Roic swung on his booted heel, lips parting in dismay, staring up the aisle of glittering devices. “D'you mean, m'lord, that all these things are full of human babies?”
“Well, now, that's a question. Actually, that's two questions. Are they full, and are they human? If they are haut infants, that latter is a most debatable point. For the first, we can at least look . . .” A dozen more pallet monitors, checked at random intervals around the room, revealed similar results. Miles was breathing rapidly by the time he gave it up for proven.
Roic said in a puzzled tone, “So what's a Betan herm doing with a bunch of Cetagandan replicators? And just because they're Cetagandan make, how d'you know it's Cetagandans inside 'em? Maybe the Betan bought the replicators used?”
Miles, lips drawn back on a grin, swung to Bel. “Betan? What do you think, Bel? How much did you two talk about the old sandbox while you were supervising this visit?”
“We didn't talk much at all.” Bel shook its head. “But that doesn't prove anything. I'm not much for bringing up the subject of home myself, and even if I had, I'm too out of touch with Beta to spot inaccuracies in current events anyway. It wasn't Dubauer's conversation that was the trouble. There was just something . . . off, in its body language.”
“Body language. Just so.” Miles stepped to Bel, reached up, and turned the herm's face to the light. Bel did not flinch at his nearness, but merely smiled. Fine hairs gleamed on cheek and chin. Miles's eyes narrowed as he carefully revisualized the cut on Dubauer's cheek.
“You have facial down, like women. All herms do, right?”
“Sure. Unless they're using a really thorough depilatory, I suppose. Some even cultivate beards.”
“Dubauer doesn't.” Miles made to pace down the aisle, stopped himself, turned back, and held still with an effort. “Nary a sprout in sight, except for the pretty silver eyebrows and hair, which I'd wager Betan dollars to sand are recent implants. Body language, hah. Dubauer's not double-sexed at all—what were your ancestors thinking?”
Bel smirked cheerily.
“But altogether sexless. Truly 'it.' “
“It , in Betan parlance,” Bel began in the weary tone of one who has had to explain this far too often, “does not carry the connotation of an inanimate object that it does in other planetary cultures. I say this despite a certain ex-boss of my very distant past, who did a pretty fair imitation of the sort of large and awkward piece of furniture that one can neither get rid of nor decorate around—”
Miles waved this aside. “Don't tell me —I got that lecture at my mother's knee. But Dubauer's not a herm. Dubauer's a ba.”
“A who what?”
“To the casual outside eye, the ba appear to be the bred servitors of the Celestial Garden, where the Cetagandan emperor dwells in serenity in surroundings of aesthetic perfection, or so the haut lords would have you believe. The ba seem the ultimate loyal servant race, human dogs. Beautiful, of course, because everything inside the Celestial Garden must be. I first ran into the ba about ten years back, when I was sent to Cetaganda—not as Admiral Naismith, but as Lieutenant Lord Vorkosigan—on a diplomatic errand. To attend the funeral of Emperor Fletchir Giaja's mother, as it happened, the old Dowager Empress Lisbet. I got to see a lot of ba up close. Those of a certain age—relicts of Lisbet's youth a century ago, mainly—had all been made hairless. It was a fashion, which has since passed.
“But the ba aren't servants, or anyway, aren't just servants, of the Imperial haut. Remember what I said about the haut ladies of the Star Cr?che only working in human genes? The ba are where the haut ladies test out prospective new gene complexes, improvements to the haut race, before they decide if they're good enough to add to this year's new model haut cohort. In a sense, the ba are the haut's siblings. Elder siblings, almost. Children, even, from a certain angle of view. The haut and the ba are two sides of one coin.
“A ba is every bit as smart and dangerous as a haut lord. But not as autonomous. The ba are as loyal as they are sexless, because they're made so, and for some of the same reasons of control. At least it explains why I kept thinking I'd met Dubauer someplace before. If that ba doesn't share most of its genes with Fletchir Giaja himself, I'll eat my, my, my—”
“Fingernails?” Bel suggested.
