"Now is it, 'Diplomacy
is the art of war pursued by other men,'" asked Ivan,
"or was it the other way around? 'War is diplo-'"
"All diplomacy is a
continuation of war by other means," Miles intoned.
"Chou En Lai, twentieth century, Earth."
"What are you, a walking
reference library?"
"No, but Commodore Tung
is. He collects Wise Old Chinese Sayings, and makes me memorize
'em."
"So was old Chou a
diplomat, or a warrior?"
Lieutenant Miles Vorkosigan
thought it over. "I think he must have been a
diplomat."
Miles's seat straps pressed
against him as the attitude jets fired, banking the personnel pod
in which he and Ivan sat across from each other in lonely
splendor. Their two benches lined a short fuselage. Miles craned
his neck for a glimpse past the pod pilot's shoulder at the
planet turning below them.
Eta Ceta IV, the heart and
homeworld of the sprawling Cetagandan empire. Miles supposed
eight developed planets and an equal fringe of allied and puppet
dependencies qualified as a sprawl in any sane person's lexicon.
Not that the Cetagandan ghem-lords wouldn't like to sprawl a
little farther, at their neighbors' expense, if they could.
Well, it didn't matter how
huge they were, they could only put military force through a
wormhole jump one ship at a time, just like everybody else.
It was just that some people
had some damned big ships.
The colored fringe of night
slid around the rim of the planet as the personnel pod continued
to match orbits from the Barrayaran Imperial courier vessel they
had just left, to the Cetagandan transfer station they were
approaching. The nightside glittered appallingly. The continents
were awash in a fairy dust of lights. Miles swore he might read
by the glow of the civilization, as if from a full moon. His
homeworld of Barrayar seemed suddenly a dull vast swatch of rural
darkness, with only a few sparks of cities here and there. Eta
Ceta's high-tech embroidery was downright . . . gaudy. Yes,
overdressed, like a woman weighted down with too much jewelry.
Tasteless, he tried to convince himself. I am not some
backcountry hick. I can handle this. I am Lord Vorkosigan, an
officer and a nobleman.
Of course, so was Lieutenant
Lord Ivan Vorpatril, but the fact did not fill Miles with
confidence. Miles regarded his big cousin, who was also craning
his neck, eyes avid and lips parted, drinking in their
destination below. At least Ivan looked the part of a diplomatic
officer, tall, dark-haired, neat, an easy smile permanently
plastered on his handsome face. His fit form filled his officer's
undress greens to perfection. Miles's mind slid, with the greased
ease of old bad habit, to invidious comparison.
Miles's own uniforms had to
be hand-tailored to fit, and insofar as possible disguise, the
massive congenital defects that years of medical treatments had
done so much to correct. He was supposed to be grateful, that the
medicos had done so much with so little. After a lifetime of it
he stood four-foot-nine, hunchbacked and brittle-boned, but it
beat being carried around in a bucket. Sure.
But he could stand,
and walk, and run if need be, leg braces and all. And Barrayaran
Imperial Security didn't pay him to be pretty, thank God, they
paid him to be smart. Still, the morbid thought did creep in that
he had been sent along on this upcoming circus to stand next to
Ivan and make him look good. ImpSec certainly hadn't given him
any more interesting missions, unless you could call Security
Chief Illyan's last curt ". . . and stay out of
trouble!" a secret assignment.
On the other hand, maybe Ivan
had been sent along to stand next to Miles and make him sound
good. Miles brightened slightly at the thought.
And there was the orbital
transfer station, coming up right on schedule. Not even
diplomatic personnel dropped directly into Eta Ceta's atmosphere.
It was considered bad etiquette, likely to draw an admonition
administered by plasma fire. Most civilized worlds had similar
regulations, Miles conceded, if only for purposes of preventing
biological contamination.
"I wonder if the Dowager
Empress's death was really natural?" Miles asked idly. Ivan,
after all, could hardly be expected to supply the answer.
"It was sudden enough."
Ivan shrugged. "She was
a generation older than Great Uncle Piotr, and he was old since
forever. He used to unnerve the hell out of me when I was a kid.
It's a nice paranoid theory, but I don't think so."
"Illyan agrees with you,
I'm afraid. Or he wouldn't have let us come. This could
have been a lot less dull if it had been the Cetagandan emperor
who'd dropped, instead of some tottering little old
haut-lady."
"But then we would not
be here," Ivan pointed out logically. "We'd both be on
duty hunkering down in some defensive outpost right now, while
the prince-candidates' factions fought it out. This is better.
