Diplomatic Immunity

A quaddie security patrolwoman hovered anxiously in her floater. “What the hell happened here?” she demanded, snapping open a recorder.

Miles gestured to Bel, who took over describing the incident into the recorder. Bel was as calm, logical, and detailed as at any Dendarii debriefing, which possibly took the woman more aback than the crowd of witnesses who clustered eagerly around trying to tell the tale in more excited terms. To Miles's intense relief, no one else had been hit except for a few minor clips from ricocheting marble chips. The fellow's aim might have been imperfect, but he apparently hadn't intended a general massacre.

Good for public safety on Graf Station, but not, upon reflection, so good for Miles. . . . His children might have been orphaned, just now, before they'd even had a chance to be born. His will was spot up to date, the size of an academic dissertation complete with bibliography and footnotes. It suddenly seemed entirely inadequate to the task.

“Was the suspect a downsider or a quaddie?” the patrolwoman asked Bel urgently.

Bel shook its head. “I couldn't see the lower half of his body below the balcony rail. I'm not even sure it was male, really.”

A downsider transient and the quaddie waitress who'd been serving his drink on the lounge level chimed in with the news that the assailant had been a quaddie, and had fled down an adjoining corridor in his floater. The transient was sure he'd been male, although the waitress, now that the question was raised, grew less certain. Dubauer apologized for not having glimpsed the person at all.

Miles prodded the riveter with his toe, and asked Bel in an under-voice, “How hard would it be to carry something like that through Station Security checkpoints?”

“Easy,” said Bel. “No one would even blink.”

“Local manufacture?” It looked quite new.

“Yes, that's a Sanctuary Station brand. They make good tools.”

“First job for Venn, then. Find out where the thing was sold, and when. And who to.”

“Oh, yeah.”

Miles was nearly dizzy with a weird combination of delight and dismay. The delight was partly adrenaline high, a familiar and dangerous old addiction, partly the realization that having been potshotted by a quaddie gave him a stick to beat back Greenlaw's relentless attack on his Barrayaran brutality. Quaddies were killers too, hah. They just weren't as good at it. . . . He remembered Solian, and took back that thought. Yeah, and if Greenlaw didn't set me up for this herself. Now there was a nice, paranoid theory. He set it aside to reexamine when his head had cooled. After all, a couple of hundred people, both quaddies and transients—including all of the fleet's galactic passengers—must have known he'd be coming here this morning.

A quaddie medical squad arrived, and on their heels—immediately after them, Chief Venn. The security chief was instantly deluged with excited descriptions of the spectacular attack on the Imperial Auditor. Only the erstwhile victim Miles was calm, standing in wait with a certain grim amusement.

Amusement was an emotion notably lacking in Venn's face. “Were you hit, Lord Auditor Vorkosigan?”

“No.” Time to put in a good word—we may need it later. “Thanks to the quick reactions of Portmaster Thorne, here. But for this remarkable herm, you—and the Union of Free Habitats—would have one hell of a mess on your hands just now.”

A babble of confirmation solidified this view, with a couple of people breathlessly describing Bel's selfless defense of the visiting dignitary with the shield of its own body. Bel's eye glinted briefly at Miles, though whether with gratitude or its opposite Miles was not just sure. The portmaster's modest protests served only to firmly affix the picture of this heroism in the eyewitnesses' minds, and Miles suppressed a grin.

One of the quaddie security patrollers who had gone in pursuit of the assailant now returned, floating back over the balcony to jerk to a halt before Chief Venn and report breathlessly, “Lost him, sir. We've put all duty personnel on alert, but we don't have much of a physical description.”

Three or four people attempted to supplement this lack, in vivid and contradictory terms. Bel, listening, frowned more deeply.

Miles nudged the herm. “Hm?”

Bel shook its head and murmured back, “Thought for a moment he looked like someone I'd seen recently, but that was a downsider, so—no.”

Miles considered his own brief impression. Bright-haired, light-skinned, a trifle bulky, of indeterminate age, probably male—this could cover some several hundred quaddies on Graf Station. Laboring under intense emotion, but by that time, Miles had been too. Seen once, at that distance, under such circumstances, Miles didn't think even he could reliably pick the fellow out of a group of similar physical types. Unfortunately, none of the transients had happened just then to be doing a vid scan of the lobby d?cor or each other to show the folks back home. The waitress and her patron weren't even quite sure when the fellow had arrived, though they thought he'd been in position for a few minutes, upper hands resting casually upon the balcony railing, as if waiting for some last straggler from the passengers' meeting to mount the stairs. And so he was.

The still-shaken Dubauer fended off the medtechs, insisting it could treat the clotted rivet-graze itself and, reiterating a lack of anything to add to the testimonies, begged to be let go back to its room to lie down.

Bel said to its fellow Betan, “Sorry about all this. I may be tied up for a while. If I can't get away myself, I'll have Boss Watts send another supervisor to escort you aboard the Idris to take care of your critters.”

“Thank you, Portmaster. That would be very welcome. You'll call my room, yes? It really is most urgent.” Dubauer withdrew hastily.

Miles couldn't blame Dubauer for fleeing, for the quaddie news services were arriving, in the persons of two eager reporters in floaters emblazoned with the logo of their journalistic work gang. An array of little vidcam floaters bobbed after them. The vidcams darted about, collecting scans. Sealer Greenlaw followed hurriedly in their wake, and wove her floater determinedly through the growing mob to Miles's side. She was flanked by two quaddie bodyguards in Union Militia garb, with serious weapons and armor. However useless against assassins, they at least had the salutary effect of making the babbling bystanders back off.

“Lord Auditor Vorkosigan, were you hurt?” she demanded at once.

Miles repeated to her the assurances he'd made to Venn. He kept one eye on the robot vidcams floating up to him and recording his words, and not just to be sure his good side was turned to them. But none appeared to be mini-weapons-platforms in disguise. He made sure to loudly mention Bel's heroics again, which had the useful effect of turning them in pursuit of the Betan portmaster, now on the other side of the lobby being grilled in more detail by Venn's security people.

Greenlaw said stiffly, “Lord Auditor Vorkosigan, may I convey my profound personal apologies for this untoward incident. I assure you, all of the Union's resources will be turned to tracking down what I am certain must be an unbalanced individual and danger to us all.”

Danger to us all indeed . “I don't know what's going on, here,” said Miles. He let his voice sharpen. “And clearly, neither do you . This is no diplomatic chess game any more. Someone seems to be trying to start a damned war in here. They nearly succeeded.”

She took a deep breath. “I am certain the person was acting alone.”

Miles frowned thoughtfully. The hotheads are always with us, true. He lowered his voice. “For what? Retaliation? Did any of the quaddies injured by Vorpatril's strike force suddenly die last night?” He'd thought they all were on the recovering list. It was hard to imagine a quaddie relative or lover or friend taking bloody revenge for anything short of a fatality, but . . .

“No,” said Greenlaw, her voice slowing as she considered this hypothesis. Regretfully, her voice firmed. “No. I would have been told.”

So, Greenlaw was wishing for a simple explanation, too. But honest enough not to fool herself, at least.

His wrist com gave its high priority beep; he slapped it. “Yes?”

“My Lord Vorkosigan?” It was Admiral Vorpatril's voice, strained.

Not Ekaterin or Roic after all. Miles's heart climbed back down out of his throat. He tried not to let his voice go irritable. “Yes, Admiral?”