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 SIXTEEN
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?"
Clogston gave him a sketchy salute of acknowledgment with a gloved hand. "Almost, my lord. We're starting construction on the second blood filter. If the first one works as well as I hope, we should be ready to rig you up very soon, too."
Which would tie him down to a bunk in the ward. He wasn't ready to lose mobility yet. Not while he could still move and think on his own. You don't have much time then. Regardless of what the ba does. "Thank you, Captain," Miles called. "Let me know." He slid the door shut with the manual override.
What could the ba know, from Nav and Com? More importantly, what were its blind spots? Miles paced, considering the layout of this central nacelle: a long cylinder divided into three decks. This infirmary lay at the stern on the uppermost deck. Nav and Com was far forward, at the other end of the middle
deck. The internal airseal doors of all levels lay at the three evenly spaced intersections to the freight and drive nacelles, dividing each deck longitudinally into quarters.
Nav and Com had security vid monitors in all the outer airlocks, of course, and safety monitors on all the inner section doors that closed to seal the ship into airtight compartments. Blowing out a monitor would blind the ba, but also give warning that the supposed prisoners were on the move. Blowing out all of them, or all that could be reached, would be more confusing . . . but still left the problem of giving warning. How likely was the ba to carry out its harried, or perhaps insane, threat of ramming the station?
Dammit, this was so unprofessional . . . Miles halted, arrested by his own thought.
What were the standard operating procedures for a Cetagandan agent—anyone's agent, really—whose covert mission was going down the toilet? Destroy all the evidence: try to make it to a safe zone, embassy, or neutral territory. If that wasn't possible, destroy the evidence and then sit tight and endure arrest by the locals, whoever the locals might be, and wait for one's own side to either bail or bust one out, depending. For the really, really critical missions, destroy the evidence and commit suicide. This last was seldom ordered, because it was even more seldom carried out. But the Cetagandan ba were so conditioned to loyalty to their haut masters—and mistresses—Miles was forced to consider it a more realistic possibility in the present case.
But splashy hostage-taking among neutrals or neighbors, blaring the mission all over the news, most of all—most of all, the public use of the Star Crèche's most private arsenal . . . This wasn't the modus operandi of a trained agent. This was goddamned amateur work. And Miles's superiors used to accuse him of being a loose cannon—hah! Not any of his most direly inspired messes had ever been as forlorn as this one was shaping up to be—for both sides, alas. This gratifying deduction did not, unfortunately, make the ba's next action more predictable. Quite the reverse.
"M'lord?" Roic's voice rose unexpectedly from Miles's wrist com.
"Roic!" cried Miles joyfully. "Wait. What the hell are you doing on this link? You shouldn't be out of your suit."
"I might ask you the same question, m'lord," Roic returned rather tartly. "If I had time. But I had to get out of t' pressure suit anyway to get into this work suit. I think . . . yes. I can hang the com link in my helmet. There." A slight chink, as of a faceplate closing. "Can you still hear me?"
"Oh, yes. I take it you're still in Engineering?"
"For now. I found you a real nice little pressure suit, m'lord. And a lot of other tools. Question is how to get it to you."
"Stay away from all the airseal doors—they're monitored. Have you found any cutting tools, by chance?"
"I'm, uh . . . pretty sure that's what these are, yes."
"Then move as far to the stern as you can get, and cut straight up through the ceiling to the middle deck. Try to avoid damaging the air ducts and grav grid and control and fluid conduits, for now. Or anything else that would make the boards light up in Nav and Com. Then we can place you for the next cut."
"Right, m'lord. I was thinking something like that might do."
A few minutes ran by, with nothing but the sound of Roic's breathing, broken with a few under-voiced obscenities as, by trial and error, he discovered how to handle the unfamiliar equipment. A grunt, a hiss, a clank abruptly cut off.
The rough-and-ready procedure was going to play hell with the atmospheric integrity of the sections, but did that necessarily make things any worse, from the hostages' point of view? And a pressure suit, oh bliss! Miles wondered if any of the powered work suits had been sized extra-small. Almost as good as space armor, indeed.
"All right, m'lord," came the welcome voice from his wrist com. "I've made it to the middle deck. I'm moving back now . . . I'm not exactly sure how close I am under you."
"Can you reach up to tap on the ceiling? Gently. We don't want it to reverberate through the bulkheads all the way to Nav and Com." Miles threw himself prone, opened his faceplate, tilted his head, and listened. A faint banging, apparently from out in the corridor. "Can you move farther toward the stern?"
"I'll try, m'lord. It's a question of getting these ceiling panels apart . . ." More heavy breathing. "There. Try now."
This time, the rapping seemed to come from nearly under Miles's outstretched hand. "I think that's got it, Roic."
"Right, m'lord. Be sure you're not standing where I'm cutting. I think Lady Vorkosigan would be right peeved with me if I accidentally lopped off any of your body parts."
"I think so too." Miles rose, ripped up a section of friction matting, skittered to the side of the infirmary's outer chamber, and held his breath.
