"And your men in our detention cells?"
"You let one of them out. Are you sorry? Can you not allow Lieutenant Corbeau's courage to redeem his comrades? That has to be one of the bravest acts I've ever witnessed, him walking naked and knowing into horror to save Graf Station."
"That . . . yes. That was remarkable," she conceded. "By any people's standards." She regarded him thoughtfully. "You went in after the ba too."
"Mine doesn't count," Miles said automatically. "I was already . . ." he cut the word, dead. He was not, dammit, dead yet. "I was already infected."
Her brows rose in bemused curiosity. "And if you hadn't been, what would you have done?"
"Well . . . it was the tactical moment. I have a kind of gift for timing, you see."
"And for doubletalk."
"That, too. But the ba was just my job."
"Has anyone ever told you that you are quite mad?"
"Now and then," he admitted. Despite everything, a slow smile turned his lips. "Not so much since I was appointed an Imperial Auditor, though. Useful, that."
She snorted, very softly. Softening? Miles trotted out the next barrage. "My plea is humanitarian, too. It is my belief—my hope—that the Cetagandan haut ladies will have some treatment up their capacious sleeves for their own product. I propose to take Portmaster Thorne with us—at our expense—to share the cure that I now so desperately seek for myself. It's only justice. The herm was, in a sense, in my service when it took this harm. In my work gang, if you like."
"Huh. You Barrayarans do look after your own, at least. One of your few saving graces."
Miles opened his hands in an equally ambiguous acknowledgment of this mixed compliment. "Thorne and I both now labor under a deadline that waits on no committee debate, I'm afraid, and no one's permission. The present palliative," he gestured awkwardly at the blood filter, "buys a little time. As of this moment, no one knows if it will buy enough."
She rubbed her brow, as if it ached. "Yes, certainly . . . certainly you must . . . oh, hell." She took a breath. "All right. Take your prisoners and your evidence and the whole damned lot—and Thorne—and go."
"And Vorpatril's men in detention?"
"Them, too. Take them all away. Your ships can all go, bar the Idris." Her nose wrinkled in distaste. "But we will discuss the residue of your fines and expenses further, after the ship is evaluated by our inspectors. Later. Your government can send someone for the task. Not you, by preference."
"Thank you, Madame Sealer," Miles sang in relief. He cut the com, and collapsed back on his pillows. The ward seemed to be spinning around his head, very slowly, in short jerks. It wasn't, he decided after a moment, a problem with the room.
* * *
Captain Clogston, who had been waiting by the door for the Auditor to complete this high-level negotiation, advanced to glower at his cobbled-together blood filter some more. He then transferred his glower to Miles. "Seizure disorder, eh? I'm glad someone told me."
"Yes, well, we wouldn't want you to mistake it for an exotic new Cetagandan symptom. It's pretty routine. If it happens, don't panic. I come up on my own in about five minutes. Usually gives me a sort of hangover, afterwards, not that I'd be able to tell the difference at the moment. Never mind. What can you tell me about Lieutenant Corbeau?"
"We checked the ba's hypospray. It was filled with water."
"Ah! Good! I thought so." Miles smiled in wolfish satisfaction. "Can you pronounce him clear of bio-horrors, then?"
"Given that he's been running around this plague-ship bare-ass naked, not until we're sure we have identified all possible hazards that the ba might have released. But nothing came up on the first blood and tissue samples we took."
A hopeful—Miles tried not to think, overly optimistic—sign. "Can you send the lieutenant in to me? Is it safe? I want to talk to him."
"We now believe that what you and the herm have isn't virulently contagious through ordinary contact. Once we're sure the ship's clear of anything else, we'll all be able to get out of these suits, which will be a relief. Although the parasites might transfer sexually—we'll have to study that."
"I don't like Corbeau that much. Send him in, then."
Clogston gave Miles an odd look, and moved off. Miles wasn't sure if the captain had missed the feeble joke, or merely considered it too feeble to merit a response. But that transfer sexually theory kicked off a whole new cascade of unpleasant, unwelcome speculation in Miles's mind. What if the medicos found they could keep him alive indefinitely, but not get rid of the damned things? Would he never be able to touch any more of Ekaterin than her holovid image for the rest of his life . . . ? It also suggested a new set of questions to put to Guppy about his recent travels—well, the quaddie doctors were competent, and receiving copies of the Barrayarans' medical downloads; their epidemiologists were doubtless already on it.
Corbeau pushed through the bio-barriers. He was now somewhat desultorily arrayed in a disposable mask and gloves, in addition to the medical tunic and some patient slippers. Miles sat up, pushed away his tray, and unobtrusively twitched open his own tunic, letting the paling spiderweb of old needle-grenade scars silently suggest whatever they might to Corbeau.
"You asked for me, my Lord Auditor?" Corbeau ducked his head in a nervous jerk.
"Yes." Miles scratched his nose thoughtfully with his one free hand. "Well, hero. That was a very good career move you just made."
Corbeau hunched a little, mulishly. "I didn't do it for my career. Or for Barrayar. I did it for Graf Station, and the quaddies, and Garnet Five."
