Diplomatic Immunity

atmosphere pack drew air from the environs, through filters and cookers. In the event of a pressurization loss, his suit would turn into a stiff, unwieldy balloon, perhaps even rupture at a weak point. There were bod pod lockers on the walls, of course. Miles pictured being trapped in a bod pod while the action went on without him.

Given that he was already exposed to . . . whatever, peeling out of his biotainer suit long enough to get into something tighter couldn't make things any worse, could it? He stared at his hands and wondered why he wasn't dead yet. Could the glop he'd touched have been only a simple corrosive?

Miles clawed his stunner out of his thigh pocket, awkwardly with his mittened hand, and walked back through the blue bars of light marking the bio-barrier. “Roic. I want you to dash back down to Engineering and grab me the smallest pressure suit you can find. I'll guard this point till you get back.”

“M'lord,” Roic began in a tone of doubt.

“Keep your stunner out; watch your back. We're all here, so if you see anything move that isn't quaddie green, shoot first.”

Roic swallowed manfully. “Yes, well, see that you stay here, m'lord. Don't go haring off on your own without me!”

“I wouldn't dream of it,” Miles promised.

Roic departed at the gallop. Miles readjusted his awkward grip on the stunner, made sure it was set to maximum power, and took a stance partly sheltered by the door, staring up the central corridor at his bodyguard's retreating form. Scowling.

I don't understand this.

Something didn't add up, and if he could just get ten consecutive minutes not filled with lethal new tactical crises, maybe it would come to him. . . . He tried not to think about his stinging palms, and what ingenious microbial sneak assault might even now be stealing through his body, maybe even making its way into his brain.

An ordinary imperial servitor ba ought to have died before abandoning a charge like those haut-filled replicators. And even if this one had been trained as some sort of special agent, why spend all that critical time taking samples from the fetuses that it was about to desert or maybe even destroy? Every haut infant ever made had its DNA kept on file back in the central gene banks of the Star Cr?che. They could make more, surely. What made this batch so irreplaceable?

His train of thought derailed itself as he imagined little gengineered parasites multiplying frenetically through his bloodstream, blip-blip-blip-blip .Calm down, dammit. He didn't actually know if he'd even been inoculated with the same evil disease as Bel. Yeah, it might be something even worse . Yet surely some Cetagandan designer neurotoxin—or even some quite ordinary off-the-shelf poison—ought to cut in much faster than this. Although if it's a drug to drive the victim mad with paranoia, it's working really well. Was the ba's repertoire of hell-potions limited? If it had any, why not many? Whatever stimulants or hypnotics it had used on Bel need not have been anything out of the ordinary, by the norms of covert ops. How many other fancy bio-tricks did it have up its sleeve? Was Miles about to personally demonstrate the next one?

Am I going to live long enough to say good-bye to Ekaterin? A good-bye kiss was right out, unless they pressed their lips to opposite sides of some really thick window of glass. He had so much to say to her; it seemed impossible to find where to start. Even more impossible by voice alone, over an open, unsecured public com link. Take care of the kids. Kiss them for me every night at bedtime, and tell them I loved them even if I never saw them. You won't be alone—my parents will help you. Tell my parents . . . tell them . . .

Was this damned thing starting up already, or were the hot panic and choking tears in his throat entirely self-induced? An enemy that attacked you from the inside out—you could try to turn yourself inside out to fight it, but you wouldn't succeed—filthy weapon! Open channel or not, I'm calling her now. . . .

Instead, Venn's voice sounded in his ear. “Lord Vorkosigan, pick up Channel Twelve. Your Admiral Vorpatril wants you. Badly.”

Miles hissed through his teeth and keyed his helmet com over. “Vorkosigan here.”

“Vorkosigan, you idiot—!” The admiral's syntax had shed a few honorifics sometime in the past hour. “What the hell is going on over there? Why don't you answer your wrist com?”

“It's inside my biotainer suit and inaccessible right now. I'm afraid I had to don the suit in a hurry. Be aware, this helmet link is an open access channel and unsecured, sir.” Dammit, where did that sir drop in from? Habit, sheer old bad habit. “You can ask for a brief report from Captain Clogston over his military suit's tight-beam link, but keep it short . He's a very busy man right now, and I don't want him distracted.”

Vorpatril swore—whether generally or at the Imperial Auditor was left nicely ambiguous—and clicked off.

Faintly echoing through the ship came the sound Miles had been waiting for—the distant clanks and hisses of airseal doors shutting down, sealing the ship into airtight sections. The quaddies had made it to Nav and Com, good! Except that Roic wasn't back yet. The armsman would have to get in touch with Venn and Greenlaw and get them to unseal and reseal his passage back up to—

“Vorkosigan.” Venn's voice sounded again in his ear, strained. “Is that you?”

“Is what me?”

“Shutting off the compartments.”

“Isn't it,” Miles tried, and failed, to swallow his voice back down to a more reasonable pitch. “Aren't you in Nav and Com yet ?”

“No, we circled back to the Number Two nacelle to pick up our equipment. We were just about to leave it.”

Hope flared in Miles's hammering heart. “Roic,” he called urgently. “Where are you?”

“Not in Nav and Com, m'lord,” Roic's grim voice returned.

“But if we're here and he's there, who's doing this ?” came Leutwyn's unhappy voice.

“Who do you think ?” Greenlaw ripped back. Her breath huffed out in anguish. “Five people, and not one of us thought to see the door locked behind us when we left—dammit!”

A small, bleak grunt, like a man being hit with an arrow, or a realization, sounded in Miles's ear: Roic.

Miles said urgently, “Anyone who holds Nav and Com has access to all these ship-linked com channels, or will, shortly. We're going to have to switch off.”

The quaddies had independent links to the station and Vorpatril through their suits; so did the medicos. Miles and Roic would be the ones plunged into communications limbo.

Then, abruptly, the sound in his helmet went dead. Ah. Looks like the ba has found the com controls. . . .

Miles leapt to the environmental control panel for the infirmary to the left of the door, opened it, and hit every manual override in it. With this outer door shut, they could retain air pressure, although circulation would be blocked. The medicos in their suits would be unaffected; Miles and Bel would be at risk. He eyed the bod pod locker on the wall without favor. The bio-sealed ward was already functioning on internal circulation, thank God, and could remain so—as long as the power stayed on. But how could they keep Bel cold if the herm had to retreat to a pod?

Miles hurried back into the ward. He approached Clogston, and yelled through his faceplate, “We just lost our ship-linked suit coms. Keep to your tight-beam military channels only.”

“I heard,” Clogston yelled back.

“How are you coming on that filter-cooler?”

“Cooler part's done. Still working on the filter. I wish I'd brought more hands, although there's scarcely room in here for more butts.”

“I've almost got it, I think,” called the tech, crouched over the bench. “Check that, will you, sir?” He waved in the direction of one of the analyzers, a collection of lights on its readout now blinking for attention.

Clogston dodged around him and bent to the machine in question. After a moment he murmured, “Oh,