Greenlaw and Venn both started to speak at once; the quaddie woman opened an upper hand in a gesture of invitation to the security officer.
Venn nodded and continued, "It started when my department received an emergency call to apprehend a pair of your men who had assaulted a quaddie woman."
Here was a new player on stage. Miles kept his expression neutral. "Assaulted in what sense?"
"Broke into her living quarters, roughed her up, threw her around, broke one of her arms. They evidently had been sent in pursuit of a certain Barrayaran officer who had failed to report for duty—"
"Ah. Would that be Ensign Corbeau?"
"Yes."
"And was he in her living quarters?"
"Yes—"
"By her invitation?"
"Yes." Venn grimaced. "They had apparently, um, become friends. Garnet Five is a premier dancer in the Minchenko Memorial Troupe, which performs live zero-gee ballet for residents of the Station and for downsider visitors." Venn inhaled. "It is not entirely clear who went to whose defense when the Barrayaran patrol came to remove their tardy officer, but it degenerated into a noisy brawl. We arrested all the downsiders and took them to Security Post Three to sort out."
"By the way," Sealer Greenlaw broke in, "your Ensign Corbeau has lately requested political asylum in the Union."
This was new, too. "How lately?"
"This morning. When he learned you were coming."
Miles hesitated. He could imagine a dozen scenarios to account for this, ranging from the sinister to the foolish; he couldn't help it that his mind leapt to the sinister. "Are you likely to grant it?" he asked finally.
She glanced at Boss Watts, who made a little noncommittal gesture with a lower hand and said, "My department has taken it under advisement."
"If you want my advice, you'll bounce it off the far wall," growled Venn. "We don't need that sort here."
"I should like to interview Ensign Corbeau at the earliest convenience," said Miles.
"Well, he evidently doesn't want to talk to you," said Venn.
"Nevertheless. I consider firsthand observation and eyewitness testimony critical for my correct understanding of this complex chain of events. I'll also need to speak with the other Barrayaran—" he clipped the word hostages, and substituted, "detainees, for the same reason."
"It's not that complex," said Venn. "A bunch of armed thugs came charging onto my station, violated customs, stunned dozens of innocent bystanders and a number of Station Security officers attempting to carry out their duties, tried to effect what can only be called a jailbreak, and vandalized property. Charges against them for their crimes—documented on vid!—range from the discharge of illegal weapons to resisting arrest to arson in an inhabited area. It's a miracle that no one was killed."
"That, unfortunately, has yet to be demonstrated," Miles countered instantly. "The trouble is that from our point of view, the arrest of Ensign Corbeau was not the beginning of the sequence of events. Admiral Vorpatril had reported a man missing well before that—Lieutenant Solian. According to both your witnesses and ours, a quantity of his blood tantamount to a body part was found on the floor of a Graf Station loading bay. Military loyalty runs two ways—Barrayarans do not abandon our own. Dead or alive, where is the rest of him?"
Venn nearly ground his teeth. "We looked for the man. He is not on Graf Station. His body is not in space in any reasonable trajectory from Graf Station. We checked. We've told Vorpatril that, repeatedly."
"How hard—or easy—is it for a downsider to disappear in Quaddiespace?"
"If I may answer that," Bel Thorne broke in smoothly, "as that incident impinges on my department."
Greenlaw motioned assent with a lower hand, while simultaneously rubbing the bridge of her nose with an upper.
"Boarding to and from galactic ships here is fully controlled, not only from Graf Station, but from our other nexus trade depots as well. It is, if not impossible, at least difficult to pass through customs and immigration areas without leaving some sort of record, including general vid monitors of the areas. Your Lieutenant Solian does not show up anywhere in our computer or visual records for that day."
"Truly?" Miles gave Bel a look, Is this the straight story?
Bel returned a brief nod, Yes. "Truly. Now, in-system travel is much less strictly controlled. It is more . . . feasible, for someone to pass out of Graf Station to another Union habitat without notice. If that person is a quaddie. Any downsider, however, would stand out in the crowd. Standard missing-person procedures were followed in this case, including notifications of other habitat security departments. Solian has simply not been seen, on Graf Station or any other Union habitat."
