Bothari grew still. "Not—always, my lord." He retreated into a suddenly neutral silence.
"Miles," whispered Elena, detaining from a nocturnal trip to the bathroom from the bedroom she was sharing with Mrs. Naismith, "aren't you ever going to bed? It's almost morning."
"Not sleepy." He entered yet another inquiry on his grandmother's comconsole. It was true; he still felt fresh, and preternaturally alert. It was just as well, for he was plugged into a commercial network of enormous complexity. Ninety percent of success seemed to lie in asking the right questions. Tricky, but after several hours' work he seemed to be getting the hang of it. "Besides, with Mayhew in the spare bedroom, I'm doomed to the couch."
"I thought my father had the couch."
"He ceded it to me, with a smile of grim glee. He hates the couch. He slept on it all the time I went to school here. He's blamed every ache, twinge, and lower back pain he's had ever since on it, even after two years. It couldn't possibly be old age creeping up on him, oh, no. . . ."
Elena strangled a giggle. She leaned over his shoulder for a look at the screen. The light from it silvered her profile, and the scent of her hair, falling forward, dizzied him. "Finding anything?" she asked.
Miles entered three wrong directions in a row, swore, and refocused his attention. "Yes, I think so. There were a lot more factors to be taken into account than I realized, at first. But I think I've found something—" He retrieved his fumbled data, and waved his finger through the holoscreen. "
That
is my first cargo."
The screen displayed a lengthy manifest. "Agricultural equipment," she analyzed. "Bound for—whatever is Felice?"
"It's a country on Tau Verde IV, wherever
that
is. It's a four-week run—I've been cost-calculating fuel, and supplies, and the logistics of it in general—everything from spare parts to toilet paper. That's not what's interesting, though. What's interesting is that with that cargo I can pay for the trip
and
clear my debt to Calhoun, well inside the time limit on my note." His voice went small. "I'm afraid I, uh, underestimated the time I'd need for the RG 132 to run enough cargos to cover my note, a little. A lot. Well, quite a lot. Badly. The ship costs more to run than I'd realized, when I finally went to add up all the real numbers." He pointed to a figure. "But that's what they're offering for transport, C.O.D. Felice. And the cargo's ready to go immediately."
Her eyebrows drew down in awed puzzlement. "Pay for the whole ship in one run? But that's wonderful! But . . ."
He grinned. "But?"
"But why hasn't somebody else snapped up this cargo? It seems to have been sitting in the warehouse a long time."
"Clever girl," he crooned encouragingly. "Go on."
"I see they only pay on delivery. But maybe that's normal?"
"Yes . . ." He spread the word out, like butter. "Anything else?"
She pursed her lips. "Something's weird."
"Indeed." His eyes crinkled. "Something is, as you say, weird."
"Do I have to guess? Because if I do, I'm going back to bed. . . ." She stifled a yawn.
"Ah. Well—Tau Verde IV is in a war zone, at the moment. It seems there is a planetary war in progress. One of the sides has the local wormhole exit blocked—not by their own people, it seems to be a somewhat industrially backward place—they've hired a mercenary fleet. And why has this cargo been moldering in a warehouse so long? Because none of the big shipping companies will carry into a war zone—their insurance lapses. That goes for most of the little independents, as well. But since I'm not insured, it does not go for me." He smirked.
Elena looked doubtful. "Is it dangerous, crossing the blockade? If you cooperate on their stop-and-search—"
"In this case, I think so. The cargo happens to be addressed to the other side of the fray."
"Would the mercenaries seize it? I mean, robotic combines or whatever couldn't be classed as contraband—don't they have to abide by interstellar conventions?" Her doubt became wariness.
He stretched, still smiling. "You've almost got it. What is Beta Colony's most noted export?"
"Well, advanced technology, of course. Weapons and weapons systems—" Her wariness became dismay. "Oh, Miles . . ."
"'Agricultural equipment,'" he snickered. "I'll bet! Anyway, there's this Felician who claims to be the agent for the company purchasing the equipment—that's another tip-off, that they should have a man personally shepherding this cargo through—I'm going to go see him first thing in the morning, as soon as the Sergeant wakes up. And Mayhew, I'd better take Mayhew . . ."
Miles reviewed his troops, before pressing the buzzer to the hotel room. Even in civilian dress, there was no mistaking the Sergeant for anything but a soldier. Mayhew—washed, shaved, rested, fed, and dressed in clean new clothes—looked infinitely better than yesterday, but still . . .
