The Vor Game

11

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 airlock 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 airlock. She frowned at 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 comlink 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. Iknow 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, swiveling 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 touche. "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 East-net —-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 guerrilla 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—wormhole 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."

"Hm." Elena seemed faintly comforted by this view. "Anyway, Ky was no help, and I got tired of playing Cassandra. Naturally, I couldn't tell Baz. But Oser's double-dealing didn't come as a complete surprise to all of us."

Tung frowned, frustrated. "Given the nucleus of his own surviving ships, all he had to do was swing the votes of half the other captain-owners. Auson voted with him. I could have strangled the bastard. "You lost Auson yourself, with your moaning about the Triumph, Elena put in, still acerb. "He thought you threatened his captaincy of it."

"Tung shrugged. "As long as I was Chief-of-Staff/Tactical, in charge during actual combat, I didn't think he could really hurt my ship. I was content to let the Triumph ride along as if owned by the fleet corporation. I could wait—till you got back," his dark eyes glinted at Miles, "and we found out what was going on. And then you never came back."

"The king will return, eh?" murmured Gregor, who had been listening with fascination. He raised an eyebrow at Miles.

"Let it be a lesson to you," Miles murmured back through set teeth. Gregor subsided, less humorous.

Miles turned to Tung. "Surely Elena disabused you of any such immediate expectation."

"I tried," muttered Elena. "Although … I suppose, I couldn't help hoping a bit myself. Maybe you'd . . . quit your other project, come back to us."

If I flunked out of the Academy, eh? "It wasn't a project I could quit, short of death."

"I know that now."

"In five minutes, max," put in Arde Mayhew, "I've either got to lock into the transfer station traffic control for docking, or else cut for the Ariel. Which is it going to be, folks?"

"I can put over a hundred loyal officers and non-coms at your back at a word," said Tung to Miles. "Four ships."

"Why not at your own back?"

"If I could, I would have already. But I'm not going to tear the fleet apart unless I can be certain of putting it back together again. All of it. But with you as leader, with your reputation—which has grown in the retelling—"

"Leader? Or figurehead?" The image of that pike bobbed in Miles's mind's eye again.

Tung's hands opened noncommittally. "As you wish. The bulk of the officer cadre will go for the winning side. That means we must appear to be winning quickly, if we move at all. Oser has about another hundred personally loyal to himself, which we're going to have to physically overpower if he insists on holding out—which suggests to my mind that a well-timed assassination could save a lot of lives."

"Jolly. I think you and Oser have been working together too long, Ky. You're starting to think alike. Again. I did not come here to seize command of a mercenary fleet. I have other priorities." He schooled himself not to glance at Gregor.

"What higher priorities?"

"How about, preventing a planetary civil war? Maybe an interstellar one?"

"I have no professional interest in that." It almost succeeded in being a joke.

Indeed, what were Barrayar's agonies to Tung? "You do if you're on the doomed side. You only get paid for winning, and only get to spend your pay if you live, mercenary."

Tung's narrow eyes narrowed further. "What do you know that I don't? Are we on the doomed side?"

I am, if I don 't get Gregor back. Miles shook his head. "Sorry. I can't talk about that. I've got to get to—" Pol closed to him, the Consortium station blocked, and now Aslund become even more dangerous, "Vervain." He glanced at Elena. "Get us both to Vervain." "You working for the Vervani?" Tung asked.

"No."

"Who, then?" Tung's hands twitched, so tense with his curiosity they seemed to want to squeeze out information by main force.

Elena noticed the unconscious gesture too. "Ky, back off," she said sharply. "If Miles wants Vervain, Vervain he shall have."

Tung looked at Elena, at Mayhew. "Do you back him, or me?"

Elena's chin lifted. "We're both oath-sworn to Miles. Baz too."

"And you have to ask why I need you?" said Tung in exasperation to Miles, gesturing at the pair. "What is this larger game, that you all seem to know all about, and I, nothing?"

"I don't know anything," chirped Mayhew. "I'm just going by Elena."

