The guard released the tangle-field from Miles's legs and pulled him to his feet.
"Aren't you even going to have me chemically interrogated?" asked Miles, dizzied by this sudden downturn.
"And contaminate my interrogators? The last thing I want is to give you rein to talk, to anyone. I can think of nothing more fatal than for the rot of disloyalty to start in my own Intelligence section. Whatever your planned speech, removing your air will neutralize it. You nearly convince
me.
" Oser almost shuddered.
We were getting on so well, yes. . . .
"But I—" They were hoisting Gregor to his feet too. "But you don't need to—"
Two waiting members of the half-squad fell in as they were bundled out the door, frog-marching Miles and Gregor rapidly down the corridor. "But—!" The conference room door hissed closed.
"This is not going well, Miles," Gregor observed, his pale face a weird compound of detachment, exasperation, and dismay. "Any more bright ideas?"
"You're the man who was experimenting with wingless flight. Is this any worse than, say, plummeting?"
"At my own hand," Gregor began to drag his feet, to struggle, as the air lock chamber heaved into view, "not at the whim of a bunch of . . ." it took three guards to wrestle him now, "bloody
peasants!
"
Miles was getting seriously frantic. Screw the damn cover. "You know," he called out loudly, "you fellows are about to throw a fortune in ransom out the air lock!"
Two guards kept wrestling with Gregor, but the third paused. "How big a fortune?"
"Huge," Miles promised. "Buy your own fleet."
The lieutenant abandoned Gregor and closed on Miles, drawing a vibra-knife. The lieutenant was interpreting his orders with horrific literality, Miles realized when the man went for a grip on his tongue. He almost got it—the evil insect whine of the knife dopplered centimeters from Miles's nose—Miles bit the thick thrusting fingers, and twisted against the grip of the guard holding him. The tangle-field binding Miles's arms to his torso whined and crackled, unbreakable. Miles jammed backward against the crotch of the man behind, who yipped at the field's bite. His grip slipped and Miles dropped, rolling and banging into the lieutenant's knees. It wasn't exactly a judo throw; the lieutenant more or less tripped over him.
Gregor's two opponents were distracted, as much by the bloody barbaric promise of the vibra-knife show as by Miles's ultimately futile struggles. They did not see the leather-faced man step out from a cross-corridor, aim his stunner, and spray. They arched convulsively as the buzzing charges struck their backs, and dropped heap-fashion to the deck. The man who'd been holding Miles, and was now trying to grab him again as he flopped around evasively as a fish, whirled just in time to intersect a beam square in the face.
Miles flung himself across the blond lieutenant's head, pinning him—only momentarily, alas—to the deck. Miles wriggled, to press the tangle-field into the man's face, then was heaved off with a curse. The lieutenant had one knee under himself, preparing to launch an attack and wobbling around in search of his target, when Gregor hopped over and kicked him in the jaw. A stunner charge hit the lieutenant in the back of the head and he went down.
"Damn fine soldiering," Miles panted to Sergeant Chodak in the sudden silence. "I don't think they even saw what hit them." So,
I called him straight the first time. Haven't lost my touch after all. Bless you, Sergeant.
"You two aren't so bad yourselves, for men with both hands tied behind their backs." Chodak shook his head in harried amusement, and trod forward to release the tangle-fields.
"What a team," said Miles.
A quick ring of boots from further up the corridor drew Miles's eye. He exhaled, a long-held breath, and stood.
Elena.
She wore a mercenary officer's undress uniform, grey-and-white pocketed jacket, trousers, ankle-topping boots gleaming on her long, long legs. Still tall, still slim, still with pale pure skin, ember-brown eyes, arched aristocratic nose and long sculptured jaw.
She's cut her hair,
Miles thought, stupid-stunned. Gone was the straight-shining black cascade to her waist. Now it was clipped out over her ears, only little dark points grace-noting her high cheekbones and forehead, a similar point echoed at the nape of her neck; severe, practical, very smart. Soldierly.
She strode up, eyes taking in Miles, Gregor, the four Oserans. "Good work, Chodak." She dropped to one knee beside the nearest body and probed its neck for a pulse. "Are they dead?"
"No, just stunned," Miles explained.
She regarded the open inner air lock door with some regret. "I don't suppose we can space them."
