Diplomatic Immunity (5 page)

Miles stood on tiptoe to peer through the little port beside the
Kestrel
's personnel hatch as the ship maneuvered toward its assigned docking cradle. Graf Station was a vast jumbled aggregation, an apparent chaos of design not surprising in an installation in its third century of expansion. Somewhere buried in the core of the sprawling, bristling structure was a small metallic asteroid, honeycombed for both space and the material used in building this very oldest of the quaddies' many habitats. Also somewhere in its innermost sections could still be seen, according to the guidevids, actual elements from the broken-apart and reconfigured jumpship in which the initial band of hardy quaddie pioneers had made their historic voyage to this refuge.

Miles stepped back and gestured Ekaterin to the port for a look. He reflected on the political astrography of Quaddiespace, or rather, as it was formally designated, the Union of Free Habitats. From this initial point, quaddie groups had leapfrogged out to build daughter colonies in both directions along the inner of the two rings of asteroids that had made this system so attractive to their ancestors. Several generations and a million strong later, the quaddies were in no danger whatsoever of running out of space, energy, or materials. Their population could expand as fast as it chose to build.

Only a handful of their many scattered habitats maintained areas supplied with artificial gravity for legged humans, either visitor or resident, or even dealt with outsiders. Graf Station was one that did accept galactics and their trade, as did the orbital arcologies dubbed Metropolitan, Sanctuary, Minchenko, and Union Station. This last was the seat of Quaddie government, such as it was; a variant of bottom-up representative democracy based, Miles was given to understand, on the work gang as its primary unit. He hoped to God he wasn't going to end up negotiating with a committee.

Ekaterin glanced around and, with an excited smile, motioned Roic to take a turn. He ducked his head and nearly pressed his nose to the port, staring in open curiosity. This was Ekaterin's first trip outside the Barrayaran Empire, and Roic's first venture off Barrayar ever. Miles paused to thank his habits of mild paranoia that before he'd dragged them off world he'd troubled to send them both through a short intensive course in space and free fall procedures and safety. He'd pulled rank and strings to get access to the military academy facilities, albeit on a free week between scheduled classes, for a tailored version of the longer course that Roic's older armsmen colleagues had received routinely in their former Imperial Service training.

Ekaterin had been extremely startled when Miles had invited—persuaded—well, hustled—her to join the bodyguard in the orbital school: daunted at first, exhausted and close to mutiny partway through, proud and elated at the finish. For passenger liners in pressurization trouble, it was the usual method to stuff their paying customers into simple bubbles called bod pods to passively await rescue. Miles had been stuck in a bod pod a time or two himself. He'd sworn that no man, and most especially no wife, of his would ever be rendered so artificially helpless in an emergency. His whole party had traveled with their own personally tailored quick-donning suits at hand. Regretfully, Miles had left his old customized battle armor in storage. . . . 

Roic unbent from the port, looking especially stoic, faint vertical lines of worry between his eyebrows.

Miles asked, "Has everyone had their antinausea pills?"

Roic nodded earnestly.

Ekaterin said, "Have you had
yours
?"

"Oh, yes." He glanced down his plain gray civilian tunic and trousers. "I used to have this nifty bio-chip on my vagus nerve that kept me from losing my lunch in free fall, but it got blown out with the rest of my guts in that unpleasant encounter with the needle-grenade. I should get it replaced one of these days. . . ." Miles stepped forward and took one more glance outside. The station had grown to occlude most of the view. "So, Roic. If some quaddies visiting Hassadar made themselves obnoxious enough to win a visit to the Municipal Guard's gaol, and then a bunch more quaddies popped up and tried to bust them out with military-grade weapons, and shot up the place and torched it and burned some of your comrades, just how would you feel about quaddies at that point?"

"Um . . . not too friendly, m'lord." Roic paused. "Pretty pissed, actually."

"That's what I figured." Miles sighed. "Ah. Here we go."

Clanks and thumps sounded as the
Kestrel
came gently to rest and the docking clamps felt their way to a firm grip. The flex tube whined, seeking its seal, guided by the
Kestrel
's engineer at the hatch controls, and then seated itself with an audible chink. "All tight, sir," the engineer reported.

