Diplomatic Immunity - Lois McMaster Bujold [62]
Now what? Wait for an answer that might be entirely inconclusive? Hardly . . .
He jumped in his chair when his wrist com buzzed. He gulped and slapped it. "Vorkosigan."
"Hello, Miles." It was Ekaterin's voice; his heart rate slowed. "Do you have a moment?"
"Not only that, I have the Kestrel's comconsole. A moment of privacy, if you can believe it."
"Oh! Just a second, then . . ." The wrist com channel closed. Shortly, Ekaterin's face and torso appeared over the vid plate. She was wearing that flattering slate-blue thing again. "Ah," she said happily. "There you are. That's better."
"Well, not quite." He touched his fingers to his lips and transferred the kiss in pantomime to the image of hers. Cool ghost, alas, not warm flesh. Belatedly, he asked, "Where are you?" Alone, he trusted.
"In my cabin on the Prince Xav. Admiral Vorpatril gave me a nice one. I think he evicted some poor senior officer. Are you all right? Have you had your dinner?"
"Dinner?"
"Oh, dear, I know that look. Make Lieutenant Smolyani at least open you a meal tray before you go off again."
"Yes, love." He grinned at her. "Practicing that maternal drill?"
"I was thinking of it more as a public service. Have you found something interesting and useful?"
"Interesting is an understatement. Useful—well—I'm not sure." He described his find on the Idris, in only slightly more colorful terms than the ones he'd just sent off to Gregor.
Ekaterin's eyes grew wide. "Goodness! And here I was all excited because I thought I'd found a fat clue for you! I'm afraid mine's just gossip, by comparison."
"Gossip away, do."
"Just something I picked up over dinner with Vorpatril's officers. They seemed a pleasant group, I must say."
I'll bet they made themselves pleasant. Their guest was beautiful, cultured, a breath of home, and the first female most of them had spoken to in weeks. And married to the Imperial Auditor, heh. Eat your hearts out, boys.
"I tried to get them to talk about Lieutenant Solian, but hardly anyone knew the man. Except that one fellow remembered that Solian had had to step out of a weekly fleet security officers' meeting because he'd sprung a nosebleed. I gather that Solian was more embarrassed and annoyed than alarmed. But it occurred to me that it might be a chronic thing with him. Nikki had them for a while, and I had them occasionally for a couple of years when I was a girl, though mine went away on their own. But if Solian hadn't taken himself to his ship's medtech to get fixed yet, well, it might be another way someone could have obtained a tissue sample from him for that manufactured blood." She paused. "Actually, now I think on it, I'm not so sure that is a help to you. Anyone might have grabbed his used nose rag out of the trash, wherever he'd been. Although I supposed that if his nose was bleeding, at least he had to have been alive at the time. It seemed a little hopeful, anyway." Her thoughtful frown deepened. "Or maybe not."
"Thank you," said Miles sincerely. "I don't know if it's hopeful or not either, but it gives me another reason to see the medtechs next. Good!" He was rewarded with a smile. He added, "And if you come up with any thoughts on Dubauer's cargo, feel free to share. Although only with me, for the moment."
"I understand." Her brows drew down. "It is stunningly strange. Not strange that the cargo exists—I mean, if all the haut children are conceived and genetically engineered centrally, the way your friend the haut Pel described it to me when she came as an envoy to Gregor's wedding, the haut women geneticists have to be exporting thousands of embryos from the Star Crèche all the time."
"Not all the time," Miles corrected. "Once a year. The annual haut child ships to the outlying satrapies are all dispatched at the same time. It gives all the top haut-lady planetary consorts like Pel, who are charged with conducting them, a chance to meet and consult with