulder, you jumped as though shot, and they looked at you funny, through their faceplate and yours.

  "Lord Auditor Vorkosigan, are you all right?" said the Prince Xav's biotainer-swaddled surgeon, as he knelt beside him at the vat's edge.

  Miles swallowed for self-control. "I'm fine, so far. This herm's in a very bad way. I don't know what they've told you about all this."

  "I was told that I might be dealing with a possible Cetagandan-designed bioweapon in hot mode, that had killed three so far with one survivor. The part about there being a survivor made me really wonder about the first assertion."

  "Ah, you didn't get a chance to see Guppy yet, then." Miles took a breath and ran through a brief recap of Gupta's tale, or at least the pertinent biological aspects of it. As he spoke, his hands never stopped shoving Bel's arms and legs back down, or ladling watery ice cubes over the herm's burning head and neck. He finished, "I don't know if it was Gupta's amphibian genetics, or something he did, that allowed him to survive this hell-shit when his friends didn't. Guppy said their dead flesh steamed. I don't know what all this heat's coming from, but it can't be just fever. I couldn't duplicate the Jacksonian's bioengineering, but I thought I could at least duplicate the water tank trick. Wild-assed empiricism, but I didn't think there was much time."

  A gloved hand reached past him to raise Bel's eyelids, touch the herm here and there, press and probe. "I see that."

  "It's really important"—Miles took another gulp of air to stabilize his voice—"it's really important that this patient survive. Thorne's not just any stationer. Bel was . . ." He realized he didn't know the surgeon's security clearance. "Having the portmaster die on our watch would be a diplomatic disaster. Another one, that is. And . . . and the herm saved my life yesterday. I owe—Barrayar owes—"

  "My lord, we'll do our best. I have my top squad here; we'll take over now. Please, my Lord Auditor, if you could please step out and let your man decontaminate you?"

  Another suited figure, doctor or medtech, appeared through the bathroom door and held out a tray of instruments to the surgeon. Perforce Miles moved aside, as the first sampling needle plunged past him into Bel's unresponsive flesh. No room left in here even for his shortness, he had to admit. He withdrew.

  The spare ward bunk had been turned into a lab bench. A third biotainer-clad figure was rapidly shifting what looked a promising array of equipment from boxes and bins piled high on a float pallet onto this makeshift surface. The second tech returned from the bathroom and started feeding bits of Bel into the various chemical and molecular analyzers on one end of the bunk even as the third man arranged more devices on the other.

  Roic's tall, pressure-suited figure stood waiting just past the molecular barriers across the ward door. He was holding a high-powered laser-sonic decontaminator, familiar Barrayaran military issue. He raised an inviting hand; Miles returned the acknowledgment.

  Nothing further was to be gained in here by dithering more at the medical squad. He'd just distract them and get in their way. He suppressed his unstrung urge to explain to them Bel's superior right, by old valor and love, to survive. Futile. He might as well rail at the microbes themselves. Even the Cetagandans had not yet devised a weapon that triaged for virtue before slaughtering its victims.

  I promised to call Nicol. God, why did I promise that? Learning Bel's present status would surely be more terrifying for her than knowing nothing. He would wait a little longer, at least till he received the first report from the surgeon. If there was hope by then, he could impart it. If there was none . . .

  He stepped slowly through the buzzing molecular barrier, raising his arms to turn about beneath the even stronger sonic-scrubber/laser-dryer beam from Roic's decontaminator. He had Roic treat every part of him, including palms, fingers, the soles of his feet, and, nervously, the insides of his thighs. The suit protected him from what would otherwise be a nasty scorching, leaving skin pink and hair exploded off. He didn't motion Roic to desist till they'd gone over each square centimeter. Twice.

  Roic pointed to Miles's control vambrace and bellowed through his faceplate, "I have the ship's com link relay up and running now, m'lord. You should be able to hear me through Channel Twelve, if you'll switch over. T'medics are all on Thirteen."

  Hastily, Miles switched on the suit com. "Can you hear me?"

  Roic's voice sounded now beside his ear. "Yes, m'lord. Much better."

  "Have we blown the tube seals and pulled away from the docking clamps yet?"

  Roic looked faintly chagrined. "No, m'lord." At Miles's chin raised in inquiry, he added, "Um . . . you see, there's only me. I've never piloted a jumpship."

  "Unless you're actually jumping, it's just like a shuttle," Miles assured him. "Only bigger."

  "I've never piloted a shuttle, either."

  "Ah. Well, come on, then. I'll show you how."

  They threaded their way to Nav and Com; Roic tapped their passage through the code locks. All right, Miles admitted, looking around at the various station chairs and their control banks, so it was a big ship. It was only going to be a ten-meter flight. He was a bit out of practice even on pods and shuttles, but really, given some of the pilots he'd known, how hard could it be?

