The warrior's apprentice (23 page)

Miles piled a pyramid of the stuff before him on the conference table, and laid his head on his arms beside it. Millifenigs. He wandered momentarily in a mental calculation of its square area, if laid out in singles. He could certainly paper not only the walls, but the ceiling of his room at home, and most of the rest of Vorkosigan House as well. Mother would probably object.

He idly tested its inflammability, lighting one piece, planning to hold it until it burned down to his fingertips, to see if anything could hurt more than his stomach. But the doorseals clapped shut at the scent of smoke, a raucous alarm went off, and a chemical fire extinguisher protruded from the wall like a red, sardonic tongue. Fire was a real terror in space installations; the next step, he recalled, would be the evacuation of the air from the chamber to smother the flames. He batted the paper out hastily. Millifenigs. He dragged himself across the room to silence the alarm.

He varied his financial structure by building a square fort, with corner towers and an interior keep. The gate lintel had a tendency to collapse with a slight rustle. Perhaps he could pass on Pelian commercial shipping as a mentally retarded mutant, with Elena as his nurse and Bothari as his keeper, being sent to some off-planet hospital—or zoo—by rich relatives. He could take off his boots and socks and bite his toenails during customs inspections... But what roles could he find for Mayhew and Jesek? And Elli Quinn—liege-sworn or not, he owed her a face. Worse, he had no credit here—and somehow he doubted the exchange rate between Felician and Pelian currency would be in his favor.

The door sighed open. Miles quickly knocked his fort into a more random-appearing pile, and sat up straight, for the benefit of the mercenary who saluted and entered.

A self-conscious smile was pasted under the man’s avid eyes. “Excuse me, sir. I’d heard a rumor that our pay had arrived.”

Miles’s lips peeled back in an uncontrollable grin. He forced them straight. “As you see.”

Who, after all, could say what the exchange rate for millifenigs was—who could contradict any figure he chose to peg them at? As long as his mercenaries were in space, isolated from test markets, no one. Of course, when they did find out, there might not be enough pieces of him to go around, like the Dismemberment of Mad Emperor Yuri.

The mercenary’s mouth formed an “o” at the size of the pile. “Shouldn’t you set a guard, sir?”

“Just so, Trainee Nout. Good thinking. Ah—why don’t you go fetch a float pallet, and secure this payroll in—er— the usual place. Pick two trustworthy comrades to relieve you on guard duty, around the clock.”

“Me, sir?” The mercenary’s eyes widened. “You’d trust me— “

What could you do? Steal it and go buy a loaf of bread? Miles thought. Aloud, he replied, “Yes, I would. Did you think I haven’t been evaluating your performance these past weeks?” He prayed he’d got the man’s name right.

“Yes, sir! Right away, sir!” The mercenary rendered him a perfectly unnecessary salute, and danced out as if he had rubber balls in his boots.

Miles buried his face in a pile of millifenigs and giggled helplessly, very close to tears.

He saw the millifenigs bundled back up and trundled safely to cold storage, then lingered in the conference chamber. Bothari should be seeking him out soon, when done turning the last of the prisoners over to Felician control.

The RG132, floating beyond the plexiports, was getting some attention at last. The hull was taking on the appearance of a half-finished patchwork quilt. Miles wondered if he’d ever get up the nerve to ride in it without a pressure suit on and his helmet at his elbow.

Jesek and Mayhew found him still gazing pensively across the installation. “We set them straight,” the engineer declared, planting himself beside Miles. Savage contentment had replaced the burning indignation in his eyes.

“Hm?” Miles broke free of his moody reverie. “Set who straight about what?”

“The Felicians, and that greasy career-builder Gamad.”

“About time somebody did that,” Miles agreed absently. He wondered what the RG 132 might fetch if sold as an inner-system freighter. Not, preferably, for millifenigs. Or as scrap... No, he couldn’t do that to Arde.

“Here they come now.”

“Hm?”

