Diplomatic Immunity

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.”

“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.”