Diplomatic Immunity - Lois McMaster Bujold [41]
Miles sat at the wardroom table, straightened his jacket and fastened it to the neck, and touched the control on his station chair. Admiral Vorpatril's face and torso appeared over the vid plate. He was awake, dressed, shaved, and had a coffee cup at his right hand, the rat-bastard.
Vorpatril shook his head, lips tight. "How the hell did you know?" he demanded.
Miles squinted. "I beg your pardon?"
"I just got back the report on Solian's blood sample from my chief surgeon. It was manufactured, probably within twenty-four hours of its being spilled on the deck."
"Oh." Hell and damnation. "That's . . . unfortunate."
"But what does it mean? Is the man still alive somewhere? I'd have sworn he wasn't a deserter, but maybe Brun was right."
Like the stopped clock, even idiots could be correct sometimes. "I'll have to think about this. It doesn't actually prove if Solian's alive or dead, either way. It doesn't even, necessarily, prove that he wasn't killed there, just not by getting his throat cut."
Armsman Roic, God bless and keep him forever, set a cup of steaming coffee down by Miles's elbow and withdrew to his station by the door. Miles cleared his mouth, if not his mind, with the first sluicing swallow, and took a second sip to buy a moment to think.
Vorpatril had a head start on both coffee and calculation. "Should we report this to Chief Venn? Or . . . not?"
Miles made a dubious noise in his throat. His one diplomatic edge, the only thing that had given him, so to speak, a leg to stand on here, had been the possibility that Solian had been murdered by an unknown quaddie. This was now rendered even more problematic, it seemed. "The blood had to have been manufactured somewhere. If you have the right equipment, it's easy, and if you don't, it's impossible. Find all such equipment on station—or aboard ships in dock—and the place it was done has to be one of 'em. The place plus the time should lead to the people. Process of elimination. It's the sort of footwork . . ." Miles hesitated, but went on, "that the local police are better equipped to carry out than we are. If they can be trusted."
"Trust the quaddies? Hardly!"
"What motivation do they have to lie or misdirect us?" What, indeed? "I have to work through Greenlaw and Venn. I have no authority on Graf Station in my own right." Well, there was Bel, but he had to use Bel sparingly or risk the herm's cover.
He wanted the truth. Ruefully, he recognized that he also would prefer to have a monopoly on it, at least until he had time to figure out how best to play for Barrayar's interests. Yet if the truth doesn't serve us, what does that say about us, eh? He rubbed his stubbled chin. "It does clearly prove that whatever happened in that freight bay, whether murder or cover-up, was carefully planned, and not spontaneous. I'll undertake to speak with Greenlaw and Venn about it. Talking to the quaddies is my job now, anyway." For my sins, presumably. What god did I piss off this time? "Thank you, Admiral, and thank your fleet surgeon from me for a good job."
Vorpatril gave a grudgingly pleased nod at this acknowledgment, and Miles cut the com.
"Dammit," he muttered querulously, frowning into the blank space. "Why didn't anyone pick up this information on the first pass? It's not my job to be a bloody forensic pathologist."
"I expect," began Armsman Roic, and stopped. "Uh . . . was that a question, m'lord?"
Miles swung around in his station chair. "A rhetorical one, but do you have an answer?"
"Well, m'lord," said Roic diffidently. "It's about the size of things here. Graf Station is a pretty big space habitat, but it's really a kind of a small city, by Barrayaran standards. And all these