Boss Watts's voice returned, thick with tension, “If you attempt to ram Graf Station, we'll blow you up ourselves .”
“Either way will do,” the ba's voice returned dryly.
Did the ba know how to blow up a jumpship? It wasn't exactly easy. Hell, if the Cetagandan was a hundred years old, who know what all it knew how to do? Ramming, now—with a target that big and close, any layman could manage it.
Greenlaw's stiff voice cut in; her com link presumably was patched through to Watts in the same way that Miles's was to Vorpatril. “Don't do it, Watts. Quaddiespace cannot let a plague-carrier like this pass through to our neighbors. A handful of lives can't justify the risk to thousands.”
“Indeed,” the ba continued after a slight hesitation, still in that same cool tone. “If you do succeed in killing me, I'm afraid you will win yourselves another dilemma. I have left a small gift aboard the station. The experiences of Gupta and Portmaster Thorne should give you an idea of what sort of package it is. You might find it before it ruptures, although I'd say your odds are poor. Where are your thousands now? Much closer to home.”
True threat or bluff? Miles wondered frantically. It certainly fit the ba's style as demonstrated so far—Bel in the bod pod, the booby trap with the suit-control joysticks—hideous, lethal puzzles tossed out in the ba's wake to disrupt and distract its pursuers. It sure worked on me, anyway.
Vorpatril cut in privately on the wrist com, in an unnecessarily lowered, tense tone, overriding the exchange between the ba and Watts. “Do you think the bastard's bluffing, m'lord?”
“Doesn't matter if it's bluffing or not. I want it alive . Oh, God do I ever want it alive. Take that as a top priority and an order in the Emperor's Voice, Admiral.”
After a small and, Miles hoped, thoughtful pause, Vorpatril returned, “Understood, my Lord Auditor.”
“Ready your strike team, yes . . .” Vorpatril's best strike force was locked in quaddie detention. What was the second best one like? Miles's heart quailed. “But hold it. This situation is extremely unstable. I don't have any clear sense yet how it will play out. Put the ba's channel back on.” Miles returned his attention to the negotiation in progress—no—winding up?
“A jump pilot.” The ba seemed to be reiterating. “Alone, in a personnel pod, to the Number Five B lock. And, ah—naked.” Horribly, there seemed to be a smile in that last word. “For obvious reasons.”
The ba cut the com.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Now what?
Delays, Miles guessed, while the quaddies on Graf Station either readied a pilot or ran the risks of stalling about delivering one into such a hazard, and suppose none volunteered? While Vorpatril marshaled his strike team, while the three quaddie officials trapped in the freight nacelle—well, didn't sit on their hands, Miles bet—while this infection gains on me , while the ba did—what?
Delay is not my friend.
But it was his gift. What time was it, anyway? Late evening—still the same day that had started so early with the news of Bel's disappearance? Yes, though it hardly felt possible. Surely he had entered some time warp. Miles stared at his wrist com, took a deep, terrified breath, and called up Ekaterin's code. Had Vorpatril told her anything of what was happening yet, or had he kept her comfortably ignorant?
“Miles!” she answered at once.
“Ekaterin, love. Where, um . . . are you?”
“The tactics room, with Admiral Vorpatril.”
Ah. That answered that question. In a way, he was relieved that he didn't have to deliver the whole litany of bad news himself, cold. “You've been following this, then.”
“More or less. It's been very confusing.”
“I'll bet. I . . .” He couldn't say it, not so baldly. He dodged, while he mustered courage. “I promised to call Nicol when I had news of Bel, and I haven't had a chance. The news, as you may know, is not good; we found Bel, but the herm has been deliberately infected with a bioengineered Cetagandan parasite that may . . . may prove lethal.”
“Yes, I understand. I've been hearing it all, here in the tactics room.”
“Good. The medics are doing their best, but it's a race against time and now there are these other complications. Will you call Nicol and redeem my word for me? There's not no hope, but . . . she needs to know it doesn't look so good right now. Use your judgment how much to soften it.”
“My judgment is that she should be told plain truth. The whole of Graf Station is in an uproar now, what with the quarantine and biocontamination alert. She needs to know exactly what's going on, and she has a right to know. I'll call her at once.”
“Oh. Good. Thank you. I, um . . . you know I love you.”
“Yes. Tell me something I don't know.”
Miles blinked. This wasn't getting easier; he rushed it in a breath. “Well. There's a chance I may have screwed up pretty badly, here. Like, I may not get out of this one. The situation here is pretty unsettled, and, um . . . I'm afraid my biotainer suit gloves were sabotaged by a nasty little Cetagandan booby trap I triggered. I seem to have got myself infected with the same biohazard that's taken Bel down. The stuff doesn't appear to act very quickly, though.”
In the background, he could just hear Admiral Vorpatril's voice, cursing in choice barracks language not at all consonant with the respect due to one of His Majesty Gregor Vorbarra's Imperial Auditors. From Ekaterin, silence; he strained to hear her breathing. The sound reproduction on these high-grade com links was so excellent, he could hear when she let her breath out again, through those pursed, exquisite warm lips he could not see or touch.
He began again. “I'm . . . I'm sorry that . . . I wanted to give you—this wasn't what I—I never wanted to bring you grief—”
“Miles. Stop that babbling at once.”
“Oh . . . uh, yes?”
Her voice sharpened. “If you die on me out here, I will not be grieved, I will be pissed. This is all very fine, love, but may I point out that you don't have time to indulge in angst right now. You're the man who used to rescue hostages for a living. You are not allowed to not get out of this one. So stop worrying about me and start paying attention to what you are doing. Are you listening to me, Miles Vorkosigan? Don't you dare die! I won't have it!”
That seemed definitive. Despite everything, he grinned. “Yes, dear,” he sang back meekly, heartened. This woman's Vor ancestoresses had defended bastions in war, oh, yes.
“So stop talking to me and get back to work. Right?”
She almost kept the shaken sob out of that last word.
“Hold the fort, love,” he breathed, with all the tenderness he knew.
“Always.” He could hear her swallow. “Always.”
She cut her link. He took it as a hint.
Hostage rescue, eh? If you want something done right, do it yourself . Come to think of it, did this ba have any idea of what Miles's former line of work had been? Or did it assume Miles was just a diplomat, a bureaucrat, another frightened civilian? The ba could not know which of the party had triggered its booby trap on the repair suit remote controls, either. Not that this biotainer suit hadn't been useless for space assault purposes even before it had been buggered all to hell. But what tools were available here in this infirmary that might be put to uses their manufacturers had never envisioned? And what personnel?