Miles hastily removed his hand from his mouth. He continued, “If Dubauer's a ba, and I'll swear it is, these replicators have to be full of Cetagandan . . . somethings. But why here ? Why transport them covertly, and on a ship of a once-and-future enemy empire, at that? Well, I hope not future—the last three rounds of open warfare we had with our Cetagandan neighbors were surely enough. If this was something open and aboveboard, why not travel on a Cetagandan ship, with all the trimmings? I guarantee it's not for economy's sake. Deathly secret, this, but who from, and why? What the hell is the Star Cr?che up to, anyway?” He swung in a circle, unable to keep still. “And what is so hellish secret that this ba would bring these live growing fetuses all this way, but then plan to kill them all to keep the secret rather than ask for help?”
“Oh,” said Bel. “Yeah, that. That's . . . a bit unnerving, when you think about it.”
Roic said indignantly, “That's horrible , m'lord!”
“Maybe Dubauer doesn't really intend to flush them,” said Bel in an uncertain tone. “Maybe it just said that to get us to put more pressure on the quaddies to give it a break, let it take its cargo off the Idris .”
“Ah . . .” said Miles. There was an attractive idea—wash his hands of this whole unholy mess . . . ”Crap. No. Not yet, anyway. In fact, I want you to lock the Idris back down. Don't let Dubauer—don't let anyone back on board. For once in my life, I actually want to check with HQ before I jump. And as quickly as possible.”
What was it that Gregor had said—had talked around, rather? Something has stirred up the Cetagandans around Rho Ceta. Something peculiar. Oh, Sire, do we ever have peculiar here now. Connections?
“Miles ,” said Bel in aggravation, “I just jumped through hoops persuading Watts and Greenlaw to let Dubauer back on the Idris . How am I going to explain the sudden reversal?” Bel hesitated. “If this cargo and its owner are dangerous to Quaddiespace, I should report it. D'you think that quaddie in the hostel might have been shooting at Dubauer, instead of at you or me?”
“The thought has crossed my mind, yes.”
“Then it's . . . wrong, to blindside the station on what may be a safety issue.”
Miles took a breath. “You are Graf Station's representative here; you know, therefore the station knows. That's enough. For now.”
Bel frowned. “That argument's too disingenuous even for me .”
“I'm only asking you to wait. Depending on what information I get back from home, I could damn well end up buying Dubauer a fast ship to take its cargo away on. One not of Barrayaran registry, preferably. Just stall. I know you can.”
“Well . . . all right. For a little while.”
“I want the secured comconsole in the Kestrel . We'll seal this hold and continue later. Wait. I want to have a look at Dubauer's cabin, first.”
“Miles, have you ever heard of the concept of a search warrant ?”
“Dear Bel, how fussy you have grown in your old age. This is a Barrayaran ship, and I am Gregor's Voice. I don't ask for search warrants, I issue them.”
Miles took one last turn completely around the cargo hold before having Roic lock it back up. He didn't spot anything different, just, dauntingly, more of the same. Fifty pallets added up to a lot of uterine replicators. There were no decomposing dead bodies tucked in behind any of the replicator racks, anyway, worse luck.
Dubauer's accommodation, back in the personnel module, proved unenlightening. It was a small economy cabin, and whatever personal effects the . . . individual of unknown gender had possessed, it had evidently packed and taken them all along when the quaddies had transferred the passengers to the hostels. No bodies under the bed or in the cabinets here, either. Brun's people had s
urely searched it at least cursorily once, the day after Solian vanished. Miles made a mental note to try to arrange a more microscopically thorough forensics examination of both the cabin, and the hold with the replicators. Although—by what organization? He didn't want to turn this over to Venn yet, but the Barrayaran fleet's medical people were mainly devoted to trauma. I'll figure something out. Never had he missed ImpSec more keenly.
“Do the Cetagandans have any agents here in Quaddiespace?” he asked Bel as they exited the cabin and locked up again. “Have you ever encountered your opposite numbers?”