The Felicians were back, the captain, the paymaster, and what looked like most of the ship’s officers, plus some kind of space marine commander Miles had not seen before. From the captain’s deference to him in the doorway, Miles guessed he must be the ranking man. A senior colonel, perhaps, or a young general. Gamad was notably absent. Thorne and Auson brought up the rear.

This time the captain came to attention, and saluted. “I believe I owe you an apology, Admiral Naismith. I did not fully understand the situation here.”

Miles grasped Baz’s arm and stood on tiptoe to his ear, whispering urgently between his teeth. “Baz, what have you been telling these people?”

“Just the truth,” Baz began, but there was no time for further reply. The senior officer was stepping forward, extending his hand.

“How do you do, Admiral Naismith. I am General Halify. I have orders from my high command to hold this installation by whatever means necessary.”

They shook hands, and were seated. Miles took the head of the table, by way of experiment. The Felician general seated himself earnestly and without demur on Miles’s right. There was some interesting jostling for seats farther down the line.

“Since our second ship was lost to the Pelians on our way here, mine is the unenviable task of doing so with 200 men—half my complement,” continued Halify.

“I did it with forty,” Miles observed automatically. What was the Felician leading up to?

“Mine is also the task of stripping it of Betan ordinance to send back with Captain Sahlin here, to prosecute the war on what has unfortunately become the home front.”

“That will make it more complicated for you,” Miles agreed.

“Until the Pelians brought in galactics, our two sides were fairly matched. We thought we were on the verge of a negotiated settlement. The Oserans changed that balance.”

“So I understand.”

“What galactics can do, galactics can surely undo. We wish to hire the Dendarii Mercenaries to break the Oseran blockade and clear local space of all off-planet forces. The Pelians,” he sniffed, “we can take care of ourselves.”

I’m going to let Bothari finish strangling Baz... “A bold offer, General. I wish I could take you up on it. But as you must know, most of my forces are not here.”

The general clasped his hands intensely before him on the table. “I believe we can hold out long enough for you to send for them.”

Miles glanced at Auson and Thorne, down the expanse of darkly gleaming plastic. Not, perhaps, the best time to explain just how long a wait that would be...

“We would have to run the blockade to do so, and at the moment all my jump ships are disabled.”

“Felice has three commercial jump ships left, besides the ones that were trapped outside the blockade when it began. One is very fast. Surely, in combination with your warships, you might get it through.”

Miles was about to make a rude reply, when it hit him—here was escape, being offered on a platter. Pile his leige-people into the jump ship, have Thorne and Auson run him through the blockade, and thumb his nose to Tau Verde IV and all its denizens forever. It was risky, but it could be done—was in fact the best idea he’d had all day—he sat up, smiling suavely. “An interesting proposition, General.” He must not appear too eager. “Just how do you propose to pay for my services? The Dendarii do not work cheaply.”

“I’m authorized to meet whatever terms you ask. Within reason, of course,” General Halify added prudently.

“To put it bluntly, General, that’s a load of—millifenigs. If Major Daum had no authority to hire outside forces, neither do you.”

“They said, by whatever means necessary.” The general’s jaw set. “They’ll back me.”

“I’d want a contract in writing, signed by somebody who can properly be shaken down—uh, held responsible, after. Retired generals’ incomes are not notoriously vast.”

A spark of amusement flared briefly in Halify’s eye, and he nodded. “You’ll get it.”

“We must be paid in Betan dollars. I understood you were fresh out.”

“If the blockade is broken, we can get off-planet currencies again. You’ll get them.”

Miles pressed his lips together firmly. He must not break down into howls of laughter. Yet here he sat, a man with an imaginary battle fleet negotiating for its services with a man with an imaginary budget. Well, the price was certainly right.

The general extended his hand. “Admiral Naismith, you have my personal word on it. May I have yours?”

His humor shattered in a thousand frozen shards, swallowed in a cold vast emptiness that used to be his belly. “My word?”

“I understand it has some meaning to you.”