"How do you account for his blood in the loading bay?"
"The loading bay is on the outboard side of the station access control points. It is my opinion that whoever created that scene came from and returned to one of the ships in that docks-and-locks sector."
Miles silently noted Bel's word choice, whoever created that scene, not whoever murdered Solian. Of course, Bel had been present at a certain spectacular emergency cryo-prep, too. . . .
Venn put in irritably, "All of which were ships from your fleet, at the time. In other words, you brought your own troubles with you. We are a peaceful people here!"
Miles frowned thoughtfully at Bel, and mentally reshuffled his plan of attack. "Is the loading bay in question very far from here?"
"It's on the other side of the station," said Watts.
"I think I would like to see it, and its associated areas, first, before I interview Ensign Corbeau and the other Barrayarans. Perhaps Portmaster Thorne would be so good as to conduct me on a tour of the facility?"
Bel glanced at Boss Watts and got an approving low sign.
"I should be very pleased to do so, Lord Vorkosigan," said Bel.
"Next, perhaps? We could take my ship around."
"That would be very efficient, yes," replied Bel, eyes brightening with appreciation. "I could accompany you."
"Thank you." Good catch. "That would be most satisfactory."
Wild as Miles now was to get away and shake Bel down in private, he had to smile his way through further formalities, including the official presentation of the list of charges, costs, fines, and punitive fines Vorpatril's strike force had garnered. He plucked the data disk Boss Watts spun to him delicately out of the air and intoned, "Note, please, I do not accept these charges. I will, however, undertake to review them fully at the earliest possible moment."
A lot of unsmiling faces greeted this pronouncement. Quaddie body language was a study in its own right. Talking with one's hands was fraught with so many more possibilities, here. Greenlaw's hands were very controlled, both uppers and lowers. Venn clenched his lower fists a lot, but then, Venn had helped carry out his burned comrades after the fire.
The conference drew to an end without achieving anything resembling closure, which Miles counted as a small victory for his side. He was getting away without committing himself or Gregor to anything much, so far. He didn't yet see how to twist this unpromising tangle his way. He needed more data, subliminals, people, some handle or lever he hadn't spotted yet. I need to talk to Bel.
That wish, at least, looked to be granted. At Greenlaw's word, the meeting broke up, and the honor guard escorted the Barrayarans back through the corridors to the bay where the Kestrel waited.
CHAPTER FOUR
At the Kestrel's lock, Boss Watts took Bel aside for a low-voiced conversation with some anxious hand waving. Bel shook its head, made calm down gestures, and finally turned to follow Miles, Ekaterin, and Roic through the flex tube and into the Kestrel's tiny and now crowded personnel hatch deck. Roic stumbled and looked a trifle dizzied, readjusting to the grav field, but then found his balance again. He frowned warily at the Betan hermaphrodite in the quaddie uniform. Ekaterin flashed a covertly curious glance.
"What was that all about?" Miles asked Bel as the airlock door slid shut.
"Watts wanted me to take a bodyguard or three. To protect me from the brutal Barrayarans. I told him there wouldn't be room aboard, and besides, you were a diplomat—not a soldier." Bel, head cocked, gave him an indecipherable look. "Is that so?"
"It is now. Uh . . ." Miles turned to Lieutenant Smolyani, manning the hatch controls. "Lieutenant, we're going to take the Kestrel around to the other side of Graf Station to another docking cradle. Their traffic control will direct you. Go as slowly as you can without looking odd. Take two or three tries to align with the docking clamps, or something."
"My lord!" said Smolyani indignantly. ImpSec fast courier pilots made a religion out of fast, tight maneuvering and swift, perfect dockings. "In front of these people?"