Travel, wine, women, song"
"It's a State funeral,
Ivan."
"I can hope, can't
I?"
"Anyway, we're just
supposed to observe. And report. What or why, I don't know.
Illyan emphasized he expects the reports in writing."
Ivan groaned. "How I
spent my holiday, by little Ivan Vorpatril, age twenty-two. It's
like being back in school."
Miles's own twenty-third
birthday would be following Ivan's soon. If this tedious duty ran
to schedule, he should actually be back home in time for a
celebration, for a change. A pleasant thought. Miles's eyes
glinted. "Still, it could be fun, embroidering events for
Illyan's entertainment. Why should official reports always have
to be in that dead dry style?"
"Because they're
generated by dead dry brains. My cousin, the frustrated
dramatist. Don't get too carried away. Illyan has no sense of
humor, it would disqualify him for his job."
"I'm not so sure. . .
." Miles watched as the pod wove through its assigned flight
path. The transfer station flowed past, vast as a mountain,
complex as a circuit diagram. "It would have been
interesting to meet the old lady when she was still alive. She
witnessed a lot of history, in a century and a half. If from an
odd angle, inside the haut-lords' seraglio."
"Low-life outer
barbarians like us would never have been let near her."
"Mm, I suppose
not." The pod paused, and a major Cetagandan ship with the
markings of one of the out-planet governments ghosted past, on
and on, maneuvering its monstrous bulk to dock with exquisite
care. "All the haut-lord satrap governors and their retinues
are supposed to be converging for this. I'll bet Cetagandan
imperial security is having fun right now."
"If any two governors
come, I suppose the rest have to show up, just to keep an eye on
each other." Ivan's brows rose. "Should be quite a
show. Ceremony as Art. Hell, the Cetagandans make blowing your
nose an art. Just so they can sneer at you if you get the moves
wrong. One-upmanship to the nth power."
"It's the one thing that
convinces me that the Cetagandan haut-lords are still human,
after all that genetic tinkering."
Ivan grimaced. "Mutants
on purpose are mutants still." He glanced down at his
cousin's suddenly stiff form, cleared his throat, and tried to
find something interesting to look at out the canopy.
"You're so diplomatic,
Ivan," said Miles through a tight smile. "Try not to
start a war single . . . mouthed, eh?" Civil or
otherwise.
Ivan shrugged off his brief
embarrassment. The pod pilot, a Barrayaran tech-sergeant in black
fatigues, slid his little ship neatly into its assigned docking
pocket. The view outside shrank to blank dimness. Control lights
blinked cheery greetings, and servos whined as the flex-tube
portals matched and locked. Miles snapped off his seat straps
just a shade more slowly than Ivan, pretending disinterest, or
savoir faire, or something. No Cetagandan was going to catch him
with his nose pressed to the glass like some eager puppy. He was
a Vorkosigan. His heart beat faster anyway.
The Barrayaran ambassador
would be waiting, to take his two high-ranking guests in hand,
and show them, Miles hoped, how to go on. Miles mentally reviewed
the correct greetings and salutations, and the carefully
memorized personal message from his father. The pod lock cycled,
and the hatch on the side of the fuselage to the right of Ivan's
seat dilated.
A man hurtled through, swung
himself to a sudden halt on the hatch's handlebar, and stared at
them with wide eyes, breathing heavily. His lips moved, but
whether in curses, prayers, or rehearsals Miles wasn't sure.
He was elderly but not frail,
broad-shouldered and at least as tall as Ivan. He wore what Miles
guessed was the uniform of a station employee, cool gray and
mauve. Fine white hair wisped over his scalp, but he had no
facial hair at all on his shiny skin, neither beard nor eyebrows
nor even down. His hand flew to his left vest, over his heart.
"Weapon!" Miles
yelled in warning. The startled pod pilot was still snaking his
way clear of his seat straps, and Miles was physically
ill-equipped to jump anyone, but Ivan's reflexes had been honed
by plenty of training, if not actual combat. He was already
moving, rotating around his own hand-hold point-of-contact and
into the intruder's path.
Hand-to-hand combat in free
fall was always incredibly awkward, due in part to the necessity
of having to hang on tightly to anybody one wanted to seriously
hit. The two men quickly ended up wrestling. The intruder
clutched wildly, not at his vest but at his right trouser pocket,
but Ivan managed to knock the glittering nerve disruptor from his
hand.