"All right, troops, we're on parade," Miles murmured, and waved Roic on.

The bodyguard nodded and slipped through the hatch; after a moment he called back, "Ready, m'lord."

All was, if not well, good enough. Miles followed through the flex tube, Ekaterin close behind him. He stole a glance over his shoulder as he floated forward. She was svelte and arresting in the red tunic and black leggings, her hair in a sophisticated braid around her head. Zero gee had a charming effect on well-developed female anatomy that he decided he had probably better not point out to her. As an opening move, setting this first meeting in the null-gee section of Graf Station was clearly calculated to put the visitors off balance, to emphasize just whose space this was. If they'd wanted to be polite, the quaddies would have received them in one of the grav sections.

The station-side airlock opened into a spacious cylindrical bay, its radial symmetry airily dispensing with the concepts of "up" and "down." Roic floated with one hand on the grip by the hatch, the other kept carefully away from his stunner holster. Miles craned his neck to take in the array of half a dozen quaddies, males and females, in paramilitary grade half-armor, floating in cross-fire positions around the bay. Their weapons were out but shouldered, formality masking threat. Lower arms, thicker and more muscular than their uppers, emerged from their hips. Both sets of arms were protected by plasma-deflecting vambraces. Miles couldn't help reflecting that here were people who actually could shoot and reload at the same time. Interestingly, though two bore the insignia of Graf Station Security, the rest were in the colors and badges of the Union Militia.

Impressive window dressing, but these were not the people he needed to be attending to. His gaze swept on to the three quaddies and the legged downsider waiting directly across from the hatch. Faintly startled expressions, as they in turn took in his own nonstandard appearance, were quickly suppressed on three out of four faces.

The senior Graf Station Security officer was instantly recognizable by his uniform, weapons, and glower. Another middle-aged quaddie male also wore some sort of Stationer uniform, slate blue, in a conservative style designed to reassure the public. A white-haired female quaddie was more elaborately dressed in a maroon velvet doublet with slashed upper sleeves, silky silver fabric puffing from the slits, with matching puffy shorts and tight lower sleeves. The legged downsider also wore the slate-blue uniform, except with trousers and friction boots. Short, graying brown hair floated around the head that turned toward Miles. Miles choked, trying not to swear aloud in shock.

My God. It's Bel Thorne
. What the devil was the ex-mercenary Betan hermaphrodite doing
here
? The question answered itself as soon as it formed.
So. Now I know who our ImpSec observer on Graf Station is.
Which, abruptly, raised the reliability of
those
reports to a vastly higher level . . . or did it? Miles's smile froze, concealing, he hoped, his sudden mental disarray.

The white-haired woman was speaking, in a very chilly tone—some automatic part of Miles's mind pegged her as senior, as well as oldest, present. "Good afternoon, Lord Auditor Vorkosigan. Welcome to the Union of Free Habitats."

Miles, one hand still guiding a blinking Ekaterin into the bay, managed a polite return nod. He left the second handhold flanking the hatch to her for an anchor, and managed to set himself in air, without imparting an unwanted spin, right side up with relation to the senior quaddie woman. "Thank you," he returned neutrally.
Bel, what the hell . . . ? Give me a sign, dammit.
The hermaphrodite returned his brief wide-eyed stare with cool disinterest, and, as if casually, raised a hand to scratch the side of its nose, signaling, perhaps,
Wait for it. . . . 
 

"I am Senior Sealer Greenlaw," the quaddie woman continued, "and I have been assigned by my government to meet with you and provide arbitration between you and your victims on Graf Station. This is Crew Chief Venn of Graf Station Security, Boss Watts, who is supervisor of Graf Station Downsider Relations, and Assistant Portmaster Bel Thorne."

"How do you do, madam, gentlemen, honorable herm," Miles's mouth continued on autopilot. He was too shaken by the sight of Bel to take exception to that
your victims
, for now. "Permit me to introduce my wife, Lady Ekaterin Vorkosigan, and my personal assistant, Armsman Roic."

