The warrior's apprentice (8 page)

Mayhew flinched, nearly firing his needier through the floor. He glanced uncertainly at the squeeze bottle. “No, I have it,” he corrected.

Miles overcame the spin. “We’d better do this from here. The first principle of strategy—never give up an advantage. Can I use your comconsole?”

“What for?”

“I,” said Miles grandly, “am going to buy this ship. And then I shall hire you to pilot it.”

Mayhew stared in bewilderment, looking from Miles to the bottle and back. “You got that much money?”

“Mm... Well, I have assets...”

*
      
*
      
*

A few minutes work with the comconsole brought the salvage operator’s face on the screen. Miles put his proposition succinctly. Calhoun’s expression went from disbelief to outrage.

“You call that a compromise?” he cried. “At cost! And backed by—I’m not a damned real estate broker!”

“Mr. Calhoun,” said Miles sweetly, “may I point out, the choice is not between my note and this ship. The choice is between my note and a rain of glowing debris.”

“If I find out you’re in collusion with that—”

“Never met him before today,” Miles disclaimed.

“What’s wrong with the land?” asked Calhoun suspiciously. “Besides being on Barrayar, I mean.”

“It’s like fertile farm country,” Miles answered, not quite directly. “Wooded—100 centimeters of rain a year—” that ought to fetch a Betan, “barely 300 kilometers from the capital.”

Downwind, fortunately for the capital. “And I own it absolutely. Just inherited it from my grandfather recently. Go ahead and check it through the Barrayaran Embassy. Check the climate plats.”

“This rainfall—it’s not all on the same day or something, is it?”

“Of course not,” replied Miles, straightening indignantly. Not easy, in free fall. “Ancestral land—it’s been in my family for ten generations. You can believe I’ll make every effort to cover that note before I’ll let my home ground fall from my hands—”

Calhoun rubbed his chin irritably. “Cost plus 25%,” he suggested.

“Ten percent.”

“Twenty.”

“Ten, or I’ll let you deal directly with Pilot Officer Mayhew.”

“All right,” groaned Calhoun, “ten percent.”

“Done!”

It was not quite that easy, of course. But thanks to the efficiency of the Betans’ planetary information network, a transaction that would have taken days on Barrayar was completed in less than an hour, right from Mayhew’s control room. Miles was cannily reluctant to give up the tactical bargaining advantage possession of the toggle box gave them, and Mayhew, after his first astonishment had worn off, became silent and loathe to leave.

“Look, kid,” he spoke suddenly, about halfway through the complicated transaction. “I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but—but it’s just too late. You understand, when I get downside, they’re not going to just be laughing this off. Security’11 be waiting at the docking bay, with a patrol from the Mental Health Board right beside ‘em. They’ll slap a stun-net over me so fast—you’ll see me in a month or two, walking around smiling. You’re always smiling, after the M.H.B. gets done...” He shook his head helplessly. “It’s just too late.”

“It’s never too late while you’re breathing,” snapped Miles. He did the free-fall equivalent of pacing the room, shoving off from one wall, turning in midair, and shoving off from the opposite wall, a few dozen turns, thinking.

“I have an idea,” he said at last. “I’ll wager it would buy time, time enough at least to come up with something better—trouble is, since you’re not Barrayaran, you’re not going to understand what you’re doing, and it’s serious stuff.”

Mayhew looked thoroughly baffled. “Huh?”

“It’s like this.” Thump, spin, turn straighten, thump. “If you were to swear fealty to me as an Armsman simple, taking me for your liege lord—it’s the most straightforward of our oath relationships—I might be able to include you under my Class III diplomatic immunity. Anyway, I know I could if you were a Barrayaran subject. Of course, you’re a Betan citizen. In any case, I’m pretty sure we could tie up a pack of lawyers and several days, trying to figure out which laws take precedence. I would be legally obligated for your bed, board, dress, armament—I suppose this ship could be classed as your armament—your protection, in the event of challenge by any other leigeman—that hardly applies, here on Beta Colony—oh, there’s a passel of stuff, about your family, and—do you have a family, by the way?”

