Lois Bujold - Diplomatic Immunity

Roic, looming at his shoulder, sniffed. The spicy smells wafting into the corridor, into which the eatery cannily vented its bakery ovens, reminded Miles of his duty to feed his troops. Troop. The disgruntled quaddie guard could fend for himself, Miles decided.

The place was small, clean, and cozy, the sort of cheap caf? where the local working people ate. It was evidently past the breakfast rush and not yet time for lunch, because it was occupied only by a couple of legged young men who might be shop assistants, and a quaddie in a floater who, judging by her crowded tool belt, was an electrician on break. They stared covertly at the Barrayarans—more at tall Roic in his not-from-around-here brown-and-silver uniform than at short Miles in his unobtrusive gray civvies. Their quaddie security guard distanced himself slightly—with their party but not of it—and ordered coffee in a bulb.

A legged woman doubled as server and cook, assembling food on the plates with practiced speed. The spicy breads, apparently a specialty of the place, appeared handmade, the slices of vat protein unexceptionable, and the fresh fruit startlingly exquisite. Miles selected a large golden pear, its skin touched with a rose blush, unblemished; its flesh, when he cut into it, proved pale, perfect, and dripping with perfumed juice. If only they had more time, he'd love to sic Ekaterin onto the local agriculture—whatever plant-like matrix this had grown from had to have been genetically engineered to thrive in free fall. The Empire's space stations could use such stocks—if the Komarran traders hadn't snagged them already. Miles's plan to slip seeds into his pocket to smuggle home was thwarted by the fruit being seedless.

A holovid in the corner with the sound turned low had been mumbling to itself, ignored by everyone, but a sudden rainbow of blinking lights advertised an official safety bulletin. Heads turned briefly, and Miles followed the stares to find being displayed the shots of Passenger Firka from the Rudra 's locks that he had downloaded earlier to Station Security. He didn't need the sound to guess the content of the serious-looking quaddie woman's speech that followed: suspect wanted for questioning, may be armed and dangerous, if you see this dubious downsider call this code at once. A couple of shots of Bel followed, as the putative kidnapping victim, presumably; they were taken from yesterday's interviews after the assassination attempt in the hostel, which a newscaster came on to re-cap.

“Can you turn it up?” Miles asked belatedly.

The newscaster was just winding down; even as the caf? server aimed her remote, her image was replaced with an advertisement for an impressive selection of work gloves.

“Oh, sorry,” said the server. “It was a repeat anyway. They've been showing it every fifteen minutes for the past hour.” She provided Miles with a verbal summary of the alarm, which matched Miles's guess in most particulars.

So, on just how many holovids all over the station was this now appearing? It would be an order of magnitude harder for a wanted man to hide, with an order of magnitude more pairs of eyes looking for him . . . but was Firka himself seeing this? If so, would he panic, becoming more hazardous to anyone who crossed him? Or perhaps turn himself in, claiming it was all some sort of misunderstanding? Roic, studying the vid, frowned and drank more coffee. The sleep-deprived armsman was holding up all right for the moment, but Miles figured he would be dragging dangerously by mid-afternoon.

Miles had an unpleasant sensation of sinking in a quicksand of diversions and losing his grip on his initial mission. Which had been what? Oh, yes, free the fleet. He suppressed an internal snarl of Screw the fleet, where the hell's Bel? But if there was any way to use this disturbing development to pry his ships from quaddie hands, it was not apparent to him right now.

They returned to Security Post One to find Nicol waiting for them in the front reception space with the air of a hungry predator at a water hole. She pounced on Miles the moment he appeared.

“Did you find Bel? Did you see any sign?”

Miles shook his head in regret. “Neither hide nor hair. Well, there might be hairs—we'll know when the forensics tech gets her analysis done—but that won't tell us anything we don't already know from Garnet Five's testimony.” The truth of which Miles didn't doubt. “I do have a better mental picture of the possible course of events, now.” He wished it made more sense. The first part—Firka wishing to delay or shake his pursuers—was sensible enough. It was the blank afterward that puzzled.

“Do you think,” Nicol's voice grew smaller, “he carried Bel away to murder someplace else?”

“In that case, why leave a witness alive?” He tossed this off instantly for her reassurance; upon reflection, he found it reassuring too. Maybe. But if not murder, what? What did Bel have or know that someone else might want? Unless, like Garnet Five, Bel had come to consciousness on its own, and gone off. But . . . if Bel had wandered away in some state of dazed or sick confusion, it should have been picked up by the patrollers or some solicitous fellow stationers by now. And if it had gone in hot pursuit of something, it should have reported in. To me, at least, dammit . . .

“If Bel was,” Nicol began, and stopped. A startling crowd heaved through the main entry port, and paused for orientation.

A pair of husky male quaddies in the orange work shirts and shorts of Docks and Locks managed the two ends of a three-meter length of pipe. Firka occupied the middle.

The unhappy downsider's wrists and ankles were lashed to the pipe with swathes of electrical tape, bending him in a U, with another rectangle of tape plastered across his mouth, muffling his moans. His eyes were wide, and rolled in panic. Three more quaddies in orange, panting and rumpled, one with a red bruise starting around his eye, bobbed along beside as outriders.

The work crew took aim and floated with their squirming burden through free fall to fetch up with a thump at the reception desk. A quartet of uniformed security quaddies appeared from another portal to gather and stare at this unwilling prize; the desk sergeant hit his intercom, and lowered his voice to speak into it in a rapid undertone.

The spokes-quaddie for the posse bustled forward, a smile of grim satisfaction on his bruised face. “We caught him for you.”

“Where?” Miles asked.

“Number Two Freight Bay,” the spokes-quaddie answered. “He was trying to get Pramod Sixteen, here”—his nod indicated one of the husky quaddies holding an end of the pipe, who nodded back in confirmation—”to take him out in a pod around the security zone to the galactic jumpship docks. So you can add attempted bribery of an airseal tech to violate regs to his list of charges, I'd say.”

Ah, ha. Another way to get around Bel's customs barriers . . . Miles's mind jumped back to the missing Solian.

“Pramod told him he was making arrangements, and slipped out and called me. I rounded up the boys, and we made sure he'd come along and explain himself to you.” The spokes-quaddie gestured to Chief Venn, who'd floated in hastily from the office corridor and was taking in the scene with unsurprised satisfaction.

The web-fingered downsider made a plaintive noise, beneath his electrical tape, but Miles took it more for protest than explanation.

Nicol put in urgently, “Did you see any sign of Bel?”

“Oh, hi, Nicol.” The spokes-quaddie shook his head in regret. “We asked the fellow, but we didn't get an answer. If you all don't have better luck with him, we have a few more ideas we can try.” His scowl suggested that these might run to the illicit utilization of airlocks, or perhaps innovative applications of freight-handling equipment definitely not covered in the manufacturer's warranties. “I bet we could make him stop screaming and start talking before his air ran out.”