"They were going to space us, but no. But we probably ought to get them out of sight while we run," said Miles.
"Right." She rose and nodded to Chodak, who began helping Gregor drag the stunned bodies into the air lock. She frowned at the blond lieutenant, going past feet-first. "Not that spacing wouldn't
improve
some personalities."
"Can you give us a bolt-hole?"
"That's what we came for." She turned to the three soldiers who had followed her cautiously into view. A fourth stood guard at the nearest cross-corridor. "It seems we just got lucky," she told them. "Scout ahead and clear the aisles on our escape route—subtly. Then disappear. You weren't here and didn't see this."
They nodded and withdrew. Miles heard a retreating mutter, "Was that
him?
" "Yeah . . ."
Miles, Gregor, and Elena, with the bodies, piled cozily into the lock and closed the inner door temporarily. Chodak stood guard outside. Elena helped Gregor pull the boots from the Oseran nearest his size while Miles stripped off his blue prisoner's outfit and stood, revealing Victor Rotha's wrinkled clothing, much the worse for four days' wear, sleep, and sweat. Miles wished for boots to replace the vulnerable sandals, but none here came close to his size.
Gregor and Elena exchanged looks, each warily amazed at the other, as Gregor yanked on grey-and-whites and plunged his feet into the boots.
"It's really you." Elena shook her head in dismay. "What are you doing here?"
"It was by mistake," said Gregor.
"No lie. Whose?"
"Mine, I'm afraid," said Miles. Somewhat to his annoyance, Gregor did not gainsay this.
A peculiar smile, her first, quirked Elena's lips. Miles decided not to ask her to explain it. This hurried practical exchange did not in the least resemble any of the dozens of conversations he had rehearsed in his head for this first, poignant meeting with her.
"The search will be up in minutes, when these guys don't report back," Miles jittered. He collected two stunners, the tangle-field, and the vibra-knife, and stuck them in his waistband. On second thought, he swiftly relieved the four Oserans of credit cards, pass chits, IDs, and odd cash, stuffing his pockets and Gregor's, and made sure Gregor ditched his prisoner's traceable ID. To his secret delight, he also found a half-eaten ration bar, and bit into it there and then. He chewed as Elena led the way back out the lock. He conscientiously offered a bite to Gregor, who shook his head. Gregor'd probably had dinner in that cafeteria.
Chodak hastily straightened Gregor's uniform, and they all marched off, Miles to the center, half-concealed, half-guarded. Before he could go half-paranoid at his conspicuousness they took to a drop-tube, emerged several decks down, and found themselves at a large cargo-lock, engaged to a shuttle. One of Elena's scout squad, leaning as if idle against the wall, nodded. With a half-salute to Elena, Chodak split off and they hurried away. Miles and Gregor followed Elena across the flex-seal of the shuttle hatch and into the empty cargo hold of one of the
Triumph's
shuttles, stepping from the artificial gravity field of the mother ship abruptly into the vertigo of free fall. They floated forward to the pilot's compartment. Elena sealed the compartment hatch behind them, and anxiously gestured Gregor to the vacant seat at the engineering/comm station.
The pilot's and co-pilot's seats were filled. Arde Mayhew grinned cheerfully over his shoulder at Miles, and waved/saluted hello. Miles recognized the shaved bullet-head of the second man even before he turned.
"Hello, son." Ky Tung's smile was far more ironic than cheerful. "Welcome back. You took your sweet time." Tung, arms folded, did not salute.
"Hello, Ky." Miles nodded to the Eurasian. Tung had not changed, anyway. Still looked any age between forty and sixty. Still built like an ancient tank. Still seemed to see more than he spoke, most uncomfortable for the guilty of conscience.
Mayhew the pilot spoke into his comm. "Traffic control, I've traced that red light on my panel now. Defective pressure reading. All fixed. We're ready to break away."
"About time, C-2," a disembodied voice returned. "You're clear."
The pilot's swift hands activated hatch seal controls, aimed attitude jets. Some hissing and clanks, and the shuttle popped away from its mothership and started on its trajectory. Mayhew killed the comm and breathed a long sigh of relief. "Safe. For now."
Elena wedged herself across the aisle behind Miles, long legs locking. Miles hooked an arm around a handhold to anchor against Mayhew's current mild accelerations. "I hope you're right," said Miles, "but what makes you think so?"
