Diplomatic Immunity

“Where is Portmaster Thorne?” Miles asked.

“I told those thugs before. I never heard of him.”

“Thorne is the Betan herm you sprayed with knockout mist last night in a utility passage off Cross Corridor. Along with a blond quaddie woman named Garnet Five.”

The surly look deepened. “Never seen either of 'em.”

Venn turned his head and nodded to a patroller, who flitted off. A few moments later she returned through one of the chamber's other portals, ushering Garnet Five. Garnet's color looked vastly better now, Miles was relieved to note, and she had obviously managed to obtain whatever female grooming equipment she used to touch herself back up to her high-visibility norm.

“Ah!” she said cheerfully. “You caught him! Where's Bel?”

Venn inquired formally, “Is this the downsider who committed chemical assault on you and the portmaster, and released illicit volatiles into the public atmosphere last night?”

“Oh, yes,” said Garnet Five. “I couldn't possibly mistake him. I mean, look at the webs.”

Gupta clenched his lips, his fists, and his feet, but further pretense was clearly futile.

Venn lowered his voice to a quite nicely menacing official growl. “Gupta, where is Portmaster Thorne?”

“I don't know where the blighted nosy herm is! I left it in the bin right next to hers. It was all right then. I mean, it was breathing and all. They both were. I made sure. The herm's probably still sleeping it off in there.”

“No,” said Miles. “We checked all the bins in the passage. The portmaster was gone.”

“Well, I don't know where it went after that.”

“Would you be willing to repeat that assertion under fast-penta, and clear yourself of a kidnapping charge?” Venn inquired cannily, angling for a voluntary interrogation.

Gupta's rubbery face set, and his eyes shifted away. “Can't. I'm allergic to the stuff.”

“Is that so?” said Miles. “Let's just check, shall we?” He dug in his trouser pocket and drew out the strip of test patches he'd borrowed earlier from the Kestrel 's ImpSec supplies, in anticipation of just such an opportunity. Granted, he hadn't anticipated the added urgency of Bel's alarming vanishing act. He held up the strip and explained to Venn and the adjudicator, who was monitoring all this with a judicial frown, “Security-grade penta allergy skin test. If the subject has any of the six kinds of artificially induced anaphylaxes or even a mild natural allergy, the welt pops right up.” By way of reassurance to the quaddie officials, he peeled off one of the burr-like patches and slapped it on the back of his own wrist, displaying it with a heartening wriggle of his fingers. The sleight of hand was sufficient that no one except the prisoner protested when he leaned over and pressed another to Gupta's arm. Gupta let out a yowl of horror that won him only stares; he reduced it to a pitiable whimper under the bemused eyes of the onlookers.

Miles peeled off his own patch to reveal a distinct reddish prickle. “As you see, I do have a slight endogenous sensitivity.” He waited a few moments longer, to drive home the point, then reached over and peeled the patch off Gupta. The rather sickly natural—mushrooms were natural, right?—skin tone was unaffected.

Venn, getting into the rhythm of the thing like an old ImpSec hand, leaned toward Gupta and said, “That's two lies, so far, then. You can stop lying now. Or you can stop lying shortly. Either way will do.” He raised narrowed eyes to his fellow quaddie official. “Adjudicator Leutwyn, do you rule that we have sufficient cause for an involuntary chemically assisted interrogation of this transient?”

The adjudicator looked less than wholly enthusiastic, but he replied, “In light of his admitted connection to the worrisome disappearance of a valued Station employee, yes, there can be no question. I do remind you that subjecting detainees in your charge to unnecessary physical discomfort is against regs.”

Venn glanced at Gupta, hanging miserably in air. “How can he be uncomfortable? He's in free fall.”

The adjudicator pursed his lips. “Transient Gupta, aside from your restraints, are you in any special discomfort at this time? Do you require food, drink, or downsider sanitary facilities?”

