The mercenary captain split his crew into three search parties, and gestured Miles and his people ahead of him to Nav and Com. His two soldiers began spot-checking everything that would come apart, even disassembling the padded swivel chairs. Leaving all in disarray, they went on to the cabins, where the search took on the nature of a ransacking. Miles clenched his teeth and smiled meekly as his personal effects were dumped pell-mell on the floor and kicked through.
"These guys have got
nothing
worth having, Captain Auson," muttered one soldier, sounding savagely disappointed. "Wait, here's something . . ."
Miles froze, appalled at his own carelessness. In collecting and concealing their personal weapons, he had overlooked his grandfather's dagger. He had brought it more as a memento than a weapon, and half-forgotten it at the bottom of a suitcase. It was supposed to date back to Count Selig Vorkosigan himself; the old man had cherished it like a saint's relic. Although clearly not a weapon to tip the balance of the war on Tau Verde IV, it had the Vorkosigan arms inlaid in cloisonne, gold, and jewels on the hilt. Miles prayed the pattern would be meaningless to a non-Barrayaran.
The soldier tossed it to his captain, who withdrew it from its lizard-skin sheath. He turned it in the light, bringing out the strange watermark pattern on the gleaming blade—a blade that had been worth ten times the price of the hilt even in the Time of Isolation, and was now considered priceless for its quality and workmanship, among connoisseurs.
Captain Auson was evidently not a connoisseur, for he merely said, "Huh. Pretty," resheathed it—and jammed it in his belt.
"Hey!" Miles checked himself halfway through a boiling surge forward. Meek. Meek. He tamped his outrage into a form fitting his supposed Betan persona. "I'm not insured for this sort of thing!"
The captain snorted. "Tough luck, Shorty." But he mulled on Miles in a moment of curious doubt.
Backpedal, thought Miles. "Don't I at least get a receipt?" he asked plaintively.
Auson snickered. "A receipt! That's a good one." The soldiers grinned nastily.
Miles controlled his ragged breathing with an effort. "Well . . ." he choked out, "at least don't let it stand wet. It'll rust if it's not properly dried after each use."
"Cheap pot metal," growled the mercenary captain. He ticked it with a fingernail; it rang like a bell. "Maybe I can get a good stainless blade put on that fancy hilt." Miles went green.
Auson gestured to Bothari. "Open that case there."
Bothari, as usual, glanced at Miles for confirmation. Auson frowned irritably. "Stop looking at Shorty. You take your orders from me."
Bothari straightened, and raised an eyebrow. "Sir?" he inquired dulcetly of Miles.
Meek, damn it, Sergeant, Miles thought, and sent the message by a slight compression of his lips. "Obey this man, Mr. Bothari," he replied, a little too sharply.
Bothari smiled slightly. "Yes, sir." Having established the pecking order in a form more to his taste, he at last unlocked the case, with precise, insulting deliberation. Auson swore under his breath.
The mercenary captain herded them to a final rendezvous, in what the Betans called the rec room and the Barrayarans called the wardroom. "Now," he said, "you will produce all your off-planet currency. Contraband."
"What!" cried Mayhew, outraged. "How can
money
be contraband?"
"Hush, Arde," hissed Miles. "Just do it." Auson might well be telling the truth, Miles realized. Foreign currency was just what Daum's people needed to buy such things as off-planet weaponry and military advisors. Or it might simply be the hold-up it appeared. No matter—judging from the lack of excitement of all hands, Daum's cargo had escaped them, and that was all that counted. Miles secreted triumph in his heart, and emptied his pockets.
"That's
all?
" said Auson disbelievingly, as they placed their final offerings in a little pile on the table before him.
"We're a little shor—broke, at the moment," Miles explained, "until we get to Tau Verde and make some sales."
"Shit," muttered Auson. His eyes bored exasperatedly into Miles, who shrugged helplessly and produced his most inane smile.
Three more mercenaries entered, pushing Baz and Elena before them.
"Got the engineer?" said the captain tiredly. "I suppose he's bro—short, too." He glanced up and saw Elena. His look of boredom vanished instantly, and he came smoothly to his feet. "Well,
that's
better. I was beginning to think they were all freaks and fright masks here. Business before pleasure, though—you carrying any non-Tau Verdan currency, honey?"