Bel shook its head. “People from your region are pretty thinly spread out in this arm of the Nexus. Barrayar doesn't even keep a full-time consul's office on Union Station, and neither does Cetaganda. All they have is some quaddie lawyer on retainer over there who keeps the paperwork for about a dozen minor planetary polities, if anyone should want it. Visas and entry permissions and such. Actually, as I recall, she handles both Barrayar and Cetaganda. If there are any Cetagandan agents on Graf, I haven't spotted them. I can only hope the reverse is also true. Though if the Cetagandans do keep any spies or agents or informers in Quaddiespace, they're most likely to be on Union. I'm only here on Graf for, um, personal reasons.”
Before they exited the Idris , Roic insisted Bel call Venn for an update on the search for the murderous quaddie from the hostel lobby. Venn, clearly discommoded, rattled off reports of vigorous activity on the part of his patrollers—and no results. Roic was jumpy on the short walk from the Idris' s docking bay to the one where the Kestrel was locked on, eyeing their armed quaddie escort with almost as much suspicion as he eyed shadows and cross corridors. But they arrived without further incident.
“How hard would it be to get Greenlaw's permission to fast-penta Dubauer?” Miles asked Bel, as they made their way through the Kestrel 's airlock.
“Well, you'd need a court order. And an explanation that would convince a quaddie judge.”
“Hm. Ambushing Dubauer with a hypospray aboard the Idris suggests itself to my mind as a simpler alternate possibility.”
“It would.” Bel sighed. “And it would cost me my job if Watts found out I'd helped you. If Dubauer's innocent of wrongdoing, it would certainly complain to the quaddie authorities, afterward.”
“Dubauer's not innocent. At the very least, it's lied about its cargo.”
“Not necessarily. Its manifest just reads, Mammals, genetically altered, assorted . You can't say they aren't mammals.”
“Transporting minors for immoral purposes, then. Slave trading. Hell, I'll think of something.” Miles waved Roic and Bel off to wait, and took over the Kestrel 's wardroom again.
He seated himself, adjusted the security cone, and took a long breath, trying to round up his galloping thoughts. There was no faster way to get a tightbeam message, however coded, from Quaddiespace to Barrayar than via the commercial system of links. Message beams were squirted at the speed of light across local space systems between wormhole jump point stations. An hour's, or a day's, messages were collected at the stations and loaded on either scheduled dedicated communications ships, jumping back and forth on a regular schedule to squirt them across the next local space region, or, on less traveled routes, on whatever ship next jumped through. The round trip for a beamed message between Quaddiespace and the Imperium would take several days, at best.
He addressed the message triply, to Emperor Gregor, to ImpSec Chief Allegre, and to ImpSec galactic operations headquarters on Komarr. After a sketchy outline of the situation so far, including assurances of his assailant's bad aim, he described Dubauer, in as much detail as possible, and the startling cargo he'd found aboard the Idris . He requested full details on the new tensions with the Cetagandans that Gregor had alluded to so obliquely, and appended an urgent plea for information, if any, on known Cetagandan operatives and operations in Quaddiespace. He ran the results through the Kestrel 's ImpSec encoder and squirted it on its way.
Now what? Wait for an answer that might be entirely inconclusive? Hardly . . .
He jumped in his chair when his wrist com buzzed. He gulped and slapped it. “Vorkosigan.”
“Hello, Miles.” It was Ekaterin's voice; his heart rate slowed. “Do you have a moment?”
“Not only that, I have the Kestrel 's comconsole. A moment of privacy, if you can believe it.”
“Oh! Just a second, then . . .” The wrist com channel closed. Shortly, Ekaterin's face and torso appeared over the vid plate. She was wearing that flattering slate-blue thing again. “Ah,” she said happily. “There you are. That's better.”
“Well, not quite.” He touched his fingers to his lips and transferred the kiss in pantomime to the image of hers. Cool ghost, alas, not warm flesh. Belatedly, he asked, “Where are you?” Alone, he trusted.
“In my cabin on the Prince Xav . Admiral Vorpatril gave me a nice one. I think he evicted some poor senior officer. Are you all right? Have you had your dinner?”
“Dinner?”
“Oh, dear, I know that look. Make Lieutenant Smolyani at least open you a meal tray before you go off again.”
“Yes, love.” He grinned at her. “Practicing that maternal drill?”