Gupta jerked his wrists against their soft bonds, and shrugged. “Naw. Well, yes. My gills are getting dry. If you're not gonna let me loose, I need somebody to spray them. The stuff's in my bag.”

“This?” The female quaddie patroller held out what appeared to be a perfectly ordinary plastic sprayer, of the sort that Miles had seen Ekaterin use to mist some of her plants. She wriggled it, and it gurgled.

“What's in it?” asked Venn suspiciously.

“Water, mostly. And a bit of glycerin,” said Gupta.

“Go ahead and check it,” said Venn aside to his patroller. She nodded and floated out; Gupta watched her depart with some mistrust, but no particular alarm.

“Transient Gupta, it appears you're going to be our guest for a while,” said Venn. “If we remove your restraints, are you going to give us any trouble, or are you going to behave yourself?”

Gupta was silent a moment, then vented an exhausted sigh. “I'll behave. Much good it'll do me either way.”

A patroller floated forward and unshackled the prisoner's wrists and ankles. Only Roic seemed less than pleased with this unnecessary courtesy, tensing with a hand on a wall grip and one foot planted to a bit of bulkhead not occupied by equipment, ready to launch himself forward. But Gupta only chafed his wrists and bent to rub his ankles, and looked grudgingly grateful.

The patroller returned with the bottle, handing it to her chief. “The lab's chemical sniffer says it's inert. Should be safe,” she reported.

“Very well.” Venn pitched the bottle to Gupta, who despite his odd long hands caught it readily, with little downsider clumsiness, a fact Miles was sure the quaddie noted.

“Um.” Gupta gave the crowd of onlookers a slightly embarrassed glance, and hitched up his loose poncho. He stretched and inhaled, and the ribs on his big barrel chest drew apart; flaps of skin parted to reveal red slashes. The substance beneath seemed spongy, rippling in the misting like densely laid feathers.

God almighty. He really does have gills under there. Presumably, the bellows-like movement of the chest helped pump water through, when the amphibian was immersed. Dual systems. So did he hold his breath, or did his lungs shut down involuntarily? By what mechanism was his blood circulation switched from one oxygenating interface to the other? Gupta pumped the bottle and sprayed mist into the red slits, handing it back and forth from right side to left, and seemed to draw some comfort thereby. He sighed, and the slits closed back down, his chest appearing merely ridged and scarred. He smoothed the drifting poncho back into place.

“Where are you from?” Miles couldn't help asking.

Gupta grew surly again. “Guess.”

“Well, Jackson's Whole, by the weight of the evidence, but which House made you? Ryoval, Bharaputra, another? And were you a one-off, or part of a set? First-generation gengineered, or from a self-reproducing line of, of water people?”

Gupta's eyes widened in surprise. “You know Jackson's Whole?”

“Let's say, I've had several painfully educational visits there.”

The surprise became edged with faint respect, and a certain lonely eagerness. “House Dyan made me. I was part of a set, once—we were an underwater ballet troupe.”

Garnet Five blurted in unflattering astonishment, “You were a dancer?”

The prisoner hunched his shoulders. “No. They made me to be submersible stage crew. But House Dyan suffered a hostile takeover by House Ryoval—just a few years before Baron Ryoval was assassinated, pity that didn't happen sooner. Ryoval broke up the troupe for other, um, tasks, and decided he had no alternate use for me, so I was out of a job and out of protection. Could have been worse. He mighta kept me. I drifted around and took what tech jobs I could get. One thing led to another.”

In other words, Gupta had been born into Jacksonian techno-serfdom, and dumped out on the street when his original owner-creators had been engulfed by their vicious commercial rival. Given what Miles knew of the late, unsavory Baron Ryoval, Gupta's fate was perhaps happier than that of his mer-cohort. By the known date of Ryoval's death, that last vague remark about things leading to things covered at least five years, maybe as many as ten.

Miles said thoughtfully, “You weren't shooting at me at all yesterday, then, were you. Nor at Portmaster Thorne.” Which left . . .