  Roic watched in earnest admiration while he concealed his hunt for the tube seal controls—ah, there. It took three tries to get in touch with station traffic control, and then with Docks and Locks—if only Bel had been here, he would have instantly delegated this task to . . . He bit his lip, rechecking the all-clear from the loading bay—it would be the cap on this mission's multitude of embarrassments to pull away from the station yanking out the docking clamps, decompressing the loading bay, and killing some unknown number of quaddie patrollers on guard therein. He scooted from the communications station to the pilot's chair, shoving the jump helmet up out of the way and clenching his gloved hands briefly before activating the manual controls. A little gentle pressure from the side verniers, a little patience, and a countering thrust from the opposite side left the vast bulk of the Idris floating in space a neat stone's throw from the side of Graf Station. Not that a stone thrown out there would do anything but keep on going forever . . .

  No bio-plague can cross that gap, he thought with satisfaction, then instantly thought of what the Cetagandans might do with spores. I hope.

  It occurred to him belatedly that if the Prince Xav's surgeon sounded an all-clear from the biocontamination alert, docking once again was going to be a critically more delicate task. Well, if he clears the ship, we can import a pilot then. He glanced at the time on a wall digital. Barely an hour had passed since they'd found Bel. It seemed a century.

  "You're a pilot, as well?" a surprised, muffled female voice sounded.

  Miles swung around in the pilot's chair to find the three quaddies in their floaters hovering in the control room's doorway. All now w
ore quaddie-shaped biotainer suits in pale medical green. His eye rapidly sorted them out. Venn was bulkier, Sealer Greenlaw a little shorter. Adjudicator Leutwyn brought up the rear.

  "Only in an emergency," he admitted. "Where did you get the suits?"

  "My people sent them across from the station in a drone pod," said Venn. He, too, wore his stunner holstered on the outside of his suit.

  Miles would have preferred to keep the civilians safely locked down in the freight nacelle, but there was clearly no help for that now.

  "Which is still attached to the lock, yes," Venn overrode Miles's opening mouth.

  "Thank you," said Miles meekly.

  He wanted desperately to rub his face and scrub his itching eyes, but couldn't. What was next? Had he done all he could to contain this thing? His eye fell on the decontaminator, slung over Roic's shoulder. It would probably be a good idea to take that back down to Engineering and sterilize their tracks.

  "M'lord?' said Roic diffidently.

  "Yes, Armsman?"

  "I been thinking. The night guard saw the portmaster and the ba enter the ship, but nobody reported anybody leaving. We found Thorne. I was wondering how the ba got off the ship."

  "Thank you, Roic, yes. And how long ago. Good question to pursue next."

  "Whenever one of the Idris's hatches opens, its lock vid recorders start up automatically. We should ought to be able to access t'lock records from here, I'd think, same as from Solian's security office." Roic cast a somewhat desperate eye around the intimidating array of stations. "Somewhere."

  "We should indeed." Miles abandoned the pilot's chair for the flight engineer's station. A little poking among the controls, and a short delay while one of Roic's library of override codes pacified the lockdowns, and Miles was able to bring up a duplicate file of the sort of airlock security records they'd found in Solian's office and spent so many bleary-eyed hours studying. He set the search to present the data in reverse order of time.

  The most recent usage was first up on the vid plate, a nice shot of the automated drone pod docking at the outboard personnel lock serving the number two freight nacelle. An anxious-looking Venn scooted into the lock in his floater. He shuttled in and out handing back green suits folded in plastic bags to waiting hands, plus an assortment of other objects: a big box of first aid supplies, a tool kit, a decontaminator somewhat resembling Roic's, and what might be some weapons with rather more authority than stunners. Miles cut the scene short and sent the search back in time.

  Mere minutes before that was the Barrayaran military medical patrol arriving in a small shuttle from the Prince Xav, entering via one of the number four nacelle personnel locks. The three medical officers and Roic were all clearly identifiable, hastily unloading equipment.

  A freight lock in one of the Necklin drive nacelles popped up next, and Miles caught his breath. A figure in a bulky extravehicular-repairs suit marked with serial numbers from the Idris's engineering section lumbered heavily past the vid pickup, and departed into the vacuum with a brief puff of suit jets. The quaddies bobbing at Miles's shoulder murmured and pointed; Greenlaw muffled an exclamation, and Venn choked on a curse.

  The next record back in time was of themselves—the three quaddies, Miles, and Roic—entering the ship from the loading bay for their inspection, however many hours ago it had been. Miles tapped instantly back to the mystery figure in the engineering suit. What time . . . ?

  Roic exclaimed, "Look, m'lord! He—it—was getting away not twenty minutes before we found t'portmaster! The ba must've still been aboard when we came on!" Even through his faceplate, his face took on a greenish tinge.

  Had Bel's conundrum in the bod pod been a fiendishly engineered delaying tactic? Miles wondered if the knotted feeling in his stomach and tightness in his throat could be the first sign of a bioengineered plague. . . .