"Is this a chain of command, or a chain of credulity?"

"There's a difference?" Miles grinned.

"You've exposed us, by coming here," Tung argued. "Think! We help you, you leave, we're left naked to Oser's wrath. There's too many witnesses already. There might be safety in victory, none in half-measure."

Miles looked with anguish at Elena, picturing her, quite vividly inl light of his recent experiences, being shoved out an airlock by evil, witless goons. Tung noted with satisfaction the effect of his plea on Miles and sat smugly back. Elena glared at Tung.

Gregor stirred uneasily. "I think . . . should you become refugees on Our behalf," (Elena, Miles saw, heard that official capital O too, as Tung and Mayhew of course could not) "We can see that you do not suffer. Financially, at least." '

Elena nodded understanding and acceptance. Tung leaned toward Elena, jerking his thumb at Gregor. "All right, who is this guy?" Elena shook her head mutely.

Tung vented a small hiss. "You've no means of support visible to me, son. What if we become corpses on your behalf?"

Elena remarked, "We've risked becoming corpses for much less."

"Less than what?" snapped Tung.

Mayhew, his eyes going briefly distant, touched the communications plug in his ear. "Decision time, folks."

"Can this ship go across-system?" asked Miles.

"No. Not fueled up for it," Mayhew shrugged apology.

"Not fast enough or armored for it, either," said Tung.

"You'll have to smuggle us out on commercial transport, past Aslunder security," Miles said unhappily.

Tung stared around at his recalcitrant little committee, and sighed. "Security's tighter for incoming than outgoing. I think it can be done. Take us in, Arde."

After Mayhew had docked the cargo shuttle at its assigned loading niche at the Aslunders' transfer station, Miles, Gregor, and Elena lay low, locked in the pilot's compartment. Tung and Mayhew went off "to see what we can do," as Tung put it, rather airily to Miles's mind. Miles sat and nibbled his knuckles nervously, and tried not to jump with each thump, clink, or hiss of the robotic loaders placing supplies for the mercenaries on the other side of the bulkhead. Elena's steady profile did not twitch at every little noise, Miles noticed enviously. I loved her once. Who is she now?

Could one choose not to fall in love all over again with this new person? A chance to choose. She seemed tougher, more willing to speak her mind—this was good—yet her thoughts had a bitter tang. Not good. That bitterness made him ache.

"Have you been all right?" he asked her hesitantly. "Apart from this command structure mess, that is. Tung treating you right? He was supposed to be your mentor. On-the-job, for you, the training I was getting in the classroom . . ."

"Oh, he's a good mentor. He stuffs me with military information, tactics, history … I can run every phase of a combat drop patrol now, logistics, mapping, assault, withdrawal, even emergency shuttle take-offs, and landings, if you don't mind a few bumps. I'm almost up to really handling my fictional rank, at least on fleet equipment. He likes teaching."

"It seemed to me you were a little . . . tense, with him."

She tossed her head. "Everything is tense, just now. It's not possible to be 'apart from' this command structure mess, thank you. Although … I suppose I haven't quite forgiven Tung for not being infallible about it. I thought he was, at first."

"Yeah, well, there's a lot of fallibility going around these days," Miles said uncomfortably. "Uh . . . how's Baz?" Is your husband treating you right? he wanted to demand, but didn't.

"He's well," she replied, not looking happy, "but discouraged. This power struggle was alien to him, repugnant, I think. He's a tech at heart, he sees a job that needs doing, he does it . . . Tung hints that if Baz hadn't buried himself in Engineering he might have foreseen —prevented—fought the takeover, but I think it was the other way around. He couldn't lower himself to fight on Oser's back-stabbing level, so he withdrew to where he could keep his own standards of honesty … for a little while longer. This schism's affected morale all up and down the line."

"I'm sorry," said Miles.

"You should be." Her voice cracked, steadied, harshened. "Baz felt he'd failed you, but you failed us first, when you never came back. You couldn't expect us to keep up the illusion forever."

"Illusion?" said Miles. "I knew … it would be difficult, but I thought you might . . . grow into your roles. Make the mercenaries your own."

