Lois Bujold - Diplomatic Immunity

“Still trapped aboard the Idris . Although not totally without resources. Or ideas.”

“I urgently need to speak to you. You can override that hothead Vorpatril.”

“Ah, my com link is sustaining an open audio link with Admiral Vorpatril now, ma'am. You can speak to both of us at once, if you like,” Miles put in hastily, before she could express herself even more freely.

She hesitated only fractionally. “Good. We absolutely need Vorpatril to hold, repeat, hold any strike force of his. Corbeau confirms the ba does have some sort of a remote control or deadman switch on his person, apparently linked back to the biohazard it has hidden aboard Graf Station. The ba is not bluffing.”

Miles glanced up in surprise at his silent vid of Nav and Com. Corbeau was seated now in the pilot's station chair, the control headset lowered over his skull, his expressionless face even more absent. “ Corbeau confirms! How? He was stark naked—the ba is watching him every second! Subcutaneous com link?”

“There was no time to find and insert one. He undertook to blink the ship's running lights in a prearranged code.”

“Whose idea was that?”

“His.”

Quick colonial boy. The pilot was on their side. Oh, but that was good to know. . . . Miles's shivering was turning to shudders.

“Every adult quaddie on Graf Station not on emergency duty is out looking for the bio-bomb now,” Greenlaw continued, “but we have no idea what it looks like, or how big it is, or if it is disguised as something else. Or if there is more than one. We are trying to evacuate as many children as possible into what ships and shuttles we have on hand, and seal them off, but we can't even be sure of them , really. If you people do anything to set this mad creature off—if you launch an unauthorized strike force before this vicious threat is found and safely neutralized—I swear I will give our militia the order to shoot them out of space myself. Do you copy, Admiral? Confirm.”

“I hear you,” said Vorpatril reluctantly. “But ma'am—the Imperial Auditor himself has been infected with one of the ba's lethal bio-agents. I cannot—I will not—if I have to sit here and do nothing while listening to him die—”

“There are fifty thousand innocent lives on Graf Station, Admiral—Lord Auditor!” Her voice failed for a second; returned stiffly. “I am sorry, Lord Vorkosigan.”

“I'm not dead yet,” Miles replied rather primly. A new and most unwelcome sensation struggled with the tight fear grinding in his belly. He added, “I'm going to switch off my com link for just a moment. I'll be right back.”

Motioning Roic to keep still, Miles opened the door to the security office, stepped into the corridor, opened his faceplate, leaned over, and vomited onto the floor. No help for it. With an angry swipe, he turned his suit temperature back up. He blinked back the green dizziness, wiped his mouth, went back inside, seated himself again, and called his link back on. “Continue.”

He let Vorpatril's and Greenlaw's arguing voices fade from his attention, and studied his view of Nav and Com more closely. One object had to be there, somewhere . . . ah. There it was, a small, valise-sized cryo-freezer case, set carefully down next to one of the empty station chairs near the door. A standard commercial model, no doubt bought off the shelf from some medical supplier here on Graf Station sometime in the past few days. All of this , this entire diplomatic mess, this extravagant trail of deaths winding across half the Nexus, two empires teetering on the verge of war, came down to that . Miles was reminded of the old Barrayaran folktale, about the evil mutant magician who kept his heart in a box to hide it from his enemies.

Yes . . .

“Greenlaw,” Miles broke in. “Do you have any way to signal back to Corbeau?”

“We designated one of the navigation buoys that broadcasts to the channels of the pilots on cyber-neuro control. We can't get voice communication through it—Corbeau wasn't sure how it would emerge, in his perceptions. We are certain we can get some kind of simple code blink or beep through it.”

“I have a simple message for him. Urgent. Get it through if you possibly can, however you can. Tell him to open all the inner airseal doors in the middle deck of the central nacelle. Kill the security vids there, too, if he can.”

“Why?” she asked suspiciously.

“We have personnel trapped there who are going to die shortly if he doesn't,” Miles replied glibly. Well, it was true.

“Right,” she rapped back. “I'll see what we can do.”

He cut his outgoing voice link, turned in his station chair, and made a throat-cutting motion for Roic to do the same. He leaned forward. “Can you hear me?”

“Yes, m'lord.” Roic's voice was muffled, through the work suit's thicker faceplate, but sufficiently audible; they neither of them had to shout, in this quiet, little space.

“Greenlaw will never order or permit a strike force to be launched to try to capture the ba. Not hers, not ours. She can't. There are too many quaddie lives up for grabs. Trouble is, I don't think this placating approach will make her station any safer. If this ba really murdered a planetary consort, it'll not even blink at a few thousand quaddies. It'll promise cooperation right up to the last, then hit the release switch on its bio-bomb and jump, just for the off chance that the chaos in its wake will delay or disrupt pursuit an extra day or three. Are you with me so far?”

“Yes, m'lord.” Roic's eyes were wide.

“If we can get as close as the door to Nav and Com unseen, I think we have a chance of jumping the ba ourselves. Specifically, you will jump the ba; I will supply a distraction. You'll be all right. Stunner and nerve disruptor fire will pretty much bounce off that work suit. Needler spines wouldn't penetrate immediately either, if it comes to that. And it would take longer than the seconds you'll need to cross that little room for plasma arc fire to burn through it.”

Roic's lips twisted. “What if he just fires at you? That pressure suit's not that good.”

“The ba won't fire at me. That, I promise you. The Cetagandan haut, and their siblings the ba, are physically stronger than anyone but the dedicated heavy-worlders, but they're not stronger than a power suit. Go for his hands. Hold them. If we get that far, well, the rest will follow.”

“And Corbeau? The poor bastard's starkers. Nothing's gonna stop anything fired at him.”

“Corbeau,” said Miles, “will be the ba's last choice of targets. Ah!” His eyes widened, and he whirled about in his station chair. At the edge of the vid image, half a dozen tiny images in the array were quietly going dark. “Get to the corridor. Get ready to run. As silently as you can.”

From his com link, Vorpatril's volume-reduced voice pleaded heartrendingly for the Imperial Auditor to please reopen his outgoing voice contact. He urged Lady Vorkosigan to request the same.

“Leave him alone,” Ekaterin said firmly. “He knows what he's doing.”

“What is he doing?” Vorpatril wailed.

“Something.” Her voice fell to a whisper. Or perhaps it was a prayer. “Good luck, love.”

Another voice, somewhat offsides, broke in: Captain Clogston. “Admiral? Can you reach Lord Auditor Vorkosigan? We've finished preparing his blood filter and are ready to try it, but he's disappeared out of the infirmary. He was right here a few minutes ago . . .”

“Do you hear that, Lord Vorkosigan?” Vorpatril tried somewhat desperately. “You are to report to the infirmary. Now.”

In ten minutes—five—the medics could have their way with him. Miles pushed up from his station chair—he had to use both hands—and followed Roic into the corridor outside Solian's office.