A red glow in the bare deck plate beneath turned yellow, then white. The dot became a line, which grew, wavering in an irregular circle back to its beginning. A thump, as Roic's gloved paw, powered by his suit, punched up through the floor, tearing the weakened circle from its matrix.
Miles nipped over and stared down, and grinned at Roic's face staring up in worry through the faceplate of another repair suit. The hole was too small for that hulking figure to squeeze through, but not too small for the pressure suit he handed up through it.
"Good job," Miles called down. "Hang on. I'll be right with you."
"M'lord?"
Miles tore off the useless biotainer suit and crammed himself into the pressure suit in record time. Inevitably, the plumbing was female, and he left it unattached. One way or another, he didn't think he would be suited up for very long. He was flushed and sweating, one moment too hot, the next too cold, though whether from incipient infection or just plain overdriven nerves he scarcely knew.
The helmet supplied no place to hang his wrist com, but a bit of medical tape solved that problem in a moment. He lowered the helmet over his head and locked it into place, breathing deeply of air that no one controlled but him. Reluctantly, he set the suit's temperature to chilly.
Then he slid to the hole and dangled his legs through. "Catch me. Don't squeeze too hard—remember, you're powered."
"Right, m'lord."
"Lord Auditor Vorkosigan," came Vorpatril's uneasy voice. "What are you doing?"
"Reconnoitering."
Roic caught his hips, lowering him with exaggerated gentleness to the middle deck. Miles glanced up the corridor, past the larger hole in its floor, to the airseal doors at the far end of this sector. "Solian's security office is in this section. If there's any control board on this bloody ship that can monitor without being monitored in turn, it'll be in there."
He tiptoed down the corridor, Roic lumbering in his wake. The deck creaked beneath the armsman's booted feet. Miles tapped out the now-familiar code to the office door; Roic barely squeezed through behind him. Miles slid into the late Lieutenant Solian's station chair and flexed his fingers, contemplating the console. He drew a breath and bent forward.
Yes, he could siphon off views from the vid monitors of every airlock on the ship—simultaneously, if desired. Yes, he could tap into the safety sensors on the airseal doors. They were designed to take in a good view of anyone near—as in, frantically pounding on—the doors. Nervously, he checked the one for this middle rear section. The vista, if the ba was even looking at it with so much else going on, did not extend as far as Solian's office door. Whew. Could he bring up a view of Nav and Com, perhaps, and spy secretly upon its current occupant?
Roic said apprehensively, "What are you thinking of doing, m'lord?"
"I'm thinking that a surprise attack that has to stop to bore through six or seven bulkheads to get to the target isn't going to be surprising enough. Though we may come to that. I'm running out of time." He blinked, hard, then thought to hell with it and opened his faceplate to rub his eyes. The vid image unblurred in his vision, but still seemed to waver around the edges. Miles didn't think the problem was in the vid plate. His headache, which had started as a stabbing pain between his eyes, seemed to be spreading to his t
emples, which throbbed. He was shivering. He sighed and closed the faceplate again.
"That bio-shit—the admiral said you got t' same bio-shit the herm has. The crap that melted Gupta's friends."
"When did you talk to Vorpatril?"
"Just before I talked to you."
"Ah."
Roic said lowly, "I should've been t' one to run those remote controls. Not you."
"It had to be me. I was more familiar with the equipment."
"Yes." Roic's voice went lower. "You should've brought Jankowski, m'lord."
"Just a guess—based on long experience, mind you . . ." Miles paused, frowning at the security display. All right, so Solian didn't have a monitor in every cabin, but he had to have private access to Nav and Com if he had anything . . . "But I suspect there will be enough heroism before this day is done to go around. I don't think we're going to have to ration it, Roic."
" 'S not what I meant," said Roic, in a dignified tone.
Miles grinned blackly. "I know. But think of how hard it would have been on Ma Jankowski. And all the not-so-little Jankowskis."
A soft snort from the com link taped inside Miles's helmet apprised him that Ekaterin was back, listening in. She would not interrupt, he suspected.
Vorpatril's voice sounded suddenly, breaking his concentration. The admiral was sputtering. "The spineless scoundrels! The four-armed bastards! My Lord Auditor!" Ah, Miles was promoted again. "The goddamn little mutants are giving this sexless Cetagandan plague-vector a jump pilot!"
"What?" Miles's stomach knotted. Tighter. "They found a volunteer? Quaddie, or downsider?" There couldn't be that large a pool of possibilities to choose from. The pilots' surgically installed neuro-controllers had to fit the ships they guided through the wormhole jumps. However many jump pilots were currently quartered—or trapped—on Graf Station, chances were that most would be incompatible with the Barrayaran systems. So was it the Idris's own pilot or relief pilot, or a pilot from one of the Komarran sister ships . . . ?
"What makes you think he's a volunteer?" snarled Vorpatril. "I can't bloody believe they're just handing . . ."