The nerve disruptor tumbled
away and whanged off the other side of the cabin, now a random
threat to everyone aboard.
Miles had always been
terrified of nerve disruptors, but never before as a projectile
weapon. It took two more cross-cabin ricochets for him to snatch
it out of the air without accidentally shooting himself or Ivan.
The weapon was undersized but charged and deadly.
Ivan had meanwhile worked
around behind the old man, attempting to pinion his arms. Miles
seized the moment to try to nail down the second weapon, dragging
open the mauve vest and going for that lump in the inner pocket.
His hand came away clutching a short rod that he first took for a
shock-stick.
The man screamed and wrenched
violently. Greatly startled and not at all sure what he'd just
done, Miles launched himself away from the struggling pair and
ducked prudently behind the pod pilot. Judging from that mortal
yell Miles was afraid he'd just ripped out the power pack to the
man's artificial heart or something, but he continued to fight
on, so it couldn't have been as fatal as it sounded.
The intruder shook off Ivan's
grip and recoiled to the hatchway. There came one of those odd
pauses that sometimes occur in close combat, everyone gulping for
breath in the rush of adrenaline. The old man stared at Miles
with the rod in his fist; his expression altered from fright
to--was that grimace a flash of triumph? Surely not. Demented
inspiration?
Outnumbered now as the pilot
joined the fray, the intruder retreated, tumbling back out the
flex tube and thumping to whatever docking bay deck lay beyond.
Miles scrambled after Ivan's hot pursuit just in time to see the
intruder, now firmly on his feet in the station's artificial
gravity field, land Ivan a blow to his chest with a booted foot
that knocked the younger man backward into the portal again. By
the time Miles and Ivan had disentangled themselves, and Ivan's
gasping became less alarmingly disrupted, the old man had
vanished at a run. His footsteps echoed confusingly in the bay.
Which exit? The pod pilot, after a quick look to ensure that his
passengers were temporarily safe, hurried back inside to answer
his comm alarm.
Ivan regained his feet,
dusted himself off, and stared around. Miles did too. They were
in a small, dingy, dimly lit freight bay.
"Y'know," said
Ivan, "if that was the customs inspector, we're in
trouble."
"I thought he was about
to draw on us," said Miles. "It looked like it."
"You didn't see a weapon
before you yelled."
"It wasn't the weapon.
It was his eyes. He looked like someone about to try something
that scared him to death. And he did draw."
"After we jumped
him. Who knows what he was about to do?"
Miles turned slowly on his
heel, taking in their surroundings in more detail. There wasn't a
human being in sight, Cetagandan, Barrayaran, or other.
"There's something very wrong here. Either he wasn't in the
right place, or we weren't. This musty dump can't be our docking
port, can it? I mean, where's the Barrayaran ambassador? The
honor guard?"
"The red carpet, the
dancing girls?" Ivan sighed. "You know, if he'd been
trying to assassinate you, or hijack the pod, he should have come
charging in with that nerve disruptor already in his hand."
"That was no customs
inspector. Look at the monitors." Miles pointed. Two
vid-pickups mounted strategically on nearby walls were ripped
from their moorings, dangling sadly down. "He disabled them
before he tried to board. I don't understand. Station security
should be swarming in here right now. . . . D'you think he wanted
the pod, and not us?"
"You, boy. No one would
be after me."
"He seemed more scared
of us than we were of him." Miles concealed a deep breath,
hoping his heart rate would slow.
"Speak for
yourself," said Ivan. "He sure scared me ."
"Are you all
right?" asked Miles belatedly. "I mean, no broken ribs
or anything?"
"Oh, yeah, I'll survive
. . . you?"
"I'm all right."
Ivan glanced down at the
nerve disruptor in Miles's right hand, and the rod in his left,
and wrinkled his nose. "How'd you end up with all the
weapons?"
"I . . . don't quite
know." Miles slipped the little nerve disruptor into his own
trouser pocket, and held the mysterious rod up to the light.
"I thought at first this was some kind of shock-stick, but
it's not. It's something electronic, but I sure don't recognize
the design."
"A grenade," Ivan
suggested. "A time-bomb. They can make them look like
anything, y'know."
"I don't think so"
"My lords," the pod
pilot stuck his head through the hatch. "Station flight
control is ordering us not to dock here. They're telling us to
stand off and wait clearance. Immediately."
"I thought we
must be in the wrong place," said Ivan.
"It's the coordinates
they gave me, my lord," said the pod pilot a little stiffly.
