“Just something I picked up over dinner with Vorpatril's officers. They seemed a pleasant group, I must say.”
I'll bet they made themselves pleasant. Their guest was beautiful, cultured, a breath of home, and the first female most of them had spoken to in weeks. And married to the Imperial Auditor, heh. Eat your hearts out, boys.
“I tried to get them to talk about Lieutenant Solian, but hardly anyone knew the man. Except that one fellow remembered that Solian had had to step out of a weekly fleet security officers' meeting because he'd sprung a nosebleed. I gather that Solian was more embarrassed and annoyed than alarmed. But it occurred to me that it might be a chronic thing with him. Nikki had them for a while, and I had them occasionally for a couple of years when I was a girl, though mine went away on their own. But if Solian hadn't taken himself to his ship's medtech to get fixed yet, well, it might be another way someone could have obtained a tissue sample from him for that manufactured blood.” She paused. “Actually, now I think on it, I'm not so sure that is a help to you. Anyone might have grabbed his used nose rag out of the trash, wherever he'd been. Although I supposed that if his nose was bleeding, at least he had to have been alive at the time. It seemed a little hopeful, anyway.” Her thoughtful frown deepened. “Or maybe not.”
“Thank you,” said Miles sincerely. “I don't know if it's hopeful or not either, but it gives me another reason to see the medtechs next. Good!” He was rewarded with a smile. He added, “And if you come up with any thoughts on Dubauer's cargo, feel free to share. Although only with me, for the moment.”
“I understand.” Her brows drew down. “It is stunningly strange. Not strange that the cargo exists—I mean, if all the haut children are conceived and genetically engineered centrally, the way your friend the haut Pel described it to me when she came as an envoy to Gregor's wedding, the haut women geneticists have to be exporting thousands of embryos from the Star Cr?che all the time.”
“Not all the time,” Miles corrected. “Once a year. The annual haut child ships to the outlying satrapies are all dispatched at the same time. It gives all the top haut-lady planetary consorts like Pel, who are charged with conducting them, a chance to meet and consult with each other. Among other things.”
She nodded. “But to bring this cargo all the way here—and with only one handler to look after them . . . If your Dubauer, or whoever it is, really does have a thousand babies in tow, I don't care if they're normal human or ghem or haut or what, it had better have several hundred nursemaids waiting for them somewhere.”
“Truly.” Miles rubbed his forehead, which was aching again, and not just from the exploding possibilities. Ekaterin was right about that meal tray, as usual. If Solian could have tossed away a blood sample anywhere, any time . . .
“Oh, ha!” He rummaged in his trouser pocket and pulled out his handkerchief, forgotten there since this morning, and opened it on the heavy brown stain. Blood sample, indeed. He didn't have to wait for ImpSec HQ to get back to him on this identification. He would have undoubtedly remembered this accidental specimen eventually without the prompting. Whether before or after the efficient Roic had cleaned his clothes and returned them ready to don again, now, that was another question, wasn't it? “Ekaterin, I love you dearly. And I need to talk to the Prince Xav 's surgeon right now .” He made frantic kissing motions at her, which elicited that entrancing enigmatic smile of hers, and cut the com.
CHAPTER TEN
Miles made an urgent heads-up call to the Prince Xav ; a short delay followed while Bel negotiated clearance for the Kestrel 's message drone. Half a dozen armed Union Militia patrol vessels still floated protectively between Graf Station and Vorpatril's fleet lying in frustrated exile several kilometers off. It would not have done for Miles's precious sample to be shot out of space by some quaddie militia guard with a double quota of itchy trigger fingers. Miles didn't relax until the Prince Xav reported the capsule safely retrieved and taken inboard.
He finally settled down at the Kestrel 's wardroom table with Bel, Roic, and some military-issue ration trays. He ate mechanically, barely tasting the admittedly not-very-tasty hot food, one eye on the vid display still fast forwarding through the Idris 's lock records. Dubauer, it appeared, had never once left the vessel to so much as stroll about the station during the whole of the time the ship had been in dock, until forcibly removed with the other passengers to the stationside hostel by the quaddies.
Lieutenant Solian had left five times, four of them duty excursions for routine cargo checks, the fifth, most interestingly, after his work shift on his last day. The vid showed a good view of the back of his head, departing, and a clear shot of his face, returning about forty minutes later. Despite freezing the image, Miles could not certainly identify any of the spots or shadows on Solian's dark-green Barrayaran military tunic as nose-bloodstains, even in close-up. Solian's expression was set and frowning as he glanced up straight at the security vid pickup, part of his charge, after all—perhaps automatically checking its function. The young man didn't look relaxed, or happy, or as though he were looking forward to some interesting station leave, although he had been due some. He looked . . . intent on something.
It was the last documented time Solian had been seen alive. No sign of his body had been found when Brun's men had searched the Idris the next day, and they had searched thoroughly, requiring each passenger with cargo, including Dubauer, to unlock their cabins and holds for inspection. Hence Brun's strongly held theory that Solian must have smuggled himself out undetected. “So where did he go out to, during that forty minutes he was off the ship?” Miles asked in aggravation.
“He didn't cross my customs barriers, not unless someone rolled him in a damned carpet and carried him,” said Bel positively. “And I don't have a record of anyone lugging in a carpet. We looked. He had pretty free access to the six loading bays in that sector, and any ships then in dock. Which were all your four, at the time.”
“Well, Brun swears he doesn't have vids of him boarding any of the other vessels. I suppose I'd better check everyone else who entered or left any of the ships during that period. Solian could have sat down for a quiet, unobserved chat—or more sinister exchange—with someone in any number of nooks in those loading bays. With or without a nosebleed.”
“The bays aren't that closely controlled or patrolled,” Bel admitted. “We let crew and passengers use the empty ones for exercise spaces or games, sometimes.”
“Hm.” Someone had certainly used one to play games with that synthesized blood, later.
After their utilitarian dinner, Miles had Bel conduct him back through the customs checkpoints to the hostel where the impounded ships' crews were housed. These digs were notably less luxurious and more crowded than the ones devoted to the paying galactic passengers, and the edgy crews had been stuck in them for days with nothing but the holovid and each other for entertainment. Miles was instantly pounced upon by assorted senior officers, both from the two Toscane Corporation ships and the two independents caught up in this fracas, demanding to know how soon he was going to obtain their release. He cut through the hubbub to request interviews with the medtechs assigned to the four ships, and a quiet room to conduct them in. Some shuffling produced, at length, a back office and a quartet of nervous Komarrans.
Miles addressed the Idris 's medtech first. “How hard would it be for an unauthorized person to gain access to your infirmary?”