Am I going to live long enough to say good-bye to Ekaterin? A good-bye kiss was right out, unless they pressed their lips to opposite sides of some really thick window of glass. He had so much to say to her; it seemed impossible to find where to start. Even more impossible by voice alone, over an open, unsecured public com link. Take care of the kids. Kiss them for me every night at bedtime, and tell them I loved them even if I never saw them. You won't be alone—my parents will help you. Tell my parents . . . tell them . . .
Was this damned thing starting up already, or were the hot panic and choking tears in his throat entirely self-induced? An enemy that attacked you from the inside out—you could try to turn yourself inside out to fight it, but you wouldn't succeed—filthy weapon! Open channel or not, I'm calling her now. . . .
Instead, Venn's voice sounded in his ear. "Lord Vorkosigan, pick up Channel Twelve. Your Admiral Vorpatril wants you. Badly."
Miles hissed through his teeth and keyed his helmet com over. "Vorkosigan here."
"Vorkosigan, you idiot—!" The admiral's syntax had shed a few honorifics sometime in the past hour. "What the hell is going on over there? Why don't you answer your wrist com?"
"It's inside my biotainer suit and inaccessible right now. I'm afraid I had to don the suit in a hurry. Be aware, this helmet link is an open access channel and unsecured, sir." Dammit, where did that sir drop in from? Habit, sheer old bad habit. "You can ask for a brief report from Captain Clogston over his military suit's tight-beam link, but keep it short. He's a very busy man right now, and I don't want him distracted."
Vorpatril swore—whether generally or at the Imperial Auditor was left nicely ambiguous—and clicked off.
Faintly echoing through the ship came the sound Miles had been waiting for—the distant clanks and hisses of airseal doors shutting down, sealing the ship into airtight sections. The quaddies had made it to Nav and Com, good! Except that Roic wasn't back yet. The armsman would have to get in touch with Venn and Greenlaw and get them to unseal and reseal his passage back up to—
"Vorkosigan." Venn's voice sounded again in his ear, strained. "Is that you?"
"Is what me?"
"Shutting off the compartments."
"Isn't it," Miles tried, and failed, to swallow his voice back down to a more reasonable pitch. "Aren't you in Nav and Com yet?"
"No, we circled back to the Number Two nacelle to pick up our equipment. We were just about to leave it."
Hope flared in Miles's hammering heart. "Roic," he called urgently. "Where are you?"
"Not in Nav and Com, m'lord," Roic's grim voice returned.
"But if we're here and he's there, who's doing this?" came Leutwyn's unhappy voice.
"Who do you think?" Greenlaw ripped back. Her breath huffed out in anguish. "Five people, and not one of us thought to see the door locked behind us when we left—dammit!"
A small, bleak grunt, like a man being hit with an arrow, or a realization, sounded in Miles's ear: Roic.
Miles said urgently, "Anyone who holds Nav and Com has access to all these ship-linked com channels, or will, shortly. We're going to have to switch off."
The quaddies had independent links to the station and Vorpatril through their suits; so did the medicos. Miles and Roic would be the ones plunged into communications limbo.
Then, abruptly, the sound in his helmet went dead. Ah. Looks like the ba has found the com controls. . . .
Miles leapt to the environmental control panel for the infirmary to the left of the door, opened it, and hit every manual override in it. With this outer door shut, they could retain air pressure, although circulation would be blocked. The medicos in their suits would be unaffected; Miles and Bel would be at risk. He eyed the bod pod locker on the wall without favor. The bio-sealed ward was already functioning on internal circulation, thank God, and could remain so—as long as the power stayed on. But how could they keep Bel cold if the herm had to retreat to a pod?
Miles hurried back into the ward. He approached Clogston, and yelled through his faceplate, "We just lost our ship-linked suit coms. Keep to your tight-beam military channels only."
"I heard," Clogston yelled back.
"How are you coming on that filter-cooler?"
"Cooler part's done. Still working on the filter. I wish I'd brought more hands, although there's scarcely room in here for more butts."
"I've almost got it, I think," called the tech, crouched over the bench. "Check that, will you, sir?" He waved in the direction of one of the analyzers, a collection of lights on its readout now blinking for attention.
Clogston dodged around him and bent to the machine in question. After a moment he murmured, "Oh, that's clever."
Miles, crowding his shoulder close enough to hear this, did not find it reassuring. "What's clever?"
Clogston pointed at his analyzer readout, which now displayed incomprehensible strings of letters and numbers in cheery colors. "I didn't see how the parasites could possibly survive in a matrix of that enzyme that ate your biotainer gloves. But they were microencapsulated."
"What?"
"Standard trick for delivering drugs through a hostile environment—like your stomach, or maybe your bloodstream—to the target zone. Only this time, used to deliver a disease. When the microencapsulation passes out of the unfriendly environment into the—chemically speaking—friendly zone, it pops open, releasing its load. No loss, no waste."
