Miles Errant - Lois McMaster Bujold [121]
"Charges for what, what are you babbling about, Ivan!"
"Well, that's it, why it's such a mess. Somewhere, they got this short circuit in their brains about embassies—they came and arrested you, Lieutenant Vorkosigan, for suspicion of conspiracy to commit murder. To wit, you are suspected of hiring those two goons who tried to assassinate Admiral Naismith at the shuttleport last week."
Miles stamped in a circle. "Ah. Ah. Agh!"
"The ambassador is filing protests all over the place. Naturally, we couldn't tell them why we thought they were mistaken."
Miles clutched Quinn's elbow. "Don't panic."
"I'm not panicking," Quinn observed, "I'm watching you panic. It's more entertaining."
Miles pressed his forehead. "Right. Right. Let us begin by assuming all is not lost. Let us assume the kid hasn't panicked—hasn't broken. Yet. Suppose he has climbed up on an aristocratic high horse and is sneering a lot of no-comments at them. He'd do that well, it's how he thinks Vor are supposed to act. Little schmuck. Assume he's holding out."
"Assume away," remarked Ivan. "So what?"
"If we hurry, we can save—"
"Your reputation?" said Ivan.
"Your . . . brother?" ventured Galeni.
"Our asses?" said Elli.
"Admiral Naismith," Miles finished. "He's the one at risk, now." Miles's gaze crossed Elli's; her eyebrows arched in dawning worry. "The key word is cover, as in blown—or, just possibly, permanently assured.
"You and I," he nodded to Galeni, "have to get cleaned up. Meet me back here in fifteen minutes. Ivan, bring a sandwich. Two sandwiches. We'll take you along for muscle." Ivan was well endowed in that resource. "Elli, you drive."
"Drive where?" asked Quinn.
"The Assizes. We go to the rescue of poor, misunderstood Lieutenant Vorkosigan. Who will return with us gratefully, whether he wants to or not. Ivan, better bring a hypospray with two cc's of tholizone, in addition to those sandwiches."
"Hold it, Miles," said Ivan. "If the ambassador couldn't get him sprung, how do you expect us to?"
Miles grinned. "Not us. Admiral Naismith."
* * *
The London Municipal Assizes was a big black crystal of a building some two centuries old. A slash of similar architecture erupted unevenly through a district of even older styles, representing the bombings and fires of the Fifth Civil Disturbance. Urban renewal here seemed to wait on disaster. London was so filled up, a cramped jigsaw of juxtaposed eras, with Londoners stubbornly hanging on to bits of their past; there was even a committee to save the singularly ugly disintegrating remnants of the late twentieth century. Miles wondered if Vorbarr Sultana, presently expanding madly, would look like this in a thousand years, or whether it would obliterate its history in the rush to modernize.
Miles paused in the Assizes's soaring foyer to adjust his Dendarii admiral's uniform. "Do I look respectable?" he asked Quinn.
"The beard makes you look, um . . ."
Miles had hastily trimmed the edges. "Distinguished? Older?"
"Hung over."
"Ha."
The four of them took the lift tube to the ninety-seventh level.
"Chamber W," the reception panel directed them after accessing its files. "Cubicle 19."
Cubicle 19 proved to contain a secured Euronet JusticeComp terminal and a live human being, a serious young man.
"Ah, Investigator Reed." Elli smiled winningly at him as they entered. "We meet again."
The briefest glance showed Investigator Reed to be alone. Miles cleared a twinge of panic from his throat.
"Investigator Reed is in charge of looking into that unpleasant incident at the shuttleport, sir," Elli explained, mistaking his choke for a request for an introduction and slipping back into professional mode. "Investigator Reed, Admiral Naismith. We had a long talk on my last trip here."