Elena glanced uncertainly at Miles. "I have some," she admitted, looking surprised. "Why?"
"Out with it, then."
"Miles?" she queried.
Miles unclenched his aching jaw. "Give him your money, Elena," he ordered in a low tone.
Auson glowered at Miles. "You're not my frigging secretary, Shorty. I don't need you to transmit my orders. I don't want to hear any more back-chat from you, hear?"
Miles smiled and nodded meekly, and rubbed one sweating palm against his trouser seam where a holster wasn't.
Elena, bewildered, laid five hundred Betan dollars on the table. Bothari's eyebrows drew down in astonishment.
"Where'd you get all that?" whispered Miles as she stepped back.
"Countess—your mother gave it to me," she whispered back. "She said I should have some spending money of my own on Beta Colony. I didn't want to take so much, but she insisted."
Auson counted it, and brightened. "So, you're the banker, eh, honey? That's a bit more reasonable. I was beginning to think you folks were holding out on me." He cocked his head, looking her over and smiling sardonically. "People who hold out on me always come to regret it." The money vanished, along with a meager haul of other small, valuable items.
He checked their cargo manifest. "This right?" he asked the leader of the party who had come in with Elena and Baz.
"All the cases we busted open checked," replied the soldier.
"They made the most awful mess down there," Elena gritted under her breath to Miles.
"Sh. Never mind."
The mercenary captain sighed, and began sorting through their various identification files. At one point he grinned, and glanced up at Bothari, then Elena. Miles sweated. Auson finished the check, and leaned back casually in his seat before the computer console, regarding Mayhew glumly.
"You the pilot officer, eh?" he inquired unenthusiastically.
"Yes, sir," replied Mayhew, well coached in meekness by Miles.
"Betan?"
"Yes, sir."
"Are you—never mind. You're Betan, that answers the question. More frigging weirds per capita than any other . . ." he trailed off. "You ready to go?"
Mayhew glanced at Miles uncertainly.
"Damn it!" cried Auson, "I asked you, not Shorty! Bad enough that I'll have to look at you over the breakfast table for the next few weeks. He'd give me indigestion. Yeah, smile, you little mutant—" this last to Miles, "I bet you'd like to cut my liver out."
Miles smoothed his face, worried. He had been so sure he'd looked meek. Maybe it was Bothari. "No, sir," he said brightly, blinking for a meek effect.
The mercenary captain glared at him a moment, then muttered, "Aw, the hell with it," and rose.
His eye fell on Elena again, and he smiled thoughtfully. Elena frowned back. Auson looked around.
"Tell you what, Shorty," he said, in a benevolent tone. "You can keep your pilot. I've had about all the Betans I can take, lately."
Mayhew sighed relief under his breath. Miles relaxed, secretly delighted.
The mercenary captain waved at Elena. "I'll take her, instead. Go pack your things, honey."
Frozen silence.
Auson smiled at her, invitingly. "You won't be missing a thing by not seeing Tau Verde, believe me. You be a good girl, you might even get your money back."
Elena turned dilated eyes toward Miles. "My lord . . . ?" she said in a small, uncertain voice. It was not a slip of the tongue; she had a right to call for protection from her liege lord. It grieved him that she had not called "Miles," instead. Bothari's stillness was utter, his face blank and hard.
Miles stepped up to the mercenary captain, his meekness slipping badly. "The agreement was you were to hold our pilot officer," he stated in a flat voice.
Auson grinned wolfishly. "I make my own rules. She goes."
"She doesn't want to. If you don't want the pilot officer, choose another."
"Don't worry about it, Shorty. She'll have a good time. You can even have her back on the way out—if she still wants to go with you."
"I said choose another!"
The mercenary captain chuckled and turned away. Miles's hand closed around his arm. The other mercenaries, watching the show, didn't even bother to draw weapons. Auson's face lit with happiness, and he swung around. He's been itching for this, Miles realized. Well, so have I. . . .
The contest was brief and unequal. A clutch, a twist, a ringing blow, and Miles was slammed facedown on the deck. The metallic tang of blood filled his mouth. As an afterthought, a deliberately aimed boot to his belly doubled him over where he lay, and assured that he wouldn't be rebounding to his feet in the immediate future.
Miles curled in agony, cheek pressed to the friction matting. Thank God it wasn't the rib cage, he thought incoherently through a haze of rage, pain, and nausea. He squinted at the boots, spread aggressively beyond his nose. Toes must be steel-lined . . .