You understand entirely too much . . . “My word. I see.” He had never yet broken his word. Almost eighteen, and he still preserved that virginity. Well, there was a first time for everything. He accepted the general’s handclasp. “General Halify, I’ll do my best. My word on it.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

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The three ships dove and wove in an intricate evasion pattern. Around them, twenty more darted, as if hawks hunted in packs. The three ships sparked, blue, red, yellow, then dissolved in a brilliant rainbow glare.

Miles leaned back in his station chair in the Triumph’s tactics room and rubbed his bleary eyes. “Scratch that idea.” He vented a long sigh. If he couldn’t be a soldier, perhaps he had a future as a designer of fireworks displays.

Elena drifted in, munching a ration bar. “That looked pretty. What was it?”

Miles held up a didactic finger. “I have just discovered my twenty-third new way to get killed this week.” He waved toward the holograph display. “That was it.”

Elena glanced across the room to her father, apparently asleep, on the friction matting. “Where is everybody?”

“Catching sleep. I’m just as glad not to have an audience while I attempt to teach myself first-year tactics. They might begin to doubt my genius.”

She gave him an odd look. “Miles—how serious are you about this blockade busting?”

He glanced up to the outside screens, which showed the same boring view of what might be called the backside of the metals refinery they had displayed since the ship had been parked after the counterattack. The Triumph was now being dubbed Miles’s flagship. With the arrival of the Felician forces, filling the refinery’s crews quarters, he had decamped, secretly relieved, from the squalid luxury of the executive suite to the more restful austerity of Tung’s former quarters.

“I don’t know. It’s been two weeks since the Felicians promised us that fast courier to leg on out of here, and they haven’t produced it yet. We re going to at least have to break through the blockade...” He hastened to erase the worry in her face. “At least it gives me something to do while we wait. This machine is more fun than chess or Strat-O any day.”

He hopped up, and gestured her with a courtly bow toward the next station chair. “Look, I’ll teach you how to operate it. Show you a game or two. You’ll be good.”

“Well...”

He introduced her to a couple of elementary tactics patterns, demystifying them by calling them “play.” “Captain Koudelka and I used to play something like this.” She caught on quickly. It had to be some kind of criminal injustice, that Ivan Vorpatril was even now deeply engaged in officer’s training for which Elena could not even be considered.

He went through his half of the patterns automatically, while his mind circled again around his real life military dilemma. This was just the sort of thing he would have been taught how to do at the Imperial Service Academy, he thought with an inward sigh. There was probably a book on it. He wished he had a copy; he was getting mortally tired of having to re-invent the wheel every fifteen minutes. Although it was just barely possible there was no way for three small warships and a battered freighter to take out an entire mercenary fleet. The Felicians could offer little assistance, beyond the use of the refinery as a base. Of course, Miles’s presence there benefited them at least as much as their support did him, as Pelian-repellant.

He glanced up at Elena, and pushed the importunate strategic hassles from his mind. Her strength and sharpness were blooming these days, in her new challenges. All she’d ever needed was a chance, it seemed. Baz shouldn’t have it all his own way. He glanced over to see if Bothari was really asleep, and screwed up his courage. The tactics room with its swivel chairs was not well-arranged for nuzzling, but he would try. He went to her shoulder, and leaned over it, manufacturing some helpful instruction.

“Mr. Naismith?” blatted the intercom. It was Captain Auson, calling from Nav and Com. “Put the outside channels on, I’m coming down.”

Miles snapped out of his haze, cursing silently. “What’s up?”

“Tung’s back.”

“Uh, oh. Better scramble everybody.”

“I am.”

“What’s he brought? Can you tell yet?”

“Yes, it’s strange. He’s standing just out of range in what looks like a Pelian inner-system passenger ship, maybe a little troop-carrier or something, and saying he wants to talk. With you. Probably a trick.”

Miles frowned, mystified. “Well, pipe it down, then. But keep scrambling.”

In moments the Eurasian’s familiar face appeared, larger than life. Bothari was now up, at his usual post by the door, silent as ever; he and Elena didn’t talk much since the incident in the damaged prison section. But then, they never had.

