Miles, Mystery & Mayhem - Lois McMaster Bujold [39]
"I will examine it immediately, tonight. But whatever has been done to it, my examination will not tell me who did it, Barrayaran." Her voice grew glacial with this thought. "I doubt you could have created a true duplicate, but a non-working forgery is certainly within your capabilities. If this one is false—where is the real one?"
"It seems that is just what I must discover, milady, to, to clear my name. To redeem my honor in your eyes." The intrinsic fascination of an intellectual puzzle had brought him to this interview. He'd thought curiosity was his strongest driving force, till suddenly his whole personality had become engaged. It was like being under—no, like becoming an avalanche. "If I can discover this, will you . . ." what? Look favorably upon his suit? Despise him for an outlander barbarian all the same? ". . . let me see you again?"
"I don't . . . know." Reminded, her hand drifted to the control on her float-chair for the concealing force-screen.
No, no, don't go. . . . "We must have some way of communicating," he said hastily, before she could disappear again behind that faintly humming barrier.
Her head tilted, considering this. She drew a small com link from her robes. It was undecorated, utilitarian, but like the nerve disruptor he'd taken from Ba Lura perfectly designed in what Miles was beginning to recognize as the haut style. She whispered a command into it. In a moment, the androgynous ba appeared from its guard post beside the pond. Did its eyes widen just slightly, to see its mistress without her shell?
"Give me your com link, and wait outside," haut Rian Degtiar ordered.
The little ba nodded, turning the device over to her without question, and withdrew silently.
She held the com link out to Miles. "I use this to communicate with my senior servitors, when they run errands outside the Celestial Garden for me. Here."
He wanted to touch her, but scarcely dared. He instead extended his cupped hands toward her like a shy man offering flowers to a goddess. She dropped the com link into them gingerly, as into the hands of a leper. Or an enemy.
"Is it secured?" he dared to ask.
"Temporarily."
In other words, it was the lady's private line only as long as no one in higher-level Cetagandan security troubled to break in. Right. He sighed. "It won't work. You can't send signals into my embassy without causing my superiors to ask a whole lot of questions I'd rather not answer just now. And I can't give you my com link either. I'm supposed to turn it in, and I don't think I can get away with telling them I lost it." Reluctantly, he handed the link back to her. "But we have to meet again somehow." Yes, oh yes. "If I'm going to be risking my reputation and maybe my life on the validity of my reasoning, I'd like to prop it up with a few facts." One fact was almost certain. Someone with enough wit and nerve to murder one of the most senior Imperial servitors under the nose of Cetaganda's own emperor would hardly balk at threatening a decidedly un-senior female Degtiar. The thought was obscene, hideous. A Barrayaran scion's diplomatic immunity would be an even more useless shield, no doubt, but that was merely the price of the game. "I think you could be in grave danger. It might be better to play along for a bit—don't reveal to anyone you have obtained this key from me. I have a funny feeling I'm not following his script, y'see." He paced nervously