Mayhew shook his head.

“That simplifies things.” Thump, spin, turn, straighten, thump. “Meanwhile, neither Security nor the M.H.B. could touch you, because legally you’d be like a part of my body.”

Mayhew blinked. “That sounds screwy as hell. Where do I sign? How do you register it?”

“All you have to do is kneel, place your hands between mine, and repeat about two sentences. It doesn’t even need witnesses, although it’s customary to have two.”

Mayhew shrugged. “All right. Sure, kid.”
 
Thump, spin, turn, straighten, thump. “All-right-surekid. I thought you wouldn’t understand it. What I’ve described is only a tiny part of my half of the bargain, your privileges. It also includes your obligations, and a ream of rights I have over you. For instance—just one for-instance—if you were to refuse to carry out an order of mine in the heat of battle, I would have the right to strike off your head. On the spot.”

Mayhew’s jaw dropped. “You realize,” he said at last, “the Mental Health Board’s going to drop a net over you, too...”

Miles grinned sardonically. “They can’t. Because if they tried, I could cry havoc to my liege lord for protection. And I’d get it, too. He’s pretty touchy about who does what to his subjects. Oh, that’s another angle. If you become a liegeman to me, it automatically puts you into a relationship with my leige lord, kind of a complicated one.”

“And his, and his, and his, I suppose,” said Mayhew. “I know all about chains of command.”

“Well, no, that’s as far as it goes. I’m sworn directly to Gregor Vorbarra, as a vassal secundus.” Miles realized he might as well be talking gibberish, for all the meaning his words were conveying.

“Who’s this Greg-guy?” asked Mayhew.

“The Emperor. Of Barrayar,” Miles added, just to be sure he understood.

“Oh.”

Typical Betan, thought Miles, they don’t study anybody’s history but Earth’s and their own. “Think about

it, anyway. It’s not something you should just jump into.”

When the last voice-print had been recorded, Mayhew carefully disconnected the toggle box—Miles held his breath—and the senior pilot officer returned to convey them planetside.

The senior pilot officer addressed Miles with a shade more respect in his voice. “I had no idea you were from such a wealthy family, Lord Vorkosigan. That was a solution to the problem I certainly hadn’t anticipated. But perhaps one ship is just a bauble, to a Barrayaran lord.”

“Not really,” said Miles. “I’m going to have to do some hustling to cover that note. My family used to be well off, I admit, but that was back in the Time of Isolation. Between the economic upheavals at the end of it, and the First Cetagandan War, we were pretty much wiped out, financially.” He grinned a little. “You galactics got us coming and going. My great-grandfather on the Vorkosigan side, when the first galactic traders hit us, thought he was going to make a killing in jewels— you know, diamonds, rubies, emeralds—the galactics seemed to be selling them so cheaply. He put all his liquid assets and about half his chattels into them. Well, of course they were synthetics, better than the naturals and cheap as dirt—uh, sand—and the bottom promptly dropped out of the market, taking him with it. I’m told my great-grandmother never forgave him.” He waved vaguely at Mayhew who, becoming conditioned, passed over his bottle. Miles offered it to the senior pilot officer, who rejected it with a look of disgust. Miles shrugged, and took a long pull. Amazingly pleasant stuff. His circulatory system, as well as his digestive, now seemed to be glowing with rainbow hues. He felt he could go days without sleep.

“Unfortunately, most of the land he sold was around Vorkosigan Surleau, which is pretty dry—not by your standards, of course—and the land he kept was around Vorkosigan Vashnoi, which was the better.”

“What’s unfortunate about that?” asked Mayhew.

“Well, because it was the principal seat of government for the Vorkosigans, and because we owned about every stick and stone in it—it was a pretty important industrial and trade center—and because the Vorkosigans were, uh, prominent in the Resistance, the Cetagandans took the city hostage. It’s a long story, but—eventually, they destroyed the place. It’s now a big glass hole in the ground. You can still see a faint glow in the sky, on a dark night, twenty kilometers off.”

The senior pilot officer brought the little shuttle smoothly into its dock.