“How do you do, Captain Tung. We meet again, I see.” The subtle vibrations of the ship changed, as it powered up and began to move into open space.

“We do indeed.” Tung smiled, tight and fierce. “Is that job offer still open, son?”

The two shuttles sandwiched themselves together, belly to belly like a pair of mismatched limpets, in space midway between their mother ships. There the two men met face-to-face in privacy, but for Bothari, tense and discreet just out of earshot, and Tung’s pilot, who remained equally discreetly aboard Tung’s shuttle.

“My people are loyal to me,” said Tung. “I can place them at your service, every one.”

“You realize,” Miles pointed out mildly, “that if you wished to re-take your ship, that would be an ideal ploy. Load my forces with yours, and strike at will. Can you prove you’re not a Trojan Horse?”

Tung sighed agreement. “Only as you proved that memorable lunch was not drugged. In the eating.”

“Mm.” Miles pulled himself back down into his seat in the gravityless shuttle, as if he could so impose orientation on body and mind. He offered Tung a soft-drink bulb, which Tung accepted without hesitation or comment. They both drank, Miles sparingly; his stomach was already starting to protest null-gee. “You also realize, I cannot give you your ship back. All I have to offer at the moment is a captured Pelian putt-putt, and perhaps the title of Staff Officer.”

“Yes, I understand that.”

“You’ll have to work with both Auson and Thorne, without bringing up, um, past frictions.”

Tung looked less than enthusiastic, but he replied, “If I have to, I can even do that.” He snapped a squirt of fruit juice out of the air. Practice, thought Miles enviously.

“My payroll, for the moment, is entirely in Felician millifenigs. Do you, ah—know about millifenigs?”

“No, but at a guess from the Felician’s strategic situation, I’d suppose they’d make an eye-catching toilet paper.”

That’s about right.” Miles frowned. “Captain Tung. After going to a great deal of trouble to escape two weeks ago, you have gone to what looks like an equal amount of trouble to return to join what can only be described as the losing side. You know you can’t have your ship back, you know your pay is at best problematical—I can’t believe it’s all for my native charm. Why?”

“It wasn’t that much trouble. That delightful young lady—remind me to kiss her hand—let me out,” observed Tung.

“That ‘delightful young lady’ is Commander Bothari to you, sir, and considering what you owe her, you can bloody well confine yourself to saluting her,” snapped Miles, surprising himself. He swallowed a squirt of fruit drink to hide his confusion.

Tung raised his eyebrows, and smiled. “I see.”

Miles dragged his mind back to the present. “Again. Why?”

Tung’s face hardened. “Because you are the only force in local space with a chance of giving Oser a prick in the ass.”

“And just when did you acquire this motivation?”

Hard, yes, and inward. “He violated our contract. In the event of losing my ship in combat, he owed me another command.”

Miles jerked his chin up, inviting Tung to go on.

Tung’s voice lowered. “He had a right to chew me out, yes, for my mistakes—but he had no right to humiliate me before my people...” His hands were clenched, ivory-knuckled, on the arms of his seat. His drink bulb floated away, forgotten.

Miles’s imagination filled in the picture. Admiral Oser, angry and shocked at this sudden defeat after a year of easy victories, losing his temper, mishandling Tung’s hot damaged pride—foolish, that, when it would have been so easy to turn that pride redoubled to his own service—yes, it rang true.

“And so you come to my hand. Ah—with all your officers, you say? Your pilot officer?” Escape, escape in Tung’s ship possible again? Escape from the Pelians and Oserans, thought Miles soberly. It’s escape from the Dendarii that’s beginning to look difficult.

“All. All but my communications officer, of course.”

“Why ‘of course’?”

“Oh, that’s right, you don’t know about his double life. He’s a military agent, assigned to keep watch on the Oseran fleet for his government. I think he wanted to come—we’ve gotten to know each other pretty well these past six years—but he had to follow his primary orders.” Tung chucked. “He apologized.”

