Lois Bujold - Diplomatic Immunity

Miles cleared his throat. “It was all a surprise to me, too. Your babies in their replicators—you have them back? Are they all right?”

“My people completed their examinations last night. All seems to be well with them, despite their horrific adventures. I'm sorry that the same was not so for you.”

She gave a nod to her companion; the woman proved to be a physician, who, with a few brusque murmurs, completed a brief medical examination of their Barrayaran guest. Signing off her work, Miles guessed. His leading questions about the bioengineered parasites met polite evasion, and then Miles wondered if she were physician—or ordnance designer. Or veterinarian, except that most veterinarians he'd met showed signs of actually liking their patients.

Ekaterin was more determined. “Can you give me any idea of what long-term side-effects we should watch for from this unfortunate exposure, for the Lord Auditor and Portmaster Thorne?”

The woman motioned for Miles to refasten his garment, and turned to speak over his head. “Your husband ,” she made the term sound utterly alien, in her mouth, “does suffer some muscular and circulatory micro-scarring. Muscle tone should recover gradually over time to near his prior levels. However, added to his earlier cryo-trauma, I would expect greater chance of circulatory mishaps later in his life. Although as short-lived as you people are, perhaps the few decades difference in life expectancy will not seem significant.”

Quite the reverse, madam . Strokes, thromboses, blood clots, aneurysms, Miles supposed was what this translated to. Oh, joy. Just add them to the list, along with needler guns, sonic grenades, plasma fire, and nerve disruptor beams. And hot rivets and hard vacuum.

And seizures. So, what interesting synergies might be expected when this circulatory micro-scarring crossed paths with his seizure disorder? Miles decided to save that question for his own physicians, later. They could use a challenge. He was going to be a damned research project, again. Military as well as medical, he realized with a chill.

The haut woman continued to Ekaterin, “The Betan suffered notably more internal damage. Full recovery of muscle tone may never occur, and the herm will need to be on guard against circulatory stress of all kinds. A low– or zero-gravity environment might be the safest for it during its convalescence. I gathered from its partner, the quaddie female, that this may actually be easy to provide.”

“Whatever Bel needs will be arranged,” Miles vowed. For such a debilitating injury in the Emperor's service, it shouldn't even take an Imperial Auditor to get ImpSec off Bel's neck, and maybe rustle up a little medical pension in the bargain.

The haut Pel gave a tiny jerk of her chin. The physician favored the planetary consort with an obeisant bow, and excused herself.

Pel turned back to Miles. “As soon as you feel sufficiently recovered, Lord Auditor Vorkosigan, ghem-General Benin begs the opportunity to speak with you.”

“Ah! Dag Benin's here? Good! I want to talk to him, too. Does he have the ba in his custody yet? Has it been made crystal clear that Barrayar was an innocent dupe in your ba's illicit travels?”

Pel replied, “The ba was of the Star Cr?che; the ba has been returned to the Star Cr?che. It is an internal matter, although we are, of course, grateful to ghem-General Benin for his assistance dealing with any persons outside our purview who may have aided the ba in its . . . mad flight.”

So, the haut ladies had their stray back. Miles suppressed a slight twinge of pity for the ba. Pel's quelling tone of voice did not invite further questions from outlander barbarians. Tough. Pel was the most venturesome of the planetary consorts, but his likelihood of ever getting her alone, face-to-face, after this moment was slight, and her likelihood of discussing the matter frankly in front of anyone else even slighter.

He forged on. “I finally deduced the ba must be a renegade, and not, as I'd first thought, an agent of the Star Cr?che. I'm most curious about the mechanics of this bizarre kidnapping. Guppy—the Jacksonian smuggler, Russo Gupta—could only give me an exterior view of events, and that only from his first point of contact, when the ba off-loaded the replicators from what I assume was the annual child-ship to Rho Ceta, yes?”

Pel inhaled, but conceded stiffly, “Yes. The crime was long planned and prepared, it now appears. The ba slew the Consort of Rho Ceta, her handmaidens, and the crew of the ship by poison just after their last jump. They were all dead by the time of the rendezvous. It set the ship's auto-navigation to take the vessel into the sun of the system thereafter. To the ba's credit, this was intended as a befitting pyre, of sorts,” she conceded grudgingly.

Given his prior exposure to the arcana of haut funeral practices, Miles could almost follow this evident point in the prisoner's favor without his brain cramping. Almost. But Pel spoke of the ba's intention as fact, not conjecture; therefore, the haut ladies had already had more luck in their interrogation of the deranged ba in one night than Miles's security people had gained on their whole voyage here. Luck, I suspect, has nothing to do with it . “I thought the ba should have been carrying a greater variety of bioweapons, if it had any time to loot the child-ship before the vessel was abandoned and destroyed.”

Pel was normally rather sunny, as haut planetary consorts went, but this elicited a freezing frown. “ These matters are altogether not for discussion outside the Star Cr?che.”

“Ideally, no. But unfortunately, your . . . private items managed to travel quite a way outside the Star Cr?che indeed. As I can personally testify. They became a source of very public concern for us, when apprehending the ba on Graf Station. At the time I left there, no one was certain if we'd identified and neutralized every contagion, or not. “

Reluctantly, Pel admitted, “The ba had planned to steal the complete array. But the haut lady in charge of the consort's . . . supplies, although dying, managed to destroy them before her death. As was her duty.” Pel's eyes narrowed. “ She will be remembered among us.”

The dark-haired woman's opposite number, perhaps? Did the chilly physician guard a similar arsenal on Pel's behalf, perhaps aboard this very ship? Complete array , eh. Miles filed that tacit admission silently away, for later sharing with ImpSec's highest echelons, and swiftly redirected the conversation.

“But what was the ba actually trying to do? Was it acting alone? If it was, how did it defeat its loyalty programming?”

“That is an internal matter, too,” she repeated darkly.

“Well, I'll tell you my guesses,” Miles burbled on, before she could turn away and end the exchange. “I believe this ba to be very closely related to Emperor Fletchir Giaja, and therefore, to his late mother. I'm guessing this ba was one of the old Dowager Empress Lisbet's close confidants during her reign. Her bio-treason, her plan to split the haut into competing subgroups, was defeated after her death—”

“Not treason ,” haut Pel objected faintly. “As such.”

“Unsanctioned unilateral redesign, then. For some reason, this ba was not purged with the others of her inner cadre after her death—or maybe it was, I don't know. Demoted, perhaps? But anyway, I'm guessing this whole escapade was some sort of misguided effort to complete its dead mistress's—or mother's—vision. Am I close?”

The haut Pel eyed him with extreme distaste. “Close enough. It is truly done now, in any case. The emperor will be pleased with you—again. Some token of his gratitude may well be forthcoming at the child-ship landing ceremonies tomorrow, to which you and your lady-wife are invited. The first outlanders—ever—to be so honored.”