"The mercenaries may be enough for Tung. I thought they might be for me, too, till we came to the killing. … I hate Barrayar, but better to serve Barrayar than nothing, or your own ego."

"What does Oser serve?" Gregor asked curiously, brows raised at this mixed declamation about their homeworld.

"Oser serves Oser. 'The fleet,' he says, but the fleet serves Oser, so it's just a short circuit," said Elena. "The fleet is no home-country. No building, no children . . . sterile. I don't mind helping out the Aslunders, though, they need it. A poor planet, and scared."

"You and Baz—and Arde—could have left, gone off on your own," began Miles.

"How?" said Elena. "You gave us the Dendarii in charge. Baz was a deserter once. Never again."

All my fault, right, thought Miles. Great.

Elena turned to Gregor, who had acquired a strange guarded expression on his face while listening to her charges of abandonment "You still haven't said what you're doing here in the first place besides putting your feet in things. Was this supposed to be some son of secret diplomatic mission?"

"You explain it," said Miles to Gregor, trying not to grit his teeth. Tell her about the balcony, eh?

Gregor shrugged, eyes sliding aside from Elena's level look. "Like Baz, I deserted. Like Baz, I found it was not the improvement I'd hoped for."

"You can see why it's urgent to get Gregor back home as quickly as possible," Miles put in. "They think he's missing. Maybe kidnapped." Miles gave Elena a quick edited version of their chance meeting in Consortium Detention.

"God." Elena's lips pursed. "I see why it's urgent to you to get him off your hands, anyway. If anything happened to him in your company, fifteen factions would cry 'Treason plot!'"

"That thought has occurred to me, yes," growled Miles.

"Your father's Centrist coalition government would be the first thing to fall," Elena continued. "The military right would get behind Count Vorinnis, I suppose, and square off with the anti-centralization liberals. The French speakers would want Vorville, the Russian Vor-tugalov—or has he died yet?"

"The far-right blow-up-the-wormhole isolationist loonie faction would field Count Vortrifrani against the anti-Vor pro-galactic faction who want a written constitution," put in Miles glumly. "And I do mean field."

"Count Vortrifrani scares me," Elena shivered. "I've heard him speak."

"It's the suave way he mops the foam from his lips," said Miles. "The Greek minorists would seize the moment to attempt secession—"

"Stop it!" Gregor, who had propped his forehead on his hands, said from behind the barrier of his arms.

"I thought that was your job," said Elena tartly. At his bleak look, raising his head, she softened, her mouth twisting up. "Too bad I can't offer you a job with the fleet. We can always use formally-trained officers, to train the rest if nothing else."

"A mercenary?" said Gregor. "There's a thought. . . ."

"Oh, sure. A lot of our people are former regular military folk. Some are even legitimately discharged."

Fantasy lit Gregor's eye with brief amusement. He sighted down his grey-and-white jacket sleeve. "If only you were in charge here, aye, Miles?"

"No!" Miles cried in a suffused voice.

The light died. "It was a joke."

"Not funny." Miles breathed carefully, praying it would not occur to Gregor to make that an order. . . . "Anyway, we're now trying to make it to the Barrayaran Consul on Vervain Station. It's still there, I hope. I haven't heard news for days—what's going on with the Vervani?"

"As far as I know, it's business as usual, except for the heightened paranoia," said Elena. "Vervain's putting its resources into ships, not stations—"

"Makes sense, when you've got more than one wormlike to guard," Miles conceded.

"But it makes Aslund perceive the Vervani as potential aggressors. There's an Aslunder faction that's actually urging a first strike before the new Vervani fleet comes on-line. Fortunately, the defensive strategists have prevailed so far. Oser has set the price for a strike by us prohibitively high. He's not stupid. He knows the Aslunders couldn't back us up. Vervain hired a mercenary fleet as a stopgap too—in fact, that's what gave the Aslunders the idea to hire us. They're called Randall's Rangers, though I understand Randall is no more."

"We shall avoid them," Miles asserted fervently.