"Well, do it however you wish, but buy me some time. I need to talk with this herm. Go, go." He waved Smolyani out. He drew breath, and added to Roic and Ekaterin, "We'll take over the wardroom. Excuse us, please." Thus consigning her and Roic to their cramped cabins to wait. He gripped Ekaterin's hand in brief apology. He dared not say more until he'd decanted Bel in private. There were security angles, political angles, personal angles—how many angles could dance on the head of a pin?—and, as the first thrill of seeing that familiar face alive and well wore off, the nagging memory that the last time they'd met, the purpose had been to strip Bel of command and discharge it from the mercenary fleet for its unfortunate role in the bloody Jackson's Whole debacle. He wanted to trust Bel. Dare he?
Roic was too well trained to ask, Are you sure you don't want me to come with you, m'lord? out loud, but from the expression on his face he was doing his best to send it telepathically.
"I'll explain it all later," Miles promised Roic in an under-voice, and sent him on his way with what he hoped was a reassuring half-salute.
He led Bel the few steps to the tiny chamber that doubled as the Kestrel's wardroom, dining room, and briefing room, shut both its doors, and activated the security cone. A faint hum from the projector on the ceiling and a shimmer in the air surrounding the wardroom's circular dining/vid conference table assured him it was working. He turned to find Bel watching him, head a little to one side, eyes quizzical, lips quirked. He hesitated a moment. Then, simultaneously, they both burst into laughter. They fell on each other in a hug; Bel pounded him on the back, saying in a tight voice, "Damn, damn, damn, you sawed-off little half-breed maniac . . ."
Miles fell back, breathless. "Bel, by God. You look good."
"Older, surely?"
"That, too. But I don't think I'm the one to talk."
"You look terrific. Healthy. Solid. I take it that woman's been feeding you right? Or doing something right, anyway."
"Not fat, though?" Miles said anxiously.
"No, no. But the last time I saw you, right after they thawed you out of cryo-freeze, you looked like a skull on a stick. You had us all worried."
Bel remembered that last meeting with the same clarity as he did, evidently. More, perhaps.
"I worried about you, too. Have you . . . been all right? How the devil did you end up here?" Was that a delicate enough inquiry?
Bel's brows rose a trifle, reading who-knew-what expression on Miles's face. "I suppose I was a little disoriented at first, after I parted company with the Dendarii Mercenaries. Between Oser and you as commanders, I'd served there almost twenty-five years."
"I was sorry as hell about it."
"I'd say, not half as sorry as I was, but you were the one who did the dying." Bel looked away briefly. "Among other people. It wasn't as if either of us had a choice, at that point. I couldn't have gone on. And—in the long run—it was a good thing. I'd got in a rut without knowing it, I think. I needed something to kick me out of it. I was ready for a change. Well, not ready, but . . ."
Miles, hanging on Bel's words, was reminded of their place. "Sit, sit." He gestured to the little table; they took seats next to each other. Miles rested his arm on the dark surface and leaned closer to listen.
Bel continued, "I even went home for a little while. But I found that a quarter of a century kicking around the Nexus as a free herm had put me out of step with Beta Colony. I took a few spacer jobs, some at the suggestion of our mutual employer. Then I drifted in here." Bel tucked its gray-brown bangs up off its forehead with spread fingers, a familiar gesture; they promptly fell back again, even more heart-catching.
"ImpSec's not my employer any more, exactly," Miles said.
"Oh? So what are they, exactly?"
Miles hesitated over this one. "My . . . intelligence utility," he chose at last. "By virtue of my new job."
Bel's eyebrows went up farther, this time. "This Imperial Auditor thing isn't a cover for the latest covert ops scam, then."
"No. It's the real thing. I'm done with scam."
Bel's lips twitched. "What, with that funny accent?"
"This is my real voice. The Betan accent I affected for Admiral Naismith was the put-on. Sort of. Not that I didn't learn it at my mother's knee."
"When Watts told me the name of the supposedly-hot-shot envoy the Barrayarans were sending out, I thought it had to be you. That's why I made sure to get myself onto the welcoming committee. But this Emperor's Voice thing sounded like something out of a fairy tale, to me. Until I got to the fine print. Then it sounded like something out of a really gruesome fairy tale."
"Oh, did you look up my job description?"