"Not your error,
Sergeant, I'm sure," Miles soothed.
"Flight control sounds
very forceful." The sergeant's face was tense. "Please,
my lords."
Obediently, Miles and Ivan
shuffled back aboard the pod. Miles refastened his seat straps
automatically, his mind running on overdrive, trying to construct
an explanation for their bizarre welcome to Cetaganda.
"This section of the
station must have been deliberately cleared of personnel,"
he decided aloud. "I'll bet you Betan dollars Cetagandan
security is in process of conducting a sweep-search for that
fellow. A fugitive, by God." Thief, murderer, spy? The
possibilities enticed.
"He was disguised,
anyway," said Ivan.
"How do you know?"
Ivan picked a few fine white
strands from his green sleeve. "This isn't real hair."
"Really?" said
Miles, charmed. He examined the clump of threads Ivan extended
across the aisle to him. One end was sticky with adhesive.
"Huh."
The pod pilot finished taking
up his new assigned coordinates; the pod now floated in space a
few hundred meters from the row of docking pockets. There were no
other pods locked onto the station for a dozen pockets in either
direction. "I'll report this incident to the station
authorities, shall I, my lords?" The sergeant reached for
his comm controls.
"Wait," said Miles.
"My lord?" The pod
pilot regarded him dubiously, over his shoulder. "I think we
should"
"Wait till they ask us.
After all, we're not in the business of cleaning up Cetagandan
security's lapses after them, are we? It's their problem."
A small grin, immediately
suppressed, told Miles the pilot was amenable to this argument.
"Yes, sir," he said, making it an order-received, and
therefore Miles's lordly officer's responsibility, and not that
of a lowly tech-sergeant. "Whatever you say, sir."
"Miles," muttered
Ivan, "what do you think you're doing?"
"Observing," said
Miles primly. "I'm going to observe and see how good
Cetagandan station security is at their job. I think Illyan would
want to know, don't you? Oh, they'll be around to question us,
and take these goodies back, but this way I can get more
information in return. Relax, Ivan."
Ivan settled back, his
disturbed air gradually dissipating as the minutes ticked on with
no further interruptions to the boredom in the little pod. Miles
examined his prizes. The nerve disruptor was of some
exceptionally fine Cetagandan civilian make, not military issue,
in itself odd; the Cetagandans did not encourage the dispersal of
deadly anti-personnel weapons among their general populace. But
it did not bear the fancy decorations that would mark it as some
ghem-lord's toy. It was plain and functional, of a size meant to
be carried concealed.
The short rod was odder
still. Embedded in its transparent casing was a violent glitter,
looking decorative; Miles was sure microscopic examination would
reveal fine dense circuitry. One end of the device was plain, the
other covered with a seal which was itself locked in place.
"This looks like it's
meant to be inserted in something," he said to Ivan, turning
the rod in the light.
"Maybe it's a
dildo," Ivan smirked.
Miles snorted. "With the
ghem-lords, who can say? But no, I don't think so." The
indented seal on the endcap was in the shape of some clawed and
dangerous looking bird. Deep within the incised figure gleamed
metallic lines, the circuit connections. Somewhere somebody owned
the mate, a raised screaming bird pattern full of complex encodes
which would release the cover, revealing . . . what? Another
pattern of encodes? A key for a key . . . It was all
extraordinarily elegant. Miles smiled in sheer fascination.
Ivan regarded him uneasily.
"You are going to give it back, aren't you?"
"Of course. If they ask
for it."
"And if they
don't?"
"Keep it for a souvenir,
I suppose. It's too pretty to throw away. Maybe I'll take it home
as a present to Illyan, let his cipher laboratory elves play with
it as an exercise. For about a year. It's not an amateur's
bauble, even I can tell that."
Before Ivan could come up
with more objections, Miles undid his green tunic and slipped the
device into his own inner breast pocket. Out of sight, out of
mind. "Ah you want to keep this?" He handed the nerve
disruptor across to his cousin.
Ivan plainly did. Placated by
this division of the spoils, Ivan, a partner in crime now, made
the little weapon disappear into his own tunic. The weapon's
secret and sinister presence would do nicely, Miles calculated,
to keep Ivan distracted and polite all through the upcoming
disembarkation.
At last the station traffic
control directed them to dock again. They locked onto a pod
pocket two up from the one they had been assigned before. This
time the door opened without incident. After a slight hesitation,
Ivan exited through the flex tube. Miles followed him.
