Diplomatic Immunity

station and into the deep, star-dusted void beyond. Any downsider suffering from a touch of agoraphobia or pressurization paranoia would doubtless prefer to cling to the wall on the opposite side. Miles floated gently up to the transparent barrier, stopping himself with two delicately extended fingers, and surveyed the spacescape; his mouth crooked up, unwilled. “This is very fine,” he said honestly.

He glanced around. Roic had found a wall grip near the door, awkwardly shared with the lower hand of a quaddie guard, who glowered at him as they both shifted fingers trying not to touch the other. The majority of the honor guard had been shed in the adjoining corridor, and only two, one Graf Station and one Union, now hovered, albeit alertly. The chamber end-walls featured decorative plants growing out of illuminated spiraling tubes that held their roots in a hydroponic mist. Ekaterin paused by one, examining the multicolored leaves closely. She tore her attention away, and her brief smile faded, watching Miles, watching their quaddie hosts, watching for cues. Her eye fell curiously on Bel, who was surveying Miles in turn, the herm's expression—well, anyone else would see it as bland, probably. Miles suspected it was deeply ironic.

The quaddies took up position in a hemispherical arrangement around a central vid plate, Bel hovering near its comrade-in-slate-blue, Boss Watts. Arching posts of different heights featured the sort of com link control boards usually found on station-chair arms, looking a bit like flowers on stalks, which provided suitably spaced tethering points. Miles picked a post with his back to open space. Ekaterin floated over and took up a spot a little behind him. She'd gone into her silent, highly reserved mode, which Miles had to school himself not to read as unhappy; it might just mean that she was processing too hard to remember to be animated. Fortunately, the ivory-carved expression also simulated aristocratic poise.

A pair of younger quaddies, whose green shirt-and-shorts garb Miles's eye decoded as servitor , offered drink bulbs all around; Miles selected something billed to be tea, Ekaterin took fruit juice, and Roic, with a glance at his quaddie opposite numbers who were offered none, declined. A quaddie could grip a handhold and a drink bulb, and still have two hands left to draw and aim a weapon. It hardly seemed fair.

“Senior Sealer Greenlaw,” Miles began. “My credentials, you should have received.” She nodded, her short, fine hair floating in a wispy halo with the motion. He continued, “I am, unfortunately, not wholly familiar with the cultural context and meaning of your title. Who do you speak for, and do your words bind them in honor? That is to say, do you represent Graf Station, a department within the Union of Free Habitats, or some larger entity still? And who reviews your recommendations or sanctions your agreements?” And how long does it usually take them?

She hesitated, and he wondered if she was studying him with the same intensity that he studied her. Quaddies were even longer-lived than Betans, who routinely made it to one-hundred-and-twenty standard, and might expect to see a century and a half; how old was this woman?

“I am a Sealer for the Union's Department of Downsider Relations; I believe some downsider cultures would term this a minister plenipotentiary for their state department, or whatever body administers their embassies. I've served the department for the past forty years, including tours as junior and senior counsel for the Union in both our bordering systems.”

The near neighbors to Quaddiespace, a few jumps away on heavily used routes; she was saying she'd spent time on planets. And, incidentally, that she's been doing this job since before I was born . If only she wasn't one of those people who figured that if you'd seen one planet, you'd seen 'em all, this sounded promising. Miles nodded.

“My recommendations and agreements will be reviewed by my work gang on Union Station—which is the Board of Directors of the Union of Free Habitats.”

Well, so there was a committee, but happily, they weren't here. Miles pegged her as being roughly the equivalent of a senior Barrayaran minister in the Council of Ministers, well up to his own weight as an Imperial Auditor. Granted, the quaddies had nothing in their governmental structure equivalent to a Barrayaran Count, though they seemed none the worse for the deprivation—Miles suppressed a dry snort. One layer from the top, Greenlaw had a finite number of persons to please or persuade. He permitted himself his first faint hope for a reasonably supple negotiation.

Her white brows drew in. “They called you the Emperor's Voice. Do Barrayarans really believe their emperor's voice comes from your mouth, across all those light- years?”

Miles regretted his inability to lean back in a chair; he straightened his spine a trifle instead. “The name is a legal fiction, not a superstition, if that's what you're asking. Actually, Emperor's Voice is a nickname for my job. My real title is Imperial Auditor—a reminder that always my first task is to listen. I answer to—and for—Emperor Gregor alone.” This seemed a good place to leave out such complications as potential impeachment by the Council of Counts, and other Barrayaran-style checks and balances. Such as assassination.

The security officer, Venn, spoke up. “So do you, or do you not, control the Barrayaran military forces here in Union space?” He'd evidently acquired enough experience of Barrayaran soldiers by now to have a little trouble picturing the slightly crooked runt floating before him dominating the bluff Vorpatril, or his no-doubt large and healthy troopers.

Yeah, but you should see my Da . . . Miles cleared his throat. “As the Emperor is commander-in-chief of the Barrayaran military, his Voice is automatically the ranking officer of any Barrayaran force in his vicinity, yes. If the emergency so demands it.”

“So are you saying that if you ordered it, those thugs out there would shoot?” said Venn sourly.

Miles managed a slight bow in his direction, not easy in free fall. “Sir, if an Emperor's Voice so ordered it, they'd shoot themselves .”

This was pure swagger—well, part swagger—but Venn didn't need to know it. Bel remained straight-faced, somehow, thank whatever gods hovered here, though Miles could almost see the laugh getting choked back. Don't pop your eardrums, Bel . The Sealer's white eyebrows took a moment to climb back down to horizontal again.

Miles continued, “Nevertheless, while it's not hard to get any group of persons excited enough to shoot at things, one purpose of military discipline is to ensure they also stop shooting on command. This is not a time for shooting, but for talking—and listening. I am listening.” He tented his fingers in front of what would be his lap, if he were sitting. “From your point of view, what was the sequence of events that led to this unfortunate incident?”

Greenlaw and Venn both started to speak at once; the quaddie woman opened an upper hand in a gesture of invitation to the security officer.

Venn nodded and continued, “It started when my department received an emergency call to apprehend a pair of your men who had assaulted a quaddie woman.”

Here was a new player on stage. Miles kept his expression neutral. “Assaulted in what sense?”

“Broke into her living quarters, roughed her up, threw her around, broke one of her arms. They evidently had been sent in pursuit of a certain Barrayaran officer who had failed to report for duty—”

“Ah. Would that be Ensign Corbeau?”

“Yes.”

“And was he in her living quarters?”

“Yes—”

“By her invitation?”

“Yes.” Venn grimaced. “They had apparently, um, become friends. Garnet Five is a premier dancer in the Minchenko Memorial Troupe, which performs live zero-gee ballet for residents of the Station and for downsider visitors.” Venn inhaled. “It is not entirely clear who went to whose defense when the Barrayaran patrol came to remove their tardy officer, but it degenerated into a noisy brawl. We arrested all the downsiders and took them to Security Post Three to sort out.”

“By the way,” Sealer Greenlaw broke in, “your Ensign Corbeau has lately requested political asylum in the Union.”

This was new, too. “How lately?”