"Oh, yes I can," said Officer Gustioz grimly. He flopped down the file folder on the lab stool Martya had just vacated, and flipped it open. "I have here, in order, the official arrest order from the Cortes," he began to turn over flimsies, all stamped and creased and scrawled upon, "the preliminary consent for extradition from the Barrayaran Embassy on Escobar, with the three intermediate applications, approved, the final consent from the Imperial Office here in Vorbarr Sultana, the preliminary and final orders from the Vorbarra District Count's office, eighteen separate permissions to transport a prisoner from the Barrayaran Imperial jump-point stations between here and home, and last but not least, the clearance from the Vorbarr Sultana Municipal Guard, signed by Lord Vorbohn himself. It took me over a month to fight my way through all this bureaucratic obstruction, and I am not spending another hour on this benighted world. You may pack one bag, Dr. Borgos."
"But," cried Kareen, "but Mark paid Enrique's bail! We bought him—he's ours now!"
"Forfeiture of bond does not erase criminal charges, Miss," the Escobaran officer informed her stiffly. "It adds to them."
"But—why arrest Enrique and not Mark?" asked Martya, puzzling through all this. She stared down at the stack of flimsies.
"Don't make suggestions," Kareen huffed at her under her breath.
"If you are referring to the dangerous lunatic known as Lord Mark Pierre Vorkosigan, Miss, I tried. Believe me, I tried. I spent a week and a half trying to get the documentation. He carries a Class III Diplomatic Immunity that covers him for nearly everything short of outright murder. In addition, I found I had only to pronounce his last name correctly to produce the most damn-all stone wall obtuseness from every Barrayaran clerk, secretary, embassy officer and bureaucrat I encountered. For a while, I thought I was going mad. At last, I became reconciled to my despair."
"The medications helped, too, I thought, sir," Muno observed amiably. Gustioz glowered at him.
"But you are not escaping me," Gustioz continued to Enrique. "One bag. Now."
"You can't just barge in here and take him away, with no warning or anything!" Kareen protested.
"Do you have any idea the effort and attention I had to expend to assure that he was not warned?" said Gustioz.
"But we need Enrique! He's everything to our new company! He's our entire research and development department. Without Enrique, there will never be any Barrayaran-vegetation-eating butter bugs!"
Without Enrique, they would have no nascent bug butter industry—her shares would be worth nothing. All her summer's work, all Mark's frantic organizational efforts, would be flushed down the drain. No profits—no income—no adult independence—no hot slippery fun sex with Mark—nothing but debts, and dishonor, and a bunch of smug family members all lining up to say I told you so . . . "You can't take him!"
"On the contrary, miss," said Officer Gustioz, gathering up his stack of flimsies, "I can and I will."
"But what will happen to Enrique on Escobar?" asked Martya.
"Trial," said Gustioz in a voice of ghoulish satisfaction, "followed by jail, I devoutly pray. For a long, long time. I hope they append court costs. The comptroller is going to scream when I turn in my travel vouchers. It will be like a vacation, my supervisor said. You'll be back in two weeks, she said. I haven't seen my wife and family in two months . . ."
"But that's utterly wasteful," said Martya indignantly. "Why shut him up in a box on Escobar, when he could be doing humanity some real good here ?" She was calculating the rapidly dwindling value of her shares too, Kareen guessed.
"That is between Dr. Borgos and his irate creditors," Gustioz told her. "I'm just doing my job. Finally."
Enrique looked terribly distressed. "But who will take care of all my poor little girls? You don't understand!"
Gustioz hesitated, and said in a disturbed tone, "There was no reference to any dependents in my orders." He stared in confusion at Kareen and Martya.
Martya said, "How did you get in here, anyway? How did you get past the ImpSec gate guard?"
Gustioz brandished his rumpled folder. "Page by page. It took forty minutes."
"He insisted on checking every one," Sergeant Muno explained.
Martya said urgently to the maid, "Where's Pym?"
"Gone with Lord Vorkosigan, miss."
"Jankowski?"
"Him, too."
"Anyone?"
"All the rest are gone with m'lord and m'lady."
"Damn! What about Roic?"
"He's sleeping, Miss."
"Fetch him down here."
"He won't like being waked up off-duty, miss . . ." the maid said nervously.
"Fetch him!"
Reluctantly, the maid started to drag herself out.
"Muno," said Gustioz, who'd watched this by-play with growing unease, "now." He gestured at Enrique.
"Yes, sir." Muno gripped Enrique by the elbow.
Martya grabbed Enrique's other arm. "No! Wait! You can't take him!"
Gustioz frowned at the retreating maid. "Let's go, Muno."
Muno pulled. Martya pulled back. Enrique cried, "Ow!" Kareen grabbed the first weaponlike object that came to her hand, a metal meter stick, and circled in. Gustioz tucked his folder of flimsies up under his arm and reached to detach Martya.
"Hurry!" Kareen screeched at the maid, and tried to trip Muno by thrusting the meter stick between his knees. The whole mob was circling around the stretching Enrique as the pivot-point, and she succeeded. Muno released Enrique, who fell toward Martya and Gustioz. In a wild attempt to regain his balance, Muno's hand came down hard on the corner of the bug hutch peeping over the lab bench.
The stainless steel box flipped into the air. One-hundred-ninety-two astonished brown-and-silver butter bugs were launched in a vast chittering madly fluttering trajectory out over the lab. Since butter bugs had the aerodynamic capacity of tiny bricks, they rained down upon the struggling humans, and crunch-squished underfoot. The hutch clanged to the floor, along with Muno. Gustioz, attempting to shield himself from this unexpected air assault, lost his grip on his folder; colorfully-stamped documents joined butter bugs in fluttering flight. Enrique howled like a man possessed. Muno just screamed, frantically batted bugs off himself, and tried to climb up on the lab stool.
"Now see what you've done!" Kareen yelled at the Escobaran officers. "Vandalism! Assault! Destruction of property! Destruction of a Vor lord's property, on Barrayar itself! Are you in trouble now!"
"Ack!" cried Enrique, trying to stand on tiptoe to reduce the carnage below. "My girls! My poor girls! Watch where you put your feet , you mindless murderers!"
The queen, who due to her weight had had a shorter trajectory, scuttled away under the lab bench.
"What are those horrible things?" yipped Muno, from his perch on the teetering stool.
"Poison bugs," Martya informed him venomously. "New Barrayaran secret weapon. Everywhere they touch you, your flesh will swell up, turn black, and fall off." She made a valiant attempt to introduce a chittering bug down Muno's trousers or collar, but he fended her off.
"They are not!" Enrique denied indignantly, from tiptoe.
Gustioz was down on the floor furiously gathering up flimsies and trying not to touch or be touched by the scattering butter bugs. When he rose, his face was scarlet. "Sergeant!" he bellowed. "Get down from there! Seize the prisoner! We leave at once ."