"Straighten up, Arde," advised Miles, "and try to look professional. We've just got to get this cargo. I thought Betan medicine was advanced enough to cure any kind of hangover. It's bound to make a bad impression on this guy if you walk around clutching your stomach."
"Grm," muttered Mayhew. But he did return his hands to his sides, and come more-or-less to attention. "You'll find out, kid," he added in a tone of bitter clairvoyance.
"And you're going to have to stop calling me 'kid,'" Miles added. "You're my Armsman now. You're supposed to address me as 'my lord.'"
"You really take that stuff seriously?"
One step at a time. "It's like a salute," Miles explained. "You salute the uniform, not the man. Being Vor is—is like wearing an invisible uniform you can never take off. Look at Sergeant Bothari—he's called me 'my lord' ever since I was born. If he can, you can. You're his brother-in-arms, now."
Mayhew looked up at the Sergeant. Bothari looked back, his face saturnine in the extreme. Miles had the impression that had Bothari been a more expressive man, he would have made a rude noise at the concept of Mayhew as his brother-in-arms. Mayhew evidently received the same impression, for he straightened up a little more, and bit out, "Yes, my lord."
Miles nodded approval, and pressed the buzzer.
The man who answered the door had dark almond eyes, high cheekbones, skin the color of coffee and cream, and bright copper-colored hair, tightly curled as wire, cropped close to his head. His eyes searched the trio anxiously, widening a little at Miles; he had only seen Miles's face that morning, over the viewscreen. "Mr. Naismith? I'm Carle Daum. Come in."
Daum closed the door behind them quickly, and fussed at the lock. Miles deduced they'd just passed through a weapons scan, and the Felician was sneaking a peek at his readout. The man turned back with a look of nervous suspicion, one hand automatically touching his right hip pocket. His gaze did not linger elsewhere in the little hotel room, and Bothari's lips twitched satisfaction at Daum's unconscious revelation of the weapon he must watch for. Legal stunner, most likely, thought Miles, but you never know.
"Won't you sit down?" the Felician invited. His speech had a soft and curious resonance to Miles's ear, neither the flat nasal twang, heavy on the r's, of the Betans, nor the clipped cold gutturals of Barrayar. Bothari indicated he would prefer to stand, and took up position to Daum's right, uncomfortably far over in the Felician's peripheral vision. Miles and Mayhew sat before a low table. Daum sat across from them, his back to a "window," actually a viewscreen, bright with a panorama of mountains and a lake from some other world. The wind that really howled far overhead would have scoured such trees to sticks in a day. The window silhouetted Daum, while revealing his visitors' expressions in full light; Miles appreciated the choice of views.
"Well, Mr. Naismith," began Daum. "Tell me something about your ship. What is its cargo capacity?"
"It's an RG class freighter. It can easily handle twice the mass of your manifest, assuming those figures you put into the com system are quite correct . . . ?"
Daum did not react to this tiny bait. Instead he said, "I'm not very familiar with jump ships. Is it fast?"
"Pilot Officer Mayhew?" Miles prodded.
"Huh? Oh. Uh, do you mean acceleration? Steady, just steady. We boost a little longer, and get there nearly as fast in the end."
"Is it very maneuverable?"
Mayhew stared. "Mr. Daum, it's a freighter."
Daum's lips compressed with annoyance. "I know that. The question is—"
"The question is," Miles interrupted, "can we either outrun or evade your blockade. The answer is no. You see, I've done my homework."
Frustration darkened Daum's face. "Then we seem to be wasting each other's time. So much time lost . . ." He began to rise.
"The next question is, is there another way to get your cargo to its destination? Yes, I believe," said Miles firmly.
Daum sat back, tense with mistrust and hope. "Go on."
"You've done as much yourself already, in the Betan's comm system. Camouflage. I believe your cargo can be camouflaged well enough to pass a blockade inspection. But we'll have to work together on it, and somewhat more frankly—ah . . ." Miles made a calculation, based on the Felician's age and bearing, "Major Daum?"
The man twitched. Ah ha, thought Miles, nailed him on the first try. He compressed this internal crow to a suave smile.
"If you're a Pelian spy, or an Oseran mercenary, I swear I'll kill you—" Daum began. Bothari's eyelids drooped, in a pose of deceptive calm.