"I hear their new second officer is a Barrayaran. You might be able to swing some help, there."

Gregor's brows rose in speculation. "One of Illyan's plants? Sounds like his work."

Was that where Ungari had gone? "Approach with caution, anyway," Miles allowed.

"About time," Gregor commented under his breath.

"The Ranger's commander's name is Cavilo—"

"What?" yelped Miles.

Elena's winged brows rose. "Just Cavilo. Nobody seems to know if it's the given or surname—"

"Cavilo is the person who tried to buy me—or Victor Rotha—at the Consortium Station. For twenty thousand Betan dollars."

Elena's brows stayed up. "Why?"

"I don't know why." Miles rethought their goal. Pol, the Censortium, Aslund . . . no, it still came up Vervain. "But we definitely avoid the Vervani's meres. We step off the ship and go straight to the Consul, go to ground, and don't even squeak till Illyan's men arrive to take us home, Momma. Right."

Gregor sighed. "Right."

No more playing secret agent. His best efforts had only served to get Gregor nearly murdered. It was time to try less hard, Miles decided.

"Strange," said Gregor, looking at Elena—at the new Elena, guessed—"to think you've had more combat experience than either of us."

"Than both of you," Elena corrected dryly. "Yes, well . . . actual combat … is a lot stupider than I'd imagined. If two groups can cooperate to the incredible extent it takes to meet in battle, why not put in a tenth that effort to talk? That's not true of guerilla wars, though," Elena went on thoughtfully. "A guerilla is an enemy who won't play the game. Makes more sense to me. If you're going to be vile, why not be totally vile? That third contract—if I ever get involved in another guerilla war, I want to be on the side of the guerillas."

"Harder to make peace, between totally vile enemies," Miles reflected. "War is not its own end, except in some catastrophic slide into absolute damnation. It's peace that's wanted. Some better peace than the one you started with."

"Whoever can be the most vile longest, wins?" Gregor posited. "Not . . . historically true, I don't think. If what you do during the war so degrades you that the next peace is worse. . . ." Human noises from the cargo bay froze Miles in midsentence, but it was Tung and Mayhew returning.

"Come on," Tung urged. "If Arde doesn't keep to schedule, he'll draw attention."

They filed into the cargo hold, where Mayhew held the control leash of a float pallet with a couple of plastic packing crates attached. "Your friend can pass as a fleet soldier," Tung told Miles. "For you, I found a box. It would have been classier to roll you up in a carpet, but since the freighter captain is male, I'm afraid the historical reference would be wasted."

Dubiously, Miles regarded the box. It seemed to lack air holes. "Where are you taking me?"

"We have a regular irregular arrangement, for getting fleet intelligence officers in and out quietly. Got this inner-system freighter captain, an independent owner—he's Vervani, but he's been on the payroll three times before. He'll take you across, get you through Vervani customs. After that you're on your own."

"How much danger is this arrangement to you all?" Miles worried.

"Not a lot," said Tung, "all things considered. He'll think he's delivering more mercenary agents, for a price, and naturally keep his mouth shut. It'll be days before he gets back to even be questioned. I arranged it all myself, Elena and Arde didn't appear, so he can't give them away."

"Thank you," Miles said quietly.

Tung nodded, and sighed. "If only you'd stayed on with us. What a soldier I could've made of you, these last three years."

"If you do find yourselves out of a job as a consequence of helping us," Gregor added, "Elena will know how to put you in touch."

Tung grimaced. "In touch with what, eh?"

"Better not to know," said Elena, helping Miles position himself in the packing crate.

"All right," grumbled Tung, "but … all right."

Miles found himself face to face with Elena, for the last time till-when? She hugged him, but then gave Gregor an identical, sisterly embrace. "Give my love to your mother," she told Miles. "I often think of her."

"Right. Uh . . . give my best to Baz. Tell him, it's all right. Your personal safety comes first, yours and his. The Dendarii are, are, were . . ." he could not quite bring himself to say, not important, or, a naive dream, or, an illusion, though that last came closest. "A good try," he finished lamely.

