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vid plate, Bel hovering near its comrade-in-slate-blue, Boss Watts. Arching
posts of different heights featured the sort of com link control boards
usually found on station-chair arms, looking a bit like flowers on stalks,
which provided suitably spaced tethering points. Miles picked a post with his
back to open space. Ekaterin floated over and took up a spot a little behind
him. She'd gone into her silent, highly reserved mode, which Miles had to
school himself not to read as unhappy; it might just mean that she was
processing too hard to remember to be animated. Fortunately, the ivory-carved
expression also simulated aristocratic poise.
A pair of younger quaddies, whose green shirt-and-shorts garb Miles's eye
decoded as servitor
, offered drink bulbs all around; Miles selected something billed to be tea,
Ekaterin took fruit juice, and Roic, with a glance at his quaddie opposite
numbers who were offered none, declined. A quaddie could grip a handhold and a
drink bulb, and still have two hands left to draw and aim a weapon. It hardly
seemed fair.
 Senior Sealer Greenlaw, Miles began.  My credentials, you should have
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received.
She nodded, her short, fine hair floating in a wispy halo with the motion. He
continued,  I am, unfortunately, not wholly familiar with the cultural context
and meaning of your title. Who do you speak for, and do your words bind them
in honor? That is to say, do you represent Graf Station, a department within
the Union of Free
Habitats, or some larger entity still? And who reviews your recommendations or
sanctions your agreements?
And how long does it usually take them?
She hesitated, and he wondered if she was studying him with the same intensity
that he studied her. Quaddies were even longer-lived than Betans, who
routinely made it to one-hundred-and-twenty standard, and might expect to see
a century and a half; how old was this woman?
 I am a Sealer for the Union's Department of Downsider Relations; I believe
some downsider cultures would term this a minister plenipotentiary for their
state department, or whatever body administers their embassies. I've served
the department for the past forty years, including tours as junior and senior
counsel for the Union in both our bordering systems.
The near neighbors to Quaddiespace, a few jumps away on heavily used routes;
she was saying she'd spent time on planets.
And, incidentally, that she's been doing this job since before I was born
. If only she wasn't one of those people who figured that if you'd seen one
planet, you'd seen 'em all, this sounded promising. Miles nodded.
 My recommendations and agreements will be reviewed by my work gang on Union
Station
- which is the Board of Directors of the Union of Free Habitats.
Well, so there was a committee, but happily, they weren't here. Miles pegged
her as being roughly the equivalent of a senior Barrayaran minister in the
Council of
Ministers, well up to his own weight as an Imperial Auditor. Granted, the
quaddies had nothing in their governmental structure equivalent to a
Barrayaran Count, though they seemed none the worse for the deprivation -
Miles suppressed a dry snort. One layer from the top, Greenlaw had a finite
number of persons to please or persuade. He permitted himself his first faint
hope for a reasonably supple negotiation.
Her white brows drew in.  They called you the Emperor's Voice. Do Barrayarans
really believe their emperor's voice comes from your mouth, across all those
light-years?
Miles regretted his inability to lean back in a chair; he straightened his
spine a trifle instead.  The name is a legal fiction, not a superstition, if
that's what you're asking. Actually, Emperor's Voice is a nickname for my job.
My real title is Imperial
Auditor - a reminder that always my first task is to listen. I answer to - and
for -
Emperor Gregor alone. This seemed a good place to leave out such
complications as potential impeachment by the Council of Counts, and other
Barrayaran-style checks and balances.
Such as assassination.
The security officer, Venn, spoke up.  So do you, or do you not, control the
Barrayaran military forces here in Union space? He'd evidently acquired
enough experience of Barrayaran soldiers by now to have a little trouble
picturing the slightly crooked runt floating before him dominating the bluff
Vorpatril, or his no-
doubt large and healthy troopers.
Yeah, but you should see my Da...
Miles cleared his throat.  As the Emperor is commander-in-chief of the
Barrayaran military, his Voice is automatically the ranking officer of any
Barrayaran force in his vicinity, yes. If the emergency so demands it.
 So are you saying that if you ordered it, those thugs out there would shoot?
said
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Venn sourly.
Miles managed a slight bow in his direction, not easy in free fall.  Sir, if
an
Emperor's Voice so ordered it, they'd shoot themselves
.
This was pure swagger - well, part swagger - but Venn didn't need to know it.
Bel remained straight-faced, somehow, thank whatever gods hovered here, though
Miles could almost see the laugh getting choked back.
Don't pop your eardrums, Bel [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]