Miles Errant - Lois McMaster Bujold [226]
Framingham nodded. "My crew got there not three minutes after that. They drove off a pack of Bharaputrans who were searching the bodies—looting, looking for intelligence, or both, Corporal Abromov wasn't sure—they picked up Tonkin and Norwood's body and ran like hell. Nobody in the squad reported seeing a cryo-chamber anywhere."
Quinn chewed absently on a fingernail stump. Mark did not think she was even conscious of the gesture. "That's all?"
"Tonkin said Norwood was laughing," Thorne added.
"Laughing." Quinn grimaced. "Hell."
Captain Bothari-Jesek was sunk in her station chair. Everyone around the table appeared to digest this last tid-bit, staring at the holomap. "He did something clever," said Bothari-Jesek. "Or something that he thought was clever."
"He only had about five minutes. How clever could he be in five minutes?" Quinn complained. "Gods damn the clever jerk to sixteen hells for not reporting!"
"He was doubtless about to." Bothari-Jesek sighed. "I don't think we need to waste time rationing blame. There's going to be plenty to go around."
Thorne winced, as did Framingham, Quinn, and Taura. Then they all glanced at Mark. He cringed back in his seat.
"It's only been," Quinn glanced at her chrono, "less than two hours. Whatever Norwood did, the cryo-chamber has to still be down there. It has to."
"So what do we do?" Lieutenant Kimura asked dryly. "Mount another drop mission?"
Quinn thinned her lips in non-appreciation of the weary sarcasm. "You volunteering, Kimura?" Kimura flipped up his palms in surrender and subsided.
"In the meantime," Bothari-Jesek said, "Fell Station is calling us, pretty urgently. We have to start dealing. I presume this will involve our hostage." A short nod of thanks in Kimura's direction acknowledged the only wholly successful part of the drop mission, and Kimura nodded back. "Does anyone here know what the Admiral intended to do with Baron Bharaputra?"
A circle of negative headshakes. "Don't you know, Quinnie?" asked Kimura, surprised.
"No. There wasn't time to chat. I'm not even sure if the Admiral seriously expected your kidnapping expedition to succeed, Kimura, or whether it was only for the diversionary value. That would be more like his strategizing, not to let the whole mission turn on one unknown outcome. I expect he planned," her voice faded in a sigh, "to use his initiative." She sat up straight. "But I sure as hell know what I intend to do. The deal this time is going to be in our favor. Baron Bharaputra could be the ticket out of here for all of us, and the Admiral too, but we have to work it just right."
"In that case," said Bothari-Jesek, "I don't think we should let on to House Bharaputra just how valuable a package we left downside." Bothari-Jesek, Thorne, Quinn, all of them, turned to look at Mark, coldly speculative.
"I've thought of that too," said Quinn.
"No," he whispered. "No!" His scream emerged as a croak. "You can't be serious. You can't make me be him, I don't want to be him any more, God! No!" He was shaking, shivering, his stomach turning and knotting. I'm cold.
Quinn and Bothari-Jesek glanced at each other. Bothari-Jesek nodded, some unspoken message.
Quinn said, "You are all dismissed to your duties. Except you, Captain Thorne. You are relieved of command of the Ariel. Lieutenant Hart will take over."
Thorne nodded, as if this were entirely expected. "Am I under arrest?"
Quinn's eyes narrowed in pain. "Hell, we don't have the time. Or the personnel. And you're not debriefed yet, and besides, I need your experience. This . . . situation could change rapidly at any moment. Consider yourself under house arrest, and assigned to me. You can guard yourself. Take a visiting officer's cabin here on the Peregrine, and call it your cell if it makes you feel any better."
Thorne's face went very bleak indeed. "Yes, ma'am," it said woodenly.
Quinn frowned. "Go clean up. We'll continue this later."
Except for Quinn and Bothari-Jesek, they all filed out. Mark tried to follow