The look she gave him was cool, edged, indecipherable—no, readily decodable, he feared. Idiot, or stronger words to that effect. He sat down, his head to his knees, and let Mayhew affix the lid, feeling like a zoological specimen being crated for shipment to the lab.

The transfer went smoothly. Miles and Gregor found themselves installed in a small but decent cabin designed for the freighter's occasional super-cargo. The ship undocked, free of Aslund Station and danger of discovery, some three hours after they boarded. No Oseran search parties, no uproars . . . Tung, Miles had to admit, still did good work.

Miles was intensely grateful for a wash, a chance to clean his remaining clothes, a real meal, and sleep in safety. The ship's tiny crew seemed allergic to their corridor; he and Gregor were left strictly alone. Safe for three days, as he chugged across the Hegen Hub yet again, in yet another identity. Next stop, the Barrayaran consulate of Vervain Station.

Oh, God, he was going to have to write a report on all this when they got there. True confessions, in the approved ImpSec official style (dry as dust, judging from samples he'd read). Ungari, now, given the same tour, would have produced columns of concrete, objective, data, all ready to be reanalyzed six different ways. What had Miles counted? Nothing, I was in a box. He had little to offer but gut feel based on a limited view snatched while dodging what seemed every security goon in the system. Maybe he should center his report on the security forces, eh? One ensign's opinion. The general staff would be so impressed.

So what was his opinion, by now? Well, Pol didn't seem to be the source of the troubles in the Hegen Hub; they were reacting, not acting. The Consortium seemed supremely uninterested in military adventures, the only party weak enough for the eclectic Jacksonians to take on and beat was Aslund, and there would be little profit in conquering Aslund, a barely terraformed agricultural world. Aslund was paranoid enough to be dangerous, but only half-prepared, and shielded by a mercenary force waiting only the right spark to itself split into warring factions. No sustained threat there. The action, the energy for this destabilization, by elimination must be coming from or via Vervain. How could one find out . . . no. He'd sworn off secret agenting. Vervain was somebody else's problem.

Miles wondered wanly if he could persuade Gregor to give him an Imperial pardon from writing a report, and if Illyan would accept it. Probably not.

Gregor was very quiet. Miles, stretched out on his bunk, tucked his hands behind his head and smiled to conceal worry, as Gregor– somewhat regretfully, it seemed to Miles—put aside his stolen Dendarii uniform and donned civilian clothes contributed by Arde Mayhew. The shabby trousers, shirt, and jacket hung a little short and loose on Gregor's spare frame; so dressed he seemed a down-on-his-luck drifter, with hollow eyes. Miles secretly resolved to keep him away from high places.

Gregor regarded him back. "You were weird, as Admiral Naismith, you know? Almost like a different person."

Miles shrugged himself up onto one elbow. "I guess Naismith is me with no brakes. No constraints. He doesn't have to be a good little Vor, or any kind of a Vor. He doesn't have a problem with subordination, he isn't subordinate to anyone."

"I noticed." Gregor ordered the Dendarii uniform in Barrayaran regulation folds. "Do you regret having to duck out on the Dendarii?"

"Yes … no … I don't know." Deeply. The chain of command, it seemed, pulled both ways on a middle link. Pull hard enough, and that link must twist and snap. … "I trust you don't regret escaping contract slavery."

"No … it wasn't what I'd pictured. It was peculiar, that fight at the airlock, though. Total strangers wanting to kill me without even who I was. Total strangers trying to kill the emperor of Barrayar, I can understand. This . . . I'm going to have to think about this one."

Miles allowed himself a brief crooked grin. "Like being loved for yourself, only different."

Gregor gave him a sharp glance. "It was strange to see Elena again, too. Bothari's dutiful daughter . . . she's changed."

"I'd meant her to," Miles avowed.

"She seems quite attached to her deserter husband."

"Yes," Miles said shortly.

"Had you meant that too?"

