Diplomatic Immunity

that's clever.”

Miles, crowding his shoulder close enough to hear this, did not find it reassuring. “What's clever?”

Clogston pointed at his analyzer readout, which now displayed incomprehensible strings of letters and numbers in cheery colors. “I didn't see how the parasites could possibly survive in a matrix of that enzyme that ate your biotainer gloves. But they were microencapsulated.”

“What?”

“Standard trick for delivering drugs through a hostile environment—like your stomach, or maybe your bloodstream—to the target zone. Only this time, used to deliver a disease. When the microencapsulation passes out of the unfriendly environment into the—chemically speaking—friendly zone, it pops open, releasing its load. No loss, no waste.”

“Oh. Wonderful. Are you saying I now have the same shit Bel has?”

“Um.” Clogston glanced up at a chrono on the wall. “How long since you were first exposed, my lord?”

Miles followed his glance. “Half an hour, maybe?”

“They might be detectable in your bloodstream by now.”

“Check it.”

“We'll have to open your suit to access a vein.”

“Check it now. Fast .”

Clogston grabbed a sampler needle; Miles peeled back the biotainer wrap from his left wrist, and gritted his teeth as a biocide swab stung and the needle poked. Clogston was pretty deft for a man wearing biotainer gloves, Miles had to concede. He watched anxiously as the surgeon delicately slipped the needle into the analyzer.

“How long will this take?”

“Now that we have the template of the thing, no time at all. If it's positive, that is. If this first sample shows negative, I'd want a recheck every thirty minutes or so to be sure.” Clogston's voice slowed, as he studied his readout. “Well. Um. A recheck won't be necessary.”

“Right,” Miles snarled. He yanked open his helmet and pushed back his suit sleeve. He bent to his secured wrist com and snapped, “Vorpatril!”

“Yes!” Vorpatril's voice came back instantly. Riding his com channels—he must be on duty in either the Prince Xav 's own Nav and Com, or maybe, by now, its tactics room. “Wait, what are you doing on this channel? I thought you had no access.”

“The situation has changed. Never mind that now. What's happening out there?”

“What's happening in there ?”

“The medical team, Portmaster Thorne, and I are holed up in the infirmary. For the moment, we're still in control of our environment. I believe Venn, Greenlaw, and Leutwyn are trapped in the Number Two freight nacelle. Roic may be somewhere in Engineering. And the ba, I believe, has seized Nav and Com. Can you confirm that last?”

“Oh, yes,” groaned Vorpatril. “It's talking to the quaddies on Graf Station right now. Making threats and demands. Boss Watts seems to have inherited their hot seat. I have a strike team scrambling.”

“Patch it in here. I have to hear this.”

A few seconds delay, then the ba's voice sounded. The Betan accent was gone; the academic coolness was fraying. “—name does not matter. If you wish to get the Sealer, the Imperial Auditor, and the others back alive, these are my requirements. A jump pilot for this ship, delivered immediately. Free and unimpeded passage from your system. If either you or the Barrayarans attempt to launch a military assault against the Idris , I will either blow up the ship with all aboard, or ram the station.”

Boss Watts's voice returned, thick with tension, “If you attempt to ram Graf Station, we'll blow you up ourselves .”

“Either way will do,” the ba's voice returned dryly.

Did the ba know how to blow up a jumpship? It wasn't exactly easy. Hell, if the Cetagandan was a hundred years old, who know what all it knew how to do? Ramming, now—with a target that big and close, any layman could manage it.

Greenlaw's stiff voice cut in; her com link presumably was patched through to Watts in the same way that Miles's was to Vorpatril. “Don't do it, Watts. Quaddiespace cannot let a plague-carrier like this pass through to our neighbors. A handful of lives can't justify the risk to thousands.”

“Indeed,” the ba continued after a slight hesitation, still in that same cool tone. “If you do succeed in killing me, I'm afraid you will win yourselves another dilemma. I have left a small gift aboard the station. The experiences of Gupta and Portmaster Thorne should give you an idea of what sort of package it is. You might find it before it ruptures, although I'd say your odds are poor. Where are your thousands now? Much closer to home.”

True threat or bluff? Miles wondered frantically. It certainly fit the ba's style as demonstrated so far—Bel in the bod pod, the booby trap with the suit-control joysticks—hideous, lethal puzzles tossed out in the ba's wake to disrupt and distract its pursuers. It sure worked on me, anyway.

Vorpatril cut in privately on the wrist com, in an unnecessarily lowered, tense tone, overriding the exchange between the ba and Watts. “Do you think the bastard's bluffing, m'lord?”

“Doesn't matter if it's bluffing or not. I want it alive . Oh, God do I ever want it alive. Take that as a top priority and an order in the Emperor's Voice, Admiral.”

After a small and, Miles hoped, thoughtful pause, Vorpatril returned, “Understood, my Lord Auditor.”

“Ready your strike team, yes . . .” Vorpatril's best strike force was locked in quaddie detention. What was the second best one like? Miles's heart quailed. “But hold it. This situation is extremely unstable. I don't have any clear sense yet how it will play out. Put the ba's channel back on.” Miles returned his attention to the negotiation in progress—no—winding up?

“A jump pilot.” The ba seemed to be reiterating. “Alone, in a personnel pod, to the Number Five B lock. And, ah—naked.” Horribly, there seemed to be a smile in that last word. “For obvious reasons.”

The ba cut the com.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Now what?

Delays, Miles guessed, while the quaddies on Graf Station either readied a pilot or ran the risks of stalling about delivering one into such a hazard, and suppose none volunteered? While Vorpatril marshaled his strike team, while the three quaddie officials trapped in the freight nacelle—well, didn't sit on their hands, Miles bet— while this infection gains on me , while the ba did—what?

Delay is not my friend.

But it was his gift. What time was it, anyway? Late evening—still the same day that had started so early with the news of Bel's disappearance? Yes, though it hardly felt possible. Surely he had entered some time warp. Miles stared at his wrist com, took a deep, terrified breath, and called up Ekaterin's code. Had Vorpatril told her anything of what was happening yet, or had he kept her comfortably ignorant?

“Miles!” she answered at once.

“Ekaterin, love. Where, um . . . are you?”

“The tactics room, with Admiral Vorpatril.”

Ah. That answered that question. In a way, he was relieved that he didn't have to deliver the whole litany of bad news himself, cold. “You've been following this, then.”

“More or less. It's been very confusing.”

“I'll bet. I . . .” He couldn't say it, not so baldly. He dodged, while he mustered courage. “I promised to call Nicol when I had news of Bel, and I haven't had a chance. The news, as you may know, is not good; we found Bel, but the herm has been deliberately infected with a bioengineered Cetagandan parasite that may . . . may prove lethal.”

“Yes, I understand. I've been hearing it all, here in the tactics room.”

“Good. The medics are doing their best, but it's a race against time and now there are these other