Diplomatic Immunity

I didn't really want to go out on the station alone. Has anyone heard—he hasn't been apprehended yet, has he? No? I was hoping . . . can anyone go with me?”

Bel smiled sympathetically at this display of frazzled nerves. “I'll send one of the security guards with you. That all right?”

“I should be extremely grateful, yes.”

“Are you all finished, now?”

Dubauer bit its lip. “Well, yes and no. That is, I have finished servicing my replicators, and done what little I can to slow the growth and metabolism of their contents. But if my cargo is to be held here very much longer, there'll not be time to get to my final destination before my creatures outgrow their containers. If I indeed have to destroy them, it will be a disastrous event.”

“The Komarran fleet's insurance ought to make good on that, I'd think,” said Bel.

“Or you could sue Graf Station,” Miles suggested. “Better yet, do both, and collect twice.” Bel spared him an exasperated glance.

Dubauer managed a pained smile. “That only addresses the immediate financial loss.” After a longer pause, the herm continued, “To salvage the more important part, the proprietary bioengineering, I wish to take tissue samples and freeze them before disposal. I shall also require some equipment for complete biomatter breakdown. Or access to the ship's converters, if they won't become overloaded with the mass I must destroy. It's going to be a time-consuming and, I fear, extremely messy task. I was wondering, Portmaster Thorne—if you cannot obtain my cargo's release from quaddie impoundment, can you at least get me permission to stay aboard the Idris while I undertake its dispatch?”

Bel's brow wrinkled at the horrific picture the herm's soft words conjured. “Let's hope you're not forced to such extreme measures. How much time do you have, really?”

The herm hesitated. “Not very much more. And if I must dispose of my creatures—the sooner, the better. I'd prefer to get it over with.”

“Understandable.” Bel blew out its breath.

“There might be some alternate possibilities to stretch your time window,” said Miles. “Hiring a smaller, faster ship to take you directly to your destination, for example.”

The herm shook its head sadly. “And who would pay for this ship, my Lord Vorkosigan? The Barrayaran Imperium?”

Miles bit his tongue on either Yeah, sure! or alternate suggestions involving Greenlaw and the Union. He was supposed to be handling the big picture, not getting bogged down in all the human—or inhumane—details. He made a neutral gesture and let Bel shepherd the Betan out.

Miles spent a few more minutes failing to find anything exciting on the vid logs, then Bel returned.

Miles shut down the vid. “I think I'd like a look at that funny Betan's cargo.”

“Can't help you there,” said Bel. “I don't have the codes to the freight lockers. Only the passengers are supposed to have the access to the space they rent, by contract, and the quaddies haven't bothered to get a court order to make them disgorge 'em. Decreases Graf Station's liability for theft while the passengers aren't aboard, y'see. You'll have to get Dubauer to let you in.”

“Dear Bel, I am an Imperial Auditor, and this is not only a Barrayaran-registered ship, it belongs to Empress Laisa's own family. I go where I will. Solian has to have a security override for every cranny of this ship. Roic?”

“Right here, m'lord.” The armsman tapped his notation device.

“Very well, then, let's take a walk.”

Bel and Roic followed him down the corridor and through the central lock to the adjoining freight section. The double-door to the second chamber down yielded to Roic's careful tapping on its lock pad. Miles poked his head through and brought up the lights.

It was an impressive sight. Gleaming replicator racks stood packed in tight rows, filling the space and leaving only narrow aisles between. Each rack sat bolted on its own float pallet, in four layers of five units—twenty to a rack, as high as Roic was tall. Beneath darkened display readouts on each, control panels twinkled with reassuringly green lights. For now.

Miles walked down the aisle formed by five pallets, around the end, and up the next, counting. More pallets lined the walls. Bel's estimate of a thousand seemed exactly right. “You'd think the placental chambers would be a larger size. These seem nearly identical to the ones at home.” With which he'd grown intimately familiar, of late. These arrays were clearly meant for mass production. All twenty units stacked on a pallet economically shared reservoirs, pumps, filtration devices, and the control panel. He leaned closer. “I don't see a maker's mark.” Or serial numbers or anything else that would reveal the planet of origin for what were clearly very finely made machines. He tapped a control to bring the monitor screen to life.

The glowing screen didn't contain manufacturing data or serial numbers either. Just a stylized scarlet screaming-bird pattern on a silver background. . . . His heart began to lump. What the hell was this doing here . . . ?

“Miles,” said Bel's voice, seeming to come from a long way off, “if you're going to pass out, put your head down.”

“Between my knees,” choked Miles, “and kiss my ass good-bye. Bel, do you know what that sigil is ?”

“No,” said Bel, in a leery now-what? tone.

“Cetagandan Star Cr?che. Not the military ghem-lords, not their cultivated—and I mean that in both senses—masters, the haut lords—not even the Imperial Celestial Garden. Higher still. The Star Cr?che is the innermost core of the innermost ring of the whole damned giant genetic engineering project that is the Cetagandan Empire. The haut ladies' own gene bank. They design their emperors, there. Hell, they design the whole haut race, there. The haut ladies don't work in animal genes. They think it would be beneath them. They leave that to the ghem-ladies. Not, note, to the ghem-lords . . .”

Hand shaking slightly, he reached out to touch the monitor and bring up the next control level. General power and reservoir readouts, all in the green. The next level allowed individual monitoring of each fetus contained within one of the twenty separate placental chambers. Human blood temperature, baby mass, and if that weren't enough, tiny individual vid spy cameras built in, with lights, to view the replicators' inhabitants in real time, floating peacefully in their amniotic sacs. The one in the monitor twitched tiny fingers at the soft red glow, and seemed to scrunch up its big dark eyes. If not quite grown to term, it—no, she—was damned close to it, Miles guessed. He thought of Helen Natalia, and Aral Alexander.

Roic swung on his booted heel, lips parting in dismay, staring up the aisle of glittering devices. “D'you mean, m'lord, that all these things are full of human babies?”

“Well, now, that's a question. Actually, that's two questions. Are they full, and are they human? If they are haut infants, that latter is a most debatable point. For the first, we can at least look . . .” A dozen more pallet monitors, checked at random intervals around the room, revealed similar results. Miles was breathing rapidly by the time he gave it up for proven.

Roic said in a puzzled tone, “So what's a Betan herm doing with a bunch of Cetagandan replicators? And just because they're Cetagandan make, how d'you know it's Cetagandans inside 'em? Maybe the Betan bought the replicators used?”

Miles, lips drawn back on a grin, swung to Bel. “Betan? What do you think, Bel? How much did you two talk about the old sandbox while you were supervising this visit?”

“We didn't talk much at all.” Bel shook its head. “But that doesn't prove anything. I'm not much for bringing up the subject of home myself, and even if I had, I'm too out of touch with Beta to spot inaccuracies in current events anyway. It wasn't Dubauer's conversation that was the trouble. There was just something . . . off, in its body language.”

“Body language. Just so.” Miles stepped to Bel, reached up, and turned the herm's face to the light. Bel did not flinch at his nearness, but merely smiled. Fine hairs gleamed on cheek and chin. Miles's eyes narrowed as he carefully revisualized the cut on Dubauer's cheek.

“You have facial down, like women. All herms do, right?”

“Sure. Unless they're using a really thorough depilatory, I suppose. Some even cultivate beards.”

“Dubauer doesn't.” Miles made to pace down the aisle, stopped himself, turned back, and held still with an