"Not mine to choose. lt . . . follows logically, from the integrity of her character. I might have foreseen it. Since her convictions about loyalty just saved both our lives, I can hardly . . . hardly regret them, eh?"

Gregor's brow rose, an oblique gloss.

Miles bit down irritation. "Anyway, I hope she'll be all right. Oser's proved himself dangerous. She and Baz seem to be protected only by Tung's admittedly eroding power base."

"I'm surprised you didn't take up Tung's offer." Gregor grinned as briefly as Miles had. "Instant admiralty. Skip all those tedious Barrayaran intervening steps."

"Tung's offer?" Miles snorted. "Didn't you hear him? I thought you said Dad made you read all those treaties. Tung didn't offer command, he offered a fight, at five to one odds against. He sought an ally, front-man, or cannon-fodder, not a boss."

"Oh. Hm." Gregor settled back on his bunk. "That's so. Yet I still wonder if you'd have chosen something other than this prudent retreat if I hadn't been along." His lids were hooded over a sharp glance.

Miles choked on visions. A sufficiently liberal interpretation of Illyan's vague "use Ensign Vorkosigan to clear the Dendarii Mercenaries from the Hub" might be stretched to include . . . no. "No. If I hadn't run into you, I'd be on my way to Escobar with Sergeant-nanny Overholt. You, I suppose, would still be installing lights." Depending, of course, on what the mysterious Cavilo—Commander Cavilo?—had planned for Miles once he'd caught up with him at Consortium Detention.

So where was Overholt, by now? Had he reported to HQ, tried to contact Ungari, been picked off by Cavilo? Or followed Miles? Too bad Miles couldn't have followed Overholt to Ungari—no, that was circular reasoning. It was all very weird, and they were well out of it.

"We're well out of it," Miles opined to Gregor.

Gregor rubbed the pale grey mark on his face, fading shadow of his shock-stick encounter. "Yeah, probably. I was getting good at the lights, though."

Almost over, Miles thought as he and Gregor followed the freighter captain through the hatch tube into the Vervain Station docking bay. Well, maybe not quite. The Vervani captain was nervous, obsequious, clearly tense. Still, if the man had managed this spy transfer three times before, he should know what he was doing by now.

The docking bay with its harsh lighting was the usual chilly echoing cavern, arranged to the rigid grid-pattern taste of robots, not human curves. It was in fact empty of humans, its machinery silent. Their path had been cleared before them, Miles supposed, though if he'd been doing it he'd have picked the busiest chaotic period of loading or unloading to slip something past.

The captain's eyes darted from corner to corner. Miles could not help following his glance. They stopped near a deserted control booth.

"We wait here," the freighter captain said. "There are some men coming who will take you the rest of the way." He leaned against the booth wall and kicked it gently with one heel in an idle compulsive rhythm for several minutes, then he stopped kicking and straightened, head turning.

Footsteps. Half a dozen men emerged from a nearby corridor. Miles stiffened. Uniformed men, with an officer, judging by their posture, but they weren't wearing the garb of either Vervani civil or military security. Unfamiliar short-sleeved tan fatigues with black tabs and trim, and short black boots. They carried stunners, drawn and ready. But if it walks like an arrest squad, and talks like an arrest squad, and quacks like an arrest squad . . .

"Miles," muttered Gregor doubtfully, talking in the same cues, "is this in the script?" The stunners were pointed their way, now.

"He's pulled this off three times," Miles offered in unfelt reassurance. "Why not a fourth?"

The freighter captain smiled thinly, and stepped away from the Wall, out of the line of fire. "I pulled it off twice," he informed them. "The third time, I got caught."

Miles's hands twitched. He held them carefully away from his sides, biting back swear words. Slowly, Gregor raised his hands as well, face wonderfully blank. Score one for Gregor's self-control, as always, the one virtue his constrained life had surely inculcated.

Tung had set this up. All by himself. Had Tung known? Sold by Tung? No . . . ! "Tung said you were reliable," Miles grated to the freighter captain.

"What's Tung to me?" the man snarled back. "I have a family, mister."