  "Is that our suspect?" asked Leutwyn anxiously. "Where did he go?"

  "What is the range on those heavy suits of yours, do you know, Lord Auditor?" asked Venn urgently.

  "Those? Not sure. They're meant to allow men to work outside the ship for hours at a time, so I'd guess, if they were fully topped up with oxygen, propellant, and power . . . damned near the range of a small personnel pod." The engineering repair suits resembled military space armor, except with an array of built-in tools instead of built-in weapons. Too heavy for even a strong man to walk in, they were fully powered. The ba might have ridden in one around to any point on Graf Station. Worse, the ba might have ridden out to a mid-space pickup by some Cetagandan co-agent, or perhaps by some bribed or simply bamboozled local helper. The ba might be thousands of kilometers away by now, with the gap widening every second. Heading for entry to another quaddie habitat under yet another faked identity, or even for rendezvous with a passing jumpship and escape from Quaddiespace altogether.

  "Station Security is on full emergency alert," said Venn. "I have all my patrollers and all of the Sealer's militia on duty out looking for the fellow—the person. Dubauer can't have gotten back aboard the station unobserved." A tremor of doubt in Venn's voice undercut the certainty of this statement.

  "I've ordered the station onto a full biocontamination quarantine," said Greenlaw. "All incoming ships and vehicles have been waved off or diverted to Union, and none now in dock are cleared to leave. If the fugitive did get back aboard already—it isn't leaving." Judging by the sealer's congealed expression, she was by no means sure if this was a good thing. Miles sympathized. Fifty thousand potential hostages . . . "If it's fled somewhere else . . . if our people can't locate this fugitive promptly, I'm going to have to extend the quarantine throughout Quaddiespace."

  What would be the most important task for the ba, now that the flag had been dropped? It had to realize that the tight secrecy it had relied on for protection thus far was irremediably ruptured. Did it realize how close on its heels its pursuers had come? Would it still wish to murder Gupta to assure the Jacksonian smuggler's silence? Or would it abandon that hunt, cut losses, and run if it could? Which direction was it trying to move, back in, or out?

  Miles's eye fell on the vid image of the work suit, frozen above the plate. Did that suit have the kind of telemetry space armor did? More to the point—did it have the kind of remote control overrides some space armor did?

  "Roic! When you were down in the engineering suit lockers hunting for that pressure suit, did you see an automated command-and-control station for these powered repair units?"

  "I . . . there's a control room down there, yes, m'lord. I passed it. I don't know what all might be in it."

  "I have an idea. Follow me."

  He levered himself from the station chair and left Nav and Com at a sloppy jog, his biotainer suit sliding aggravatingly around him. Roic strode after; the curious quaddies followed in their floaters.

  The control room was scarcely more than a booth, but it featured a telemetry station for exterior maintenance and repairs. Miles slid into its station chair, and cursed the tall person who'd fixed it at a height that left his boots dangling in air. On permanent display were several real-time vid shots of critical portions of the ship's outlying anatomy, including directional antenna arrays, the mass shield generator, and the main normal-space thrusters. Miles sorted through a bewildering mess of data from structural safety sensors scattered throughout the ship. Finally, the work suit control program came up.

  Six suits in the array. Miles called up visual telemetry from their helmet vids. Five returned views of blank walls, the insides of their respective storage lockers. The sixth returned a lighter image, but more puzzling, of a curving wall. It remained as static as the vistas from the suits in storage.

  Miles pinged the suit for full telemetry download. The suit was powered up but quiescent. The medical sensors were basic, just heart rate and respiration—and turned off. The life-support readouts claimed the rebreather was fully functional, the interior humidity and temperature were exactly on-spec, but the system appeared to be supporting n
o load.

  "It can't be very far away," Miles said over his shoulder to his hovering audience. "There's zero time lag in my com linkup."

  "That's a relief," sighed Greenlaw.

  "Is it?" muttered Leutwyn. "Who for?"

  Miles stretched shoulders aching with tension, and bent again to the displays. The powered suit had to have an exterior control override somewhere; it was a common safety feature on these civilian models, in case its occupant should suddenly become injured, ill, or incapacitated . . . ah. There.

  "What are you doing, m'lord?" asked Roic uneasily.

  "I believe I can take control of the suit via the emergency overrides, and bring it back aboard."

  "Wit' t' ba inside? Is that a good idea?"

  "We'll know in a moment."

  He gripped the joysticks, slippery under his gloves, gained control of the suit's jets, and tried a gentle puff. The suit slowly began to move, scraping along the wall and then turning away. The puzzling view resolved itself—he was looking at the outside of the Idris itself. The suit had been hidden, tucked in the angle between two nacelles. No one inside the suit fought back at this hijacking. A new and extremely disturbing thought crept up on Miles.