“I was thinking of it more as a public service. Have you found something interesting and useful?”
“Interesting is an understatement. Useful—well—I'm not sure.” He described his find on the Idris , in only slightly more colorful terms than the ones he'd just sent off to Gregor.
Ekaterin's eyes grew wide. “Goodness! And here I was all excited because I thought I'd found a fat clue for you! I'm afraid mine's just gossip, by comparison.”
“Gossip away, do.”
“Just something I picked up over dinner with Vorpatril's officers. They seemed a pleasant group, I must say.”
I'll bet they made themselves pleasant. Their guest was beautiful, cultured, a breath of home, and the first female most of them had spoken to in weeks. And married to the Imperial Auditor, heh. Eat your hearts out, boys.
“I tried to get them to talk about Lieutenant Solian, but hardly anyone knew the man. Except that one fellow remembered that Solian had had to step out of a weekly fleet security officers' meeting because he'd sprung a nosebleed. I gather that Solian was more embarrassed and annoyed than alarmed. But it occurred to me that it might be a chronic thing with him. Nikki had them for a while, and I had them occasionally for a couple of years when I was a girl, though mine went away on their own. But if Solian hadn't taken himself to his ship's medtech to get fixed yet, well, it might be another way someone could have obtained a tissue sample from him for that manufactured blood.” She paused. “Actually, now I think on it, I'm not so sure that is a help to you. Anyone might have grabbed his used nose rag out of the trash, wherever he'd been. Although I supposed that if his nose was bleeding, at least he had to have been alive at the time. It seemed a little hopeful, anyway.” Her thoughtful frown deepened. “Or maybe not.”
“Thank you,” said Miles sincerely. “I don't know if it's hopeful or not either, but it gives me another reason to see the medtechs next. Good!” He was rewarded with a smile. He added, “And if you come up with any thoughts on Dubauer's cargo, feel free to share. Although only with me, for the moment.”
“I understand.” Her brows drew down. “It is stunningly strange. Not strange that the cargo exists—I mean, if all the haut children are conceived and genetically engineered centrally, the way your friend the haut Pel described it to me when she came as an envoy to Gregor's wedding, the haut women geneticists have to be exporting thousands of embryos from the Star Cr?che all the time.”
“Not all the time,” Miles corrected. “Once a year. The annual haut child ships to the outlying satrapies are all dispatched at the same time. It gives all the top haut-lady planetary consorts like Pel, who are charged with conducting them, a chance to meet and consult with each other. Among other things.”
She nodded. “But to bring this cargo all the way here—
and with only one handler to look after them . . . If your Dubauer, or whoever it is, really does have a thousand babies in tow, I don't care if they're normal human or ghem or haut or what, it had better have several hundred nursemaids waiting for them somewhere.”
“Truly.” Miles rubbed his forehead, which was aching again, and not just from the exploding possibilities. Ekaterin was right about that meal tray, as usual. If Solian could have tossed away a blood sample anywhere, any time . . .
“Oh, ha!” He rummaged in his trouser pocket and pulled out his handkerchief, forgotten there since this morning, and opened it on the heavy brown stain. Blood sample, indeed. He didn't have to wait for ImpSec HQ to get back to him on this identification. He would have undoubtedly remembered this accidental specimen eventually without the prompting. Whether before or after the efficient Roic had cleaned his clothes and returned them ready to don again, now, that was another question, wasn't it? “Ekaterin, I love you dearly. And I need to talk to the Prince Xav 's surgeon right now .” He made frantic kissing motions at her, which elicited that entrancing enigmatic smile of hers, and cut the com.
CHAPTER TEN
Miles made an urgent heads-up call to the Prince Xav ; a short delay followed while Bel negotiated clearance for the Kestrel 's message drone. Half a dozen armed Union Militia patrol vessels still floated protectively between Graf Station and Vorpatril's fleet lying in frustrated exile several kilometers off. It would not have done for Miles's precious sample to be shot out of space by some quaddie militia guard with a double quota of itchy trigger fingers. Miles didn't relax until the Prince Xav reported the capsule safely retrieved and taken inboard.
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