Under the stunners' aim, two—God, goons again!—soldiers stepped forward to lean Miles and Gregor hands to the wall, and shake them down, relieving them of all their hard-won Oseran weapons, equipment, and multiple IDs. The officer examined the cache. "Yeah, these are Oser's men, all right." He spoke into his wrist comm.

"We have them."

"Carry on," a thin voice returned. "We'll be right down. Cavilo out."

Randall's Rangers, evidently, hence the unfamiliar uniforms. But why no Vervani in sight? "Pardon me," Miles said mildly to the officer, "but are you people acting under the misapprehension we are Aslunder agents?"

The officer stared down at him and snorted. "I wonder if it might not be time to establish our real identity," Gregor murmured tentatively to Miles.

"Interesting dilemma," Miles returned out of the corner of his mouth. "We better find out if they shoot spies."

A brisk tapping of boots heralded a new arrival. The squad braced as the sound rounded the corner. Gregor came to attention too, in automatic military courtesy, his straightness looking very strange hung about with Arde Mayhew's clothes. Miles no doubt looked least military of all, with his mouth gaping open in shock. He closed it before something flew in, such as his foot.

Five feet tall and a bit added by black books with higher-than-regulation heels. Cropped blonde hair like a dandelion aureole on that sculptured head. Crisp tan-and-black rank-gilded uniform that fit her body language in perfect complement. Livia Nu. The officer saluted. "Commander Cavilo, ma'am."

"Very good, Lieutenant. . . ." her blue eyes, falling on Miles, widened in unfeigned surprise, instantly covered. "Why, Victor, dahling," her voice went syrupy with exaggerated amusement and delight, "fancy meeting you here. Still selling miracle suits to the unwitting?"

Miles spread his empty hands. "This is the totality of me, ma'am. You should have bought when you could."

"I wonder." Her smile was tight and speculative. Miles found glitter in her eyes disturbing. Gregor, silent, looked frantically bewildered.

So, your name wasn't Livia Nu, and you weren't a procurement agent. So why the devil was the commandant of Vervain's mercenary force meeting incognito on Pol Station with a representative of the most powerful House of the Jacksonian Consortium? That was no mere arms deal, darling.

Cavilo/Livia Nu raised her wrist comm to her lips. "Sickbay, Kurin 's Hand. Cavilo here. I'm sending you up a couple of prisoners for questioning. I may sit in on this one myself." She keyed off.

The freighter captain stepped forward, half-fearful, half-pugnacious. "My wife and son. Now you prove they're safe."

Judiciously, she looked him over. "You may be good for another run. All right." She gestured to a soldier. "Take this man to the Kurin's brig and let him have a look on the monitors. Then bring him back to me. You're a fortunate traitor, captain. I have another job for you by which you may earn them—"

"Their freedom?" the freighter captain demanded. She frowned slightly at the interruption. "Why should I inflate your salary? Another week of life."

He trailed off after the soldier, hands clenched angrily, teeth clenched prudently.

What the hell? Miles thought. He didn't know much about Vervain, but he was pretty sure not even their martial law made provisions for holding innocent relatives hostage against the good behavior of unconvicted traitors.

The freighter captain gone, Cavilo keyed her wristcom again. "Kurin's Hand Security? Ah, good. I'm sending you my pet double agent. Run the recording we made last week of Cell Six for his motivation, aye? Don't let him know it's not real-time . . . right. Cavilo out."

So, was the man's family free? Already dead? Being held elsewhere? What were they getting into here?

More boots rounded the corner, a heavy regulation tread. Cavilo smiled sourly, but smoothed the expression into something sweeter as she turned to greet the newcomer.

"Stanis, darling. Look what we netted this time. It's that little renegade Betan who was trying to deal stolen arms on Pol Station. It appears he isn't an independent after all." The tan and black Rangers' uniform looked just fine on General, too, Miles noted crazily. Now would be a wonderful time to roll up his eyes and pass out, if only he had the trick of it. General Metzov stood equally riveted, his iron-grey eyes ablaze sudden unholy joy. "He's no Betan, Cavie."