"And glad I am of it. Nevertheless, people will doubtless be wanting to pin gold stars on you. Cooperate with me, and I won't make you receive them in the costume you were wearing when you earned them."
Corbeau gave him a baffled, wary look.
What was the matter with all his jokes today, anyway? Flat, flatter, flattest. Maybe he was violating some sort of unwritten Auditor protocol, and messing up everyone else's lines.
The lieutenant said, in a notably uninviting voice, "What do you want me to do? My lord."
"More urgent concerns—to put it mildly—are going to compel me to leave Quaddiespace before my assigned diplomatic mission is quite complete. Nevertheless, with the true cause and course of our recent disasters here finally dragged out into the light, what follows should be easier." Besides, there's nothing like the threat of imminent death to force one to delegate. "It is very plain that Barrayar is overdue to have a full-time diplomatic consulate officer assigned to the Union of Free Habitats. A bright young man who . . ." is shacked up with a quaddie girl, no, married to, wait, that wasn't what they called it here, is partners with, yes, very likely, but it hadn't happened yet. Although Corbeau was thrice a fool if he didn't grab this opportunity to fix things with Garnet Five for good and all. "Likes quaddies," Miles continued smoothly, "and has earned both their respect and gratitude by his personal valor, and has no objection to a long assignment away from home—two years, was it? Yes, two years. Such a young man might be particularly well placed to argue effectively for Barrayar's interests in Quaddiespace. In my personal opinion."
Miles couldn't tell if Corbeau's mouth was open, behind his medical mask. His eyes had grown rather wide.
"I can't imagine," said Miles, "that Admiral Vorpatril would have any objection to releasing you to this detached duty. Or at any rate, to not having to deal with you in his command structure after all these . . . complex events. Not that I'd planned to give him a Betan vote in my Auditorial decrees, mind you."
"I . . . I don't know anything about diplomacy. I was trained as a pilot."
"If you went through military jump pilot training, you have already shown that you can study hard, learn fast, and make confident, rapid decisions affecting other people's lives. Objection overruled. You will, of course, have a consulate budget to hire expert staff to assist you in specialized problems, in law, in the economics of port fees, in trade matters, whatever. But you'll
be expected to learn enough as you go to judge whether their advice is good for the Imperium. And if, at the end of two years, you do decide to muster out and stay here, the experience would give you a major boost into Quaddiespace private-sector employment. If there's any problem with all this from your point of view—or from Garnet Five's, very level-headed woman, by the way, don't let her get away—it's not apparent to me."
"I'll"—Corbeau swallowed—"think about it. My lord."
"Excellent." And not readily stampeded, either, good. "Do so." Miles smiled and waved dismissal; warily, Corbeau withdrew. As soon as he was out of earshot, Miles murmured a code into his wrist com.
"Ekaterin, love? Where are you?"
"In my cabin on the Prince Xav. The nice young yeoman is getting ready to help carry my things to the shuttle. Yes, thank you, that too . . ."
"Right. I've just about cracked us loose from Quaddiespace. Greenlaw was reasonable, or at least, too exhausted to argue any more."
"She has all my sympathy. I don't think I have a functional nerve left, right now."
"Don't need your nerves, just your usual grace. The moment you can get to a comconsole, call up Garnet Five. I want to appoint that heroic young idiot Corbeau to be Barrayaran consul here, and make him clean up all this mess I have to leave in my wake. It's only fair; he certainly helped create it. Gregor did specifically ask that I assure that Barrayaran ships could dock here again someday. The boy is wobbling, however. So pitch it to Garnet Five, and make sure that she makes sure Corbeau says yes."
"Oh! What a splendid idea, love. They would make a good team, I think."
"Yep. Her for beauty, and um . . . her for brains."
"And him for courage, surely. I think it might work out. I must think what to send them for a wedding present, to convey my personal thanks."
"Partnering present? I don't know, ask Nicol. Oh. Speaking of Nicol." Miles glanced aside at the sheeted figure in the next bunk. Crucial message delivered, Thorne had fallen back into what Miles hoped was sleep and not incipient coma. "I'm thinking that Bel really ought to have someone to ride along and take care of it. Or of things for it. Some kind of support trooper, anyway. I expect the Star Crèche will have a fix for their own weapon—they'd have to, lab accidents, after all." If we get there in time. "But this looks like something that's going to involve a certain amount of really unpleasant convalescence. I'm not exactly looking forward to it myself." But consider the alternative . . . "Ask her if she's willing. She could ride in the Kestrel with you, be some company, anyway." And if neither he nor Bel got out of this alive, mutual support.
"Certainly. I'll call her from here."
"Call me again when you're safe aboard the Kestrel, love." Often and often.
"Of course." Her voice hesitated. "Love you. Get some rest. You sound like you need it. Your voice has that down-in-a-well sound it gets when . . . There will be time." Determination flashed through her own audible fatigue.
"I wouldn't dare die. There's this fierce Vor lady who threatened she'd kill me if I did." He grinned weakly and cut the com.