The mercenary captain wheeled around, hands on hips. "Well?" he demanded of Miles's crew. Silence and stillness; all looked to Bothari, who might have been stone.
Auson, disappointed, spat disgustedly—either he wasn't aiming at Miles, or he missed—and muttered, "Aw, the hell with it. This tub's not worth confiscating anyway. Lousy fuel efficiency . . ." He raised his voice to his crew. "All right, load up, let's go. Come on, honey," he added to Elena, taking her firmly by the upper arm. The five mercenaries unhinged themselves from their various postures of languid observation, and prepared to follow their captain out the door.
Elena glanced back over her shoulder, to meet Miles's flaming eyes; her lips parted in a little "Ah," of understanding, and she stared at Auson with cold calculation.
"Now, Sergeant!" cried Miles, and launched himself at his chosen mercenary. Still shaken from his encounter with the captain, in an inspiration of rare prudence he picked the one he had seen propping up the wall earlier. The room seemed to explode.
A chair, which no one had seen the Sergeant unfasten from its moorings, flew across the room to smash into the mercenary carrying the nerve disruptor before he even began to draw. Miles, occupied with his own tackle, heard but did not see the Sergeant's second victim go down with a meaty, resonating "Unh!" Daum, too, reacted instantly, disarming his man neatly and tossing the stunner to an astonished Mayhew. Mayhew stared at it a second, woke up and fumbled it right way round, and fired. Unfortunately, it was out of charge.
A needler went off, wildly; its projectile exploded against a far wall. Miles put his elbow with all his strength into his man's stomach, and had his earlier hypothesis confirmed when the man folded, gagging and retching. Unquestionably drunk. Miles dodged emesis, and at last achieved a stranglehold. He put the pressure on full power for the first time in his life. To his surprise, the man jerked but a few times and went still. Is he surrendering? Miles wondered dizzily, and pulled the head back by the hair for a look at the face. The man was unconscious.
A mercenary, bouncing off Bothari, stumbled past Mayhew who at last found a use for the stunner, black-jacking the man to his knees. Mayhew hit him a couple more times, rather experimentally. Bothari, hurtling past, paused to say disgustedly, "Not like that!" grab the stunner, and smash the man flat with one accurately placed blow.
The Sergeant then proceeded to assist Daum with his second, and it was over, but for some yelling by the door accompanying a muffled cracking noise. The mercenary captain, his nose gouting blood, was down on the floor with Elena atop him.
"That's enough, Elena," said Bothari, placing the bell-muzzle of a captured nerve disruptor against the man's temple.
"No, Sergeant!" Miles cried. The yelling stopped abruptly, and Auson rolled fear-whitened eyes toward the gleaming weapon.
"I want to break his legs, too!" cried Elena angrily. "I want to break every bone in his body! I'll Shorty him! When I'm done he's going to be one meter tall!"
"Later," promised Bothari. Daum found a functioning stunner, and the Sergeant put the mercenary captain temporarily out of his misery, then proceeded systematically around the room to make sure of the rest. "We still have three more out there, my lord," he reminded Miles.
"Unh," Miles acknowledged, crawling to his feet. And the eleven or so in the other ship, he thought. "Think you and Daum can ambush and stun 'em?"
"Yes, but . . ." Bothari hefted the nerve disrupter in his hand. "May I suggest, my lord, that it may be preferable to kill soldiers in battle than prisoners after?"
"It may not come to that, Sergeant," said Miles sharply. The full chaotic implications of the situation were just beginning to dawn on him. "Stun 'em. Then we'll—figure out something else."
"Think quickly, my lord," suggested Bothari, and vanished out the door, moving with uncanny silence. Daum chewed his lip worriedly, and followed.
Miles was already starting to think. "Sergeant!" he called after them softly. "Keep one conscious for me!"
"Very good, my lord."
Miles turned back, slipping a little in a spatter of blood from the mercenary captain's nose, and stared at the sudden slaughterhouse. "God," he muttered. "Now what do I do with 'em?"
Elena and Mayhew stood waiting, looking at him expectantly. Miles suddenly realized he had not seen Baz Jesek in the fight—wait, there he was, pinned against the far wall. His dark eyes were like holes in his milky face, his breathing ragged.