Six men awaited them in a
gray chamber almost identical to the first one, if cleaner and
better lit. Miles recognized the Barrayaran ambassador
immediately. Lord Vorob'yev was a stout solid man of about sixty
standard, sharp-eyed, smiling, and contained. He wore a Vorob'yev
House uniform, rather formal for the occasion Miles thought,
wine-red with black trim. He was flanked by four guards in
Barrayaran undress greens. Two Cetagandan station officials, in
mauve and gray garb of similar style but more complex cut than
the intruder's, stood slightly apart from the Barrayarans.
Only two stationers? Where
were the civil police, Cetagandan military intelligence, or at
least some ghem-faction's private agents? Where were the
questions, and the questioners Miles had been anticipating
dissecting?
Instead, he found himself
greeting Ambassador Vorob'yev as if nothing had happened, just as
he'd first rehearsed. Vorob'yev was a man of Miles's father's
generation, and in fact had been his appointee, back when Count
Vorkosigan had still been Regent. Vorob'yev had been holding down
this critical post for six years, having retired from his
military career to take up Imperial service on the civil side.
Miles resisted an urge to salute, and gave the ambassador a
formal nod instead.
"Good afternoon, Lord
Vorob'yev. My father sends you his personal regards, and these
messages."
Miles handed across the
sealed diplomatic disk, an act duly noted by a Cetagandan
official on his report panel. "Six items of luggage?"
the Cetagandan inquired with a nod, as the pod pilot finished
stacking them on the waiting float pallet, saluted Miles, and
returned to his ship.
"Yes, that's all,"
said Ivan. To Miles's eye, Ivan looked stuffed and shifty,
intensely conscious of the contraband in his pocket, but
apparently the Cetagandan official could not read his cousin's
expression as well as Miles could.
The Cetagandan waved a hand,
and the ambassador nodded to his guards; two of them split off to
accompany the luggage on its trip through Cetagandan inspection.
The Cetagandan resealed the docking port, and bore off the float
pallet.
Ivan anxiously watched it go.
"Will we get it all back?"
"Eventually. After some
delays, if things run true to form," said Vorob'yev easily.
"Did you gentlemen have a good trip?"
"Entirely
uneventful," said Miles, before Ivan could speak.
"Until we got here. Is this a usual docking port for
Barrayaran visitors, or were we redirected for some other
reason?" He kept one eye on the remaining Cetagandan
official, watching for a reaction.
Vorob'yev smiled sourly.
"Sending us through the service entrance is just a little
game the Cetagandans play with us, to reaffirm our status. You
are correct, it is a studied insult, designed to distract our
minds. I stopped allowing it to distract me some years ago, and I
recommend you do the same."
The Cetagandan displayed no
reaction at all. Vorob'yev was treating him with no more regard
than a piece of furniture, a compliment he apparently returned by
acting like one. It seemed to be a ritual.
"Thank you, sir, I'll
take your advice. Uh . . . were you delayed too? We were. They
cleared us to dock once and then sent us back out to cool."
"The run-around today
seems particularly ornate. Consider yourselves honored, my lords.
Come this way, please."
Ivan gave Miles a pleading
look as Vorob'yev turned away; Miles shook his head fractionally, Wait
. . . .
Led by the expressionless
Cetagandan station official and flanked by the embassy guards,
the two young men accompanied Vorob'yev up several station
levels. The Barrayaran embassy's own planetary shuttle was docked
to a genuine passenger lock. It had a proper VIP lounge with its
own grav system in the flex tube so nobody had to float. There
they shed their Cetagandan escort. Once on board the ambassador
seemed to relax a little. He settled Miles and Ivan in
luxuriously padded seats arranged around a bolted down comconsole
table. At Vorob'yev's nod a guard offered them drinks of choice
while they waited for their luggage and departure clearances.
Following Vorob'yev's lead they accepted a Barrayaran wine of a
particularly mellow vintage. Miles barely sipped, hoping to keep
his head clear, while Ivan and the ambassador made small talk
about their trip, and mutual Vorish friends back home. Vorob'yev
seemed to be personally acquainted with Ivan's mother. Miles
ignored Ivan's occasional raised brow silent invitation to join
the chat, and maybe tell Lord Vorob'yev all about their little
adventure with the intruder, yes?
Why hadn't the Cetagandan
authorities been all over them just now, asking questions? Miles
ran scenarios through his heated brain.
It was a setup, and I've
just taken the bait, and they're letting the line play out.
