Diplomatic Immunity - Lois McMaster Bujold [136]
Pel inhaled, but conceded stiffly, "Yes. The crime was long planned and prepared, it now appears. The ba slew the Consort of Rho Ceta, her handmaidens, and the crew of the ship by poison just after their last jump. They were all dead by the time of the rendezvous. It set the ship's auto-navigation to take the vessel into the sun of the system thereafter. To the ba's credit, this was intended as a befitting pyre, of sorts," she conceded grudgingly.
Given his prior exposure to the arcana of haut funeral practices, Miles could almost follow this evident point in the prisoner's favor without his brain cramping. Almost. But Pel spoke of the ba's intention as fact, not conjecture; therefore, the haut ladies had already had more luck in their interrogation of the deranged ba in one night than Miles's security people had gained on their whole voyage here. Luck, I suspect, has nothing to do with it. "I thought the ba should have been carrying a greater variety of bioweapons, if it had any time to loot the child-ship before the vessel was abandoned and destroyed."
Pel was normally rather sunny, as haut planetary consorts went, but this elicited a freezing frown. "These matters are altogether not for discussion outside the Star Crèche."
"Ideally, no. But unfortunately, your . . . private items managed to travel quite a way outside the Star Crèche indeed. As I can personally testify. They became a source of very public concern for us, when apprehending the ba on Graf Station. At the time I left there, no one was certain if we'd identified and neutralized every contagion, or not. "
Reluctantly, Pel admitted, "The ba had planned to steal the complete array. But the haut lady in charge of the consort's . . . supplies, although dying, managed to destroy them before her death. As was her duty." Pel's eyes narrowed. "She will be remembered among us."
The dark-haired woman's opposite number, perhaps? Did the chilly physician guard a similar arsenal on Pel's behalf, perhaps aboard this very ship? Complete array, eh. Miles filed that tacit admission silently away, for later sharing with ImpSec's highest echelons, and swiftly redirected the conversation.
"But what was the ba actually trying to do? Was it acting alone? If it was, how did it defeat its loyalty programming?"
"That is an internal matter, too," she repeated darkly.
"Well, I'll tell you my guesses," Miles burbled on, before she could turn away and end the exchange. "I believe this ba to be very closely related to Emperor Fletchir Giaja, and therefore, to his late mother. I'm guessing this ba was one of the old Dowager Empress Lisbet's close confidants during her reign. Her bio-treason, her plan to split the haut into competing subgroups, was defeated after her death—"
"Not treason," haut Pel objected faintly. "As such."
"Unsanctioned unilateral redesign, then. For some reason, this ba was not purged with the others of her inner cadre after her death—or maybe it was, I don't know. Demoted, perhaps? But anyway, I'm guessing this whole escapade was some sort of misguided effort to complete its dead mistress's—or mother's—vision. Am I close?"
The haut Pel eyed him with extreme distaste. "Close enough. It is truly done now, in any case. The emperor will be pleased with you—again. Some token of his gratitude may well be forthcoming at the child-ship landing ceremonies tomorrow, to which you and your lady-wife are invited. The first outlanders—ever—to be so honored."
Miles waved aside this little distraction. "I'd trade all the honors for some scrap of understanding."
Pel snorted. "You haven't changed, have you? Still insatiably curious. To a fault," she added pointedly.
Ekaterin smiled dryly.
Miles ignored Pel's hint. "Bear with me. I don't think I've quite got it, yet. I suspect the haut—and the ba—are not so post-human yet as to be beyond self-deception, all the more subtle for