“You have my personal guarantee.” He favored her with a half-bow, hand over his heart. He wondered briefly if he ought to snag a couple more for little Aral Alexander and Helen Natalia while they were here, but the conversation with Ekaterin about age-appropriate toys , several times repeated during their sojourn on Earth, probably did not need another rehearsal. “What did you and Bel find to talk about?”
She smirked. “You, mostly.”
Belated panic came out as nothing more self-incriminating than a brightly inquiring, “Oh?”
“Bel was wildly curious as to how we'd met, and obviously racking its brains to figure out how to ask without being rude. I took pity and told a little about meeting you on Komarr, and after. With all the classified parts left out, our courtship sounds awfully odd, do you know?”
He acknowledged this with a rueful shrug. “I've noticed. Can't be helped.”
“Is it really true that the first time you met, you shot Bel with a stunner?”
The curiosity hadn't all run one way, evidently. “Well, yes. It's a long story. From a long time ago.”
Her blue eyes crinkled with amusement. “So I understand. You were an absolute lunatic when you were younger, by all accounts. I'm not sure, if I'd met you back then, whether I'd have been impressed, or horrified.”
Miles thought it over. “I'm not sure, either.”
Her lips curled up again, and she stepped around him to lift a garment bag from the bunk. She drew from it a heavy fall of fabric in a blue-gray hue matching her eyes. It resolved itself into a jumpsuit of some swinging velvety stuff gathered to long, buttoned cuffs at the wrists and ankles, which gave the trouser legs a subtly sleeve-like look. She held it up to herself.
“That's new,” he said approvingly.
“Yes, I can be both fashionable in gravity and demure in free fall.” She laid the garment back down and stroked its silky nap.
“I take it Bel blocked any unpleasantness due to your being Barrayaran, when you two were out and about?”
She straightened. “Well, I didn't have any problems. Bel was accosted by one odd-looking fellow—he had the longest, narrowest hands and feet. Something funny about his chest, too, rather oversized. I wondered if he was genetically engineered for anything special, or if it was some sort of surgical modification. I suppose one meets all kinds, out here on the edge of the Nexus. He badgered Bel to tell how soon the passengers were to be let back aboard, and said there was a rumor someone had been allowed to take off their cargo, but Bel assured him—firmly!—that no one had been let on the ships since they were impounded. One of the passengers from the Rudra , worrying about his goods, I gather. He implied the seized cargoes were subject to rifling and theft by the quaddie dockhands, which didn't go over too well with Bel.”
“I can imagine.”
“Then he wanted to know what you were doing, and how the Barrayarans were going to respond. Naturally, Bel didn't say who I was. Bel said if he wanted to know what Barrayarans were doing, he'd do better to ask one directly, and to get in line to make an appointment with you through Sealer Greenlaw like everyone else. The fellow wasn't too happy, but Bel threatened to have him escorted back to his hostel by Station Security and confined there if he didn't give over pestering, so he shut up and went scurrying to find Greenlaw.”
“Good for Bel.” He sighed, and hitched his tight shoulders. “I suppose I'd better deal with Greenlaw again next.”
“No, you shouldn't,” Ekaterin said firmly. “You've done nothing but talk with committees of upset people since the first thing this morning. The answer, I expect, is no. The question is, did you ever stop to eat lunch, or take any sort of break?”
“Um . . . well, no. How did you guess?”
She merely smiled. “Then the next item on your schedule, my Lord Auditor, is a nice dinner with your wife and your old friends. Bel and Nicol are taking us out. And after that, we're going to the quaddie ballet.”
“We are?”
“Yes.”
“Why? I mean, I have to eat sometime, I suppose, but my wandering off in the middle of the case to, um, disport myself, won't thrill anyone who's waiting on me to solve this mess. Starting with Admiral Vorpatril and his staff, I daresay.”
“It will thrill the quaddies. They're vastly proud of the Minchenko Ballet, and being seen to show an interest in their culture can do you nothing but good with them. The troupe only performs once or twice a week, depending on the passenger traffic in port and the season—do they have seasons here? time of year, anyway—so we might not get another chance.” Her smile grew sly. “It was a sold-out show, but Bel had Garnet Five pull strings and get us a box. She'll be joining us there.”
Miles blinked. “She wants to pitch her case to me about Corbeau, does she?”
“That's what I'd guess.” At his dubiously wrinkled nose, she added, “I found out more about her today. She's a famous person on Graf Station, a local celebrity. The Barrayaran patrol's assault on her was news; because she's a performing artist, breaking her arm like that has put her out of work for a time, as well as being an awful thing in its own right—it was extra culturally offensive, in quaddie eyes.”
“Oh, terrific.” Miles rubbed the bridge of his nose. It wasn't just his imagination; he did have a headache.
“Yes. So the sight of Garnet Five at the ballet, chatting cordially with the Barrayaran envoy, all forgiven and amicable, is worth what to you, in propaganda points?”
“Ah ha!” He hesitated. “As long as she doesn't end up flouncing out of my presence in a public rage because I can't promise her anything yet about Corbeau. Tricky situation, that one, and the boy's not being as smart as he could about it.”
“She's apparently a person of strong emotions, but not stupid, or so I gather from Bel. I don't think Bel would have coaxed me to let it arrange this in order to engineer a public disaster . . . but perhaps you have reason to think otherwise?”
“No . . .”
“Anyway, I'm sure you'll be able to handle Garnet Five. Just be your usual charming self.”
Ekaterin's vision of him, he reminded himself, was not exactly objective. Thank God. “I've been trying to charm quaddies all day, with no noticeable success.”
“If you make it plain you like people, it's hard for them to resist liking you back. And Nicol will be playing in the orchestra tonight.”
“Oh.” He perked up. “That will be worth hearing.” Ekaterin was shrewdly observant; he had no doubt she had spent the afternoon picking up cultural vibrations that went well beyond local fashions. The quaddie ballet it was. “Will you wear your fancy new outfit?”
“That's why I bought it. We honor the artists by dressing up for them. Now, skin back into your House uniform. Bel will be along to collect us soon.”
“I'd better stick to my dull grays. I have a feeling that parading Barrayaran uniforms in front of the quaddies just now is a bad idea, diplomatically speaking.”
“In Security Post Three, probably. But there's no point in being seen enjoying their art if we just look like any other anonymous downsiders. Tonight, I think we should both look as Barrayaran as possible.”
His being seen with Ekaterin was good for a few points, too, he rather fancied, although not so much propaganda as pure swaggering one-upsmanship. He tapped his trouser seam, where no sword hung. “Right.”
CHAPTER SIX
Bel arrived promptly at the Kestrel 's hatch, having changed from its staid work uniform into a startling but cheerful orange doublet with glinting, star-decorated blue sleeves, slashed trousers bloused into cuffs at the knee, and color-coordinated midnight-blue hose and friction boots. Variations of the style seemed to be the local high fashion for both males and females, whether with or without legs, judging by Greenlaw's less blinding outfit.