Miles stepped back and gestured Ekaterin to the port for a look. He reflected on the political astrography of Quaddiespace, or rather, as it was formally designated, the Union of Free Habitats. From this initial point, quaddie groups had leapfrogged out to build daughter colonies in both directions along the inner of the two rings of asteroids that had made this system so attractive to their ancestors. Several generations and a million strong later, the quaddies were in no danger whatsoever of running out of space, energy, or materials. Their population could expand as fast as it chose to build.
Only a handful of their many scattered habitats maintained areas supplied with artificial gravity for legged humans, either visitor or resident, or even dealt with outsiders. Graf Station was one that did accept galactics and their trade, as did the orbital arcologies dubbed Metropolitan, Sanctuary, Minchenko, and Union Station. This last was the seat of Quaddie government, such as it was; a variant of bottom-up representative democracy based, Miles was given to understand, on the work gang as its primary unit. He hoped to God he wasn't going to end up negotiating with a committee.
Ekaterin glanced around and, with an excited smile, motioned Roic to take a turn. He ducked his head and nearly pressed his nose to the port, staring in open curiosity. This was Ekaterin's first trip outside the Barrayaran Empire, and Roic's first venture off Barrayar ever. Miles paused to thank his habits of mild paranoia that before he'd dragged them off world he'd troubled to send them both through a short intensive course in space and free fall procedures and safety. He'd pulled rank and strings to get access to the military academy facilities, albeit on a free week between scheduled classes, for a tailored version of the longer course that Roic's older armsmen colleagues had received routinely in their former Imperial Service training.
Ekaterin had been extremely startled when Miles had invited—persuaded—well, hustled—her to join the bodyguard in the orbital schooclass="underline" daunted at first, exhausted and close to mutiny partway through, proud and elated at the finish. For passenger liners in pressurization trouble, it was the usual method to stuff their paying customers into simple bubbles called bod pods to passively await rescue. Miles had been stuck in a bod pod a time or two himself. He'd sworn that no man, and most especially no wife, of his would ever be rendered so artificially helpless in an emergency. His whole party had traveled with their own personally tailored quick-donning suits at hand. Regretfully, Miles had left his old customized battle armor in storage. . . .
Roic unbent from the port, looking especially stoic, faint vertical lines of worry between his eyebrows.
Miles asked, “Has everyone had their antinausea pills?”
Roic nodded earnestly.
Ekaterin said, “Have you had yours ?”
“Oh, yes.” He glanced down his plain gray civilian tunic and trousers. “I used to have this nifty bio-chip on my vagus nerve that kept me from losing my lunch in free fall, but it got blown out with the rest of my guts in that unpleasant encounter with the needle-grenade. I should get it replaced one of these days. . . .” Miles stepped forward and took one more glance outside. The station had grown to occlude most of the view. “So, Roic. If some quaddies visiting Hassadar made themselves obnoxious enough to win a visit to the Municipal Guard's gaol, and then a bunch more quaddies popped up and tried to bust them out with military-grade weapons, and shot up the place and torched it and burned some of your comrades, just how would you feel about quaddies at that point?”
“Um . . . not too friendly, m'lord.” Roic paused. “Pretty pissed, actually.”
“That's what I figured.” Miles sighed. “Ah. Here we go.”
Clanks and thumps sounded as the Kestrel came gently to rest and the docking clamps felt their way to a firm grip. The flex tube whined, seeking its seal, guided by the Kestrel 's engineer at the hatch controls, and then seated itself with an audible chink. “All tight, sir,” the engineer reported.
“All right, troops, we're on parade,” Miles murmured, and waved Roic on.
The bodyguard nodded and slipped through the hatch; after a moment he called back, “Ready, m'lord.”
All was, if not well, good enough. Miles followed through the flex tube, Ekaterin close behind him. He stole a glance over his shoulder as he floated forward. She was svelte and arresting in the red tunic and black leggings, her hair in a sophisticated braid around her head. Zero gee had a charming effect on well-developed female anatomy that he decided he had probably better not point out to her. As an opening move, setting this first meeting in the null-gee section of Graf Station was clearly calculated to put the visitors off balance, to emphasize just whose space this was. If they'd wanted to be polite, the quaddies would have received them in one of the grav sections.
The station-side airlock opened into a spacious cylindrical bay, its radial symmetry airily dispensing with the concepts of “up” and “down.” Roic floated with one hand on the grip by the hatch, the other kept carefully away from his stunner holster. Miles craned his neck to take in the array of half a dozen quaddies, males and females, in paramilitary grade half-armor, floating in cross-fire positions around the bay. Their weapons were out but shouldered, formality masking threat. Lower arms, thicker and more muscular than their uppers, emerged from their hips. Both sets of arms were protected by plasma-deflecting vambraces. Miles couldn't help reflecting that here were people who actually could shoot and reload at the same time. Interestingly, though two bore the insignia of Graf Station Security, the rest were in the colors and badges of the Union Militia.
Impressive window dressing, but these were not the people he needed to be attending to. His gaze swept on to the three quaddies and the legged downsider waiting directly across from the hatch. Faintly startled expressions, as they in turn took in his own nonstandard appearance, were quickly suppressed on three out of four faces.
The senior Graf Station Security officer was instantly recognizable by his uniform, weapons, and glower. Another middle-aged quaddie male also wore some sort of Stationer uniform, slate blue, in a conservative style designed to reassure the public. A white-haired female quaddie was more elaborately dressed in a maroon velvet doublet with slashed upper sleeves, silky silver fabric puffing from the slits, with matching puffy shorts and tight lower sleeves. The legged downsider also wore the slate-blue uniform, except with trousers and friction boots. Short, graying brown hair floated around the head that turned toward Miles. Miles choked, trying not to swear aloud in shock.
My God. It's Bel Thorne . What the devil was the ex-mercenary Betan hermaphrodite doing here ? The question answered itself as soon as it formed. So. Now I know who our ImpSec observer on Graf Station is. Which, abruptly, raised the reliability of those reports to a vastly higher level . . . or did it? Miles's smile froze, concealing, he hoped, his sudden mental disarray.
The white-haired woman was speaking, in a very chilly tone—some automatic part of Miles's mind pegged her as senior, as well as oldest, present. “Good afternoon, Lord Auditor Vorkosigan. Welcome to the Union of Free Habitats.”
Miles, one hand still guiding a blinking Ekaterin into the bay, managed a polite return nod. He left the second handhold flanking the hatch to her for an anchor, and managed to set himself in air, without imparting an unwanted spin, right side up with relation to the senior quaddie woman. “Thank you,” he returned neutrally. Bel, what the hell . . . ? Give me a sign, dammit. The hermaphrodite returned his brief wide-eyed stare with cool disinterest, and, as if casually, raised a hand to scratch the side of its nose, signaling, perhaps, Wait for it. . . .