On the deck below the passengers' zone, most of the utility and engineering areas remained locked. But the door to the department of Small Repairs opened at Miles's touch on its control pad.

Three adjoining chambers were full of benches, tools, and diagnostic equipment. In the second chamber, Miles came upon a bench holding three deflated bod pods marked with the Idris 's logo and serial numbers. These tough-skinned human-sized balloons were furnished with enough air recycling equipment and power to keep a passenger alive in a pressurization emergency until rescue arrived. One had only to step inside, zip it up, and hit the power-on button. Bod pods required a minimum of instruction, mostly because there wasn't bloody much you could do once you were trapped inside one. Every cabin, hold, and corridor on the ship had them, stored in emergency lockers on the walls.

On the floor beside the bench, one bod pod stood fully inflated, as if it had been left there in the middle of testing by some tech when the ship had been evacuated by the quaddies.

Miles stepped up to one of the pod's round plastic ports and peered through.

Bel sat inside, cross-legged, stark naked. The herm's lips were parted, and its eyes glazed and distant. So still was that form, Miles feared he was looking at death already, but then Bel's chest rose and fell, breasts trembling with the shivers racking its body. On the blank face a fevered flush bloomed and faded.

No, God, no! Miles lunged for the pod's seal, but his hand stopped and fell back, clenching so hard his nails bit into his palm like knives. No . . .

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Step One. Seal the biocontaminated area.

Had the entry lock been closed behind them when their party entered the Idris ? Yes. Had anyone opened it since?

Miles raised his wrist com to his lips and spoke Venn's contact code. Roic stepped closer to the bod pod, but stopped at Miles's upflung hand; he ducked his head and peered past Miles's shoulder, and his eyes widened.

The few seconds of delay while the wrist com's search program located Venn seemed to flow by like cold oil. Finally, the crew chief's edgy voice: “Venn here. What now, Lord Vorkosigan?”

“We've found Portmaster Thorne. Trapped in a bod pod in the engineering section. The herm appears dazed and very ill. I believe we have an urgent biocontamination emergency here, at least Class Three and possibly as bad as Class Five.” The most extreme level, biowarfare plague. “Where are you all now?”

“In the Number Two freight nacelle. The sealer and the adjudicator are with me.”

“No one has attempted to leave or enter the ship since we boarded? You didn't go out for any reason?”

“No.”

“You understand the necessity for keeping it that way till we know what the devil we're dealing with?”

“What, do you think I'd be insane enough to carry some hell-plague back ontomy own station ?”

Check. “Very good, Crew Chief. I see we are of one mind in this.” Step Two. Alert the medical authority in your district. To each their own. “I'm going to report this to Admiral Vorpatril and request medical assistance. I presume Graf Station has its own emergency protocols.”

“Just as soon as you get off my com link.”

“Right. At the earliest feasible moment, I also intend to break the tube seals and move the ship a little way out of its docking cradle, just to be sure. If you or the Sealer would warn station traffic control, plus clear whatever shuttle Vorpatril sends, that would be most helpful. Meanwhile—I strongly urge you seal the locks between your nacelle and this central section until . . . until we know more. Find the nacelle's atmosphere controls and put yourselves on internal circulation, if you can. I haven't . . . quite figured out what to do about this damned bod pod yet. Nai—Vorkosigan out.”

He cut the com and stared in anguish at the thin wall between him and Bel. How good a biocontamination barrier was a sealed bod pod's skin? Probably quite good, for something not purpose-built for the task. A new and horrible idea of just where to look for Solian, or rather, whatever organic smear of the lieutenant might now remain, presented itself inescapably to Miles's imagination.

With that jump of deduction came new hope and new terror. Solian had been disposed of weeks ago, probably aboard this very vessel, at a time when passengers and crew had been moving freely between the station and the ship. No plague had broken out yet. If Solian had been dissolved by the same nightmare method Gupta testified had claimed his shipmates, inside a bod pod, which was then folded and set out of the way . . . leaving Bel in the pod with the seals unbroken might make everyone perfectly safe.

Everyone, of course, except Bel. . . .

It was unclear if the incubation or latency period of the infection was adjustable, although what Miles was seeing now suggested it was. Six days for Gupta and his friends. Six hours for Bel? But the disease or poison or bio-molecular device, whatever it was, had killed the Jacksonians quickly once it became active, in just a few hours. How long did Bel have until intervention became futile? Before the herm's brains began turning to some bubbling gray slime along with its body . . . ? Hours, minutes, too late already? And what intervention could help?

Gupta survived this. Therefore, survival is possible. His mind dug into that historical fact like pitons into a rock face. Hang on and climb, boy.

He held his wrist com to his lips and called up the emergency channel to Admiral Vorpatril.

Vorpatril responded almost immediately. “Lord Vorkosigan? The medical squad you requested reached the quaddie station a few minutes ago. They should be reporting in to you there momentarily to assist with the examination of your prisoner. Haven't they presented themselves yet?”

“They may have, but I'm now aboard the Idris , along with Armsman Roic. And, unfortunately, Sealer Greenlaw, Adjudicator Leutwyn, and Chief Venn. We've ordered the ship sealed. We appear to have a biocontamination incident aboard.” He repeated the description of Bel he'd given Venn, with a few more details.

Vorpatril swore. “Shall I send a personnel pod to take you off, my lord?”

“Absolutely not. If there's anything contagious loose in here—which, while not certain, is not yet ruled out—it's um . . . already too late.”

“I'll divert my medical squad to you at once.”

“Not all of them, dammit. I want some of our people in with the quaddies, working on Gupta. It is of the highest urgency to find out why he survived. Since we may be stuck in here for a while, don't tie up more men than required. But do send me bright ones. In Level Five biotainer suits. You can send any equipment they want aboard with them, but nothing and no one goes back off this ship till this thing is locked down.” Or until the plague took them all . . . Miles had a vision of the Idris towed away from the station and abandoned, the untouchable final tomb of all aboard. A damned expensive sepulchre, there was that consolation. He had faced death before and, once at least, lost, but the lonely ugliness of this one shook him badly. There would be no cheating with cryochambers this time, he suspected. Not for the last victims to go, certainly. “Volunteers only, you understand me, Admiral?”

“That I do,” said Vorpatril grimly. “I'm on it, my Lord Auditor.”

“Good. Vorkosigan out.”

How much time did Bel have? Half an hour? Two hours? How much time would it take Vorpatril to muster his new set of medical volunteers and all their complex cargo? More than half an hour, Miles was fairly certain. And what could they do when they got here?

Besides his genetic engineering, what had been different from the others about Gupta?