Miles, Mystery & Mayhem - Lois McMaster Bujold [201]
"Commander Quinn is in Number Two Detention Infirmary, Ambassador Urquhart," the guard assigned to be his guide informed him. "This way, please."
Up some lift-tubes, down some corridors. Station life, Ethan decided, must exert powerful evolutionary pressures to develop a good sense of direction. Not to mention sensitivity to subtleties of status. Colorblindness could prove a mortal handicap here. The Security uniforms, as all other work uniforms, were color coded, and furthermore the proportion of orange to black varied with rank. The ordinary guard wore orange picked out with black; he paused to give a snappy salute, casually returned, to a white-haired man whose sleek black uniform was barely highlighted with orange piping. One might study the entire Station heirarchy in nuances of hue.
Captain Arata, who was just now exiting the Infirmary as Ethan and his guide approached, wore mostly black, with broad orange bands on collar and sleeves and an orange stripe down his trouser legs. He also wore a frustrated frown.
"Ah, Ambassador Urquhart." The frown was put away and replaced with a slightly ironic smile. "Come to visit our star boarder, have you? You needn't have troubled, she'll be a free woman shortly. Her credit check passed—astonishingly enough—her fines are paid, and she waits only for her medical release."
"That's all right, Captain—it's no trouble," said Ethan. "I just wanted to ask her a question."
"As did I," sighed Arata. "Several. I trust you will have better luck getting answers. These past few weeks, when I wanted a date, all she wanted to do was trade information under the counter. Now I want information, and what do I get? A date." He brightened slightly. "We will doubtless talk shop. If I worm any more out of her, maybe I'll be able to charge our night out to the department." He nodded at Ethan; an inviting silence fell.
"Good luck," said Ethan, cordially unhelpful. He had handled the Security post-mortem of yesterday's terrifying affair in the docking bay by climbing onto his ambassadorial status and referring all questions ruthlessly to the ever-inventive Quinn. She had stitched truth to lies to produce a fabulous beast of a story that nevertheless held up on every checkable point. In her version, for example, Millisor and Rau had been attempting to kidnap her, to program her as a double agent to penetrate the Dendarii Mercenaries for Cetagandan Intelligence. The Bharaputrans were accused of all the crimes they had in fact committed, and a few they hadn't—Okita who? Most of Security's energies were now diverted to the consulate where the Bharaputran hit squad was still holed up, negotiating the terms of their deportation. Terrence Cee had vanished utterly from the scenario. Ethan wouldn't have dared add or subtract a word.
"How unfortunate," Arata murmured, permitting a little of the needle-sharpness to flash in his eyes, "that I require a court order to use fast-penta."
Ethan smiled blandly. "Quite." They bowed each other farewell.
The guard turned Ethan over to the infirmary doctor. Except for the coded locks on the doors, Quinn's cell might have been any hospital room. Any Stationer hospital room, that is. Ethan was beginning to miss openable windows, taken for granted on Athos, with a starved passion.
Not wishing to state his real mission straight off, Ethan began with that thought.
"How do you feel about windows that open?" he asked Quinn. "Downside, I mean."
"Paranoid," she answered promptly. "I keep looking around for things to seal them up with. Aren't you going to ask how I am?"
"You're fine," Ethan said absently, "except for the dislocated elbow and the contusions. I asked the doctor. Oral analgesics and no violent exercise for a few days."
In fact, she looked