Miles blinked. “Is that sort of thing usual?”

“Oh, there’s always a few, scattered through all the mercenary organizations.” Tung gave Miles a sharp look. “Haven’t you ever had any? Most captains throw them out as soon as they catch on, but I like them. They’re generally extremely well-trained, and more trustworthy than most, as long as you’re not fighting anybody they know. If I’d had occasion to fight the Barrayarans, God forbid, or any of their—well, the Barrayarans are not particularly troubled with allies—I’d have been sure to drop him off somewhere first.”

“B—” choked Miles, and swallowed the rest. Ye gods. Had he been recognized? If the man were one of Captain Illyan’s agents, almost certainly. And what the devil had the man made of the recent events, seen from the Oseran point of view? Miles could kiss goodbye any hope of keeping his late adventures secret from his father, then.

His fruit drink seemed to slosh, viscous and nasty, on the roof of his stomach. Damn null-gee. He’d better wind this up. A mercenary Admiral didn’t need a reputation for space sickness to go with his more obvious disabilities. Miles wondered briefly how many key command decisions in history had been flicked out in the compelling urgency of some like biological necessity.

He stuck out his hand. “Captain Tung, I accept your service.”

Tung took it. “Admiral Naismith—it is Admiral Naismith now, I understand?”

Miles grimaced. “So it would appear.”

A half-suppressed grin turned one corner of Tung’s mouth. “I see. I shall be pleased to serve you, son.”

When he had left, Miles sat eyeing his drink bulb for a moment. He gave it a squeeze, and it snapped. Bright red fruit drink marinated his eyebrows, chin, and tunic front. He swore under his breath, and floated off in search of a towel.

The Ariel was late. Thorne, accompanied by Arde and Baz, was supposed to be escorting the Betan weapons through to Felician-controlled airspace, and then bringing the fast jump courier back, and they were late. It took two days for Miles to persuade General Halify to relinquish Tung’s old crew from their cells; after that, there was nothing to do but watch and wait, and worry.

Five days behind schedule, both ships appeared in the monitors. Miles got Thorne on the com, and demanded, with an edge in his voice, the reason for the delay.

Thorne positively smirked. “It’s a surprise. You’ll like it. Can you meet us now in the docking bay?”

A surprise. God, now what? Miles was at last beginning to sympathize with Bothari’s stated taste for being bored. He stalked to the docking bay, nebulous plans for bracing his laggard subordinates rotating in his brain.

Arde met him, grinning and bouncing on his heels. “Just stand right here, my lord.” He raised his voice. “Go ahead, Baz!”

“Hup, hup, hup!” There came a great shuffling thumping from the flex tube. Out of it marched, double-time, a ragged string of men and women. Some wore uniforms, both military and civilian types, others civilian clothes in a wild assortment of various planetary fashions. Mayhew directed them into a standard square formation, where they stood more-or-less to attention.

There was a group of a dozen or so black-uniformed Kshatryan Imperial mercenaries who formed their own tight little island in the sea of color; on closer look, their uniforms, though clean and mended, were not all complete. Odd buttons, shiny seats and elbows, lopworn boot heels—they were long, long from their distant home, it seemed. Miles’s temporary fascination with them was shattered at the appearance of two dozen Cetagandan ghem-fighters, variously dressed, but all with full formal face paint freshly applied, looking like an array of Chinese temple demons. Bothari swore, and clapped his hand to his plasma arc at the sight of them. Miles motioned him to parade rest.

Freighter and passenger liner tech uniforms, a whiteskinned, white-haired man in a feathered g-string—Miles, taking in the polished bandolier and plasma rifle he also bore, was not inclined to smile—a dark-haired woman in her thirties of almost supernatural beauty, engrossed with directing a crew of four techs—she glanced toward him, then frankly stared, a very odd look on her face. He stood a little straighter. Not a mutant, ma’am, he thought irritably. When the flex tube emptied at last, perhaps a hundred people stood before him in the docking bay. Miles’s head whirled.