"Oh. Wonderful. Are you saying I now have the same shit Bel has?"
"Um." Clogston glanced up at a chrono on the wall. "How long since you were first exposed, my lord?"
Miles followed his glance. "Half an hour, maybe?"
"They might be detectable in your bloodstream by now."
"Check it."
"We'll have to open your suit to access a vein."
"Check it now. Fast."
Clogston grabbed a sampler needle; Miles peeled back the biotainer wrap from his left wrist, and gritted his teeth as a biocide swab stung and the needle poked. Clogston was pretty deft for a man wearing biotainer gloves, Miles had to concede. He watched anxiously as the surgeon delicately slipped the needle into the analyzer.
"How long will this take?"
"Now that we have the template of the thing, no time at all. If it's positive, that is. If this first sample shows negative, I'd want a recheck every thirty minutes or so to be sure." Clogston's voice slowed, as he studied his readout. "Well. Um. A recheck won't be necessary."
"Right," Miles snarled. He yanked open his helmet and pushed back his suit sleeve. He bent to his secured wrist com and snapped, "Vorpatril!"
"Yes!" Vorpatril's voice came back instantly. Riding his com channels—he must be on duty in either the Prince Xav's own Nav and Com, or maybe, by now, its tactics room. "Wait, what are you doing on this channel? I thought you had no access."
"The situation has changed. Never mind that now. What's happening out there?"
"What's happening in there?"
"The medical team, Portmaster Thorne, and I are holed up in the infirmary. For the moment, we're still in control of our environment. I believe Venn, Greenlaw, and Leutwyn are trapped in the Number Two freight nacelle. Roic may be somewhere in Engineering. And the ba, I believe, has seized Nav and Com. Can you confirm that last?"
"Oh, yes," groaned Vorpatril. "It's talking to the quaddies on Graf Station right now. Making threats and demands. Boss Watts seems to have inherited their hot seat. I have a strike team scrambling."
"Patch it in here. I have to hear this."
A few seconds delay, then the ba's voice sounded. The Betan accent was gone; the academic coolness was fraying. "—name does not matter. If you wish to get the Sealer, the Imperial Auditor, and the others back alive, these are my requirements. A jump pilot for this ship, delivered immediately. Free and unimpeded passage from your system. If either you or the Barrayarans attempt to launch a military assault against the Idris, I will either blow up the ship with all aboard, or ram the station."
Boss Watts's voice returned, thick with tension, "If you attempt to ram Graf Station, we'll blow you up ourselves."
"Either way will do," the ba's voice returned dryly.
Did the ba know how to blow up a jumpship? It wasn't exactly easy. Hell, if the Cetagandan was a hundred years old, who know what all it knew how to do? Ramming, now—with a target that big and close, any layman could manage it.
Greenlaw's stiff voice cut in; her com link presumably was patched through to Watts in the same way that Miles's was to Vorpatril. "Don't do it, Watts. Quaddiespace cannot let a plague-carrier like this pass through to our neighbors. A handful of lives can't justify the risk to thousands."
"Indeed," the ba continued after a slight hesitation, still in that same cool tone. "If you do succeed in killing me, I'm afraid you will win yourselves another dilemma. I have left a small gift aboard the station. The experiences of Gupta and Portmaster Thorne should give you an idea of what sort of package it is. You might find it before it ruptures, although I'd say your odds are poor. Where are your thousands now? Much closer to home."
True threat or bluff? Miles wondered frantically. It certainly fit the ba's style as demonstrated so far—Bel in the bod pod, the booby trap with the suit-control joysticks—hideous, lethal puzzles tossed out in the ba's wake to disrupt and distract its pursuers. It sure worked on me, anyway.
Vorpatril cut in privately on the wrist com, in an unnecessarily lowered, tense tone, overriding the exchange between the ba and Watts. "Do you think the bastard's bluffing, m'lord?"
"Doesn't matter if it's bluffing or not. I want it alive. Oh, God do I ever want it alive. Take that as a top priority and an order in the Emperor's Voice, Admiral."
After a small and, Miles hoped, thoughtful pause, Vorpatril returned, "Understood, my Lord Auditor."
"Ready your strike team, yes . . ." Vorpatril's best strike force was locked in quaddie detention. What was the second best one like? Miles's heart quailed. "But hold it. This situation is extremely unstable. I don't have any clear sense yet how it will play out. Put the ba's channel back on." Miles returned his attention to the negotiation in progress—no—winding up?
"A jump pilot." The ba seemed to be reiterating. "Alone, in a personnel pod, to the Number Five B lock. And, ah—naked." Horribly, there seemed to be a smile in that last word. "For obvious reasons."
The ba cut the com.
Chapter 16
i>Now what?
Delays, Miles guessed, while the quaddies on Graf Station either readied a pilot or ran the risks of stalling about delivering one into such a hazard, and suppose none volunteered? While Vorpatril marshaled his strike team, while the three quaddie officials trapped in the freight nacelle—well, didn't sit on their hands, Miles bet—while this infection gains on me, while the ba did—what?