Considering what he knew of Cetagandans, Miles placed this
possibility at the head of his list.
Or maybe it's just a time
lag, and they'll be here momentarily. Or . . . eventually.
The fugitive must first be captured, and then made to disgorge
his version of the encounter. This could take time, particularly
if the man had been, say, stunned unconscious during arrest. If
he was a fugitive. If the station authorities had indeed been
sweeping the docking area for him. If . . . Miles studied his
crystal cup, and swallowed a mouthful of the smoky ruby liquid,
and smiled affably at Ivan.
Their luggage and its guards
arrived just as they finished their drinks, experienced timing on
Vorob'yev's part, Miles judged. When the ambassador rose to
oversee its stowage and their departure, Ivan leaned across the
table to whisper urgently to Miles, "Aren't you going to
tell him about it?"
"Not yet."
"Why not?"
"Are you in such a hurry
to lose that nerve disruptor? The embassy'd take it away from you
as fast as the Cetagandans, I bet."
"Screw that. What are
you up to?"
"I'm . . . not sure.
Yet." This was not the scenario he'd expected to unfold.
He'd anticipated bandying sharp exchanges with assorted
Cetagandan authorities while they made him disgorge his prizes,
and trading for information, consciously or unconsciously
revealed. It wasn't his fault the Cetagandans weren't doing their
job.
"We've got to at least
report this to the embassy's military attaché."
"Report it, yes. But not
to the attaché. Illyan told me that if I had any
problems--meaning, of the sort our department concerns
itself with I was to go to Lord Vorreedi. He's listed as a
protocol officer, but he's really an ImpSec colonel and chief of
ImpSec here."
"The Cetagandans don't
know?"
"Of course they know.
Just like we know who's really who at the Cetagandan embassy in
Vorbarr Sultana. It's a polite legal fiction. Don't worry, I'll
see to it." Miles sighed inwardly. He supposed the first
thing the colonel would do was cut him out of the information
flow. And he dared not explain why Vorreedi shouldn't.
Ivan sat back, temporarily
silenced. Only temporarily, Miles was sure.
Vorob'yev joined them again,
settling down and hunting his seat straps. "And that's that,
my lords. Nothing taken from your possessions, nothing added.
Welcome to Eta Ceta Four. There are no official ceremonies
requiring your presence today, but if you're not too tired from
your journey, the Marilacan Embassy is hosting an informal
reception tonight for the legation community, and all its august
visitors. I recommend it to your attention."
"Recommend?" said
Miles. When someone with a career as long and distinguished as
Vorob'yev's recommended, Miles felt, one attended.
"You'll be seeing a lot
of these people over the next two weeks," Vorob'yev said.
"It should provide a useful orientation."
"What should we
wear?" asked Ivan. Four of the six cases they'd brought were
his.
"Undress greens,
please," said Vorob'yev. "Clothing is a cultural
language everywhere, to be sure, but here it's practically a
secret code. It is difficult enough to move among the ghem-lords
without committing some defined error, and among the haut-lords
it's nearly impossible. Uniforms are always correct, or, if not
exactly correct, clearly not the wearer's fault, since he has no
choice. I'll have my protocol office give you a list of which
uniforms you are to wear at each event."
Miles felt relieved; Ivan
looked faintly disappointed.
With the usual muted clinks
and clanks and hisses, the flex tubes withdrew and the shuttle
unlocked and undocked from the side of the station. No arresting
authorities had poured through the hatch, no urgent
communications had sent the ambassador hurrying forward. Miles
considered his third scenario.
Our intruder got clean
away. The Station authorities know nothing of our little
encounter. In fact, no one knows.
Except, of course, the
intruder. Miles kept his hand down, and did not touch the
concealed lump in his tunic. Whatever the device was, that fellow
knew Miles had it. And he could surely find out who Miles was. I
have a string on you, now. If I let it play out, something must
surely climb back up it to my hand, right? This could shape
up into a nice little exercise in
intelligence/counter-intelligence, better than maneuvers because
it was real. No proctor with a list of answers lurked on the
fringes recording all his mistakes for later analysis in
excruciating detail. A practice piece. At some stage of
development an officer had to stop following orders and start
generating them. And Miles wanted that promotion to ImpSec
captain, oh yes. Might he somehow persuade Vorreedi to let him
play with the puzzle despite his diplomatic duties?
Miles's eyes narrowed with
new anticipation as they began their descent into the murky
atmosphere of Eta Ceta.