Since they were all on their way to the Idris anyway, Bel used the delay to call Dubauer down to the lobby again. Dubauer, smooth cheek now neatly sealed with a discreet dab of surgical glue, arrived promptly, and stared in some alarm at their new quaddie military escort. But the shy, graceful herm appeared to have regained most of its self-possession, and murmured sincere gratitude to Bel for recollecting its creatures' needs despite all the tumult.
The little party walked or floated, variously, trailing Portmaster Thorne via a notably un-public back way through the customs and security zone to the array of loading bays devoted to galactic shipping. The bay serving the Idris, clamped into its outboard docking cradle, was quiet and dim, unpeopled except for the two Graf Station security patrollers guarding the hatches.
Bel presented its authorization, and the two patrollers floated aside to allow Bel access to the hatch controls. The door to the big freight lock slid upward, and, leaving their Union Militia escort to help guard the entry, Miles, Roic, and Dubauer followed Bel aboard the freighter.
The Idris , like its sister ship the Rudra , was of a utilitarian design that dispensed with elegance. It was essentially a bundle of seven huge parallel cylinders: the central-most devoted to personnel, four of the outer six given to freight. The other two nacelles, opposite each other in the outer ring, housed the ship's Necklin rods that generated the field to fold it through jump points. Normal-space engines behind, mass shield generators in front. The ship rotated around its central axis to bring each outer cylinder to alignment with the stationside freight lock for automated loading or unloading of containers, or hand loading of more delicate goods. The design was not without added safety value, for in the event of a pressurization loss in one or more cylinders, any of the others could serve as a refuge while repairs were made or evacuation effected.
As they walked now through one freight nacelle, Miles glanced up and down its central access corridor, which receded into darkness. They passed through another lock into a small foyer in the forward section of the ship. In one direction lay passenger staterooms; in the other, personnel cabins and offices. Lift tubes and a pair of stairs led up to the level devoted to ship's mess, infirmary, and recreation facilities, and downward to life support, engineering, and other utility areas.
Roic glanced at his notes and nodded down the corridor. “This way to Solian's security office, m'lord.”
“I'll escort Citizen Dubauer here to its flock,” said Bel, “and catch up with you.” Dubauer made an abortive little bow, and the two herms passed onward into the lock leading to one of the outboard freight sections.
Roic counted doorways past a second connecting foyer and tapped a code into a lock pad near the stern. The door slid aside and the light came up revealing a tiny, spare chamber housing scarcely more than a computer interface and two chairs, and some lockable wall cabinets. Miles fired up the interface while Roic ran a quick inventory of the cabinets' contents. All security-issue weapons and their power cartridges were present and accounted for, all safety equipment neatly packed in its places. The office was void of personal effects, no vid displays of the girl back home, no sly—or political—jokes or encouraging slogans pasted inside the cabinet doors. But Brun's investigators had been through here once already, after Solian had disappeared but before the ship had been evacuated by the quaddies following the clash with the Barrayarans; Miles made a note to inquire if Brun—or Venn, for that matter—had removed anything.
Roic's override codes promptly brought up all of Solian's records and logs. Miles started from Solian's final shift. The lieutenant's daily reports were laconic, repetitive, and disappointingly free of comments on potential assassins. Miles wondered if he was listening to a dead man's voice. By rights, there ought to be some psychic frisson. The eerie silence of the ship encouraged the imagination.
While the ship was in port, its security system did keep continuous vid records of everyone and everything that boarded or departed through the stationside or other activated locks, as a routine antitheft, antisabotage precaution. Slogging through the whole ten days' worth of comings and goings before the ship had been impounded, even on fast forward, was going to be a time-consuming chore. The daunting possibility of records having been altered or deleted, as Brun suspected Solian had done to cover his desertion, would also have to be explored.
Miles made copies of everything that seemed even vaguely pertinent, for further examination, then he and Roic paid a visit to Solian's cabin, just a few meters down the same corridor. It too was small and spare and unrevealing. No telling what personal items Solian might have packed in the missing valise, but there certainly weren't many left. The ship had left Komarr, what, six weeks ago? With half a dozen ports of call between. When the ship was in-port was the busiest time for its security; perhaps Solian hadn't had much time to shop for souvenirs.
Miles tried to make sense of what was left. Half a dozen uniforms, a few civvies, a bulky jacket, some shoes and boots . . . Solian's personally fitted pressure suit. That seemed an expensive item one might want for a long sojourn in Quaddiespace. Not very anonymous, though, with its Barrayaran military markings.
Finding nothing in the cabin to relieve them of the chore of examining vid records, Miles and Roic returned to Solian's office and began. If nothing else, Miles encouraged himself, reviewing the security vids would give him a mental picture of the potential dramatis personae . . . buried somewhere in the mob of persons who had nothing to do with anything, to be sure. Looking at everything was a sure sign that he didn't know what the hell he was doing yet, but it was the only way he'd ever found to smoke out the nonobvious clue that everyone else had overlooked. . . .
He glanced up, after a time, at a movement in the office door. Bel had returned, and leaned against the jamb.
“Finding anything yet?” the herm asked.
“Not so far.” Miles paused the vid display. “Did your Betan friend get its problems taken care of?”
“Still working. Feeding the critters and shoveling manure, or at least, adding nutrient concentrate to the replicator reservoirs and removing the waste bags from the filtration units. I can see why Dubauer was upset at the delay. There must be a thousand animal fetuses in that hold. Major financial loss, if it becomes a loss.”
“Huh. Most animal husbandry people ship frozen embryos,” said Miles. “That's the way my grandfather used to import his fancy horse bloodstock from Earth. Implanted 'em in a grade mare upon arrival, to finish cooking. Cheaper, lighter, less maintenance—shipping delays not an issue, if it comes to that. Although I suppose this way uses the travel time for gestation.”
“Dubauer did say time was of the essence.” Bel hitched its shoulders, frowning uncomfortably. “What do the Idris 's logs have to say about Dubauer and its cargo, anyway?”
Miles called up the records. “Boarded when the fleet first assembled in Komarr orbit. Bound for Xerxes—the next stop after Graf Station, which must make this mess especially frustrating. Reservation made about . . . six weeks before the fleet departed, via a Komarran shipping agent.” A legitimate company; Miles recognized the name. This record did not indicate where Dubauer-and-cargo had originated, nor if the herm had intended to connect with another commercial—or private—carrier at Xerxes for some further ultimate destination. He eyed Bel shrewdly. “Something got your hackles up?”