Diplomatic Immunity - Lois McMaster Bujold [114]
"That bio-shit—the admiral said you got t' same bio-shit the herm has. The crap that melted Gupta's friends."
"When did you talk to Vorpatril?"
"Just before I talked to you."
"Ah."
Roic said lowly, "I should've been t' one to run those remote controls. Not you."
"It had to be me. I was more familiar with the equipment."
"Yes." Roic's voice went lower. "You should've brought Jankowski, m'lord."
"Just a guess—based on long experience, mind you . . ." Miles paused, frowning at the security display. All right, so Solian didn't have a monitor in every cabin, but he had to have private access to Nav and Com if he had anything . . . "But I suspect there will be enough heroism before this day is done to go around. I don't think we're going to have to ration it, Roic."
" 'S not what I meant," said Roic, in a dignified tone.
Miles grinned blackly. "I know. But think of how hard it would have been on Ma Jankowski. And all the not-so-little Jankowskis."
A soft snort from the com link taped inside Miles's helmet apprised him that Ekaterin was back, listening in. She would not interrupt, he suspected.
Vorpatril's voice sounded suddenly, breaking his concentration. The admiral was sputtering. "The spineless scoundrels! The four-armed bastards! My Lord Auditor!" Ah, Miles was promoted again. "The goddamn little mutants are giving this sexless Cetagandan plague-vector a jump pilot!"
"What?" Miles's stomach knotted. Tighter. "They found a volunteer? Quaddie, or downsider?" There couldn't be that large a pool of possibilities to choose from. The pilots' surgically installed neuro-controllers had to fit the ships they guided through the wormhole jumps. However many jump pilots were currently quartered—or trapped—on Graf Station, chances were that most would be incompatible with the Barrayaran systems. So was it the Idris's own pilot or relief pilot, or a pilot from one of the Komarran sister ships . . . ?
"What makes you think he's a volunteer?" snarled Vorpatril. "I can't bloody believe they're just handing . . ."
"Maybe the quaddies are up to something. What do they say?"
Vorpatril hesitated, then spat, "Watts cut me out of the loop a few minutes ago. We were having an argument over whose strike team should go in, ours or the quaddie militia's, and when. And under whose orders. Both at once with no coordination struck me as a supremely bad idea."
"Indeed. One perceives the potential hazards." The ba was beginning to seem a trifle outnumbered. But then there were its bio-threats . . . Miles's nascent sympathy died as his vision blurred again. "We are guests in their polity . . . hang on. Something seems to be happening at one of the outer airlocks."
Miles enlarged the security vid image from the lock that had suddenly come alive. Docking lights framing the outer door ran through a series of checks and go-aheads. The ba, he reminded himself, was probably looking at this same view. He held his breath. Were the quaddies, under the mask of delivering the demanded jump pilot, about to attempt to insert their own strike force?
The airlock door slid open, giving a brief glimpse of the inside of a tiny, one-person personnel pod. A naked man, the little silver contact circles of a jump pilot's neural implant gleaming at mid-forehead and temples, stepped through into the lock. The door slid shut again. Tall, dark-haired, handsome but for the thin pink scars running, Miles could now see, all over his body in a winding swathe. Dmitri Corbeau. His face was pale and set.
"The jump pilot has just arrived," Miles told Vorpatril.
"Dammit. Human or quaddie?"
Vorpatril was really going to have to work on his diplomatic vocabulary. . . . "Downsider," Miles answered, in lieu of any more pointed remark. He hesitated, then added, "It's Lieutenant Corbeau."
A stunned silence: then Vorpatril hissed, "Son-of-a-bitch . . . !"
"H'sh. The ba is finally coming on." Miles adjusted the volume, and opened his faceplate again