"Yeah, it's pretty amazing what's in the historical databases here. Quaddiespace is fully plugged in to the galactic information exchange, I've found. They're almost as good as Beta, despite having only a fraction of the population. Imperial Auditor's a pretty stunning promotion—whoever handed you that much unsupervised power on a platter has to be almost as much of a lunatic as you are. I want to hear your explanation of that."
"Yes, it can take some explaining, to non-Barrayarans." Miles took a breath. "You know, that cryo-revival of mine was a little dicey. Do you remember the seizures I was having, right after?"
"Yes . . ." said Bel cautiously.
"They turned out to be a permanent side effect, unfortunately. Too much for even ImpSec's version of the military to tolerate in a field officer. As I managed to demonstrate in a particularly spectacular manner, but that's another story. It was a medical discharge, officially. So that was the end of my galactic covert ops career." Miles's smile twisted. "I had to get an honest job. Fortunately, Emperor Gregor gave me one. Everyone assumes my appointment was high Vor nepotism at work, for my father's sake. Over time, I trust I'll prove them wrong."
Bel was silent for a moment, face set. "So. It seems I killed Admiral Naismith after all."
"Don't hog the blame. You had lots of help," Miles said dryly. "Including mine." He was reminded that this slice of privacy was precious and limited. "It's all blood over the dam now anyway, for you and me both. We have other crises on our plate today. Quickly, from the top—I've been assigned to straighten out this mess, to Barrayar's, if not benefit, least-cost. If you're our ImpSec informer here—are you?"
Bel nodded.
After Bel had handed in its resignation from the Dendarii Free Mercenaries, Miles had seen to it that the hermaphrodite had gone on ImpSec's payroll as a civilian informer. In part it was payback for all Bel had done for Barrayar before the ill-conceived disaster that had ended Bel's career directly and Miles's indirectly, but mostly it had been to keep ImpSec from getting lethally excited about Bel wandering the wormhole nexus with a head full of hot Barrayaran secrets. Aging, tepid secrets now, for the most part. Miles had figured the illusion that they held Bel's string would prove reassuring to ImpSec, and so it had apparently proved. "Portmaster, eh? What a superb job for an intelligence observer. Data on everyone and everything that passes in and out of Graf Station at your fingertips. Did ImpSec place you here?"
"No, I found this job on my own. Sector Five was happy, though. Which, at the time, seemed an added bonus."
"I'd think they damned well should be happy."
&nb
sp; "The quaddies like me, too. It seems I'm good at handling all sorts of upset downsiders, without losing my equilibrium. I don't explain to them that after years of trailing around after you, my definition of an emergency is seriously divergent from theirs."
Miles grinned and made calculations in his head. "Then your most recent reports are probably still somewhere in transit between here and Sector Five headquarters."
"Yeah, that's what I figure."
"What are the most important things I need to know?"
"Well, for one, we really haven't seen your Lieutenant Solian. Or his body. Really. Union Security hasn't stinted on the search for him. Vorpatril—is he any relation to your cousin Ivan, by the way?"
"Yes, a distant one."
"I thought I sensed a family resemblance. In more ways than one. Anyway, he thinks we're lying. But we're not. Also, your people are idiots."
"Yes. I know. But they're my idiots. Tell me something new."
"All right, here's a good one. Graf Station Security has pulled all the passengers and crew off the Komarran ships impounded in dock and lodged 'em in station-side hostels, to prevent ill-considered actions and to put pressure on Vorpatril and Molino. Naturally, they're none too happy. The supercargo—non-Komarrans who just took passage for a few jumps—are wild to get away. Half a dozen have tried to bribe me to let them take their goods off the Idris or the Rudra, and transfer off Graf Station on somebody else's ships."
"Have any, ah, succeeded?"
"Not yet." Bel smirked. "Although if the price keeps going up at the current rate, even I could be tempted. Anyway, several of the most anxious ones struck me as . . . potentially interesting."
"Check. Have you reported this to your Graf Station employers?"
"I made a remark or two. But it's only suspicion. The individuals are all well behaved, so far—especially compared to Barrayarans—it's not like we have any pretext for fast-penta interrogations."