"He means, safe to talk," said Elena. "Not safe in any cosmic sense. This is a routine scheduled run, except for us unlisted passengers. We know you haven't been missed yet, or traffic control would have stopped us. Oser will search the
Triumph
and the military station for you first. We may even be able to slip you back aboard the
Triumph
after the search has passed to wider areas."
"This is Plan B," Tung explained, swivelling around to half-face Miles. "Or maybe Plan C. Plan A, on the assumption that your rescue was going to be a lot noisier, was to flee at once to the
Ariel,
now on picket-station, and declare the revolution. I'm grateful for the chance to bring things off a little, er, less spontaneously."
Miles choked. "God! That would have been worse than the first time." Pitched into an interlocking chain of events he did not control, drafted gonfalonier to some mercenary military mutiny, thrust to the lead of its parade with all the free will of a head on a pike . . . "No. No spontaneity, thanks. Definitely not."
"So," Tung steepled his thick fingers, "what
is
your plan?"
"My what?"
"Plan," Tung pronounced the word with sardonic care. "In other words, why are you here?"
"Oser asked me that same question," sighed Miles. "Would you believe, I'm here by accident? Oser wouldn't. You wouldn't happen to know
why
he wouldn't, would you?"
Tung pursed his lips. "Accident? Maybe . . . Your 'accidents,' I once noticed, have ways of entangling your enemies that are the green envy of mature and careful strategists. Far too consistent for chance, I concluded it had to be unconscious will. If only you'd stuck with me, son, between us we could've . . . or maybe you are simply a supreme opportunist. In which case I direct your attention to the opportunity now before you to retake the Dendarii Mercenaries."
"You didn't answer my question," Miles noted.
"You didn't answer mine," Tung countered.
"I don't want the Dendarii Mercenaries."
"I do."
"Oh." Miles paused. "Why don't you split off with the personnel who are loyal to you and start your own, then? It's been done."
"Shall we swim through space?" Tung imitated fish fins with his waving fingers, and puffed his cheeks. "Oser controls the equipment. Including my ship. The
Triumph
is everything I've accumulated in a thirty-year career. Which I lost through your machinations. Somebody owes me another. If not Oser, then . . ." Tung glowered significantly at Miles.
"I tried to give you a fleet in trade," said Miles, harried. "How'd you lose control of it—old strategist?"
Tung tapped a finger to his left breast, to indicate a touché. "Things went well at first, for a year, year and a half after we departed Tau Verde. Got two sweet little contracts in a row out toward the Eastnet—small-scale commando operations, sure things. Well, not too sure—kept us on our toes. But we brought them off."
Miles glanced at Elena. "I'd heard about those, yes."
"On the third, we got into troubles. Baz Jesek had gotten more and more involved with equipment and maintenance—he is a good engineer, I'll give him that—I was tactical commander, and Oser—I thought by default, but now I think design—took up the administrative slack. Could have been good, each doing what he did best, if Oser'd been working with and not against us. In the same situation, I'd have sent assassins. Oser employed guerilla accountants.
"We took a bit of a beating on that third contract. Baz was up to his ears in engineering and repairs, and by the time I got out of sickbay, Oser'd lined up one of his no-combat specials—worm-hole guard duty work. Long-term contract. Seemed like a good idea at the time. But it gave him a wedge. With no actual combat going on, I . . ." Tung cleared his throat, "got bored, didn't pay attention. Oser'd outflanked me before I realized there was a war on. He sprang the financial reorganization on us—"
"I told you not to trust him, six months before that," Elena put in with a frown, "after he tried to seduce me."
Tung shrugged uncomfortably. "It seemed like an understandable temptation."
"To bang his commander's wife?" Elena's eyes sparked. "Anyone's wife? I knew then he wasn't level. If my oaths meant nothing to him, how little did his own?"
"He did take no for an answer, you said," Tung excused himself. "If he'd kept leaning on you, I'd have been willing to step in. I thought you ought to be flattered, ignore it, and go on."
"Overtures of that sort contain a judgment of my character that I find anything but flattering, thank you," Elena snapped.
Miles bit his knuckles, hard and secretly, remembering his own longings. "It might just have been an early move in his power-play," he put in. "Probing for weaknesses in his enemies' defenses. And in this case, not finding them."