"I'm not," said Miles, "although it would be a great ploy, if I were. Load up you and your weapons, take you halfway, and make you get out and walk—I appreciate your need for caution."
"What weapons?" said Daum, attempting belatedly to regain his cover.
"What weapons?" echoed Mayhew, in a frantic, near-silent whisper to Miles's ear.
"Your plowshares and pruning hooks, then," said Miles tolerantly. "But I suggest we end the game and get to work. I am a professional—" and if you buy that, I have this nice farmland on Barrayar for sale, "and so, obviously, are you, or you wouldn't have gotten this far."
Mayhew's eyes widened. Under the guise of shifting in his seat, Miles kicked him preemptively in the ankle. Make a note, he thought; next time, wake him earlier and brief him better. Although getting the pilot officer functional that morning had been rather like trying to raise the dead. Miles was not sure he could have succeeded, earlier.
"You're a mercenary soldier?" said Daum.
"Ah . . ." said Miles. He had meant to imply, a professional shipmaster—but might this be even more attractive to the Felician? "What do you think, Major?"
Bothari stopped breathing a moment. Mayhew, however, looked suddenly dismayed. "So that's what you meant yesterday," he murmured. "Recruiting . . ."
Miles, who had meant nothing of a kind in his facetious crack about looking for desperate men, murmured back, "Of course," in a tone of maximum off-handedness. "Surely you realized . . ."
Daum looked doubtfully at Mayhew, but then his gaze fell on Bothari. Bothari maintained parade rest and an expression of remarkable blankness. Belief hardened in Daum's eyes. "By God," he muttered, "if the Pelians can hire galactics, why can't we?" He raised his voice. "How many troops are in your outfit? What ships do you have?"
Oh, hell—now what? Miles extemporized like mad. "Major Daum, I didn't mean to mislead you—" Bothari breathed, gratefully, Miles saw from the corner of his eye. "I'm, uh—detached from my outfit at the moment. They're tied up on another contract. I was just visiting Beta Colony for, uh, medical reasons, so I have only myself and, ah, my immediate staff, and a ship my fleet could spare, here to offer you. But we're expected to operate independently, in my bunch," exhale, Sergeant, please exhale, "so since it will be a little time yet before I can rejoin them, and I find your problem tactically interesting, my services are yours."
Daum nodded slowly, "I see. And by what rank should I address you?"
Miles nearly appointed himself admiral on the spot. Captain? Yeoman? he wondered wildly. "Let's just leave it at Mr. Naismith, for now," he suggested coolly. "A centurion without his hundred men is, after all, a centurion in name only. At the moment, we need to be dealing with realities." Do we ever . . .
"What's the name of your outfit?"
Miles free-associated frantically. "The Dendarii Mercenaries." It fell trippingly from the tongue, at least.
Daum studied him hungrily. "I've been tied down in this damn place for two months, looking for a carrier that would haul me, that I could trust. If I wait much longer, could be delay will destroy the purpose of my mission as certainly as any betrayal. Mr. Naismith, I've waited long enough—too long. I'm going to take a chance on you."
Miles nodded satisfaction, as if he had been concluding such transactions all of a somewhat longer life than he actually possessed. "Then Major Daum, I undertake to get you to Tau Verde IV. My word on it. The first thing I need is more intelligence. Tell me all you know about the Oseran Mercenaries' blockade procedures . . ."
"It was my understanding, my lord," said Bothari severely as they left Daum's hotel for the slidewalk, "that Pilot Officer Mayhew here was to transport your cargo. You didn't tell me anything about going along yourself."
Miles shrugged, elaborately casual. "There are so many variables, so much at stake—I've just got to be on the spot. It's unfair to dump it all on Arde's shoulders. I mean, would you?"
Bothari, apparently caught between his disapproval of his liege lord's get-rich-quick scheme and his low opinion of the pilot officer, gave a noncommittal grunt, which Mayhew chose not to notice.
Miles's eyes glinted. "Besides, it'll put a little excitement in your life, Sergeant. It has to be dull as dirt, following me around all day. I'd be bored to tears."
"I like being bored," said Bothari morosely.
Miles grinned, secretly relieved at not being taken more strictly to task for his "Dendarii Mercenaries" outbreak. Well, the brief moment of fantasy was probably harmless enough.