Vorpatril waved a hand in a gesture of judicious balance. “The more reason not to think desertion. High command's been pretty careful of what Komarrans they admit to the Service. They don't want public failures.”
“In any case,” said Brun, “we put all our own security people on alert to search for him, and asked for help from the Graf Station authorities. Which they were not especially eager to offer. They just kept repeating they'd had no sign of him in either the gravity or null-gee sections, and no record of anyone of his description leaving the station on their local-space carriers.”
“And then what happened?”
Admiral Vorpatril answered, “Time ran on. Repairs on the Idris were completed and signed off. Pressure,” he eyed Molino without favor, “grew to leave Graf Station and continue on the planned route. Me—I don't leave my men behind if I can help it.”
Molino said, rather through his teeth, “It made no economic sense to tie up the entire fleet over one man. You might have left one light vessel or even a small team of investigators to pursue the matter, to follow on when they were concluded, and let the rest continue.”
“I also have standing orders not to split the fleet,” said Vorpatril, his jaw tightening.
“But we haven't suffered a hijacking attempt in this sector for decades,” argued Molino. Miles felt he was witnessing round n-plus-one of an ongoing debate.
“Not since Barrayar began providing you with free military escorts,” said Vorpatril, with false cordiality. “Odd coincidence, that.” His voice grew firmer. “I don't leave my men. I swore that at the Escobar debacle, back when I was a milk-faced ensign.” He glanced at Miles. “Under your father's command, as it happened.”
Uh-oh. This could be trouble. . . . Miles let his brows climb in curiosity. “What was your experience there, sir?”
Vorpatril snorted reminiscently. “I was a junior pilot on a combat drop shuttle, orphaned when our mothership was blown to hell by the Escos in high orbit. I suppose if we'd made it back during the retreat, we'd have been blown up with her, but still. Nowhere to dock, nowhere to run, even the few surviving ships that had an open docking cradle not pausing for us, a couple of hundred men on board including wounded—it was a right nightmare, let me tell you.”
Miles felt the admiral had barely clipped off a “son,” at the end of that last sentence.
Miles said cautiously, “I'm not sure Admiral Vorkosigan had much choice left, by the time he inherited command of the invasion after the death of Prince Serg.”
“Oh, none at all,” Vorpatril agreed, with another wave of his hand. “I'm not saying the man didn't do all he could with what he had. But he couldn't do it all, and I was among those sacrificed. Spent almost a year in an Escobaran prison camp, before the negotiators finally got me mustered home. The Escobarans didn't make it a holiday for us, I can tell you that.”
It could have been worse. You might have been a female Escobaran prisoner of war in one of our camps. Miles decided not to suggest this exercise of the imagination to the admiral just now. “I would expect not.”
“All I'm saying is, I know what it is to be abandoned, and I won't do it to men of mine for any trivial reason.” His narrow glance at the cargomaster made it clear that evaporating Komarran corporate profits did not qualify as a weighty enough reason for this violation of principle. “Events proved—” He hesitated, and rephrased himself. “For a time, I thought events had proved me right.”
“For a time,” Miles echoed. “Not any more?”
“Now . . . well . . . what happened next was pretty . . . pretty disturbing. There was an unauthorized cycling of a personnel airlock in the Graf Station cargo bay next to where the Idris was locked on. No ship or personnel pod was sighted at it, however—the tube seals weren't activated. By the time the Station security guard got there, the bay was empty. But there was a quantity of blood on the floor, and signs of something dragged to the lock. The blood came up on testing as Solian's. It looked like he was trying to make it back to the Idris , and someone jumped him.”
“Someone who didn't leave footprints,” added Brun darkly.
At Miles's inquiring look, Vorpatril explained, “In the gravitational areas where the downsiders stay, the quaddies buzz around in these little personal floaters. They operate 'em with their lower hands, leaving their upper arms free. No footprints. No feet, for that matter.”
“Ah, yes. I understand,” said Miles. “Blood, but no body—has a body been found?”
“Not yet,” said Brun.
“Searched for?”
“Oh, yes. In all the possible trajectories.”
“I suppose it's occurred to you that a deserter might try to fake his own murder or suicide, to free himself from pursuit.”
“I might have thought that,” said Brun, “but I saw the loading bay floor. No one could lose that much blood and live. There must have been three or four liters at least.”
Miles shrugged. “The first step in emergency cryonic prep is to exsanguinate the patient and replace his blood with cryo-fluid. That can easily leave several liters of blood on the floor, and the victim—well, potentially alive.” He'd had close personal experience of the process, or so Elli Quinn and Bel Thorne had told him afterward, on that Dendarii Free Mercenary mission that had gone so disastrously wrong. Granted, he didn't remember that part, except through Bel's extremely vivid description.
Brun's brows flicked up. “I hadn't thought of that.”
“It rather sprang to my mind,” said Miles apologetically. I could show you the scars.
Brun frowned, then shook his head. “I don't think there would have been time before Station security arrived on the scene.”
“Even if a portable cryochamber was standing ready?”
Brun opened his mouth, then closed it again. He finally said, “It's a complicated scenario, my lord.”
“I don't insist on it,” said Miles easily. He considered the other end of the cryo-revival process. “Except that I'd also point out that there are other sources of several liters of nice fresh one's-own-personal blood besides a victim's body. Such as a revival lab's or hospital's synthesizer. The product would certainly light up a cursory DNA scan. You couldn't even call it a false positive, exactly. A bio-forensics lab could tell the difference, though. Traces of cryo-fluid would be obvious, too, if only someone thought to look for them.” He added wistfully, “I hate circumstantial evidence. Who ran the identification check on the blood?”
Brun shifted uncomfortably. “The quaddies. We'd downloaded Solian's DNA scan to them when he first went missing. But the security liaison officer from the Rudra had gone over by then—he was right there in the bay watching their tech. He reported the match to me as soon as the analyzer beeped. That's when I podded across to look at it all myself.”
“Did he collect another sample to cross-check?”
“I . . . believe so. I can ask the fleet surgeon if he received one before, um, other events overtook us.”
Admiral Vorpatril sat looking unpleasantly stunned. “I thought certainly poor Solian was murdered. By some—” He fell silent.
“It doesn't sound as though that hypothesis is ruled out either, yet,” Miles consoled him. “In any case, you honestly believed it at the time. Have your fleet surgeon examine his samples more thoroughly, please, and report to me.”
“And to Graf Station Security, too?”
“Ah . . . maybe not them yet.” Even if the results were negative, the query would only serve to stir up more quaddie suspicions about Barrayarans. And if they were positive . . . Miles wanted to think about that first. “At any rate, what happened next?”
“That Solian was himself Fleet Security made his murder—apparent murder—seem especially sinister,” Vorpatril admitted. “Had he been trying to get back with some warning? We couldn't tell. So I canceled all leaves, went to alert status, and ordered all ships to detach from dockside.”