Diplomatic Immunity

Roic unbent from the port, looking especially stoic, faint vertical lines of worry between his eyebrows.

Miles asked, “Has everyone had their antinausea pills?”

Roic nodded earnestly.

Ekaterin said, “Have you had yours ?”

“Oh, yes.” He glanced down his plain gray civilian tunic and trousers. “I used to have this nifty bio-chip on my vagus nerve that kept me from losing my lunch in free fall, but it got blown out with the rest of my guts in that unpleasant encounter with the needle-grenade. I should get it replaced one of these days. . . .” Miles stepped forward and took one more glance outside. The station had grown to occlude most of the view. “So, Roic. If some quaddies visiting Hassadar made themselves obnoxious enough to win a visit to the Municipal Guard's gaol, and then a bunch more quaddies popped up and tried to bust them out with military-grade weapons, and shot up the place and torched it and burned some of your comrades, just how would you feel about quaddies at that point?”

“Um . . . not too friendly, m'lord.” Roic paused. “Pretty pissed, actually.”

“That's what I figured.” Miles sighed. “Ah. Here we go.”

Clanks and thumps sounded as the Kestrel came gently to rest and the docking clamps felt their way to a firm grip. The flex tube whined, seeking its seal, guided by the Kestrel 's engineer at the hatch controls, and then seated itself with an audible chink. “All tight, sir,” the engineer reported.

“All right, troops, we're on parade,” Miles murmured, and waved Roic on.

The bodyguard nodded and slipped through the hatch; after a moment he called back, “Ready, m'lord.”

All was, if not well, good enough. Miles followed through the flex tube, Ekaterin close behind him. He stole a glance over his shoulder as he floated forward. She was svelte and arresting in the red tunic and black leggings, her hair in a sophisticated braid around her head. Zero gee had a charming effect on well-developed female anatomy that he decided he had probably better not point out to her. As an opening move, setting this first meeting in the null-gee section of Graf Station was clearly calculated to put the visitors off balance, to emphasize just whose space this was. If they'd wanted to be polite, the quaddies would have received them in one of the grav sections.

The station-side airlock opened into a spacious cylindrical bay, its radial symmetry airily dispensing with the concepts of “up” and “down.” Roic floated with one hand on the grip by the hatch, the other kept carefully away from his stunner holster. Miles craned his neck to take in the array of half a dozen quaddies, males and females, in paramilitary grade half-armor, floating in cross-fire positions around the bay. Their weapons were out but shouldered, formality masking threat. Lower arms, thicker and more muscular than their uppers, emerged from their hips. Both sets of arms were protected by plasma-deflecting vambraces. Miles couldn't help reflecting that here were people who actually could shoot and reload at the same time. Interestingly, though two bore the insignia of Graf Station Security, the rest were in the colors and badges of the Union Militia.

Impressive window dressing, but these were not the people he needed to be attending to. His gaze swept on to the three quaddies and the legged downsider waiting directly across from the hatch. Faintly startled expressions, as they in turn took in his own nonstandard appearance, were quickly suppressed on three out of four faces.

The senior Graf Station Security officer was instantly recognizable by his uniform, weapons, and glower. Another middle-aged quaddie male also wore some sort of Stationer uniform, slate blue, in a conservative style designed to reassure the public. A white-haired female quaddie was more elaborately dressed in a maroon velvet doublet with slashed upper sleeves, silky silver fabric puffing from the slits, with matching puffy shorts and tight lower sleeves. The legged downsider also wore the slate-blue uniform, except with trousers and friction boots. Short, graying brown hair floated around the head that turned toward Miles. Miles choked, trying not to swear aloud in shock.

My God. It's Bel Thorne . What the devil was the ex-mercenary Betan hermaphrodite doing here ? The question answered itself as soon as it formed. So. Now I know who our ImpSec observer on Graf Station is. Which, abruptly, raised the reliability of those reports to a vastly higher level . . . or did it? Miles's smile froze, concealing, he hoped, his sudden mental disarray.

The white-haired woman was speaking, in a very chilly tone—some automatic part of Miles's mind pegged her as senior, as well as oldest, present. “Good afternoon, Lord Auditor Vorkosigan. Welcome to the Union of Free Habitats.”

Miles, one hand still guiding a blinking Ekaterin into the bay, managed a polite return nod. He left the second handhold flanking the hatch to her for an anchor, and managed to set himself in air, without imparting an unwanted spin, right side up with relation to the senior quaddie woman. “Thank you,” he returned neutrally. Bel, what the hell . . . ? Give me a sign, dammit. The hermaphrodite returned his brief wide-eyed stare with cool disinterest, and, as if casually, raised a hand to scratch the side of its nose, signaling, perhaps, Wait for it. . . .

“I am Senior Sealer Greenlaw,” the quaddie woman continued, “and I have been assigned by my government to meet with you and provide arbitration between you and your victims on Graf Station. This is Crew Chief Venn of Graf Station Security, Boss Watts, who is supervisor of Graf Station Downsider Relations, and Assistant Portmaster Bel Thorne.”

“How do you do, madam, gentlemen, honorable herm,” Miles's mouth continued on autopilot. He was too shaken by the sight of Bel to take exception to that your victims , for now. “Permit me to introduce my wife, Lady Ekaterin Vorkosigan, and my personal assistant, Armsman Roic.”

All the quaddies frowned disapprovingly at Roic. But now it was the turn for Bel's eyes to widen, staring with sudden attention at Ekaterin. A purely personal aspect of it all blazed across Miles's mind then, as he realized that he was shortly, very probably, going to be in the unsettling position of having to introduce his new wife to his old flame. Not that Bel's oft-expressed crush on him had ever been consummated , exactly, to his retrospective sometimes-regret. . . .

“Portmaster Thorne, ah . . .” Miles felt himself scrambling for firm footing in more ways than one. His voice went brightly inquiring. “Have we met?”

“I don't believe we've ever met, Lord Auditor Vorkosigan , no,” returned Bel; Miles hoped his was the only ear that detected the slight emphasis on his Barrayaran name and title in that familiar alto drawl.

“Ah.” Miles hesitated. Throw out a lure, a line, something . . . “My mother was Betan, you know.”

“What a coincidence,” Bel said blandly. “So was mine.”

Bel, goddammit! “I have had the pleasure of visiting Beta Colony several times.”

“I haven't been back but once in decades.” The faint light of Bel's notably vile sense of humor faded in the brown eyes, and the herm relented as far as, “I'd like to hear about the old sandbox.”

“It would be my pleasure to discuss it,” Miles responded, praying this exchange sounded diplomatic and not cryptic. Soon, soon, bloody soon. Bel returned him a cordial, acknowledging nod.

The white-haired quaddie woman gestured toward the end of the bay with her upper right hand. “If you would please accompany us to the conference chamber, Lord and Lady Vorkosigan, Armsman Roic.”

“Certainly, Sealer Greenlaw.” Miles favored her with an after you, ma'am half- bow in air, then uncurled to get a foot to the wall to push off after her. Ekaterin and Roic followed. Ekaterin arrived and braked at the round airseal door with reasonable grace, though Roic landed crookedly with an audible thump. He'd used too much power pushing off, but Miles couldn't stop to coach him on the fine points here. He'd come to the right of it soon enough, or break an arm. The next series of corridors featured a sufficiency of handgrips. The downsiders kept up with the quaddies, who both preceded and followed; to Miles's secret satisfaction, none of the guards had to pause and collect any out-of-control spinning or helplessly becalmed Barrayarans.

They came at length to a chamber with a window-wall offering a panoramic view out across one arm of the