Delay is not my friend.
But it was his gift. What time was it, anyway? Late evening—still the same day that had started so early with the news of Bel's disappearance? Yes, though it hardly felt possible. Surely he had entered some time warp. Miles stared at his wrist com, took a deep, terrified breath, and called up Ekaterin's code. Had Vorpatril told her anything of what was happening yet, or had he kept her comfortably ignorant?
"Miles!" she answered at once.
"Ekaterin, love. Where, um . . . are you?"
"The tactics room, with Admiral Vorpatril."
Ah. That answered that question. In a way, he was relieved that he didn't have to deliver the whole litany of bad news himself, cold. "You've been following this, then."
"More or less. It's been very confusing."
"I'll bet. I . . ." He couldn't say it, not so baldly. He dodged, while he mustered courage. "I promised to call Nicol when I had news of Bel, and I haven't had a chance. The news, as you may know, is not good; we found Bel, but the herm has been deliberately infected with a bioengineered Cetagandan parasite that may . . . may prove lethal."
"Yes, I understand. I've been hearing it all, here in the tactics room."
"Good. The medics are doing their best, but it's a race against time and now there are these other complications. Will you call Nicol and redeem my word for me? There's not no hope, but . . . she needs to know it doesn't look so good right now. Use your judgment how much to soften it."
"My judgment is that she should be told plain truth. The whole of Graf Station is in an uproar now, what with the quarantine and biocontamination alert. She needs to know exactly what's going on, and she has a right to know. I'll call her at once."
"Oh. Good. Thank you. I, um . . . you know I love you."
"Yes. Tell me something I don't know."
Miles blinked. This wasn't getting easier; he rushed it in a breath. "Well. There's a chance I may have screwed up pretty badly, here. Like, I may not get out of this one. The situation here is pretty unsettled, and, um . . . I'm afraid my biotainer suit gloves were sabotaged by a nasty little Cetagandan booby trap I triggered. I seem to have got myself infected with the same biohazard that's taken Bel down. The stuff doesn't appear to act very quickly, though."
In the background, he could just hear Admiral Vorpatril's voice, cursing in choice barracks language not at all consonant with the respect due to one of His Majesty Gregor Vorbarra's Imperial Auditors. From Ekaterin, silence; he strained to hear her breathing. The sound reproduction on these high-grade com links was so excellent, he could hear when she let her breath out again, through those pursed, exquisite warm lips he could not see or touch.
He began again. "I'm . . . I'm sorry that . . . I wanted to give you—this wasn't what I—I never wanted to bring you grief—"
"Miles. Stop that babbling at once."
"Oh . . . uh, yes?"
Her voice sharpened. "If you die on me out here, I will not be grieved, I will be pissed. This is all very fine, love, but may I point out that you don't have time to indulge in angst right now. You're the man who used to rescue hostages for a living. You are not allowed to not get out of this one. So stop worrying about me and start paying attention to what you are doing. Are you listening to me, Miles Vorkosigan? Don't you dare die! I won't have it!"
That seemed definitive. Despite everything, he grinned. "Yes, dear," he sang back meekly, heartened. This woman's Vor ancestoresses had defended bastions in war, oh, yes.
"So stop talking to me and get back to work. Right?"
She almost kept the shaken sob out of that last word.
"Hold the fort, love," he breathed, with all the tenderness he knew.
"Always." He could hear her swallow. "Always."
She cut her link. He took it as a hint.
Hostage rescue, eh? If you want something done right, do it yourself. Come to think of it, did this ba have any idea of what Miles's former line of work had been? Or did it assume Miles was just a diplomat, a bureaucrat, another frightened civilian? The ba could not know which of the party had triggered its booby trap on the repair suit remote controls, either. Not that this biotainer suit hadn't been useless for space assault purposes even before it had been buggered all to hell. But what tools were available here in this infirmary that might be put to uses their manufacturers had never envisioned? And what personnel?
The medical crew had military training, right enough, and discipline. They also were up to their collective elbows in other tasks of the highest priority. Miles's very last desire was to pull them away from their cramped, busy lab bench and critical patient care to go play commando with him. Although it may come to that. Thoughtfully, he began walking about the infirmary's outer chamber, opening drawers and cupboards and staring at their contents. A muddy fatigue was beginning to drag at his edgy, adrenaline-pumped high, and a headache was starting behind his eyes. He studiously ignored the terror of it.
He glanced through the blue light bars into the ward. The tech hurried from the bench, heading toward the bathroom with something in his hands that trailed looping tubes.
"Captain Clogston!" Miles called.
The
second suited figure turned. "Yes, my lord?"
"I'm shutting your inner door. It's supposed to close on its own in the event of a pressure change, but I'm not sure I trust any remote-controlled equipment on this ship at the moment. Are you prepared to move your patient into a bod pod, if necessary?"