Diplomatic Immunity

Escobaran prison camp, before the negotiators finally got me mustered home. The Escobarans didn't make it a holiday for us, I can tell you that.”

It could have been worse. You might have been a female Escobaran prisoner of war in one of our camps. Miles decided not to suggest this exercise of the imagination to the admiral just now. “I would expect not.”

“All I'm saying is, I know what it is to be abandoned, and I won't do it to men of mine for any trivial reason.” His narrow glance at the cargomaster made it clear that evaporating Komarran corporate profits did not qualify as a weighty enough reason for this violation of principle. “Events proved—” He hesitated, and rephrased himself. “For a time, I thought events had proved me right.”

“For a time,” Miles echoed. “Not any more?”

“Now . . . well . . . what happened next was pretty . . . pretty disturbing. There was an unauthorized cycling of a personnel airlock in the Graf Station cargo bay next to where the Idris was locked on. No ship or personnel pod was sighted at it, however—the tube seals weren't activated. By the time the Station security guard got there, the bay was empty. But there was a quantity of blood on the floor, and signs of something dragged to the lock. The blood came up on testing as Solian's. It looked like he was trying to make it back to the Idris , and someone jumped him.”

“Someone who didn't leave footprints,” added Brun darkly.

At Miles's inquiring look, Vorpatril explained, “In the gravitational areas where the downsiders stay, the quaddies buzz around in these little personal floaters. They operate 'em with their lower hands, leaving their upper arms free. No footprints. No feet, for that matter.”

“Ah, yes. I understand,” said Miles. “Blood, but no body—has a body been found?”

“Not yet,” said Brun.

“Searched for?”

“Oh, yes. In all the possible trajectories.”

“I suppose it's occurred to you that a deserter might try to fake his own murder or suicide, to free himself from pursuit.”

“I might have thought that,” said Brun, “but I saw the loading bay floor. No one could lose that much blood and live. There must have been three or four liters at least.”

Miles shrugged. “The first step in emergency cryonic prep is to exsanguinate the patient and replace his blood with cryo-fluid. That can easily leave several liters of blood on the floor, and the victim—well, potentially alive.” He'd had close personal experience of the process, or so Elli Quinn and Bel Thorne had told him afterward, on that Dendarii Free Mercenary mission that had gone so disastrously wrong. Granted, he didn't remember that part, except through Bel's extremely vivid description.

Brun's brows flicked up. “I hadn't thought of that.”

“It rather sprang to my mind,” said Miles apologetically. I could show you the scars.

Brun frowned, then shook his head. “I don't think there would have been time before Station security arrived on the scene.”

“Even if a portable cryochamber was standing ready?”

Brun opened his mouth, then closed it again. He finally said, “It's a complicated scenario, my lord.”

“I don't insist on it,” said Miles easily. He considered the other end of the cryo-revival process. “Except that I'd also point out that there are other sources of several liters of nice fresh one's-own-personal blood besides a victim's body. Such as a revival lab's or hospital's synthesizer. The product would certainly light up a cursory DNA scan. You couldn't even call it a false positive, exactly. A bio-forensics lab could tell the difference, though. Traces of cryo-fluid would be obvious, too, if only someone thought to look for them.” He added wistfully, “I hate circumstantial evidence. Who ran the identification check on the blood?”

Brun shifted uncomfortably. “The quaddies. We'd downloaded Solian's DNA scan to them when he first went missing. But the security liaison officer from the Rudra had gone over by then—he was right there in the bay watching their tech. He reported the match to me as soon as the analyzer beeped. That's when I podded across to look at it all myself.”

“Did he collect another sample to cross-check?”

“I . . . believe so. I can ask the fleet surgeon if he received one before, um, other events overtook us.”

Admiral Vorpatril sat looking unpleasantly stunned. “I thought certainly poor Solian was murdered. By some—” He fell silent.

“It doesn't sound as though that hypothesis is ruled out either, yet,” Miles consoled him. “In any case, you honestly believed it at the time. Have your fleet surgeon examine his samples more thoroughly, please, and report to me.”

“And to Graf Station Security, too?”

“Ah . . . maybe not them yet.” Even if the results were negative, the query would only serve to stir up more quaddie suspicions about Barrayarans. And if they were positive . . . Miles wanted to think about that first. “At any rate, what happened next?”

“That Solian was himself Fleet Security made his murder—apparent murder—seem especially sinister,” Vorpatril admitted. “Had he been trying to get back with some warning? We couldn't tell. So I canceled all leaves, went to alert status, and ordered all ships to detach from dockside.”

“With no explanation of why ,” put in Molino.

Vorpatril glowered at him. “During an alert, a commander does not stop to explain orders. He expects to be instantly obeyed. Besides, the way you people had been champing at the bit, complaining about the delays, I hardly thought I'd need to repeat myself.” A muscle jumped in his jaw; he inhaled and returned to his narrative. “At this point, we suffered something of a communications breakdown.”

Here comes the smokescreen, at last.

“Our understanding was that a two-man security patrol, sent to retrieve an officer who was late reporting in—”

“That would be Ensign Corbeau?”

“Yes. Corbeau. As we understood it at the time, the patrol and the ensign were attacked, disarmed, and detained by quaddies. The real story as it emerged later was more complex, but that was what I had to go on as I was trying to clear Graf Station of all our personnel and stand off for any contingency up to immediate evacuation from local space.”

Miles leaned forward. “Did you believe it to be random quaddies who had seized your men, or did you understand it to have been Graf Station Security?”

Vorpatril didn't quite grind his teeth, but almost. He answered nonetheless, “Yes, we knew it was their security.”

“Did you ask your legal officer to advise you?”

“No.”

“Did Ensign Deslaurier volunteer advice?”

“No, my lord,” Deslaurier managed to whisper.

“I see. Go on.”

“I ordered Captain Brun to send a strike patrol in to retrieve, now, three men from a situation that I believed had just proved lethally dangerous to Barrayaran personnel.”

“Armed with rather more than stunners, I understand?”

“I couldn't ask my men to go up against those numbers with only stunners, my lord,” said Brun. “There are a million of those mutants out there!”

Miles let his brows climb. “On Graf Station? I thought its resident population was around fifty thousand. Civilians.”

Brun made an impatient gesture. “A million to twelve, fifty thousand to twelve—regardless, they needed weapons with authority. My rescue party needed to get in and out as quickly as possible, having to deal with as little argument or resistance as possible. Stunners are useless as weapons of intimidation.”

“I am familiar with the argument.” Miles leaned back and rubbed his lips. “Go on.”

“My patrol reached the place our men were being held—”