“Hey,” said Mayhew suddenly. “That land you had around Vorkosigan whatever-you-said—”

“Vashnoi. Have. Hundreds of square kilometers of it, and mostly downwind, yes?”

“Is that the same—” his face was lighting, like the sun coming up after a long, dark night, “is that the same land you mortgaged to—” he began to laugh, delightedly, under his breath; they disembarked. “Is that what you pledged to that sand-crawler Calhoun in return for my ship?”

“Caveat emptor,” bowed Miles. “He checked the climate plat; he never thought to check the radioactivity plat. He probably doesn’t study anybody else’s history either.”

Mayhew sat down on the docking bay, laughing so hard that he bent his forehead nearly to the floor. His laughter had more than an edge of hysteria—several days without sleep, after all... “Kid,” he cried, “have a drink on me!”

“I mean to pay him, you understand,” explained Miles. “The hectares he chose would make an unaesthetic hole in the map for some descendant of mine, in a few hundred years, when it cools off. But if he gets greedy, or pushy about collecting—well, he’ll get what he deserves.”

Three groups of people were bearing down upon them. Bothari had escaped customs at last, it appeared, for he led the first group. His collar was undone, and he looked decidedly ruffled. Uh oh, thought Miles, it looks like he’s had a strip-search—that’s guaranteed to put him in a ferocious mood. He was followed by a new Betan security patrolman, and a limping Betan civilian Miles had never seen before, who was gesticulating and complaining bitterly. The man had a livid bruise on his face, and one eye was swelling shut. Elena trailed, seeming on the verge of tears.

The second group was led by the shuttleport administrator, and included now a number of other officials. The third group was headed by the Betan security woman. She had two burly patrolmen and four medical types in her wake. Mayhew glanced from right to left, and sobered abruptly. The Betan security men had their stunners in hand.

“Oh, kid,” he muttered. The security men were fanning out. Mayhew scrambled to his knees. “Oh, kid...”

“It’s up to you, Arde,” said Miles quietly.

“Do it!”

The Botharis arrived. The Sergeant opened his mouth. Miles, dropping his voice, cut across his beginning roar—by God, it was an effective trick—”Attention, please, Sergeant. I require your witness. Pilot Officer Mayhew is about to make oath.”

The Sergeant’s jaw tightened like a vise, but he came to attention.

“Put your hands between mine, Arde—like that—and repeat after me. I, Arde Mayhew—is that your full legal name? use that, then—do testify I am an unsworn freeman, and take service under Lord Miles Naismith Vorkosigan as an Armsman simple—go ahead and say that part—” Mayhew did so, rolling his eyes from left to right. “And will hold him as my leige commander until my death or his releases me.”

That repeated, Miles said, rather quickly as the crowd closed in, “I, Miles Naismith Vorkosigan, vassal secundus to Emperor Gregor Vorbarra, do accept your oath, and pledge you the protection of a leige commander; this by my word as Vorkosigan. All done—you can get up now.”

One good thing, thought Miles, it’s diverted the Sergeant completely from whatever he was about to say. Bothari found his voice at last. “My lord,” he hissed, “you can’t swear a Betan!”

“I just did,” Miles pointed out cheerfully. He bounced a bit, feeling quite unusually pleased with himself. The Sergeant’s glance passed across Mayhew’s bottle, and narrowed on Miles.

“Why aren’t you asleep?” he growled.

The Betan patrolman gestured at Miles. “Is this the man?”

The Betan security officer from the original shuttleport group approached. Mayhew had remained on his knees, as if plotting to crawl off under cover of the fire overhead. “Pilot Officer Mayhew,” she cried, “you are under arrest. These are your rights: you have a right to—”

The bruised civilian interrupted, pointing at Elena. “Screw him! This woman assaulted me! There were a dozen witnesses. Damn it, I want her charged. She’s vicious.”

Elena had her hands over her ears again, lower lip stuck out but trembling slightly. Miles began to get the picture. “Did you hit him?”

She nodded. “But he said the most horrible thing to me...”

“My lord,” said Bothari reproachfully, “it was very wrong of you to leave her alone in this place—”