All the quaddies frowned disapprovingly at Roic. But now it was the turn for Bel's eyes to widen, staring with sudden attention at Ekaterin. A purely personal aspect of it all blazed across Miles's mind then, as he realized that he was shortly, very probably, going to be in the unsettling position of having to introduce his new wife to his old flame. Not that Bel's oft-expressed crush on him had ever been
consummated
, exactly, to his retrospective sometimes-regret. . . . 

"Portmaster Thorne, ah . . ." Miles felt himself scrambling for firm footing in more ways than one. His voice went brightly inquiring. "Have we met?"

"I don't believe we've ever met,
Lord Auditor Vorkosigan
, no," returned Bel; Miles hoped his was the only ear that detected the slight emphasis on his Barrayaran name and title in that familiar alto drawl.

"Ah." Miles hesitated.
Throw out a lure, a line, something . . .
"My mother was Betan, you know."

"What a coincidence," Bel said blandly. "So was mine."

Bel, goddammit!
"I have had the pleasure of visiting Beta Colony several times."

"I haven't been back but once in decades." The faint light of Bel's notably vile sense of humor faded in the brown eyes, and the herm relented as far as, "I'd like to hear about the old sandbox."

"It would be my pleasure to discuss it," Miles responded, praying this exchange sounded diplomatic and not cryptic.
Soon, soon, bloody soon.
Bel returned him a cordial, acknowledging nod.

The white-haired quaddie woman gestured toward the end of the bay with her upper right hand. "If you would please accompany us to the conference chamber, Lord and Lady Vorkosigan, Armsman Roic."

"Certainly, Sealer Greenlaw." Miles favored her with an
after you, ma'am
half-bow in air, then uncurled to get a foot to the wall to push off after her. Ekaterin and Roic followed. Ekaterin arrived and braked at the round airseal door with reasonable grace, though Roic landed crookedly with an audible thump. He'd used too much power pushing off, but Miles couldn't stop to coach him on the fine points here. He'd come to the right of it soon enough, or break an arm. The next series of corridors featured a sufficiency of handgrips. The downsiders kept up with the quaddies, who both preceded and followed; to Miles's secret satisfaction, none of the guards had to pause and collect any out-of-control spinning or helplessly becalmed Barrayarans.

They came at length to a chamber with a window-wall offering a panoramic view out across one arm of the station and into the deep, star-dusted void beyond. Any downsider suffering from a touch of agoraphobia or pressurization paranoia would doubtless prefer to cling to the wall on the opposite side. Miles floated gently up to the transparent barrier, stopping himself with two delicately extended fingers, and surveyed the spacescape; his mouth crooked up, unwilled. "This is very fine," he said honestly.

He glanced around. Roic had found a wall grip near the door, awkwardly shared with the lower hand of a quaddie guard, who glowered at him as they both shifted fingers trying not to touch the other. The majority of the honor guard had been shed in the adjoining corridor, and only two, one Graf Station and one Union, now hovered, albeit alertly. The chamber end-walls featured decorative plants growing out of illuminated spiraling tubes that held their roots in a hydroponic mist. Ekaterin paused by one, examining the multicolored leaves closely. She tore her attention away, and her brief smile faded, watching Miles, watching their quaddie hosts, watching for cues. Her eye fell curiously on Bel, who was surveying Miles in turn, the herm's expression—well, anyone else would see it as bland, probably. Miles suspected it was deeply ironic.

The quaddies took up position in a hemispherical arrangement around a central vid plate, Bel hovering near its comrade-in-slate-blue, Boss Watts. Arching posts of different heights featured the sort of com link control boards usually found on station-chair arms, looking a bit like flowers on stalks, which provided suitably spaced tethering points. Miles picked a post with his back to open space. Ekaterin floated over and took up a spot a little behind him. She'd gone into her silent, highly reserved mode, which Miles had to school himself not to read as unhappy; it might just mean that she was processing too hard to remember to be animated. Fortunately, the ivory-carved expression also simulated aristocratic poise.

A pair of younger quaddies, whose green shirt-and-shorts garb Miles's eye decoded as
servitor
, offered drink bulbs all around; Miles selected something billed to be tea, Ekaterin took fruit juice, and Roic, with a glance at his quaddie opposite numbers who were offered none, declined. A quaddie could grip a handhold and a drink bulb, and still have two hands left to draw and aim a weapon. It hardly seemed fair.