He drowsed for a time in dizzy exhaustion, fighting the sleep that tried to overtake him, because he couldn't be sure it wasn't the ba's hell-disease gaining on him, and he might not wake up. He marked a subtle change in the sounds and voices that penetrated from the outer chamber, as the medical team switched over to evacuation-mode. In time, a tech came and took Bel away on a float pallet. In a little more time, the pallet was returned, and Clogston himself and another medtech shifted the Imperial Auditor and all his growing array of life-support trappings aboard.
One of the intelligence officers reported to Miles, during a brief delay in the outer chamber.
"We finally found the remains of Lieutenant Solian, my Lord Auditor. What there was of them. A few kilograms of . . . well. Inside a bod pod, folded up and put back in its wall locker in the corridor just outside the cargo hold where the replicators were."
"Right. Thank you. Bring it along. As is. For evidence, and for . . . the man died doing his job. Barrayar owes him . . . debt of honor. Military burial. Pension, family . . . figure it all out later . . ."
His pallet rose again, and the corridor ceilings of the Idris flowed past his blurred gaze for the last time.
Chapter 18
"Are we there yet?" Miles mumbled muzzily.
He blinked open eyes that were not, oddly enough, gluey and sore. The ceiling above him didn't waver and bend in his vision as though seen mirage-like through rising desert heat. Breath drawn through his flaring nostrils flowed in coolly and without clogging impediment. No phlegm. No tubes. No tubes?
The ceiling was unfamiliar. He groped for memory. Fog. Biotainered angels and devils, tormenting him; someone demanding he piss. Medical indignities, mercifully vague now. Trying to talk, to give orders, till some hypospray of darkness had shut him down.
And before that: near desperation. Sending frantic messages racing ahead of his little convoy. The return stream of days-old accounts of wormholes blockaded, outlanders interned by both sides, assets seized, ships massing, telling its own tale to Miles's mind, worse for the details. He knew too damned much about the details. We can't have a war now, you fools! Don't you know there are children almost present? His left arm jerked, encountering no resistance except for a smooth coverlet beneath his clutching fingers. " . . . there yet?"
Ekaterin's lovely face bent over him from the side. Not half-hidden behind biotainer gear. He feared for a moment that this was only a holovid projection, or some hallucination, but the real warm kiss of breath from her mouth, carried on a puff of laughter, reassured him of her present solidity even before his hesitant hand touched her cheek.
"Where's your mask?" he asked thickly. He heaved up on one elbow, fighting off a wave of dizziness.
He certainly wasn't in the Barrayaran military ship's crowded, utilitarian sickbay to which he'd been transferred from the Idris. His bed was in a small but elegantly appointed chamber that screamed of Cetagandan aesthetics, from the arrays of live plants through the serene lighting to the view out the window of a soothing seashore. Waves creamed gently up a pale sandy beach seen through strange trees casting delicate fingers of shade. Almost certainly a vid projection, since the subliminals of the atmosphere and sounds of the room also murmured spaceship cabin to him. He wore a loose, silky garment in subdued gray hues, only its odd accessibilities betraying it as a patient gown. Above the head of his bed, a discreet panel displayed medical readouts.
"Where are we? What's happening? Did we stop the war? Those replicators they found on their end—it's a trick, I know it—"
The final disaster—his speeding ships intercepting tight-beamed news from Barrayar of diplomatic talks broken off upon the discovery, in a warehouse outside Vorbarr Sultana, of a thousand empty replicators apparently stolen from the Star Crèche, their occupants gone. Supposed occupants? Even Miles hadn't been sure. A baffling nightmare of implications. The Barrayaran government had of course hotly denied any knowledge of how they came to be there, or where their contents were now. And was not believed . . .
"The ba—Guppy, I promised—all those haut babies—I've got to—"
"You have got to lie still." A firm hand to his chest pushed him back down. "All the most urgent matters have been taken care of."
"Who by?"
She colored faintly. "Well . . . me, mostly. Vorpatril's ship captain probably shouldn't have let me override him, technically, but I decided not to point that out to him. You're a bad influence on me, love."
What? What? "How?"
"I just kept repeating your messages, and demanding they be put through to the haut Pel and ghem-General Benin. Benin was brilliant. Once he had your first dispatches, he figured out that the replicators found in Vorbarr Sultana were decoys, smuggled out of the Star Crèche by the ba a few at a time over a year ago in preparation for this." She frowned. "It was apparently a deliberate sleight of hand by the ba, meant to cause just this sort of trouble
. A backup plan, in case anyone figured out that not everyone had died on the child-ship, and traced the trail as far as Komarr. It almost worked. Might have worked, if Benin hadn't been so painstaking and levelheaded. I gather that the internal political circumstances of his investigation were extremely difficult by then. He really put his reputation on the line."
Possibly even his life, if Miles read between these simple lines. "All honor unto him, then."
"The military forces—theirs and ours—have all gone off alert and are standing down, now. The Cetagandans have declared it an internal, civil matter."
He eased back, vastly relieved. "Ah."
"I don't think I could have gotten through to them without the haut Pel's name." She hesitated. "And yours."
"Ours."
Her lips curved up at that. "Lady Vorkosigan did seem a title to conjure with. It gave both sides pause. That, and yelling the truth over and over. But I couldn't have held it together without the name."