The Warrior`s Apprentice

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Miles's first tour of his new domain was rapid and exhausting. The Triumph was about the only encouraging part of it. Bothari lingered to go over the arrangements for keeping the horde of new prisoners secure with the overworked patrol assigned to that detail. Never had Miles seen a man wish more passionately to be twins; he half-expected Bothari to go into mitosis on the spot. The Sergeant grudgingly left Elena to be Miles's substitute bodyguard. Once out of sight, Miles instead put Elena to work as a real executive officer, taking notes. He did not trust even his own quick memory with the mass of new detail.

A combined sickbay had been set up in the refinery's infirmary, as the largest facility. The air was dry and cold and stale, like all recycled air, sweet with scented antiseptics overlaying a faint tang compounded of sweat, excrement, burnt meat, and fear. All medical personnel were drafted from the new prisoners, to treat their own wounded, requiring yet a couple more of Miles's thinlyspread troops as guards. They in turn were sucked in by the needs of the moment as assistant corpsmen. Miles watched Tung's efficient surgeon and staff at work, and let this pass, limiting himself to a quiet reminder to the guards of their primary duty. So long as Tung's medicos stayed busy it was probably safe.

Miles was unnerved by the catatonic Colonel Benar, and the two other Felician military officers who lay listlessly, barely responding to their rescue. Such little wounds, he thought, observing the slight chafing at wrists and ankles, and tiny discolorations under their skins marking hypospray injection points. By such little wounds we kill men … The murdered pilot officer's ghost, perched on his shoulder like a pet crow, stirred and ruffled itself in silent witness.

Auson's medtech borrowed Tung's surgeon for the delicate placement of plastiskin that was to serve Elli Quinn for a face until she could be sent—how? when?—to some medical facility with proper regenerative biotech.

"You don't have to watch this," Miles murmured to Elena, as he stood discreetly by to observe the procedure.

Elena shook her head. "I want to."

"Why?"

"Why do you?"

"I've never seen it. Anyway, it was my bill she paid. It's my duty, as her commander."

"Well, then, it's mine, too. I worked with her all week."

The medtech unwrapped the temporary dressings. Skin, nose, ears, lips gone. Subcutaneous fat boiled away. Eyes glazed white and burst, scalp burned off—she tried to speak, a clotted mumble. Miles reminded himself that her pain nerves had been blocked. He turned his back abruptly, hand sneaking to his lips, and swallowed hard.

"I guess we don't have to stay. We're not really contributing anything." He glanced up at Elena's profile, which was pale but steady. "How long are you going to watch?" he whispered. And silently, to himself, for God's sake, it might have been you, Elena …

"Until they're done," she murmured back. "Until I don't feel her pain anymore when I look. Until I'm hardened—like a real soldier—like my father. If I can block it from a friend, certainly I ought to be able to block it from the enemy—"

Miles shook his head in instinctive negation. "Look, can we continue this in the corridor?"

She frowned, but then took in his face, pursed her lips, and followed him without further argument. In the corridor he leaned against the wall, swallowing saliva and breathing deeply.

"Should I fetch a basin?"

"No. I'll be all right in a minute." I hope … The minute passed without his disgracing himself. "Women shouldn't be in combat," he managed finally.

"Why not?" said Elena. "Why is that," she jerked her head toward the infirmary, "any more horrible for a woman than a man?"

"I don't know," Miles groped. "Your father once said that if a woman puts on a uniform she's asking for it, and you should never hesitate to fire—odd streak of egalitarianism, coming from him. But all my instincts are to throw my cloak across her puddle or something, not blow her head off. It throws me off."

"The honor goes with the risk," argued Elena. "Deny the risk and you deny the honor. I always thought you were the one Barrayaran male I knew who'd allow that a woman might have an honor that wasn't parked between her legs."

Miles floundered. "A soldier's honor is to do his patriotic duty, sure—"

"Or hers!"

"Or hers, all right—but all this isn't serving the Emperor! We're here for Tav Calhoun's ten percent profit margin. Or anyway, we were . . ."

He gathered himself, to continue his tour, then paused. "What you said in there—about hardening yourself—"

She raised her chin. "Yes?"

"My mother was a real soldier, too. And I don't think she ever failed to feel another's pain. Not even her enemy's."

They were both silent for long after that.

The officers' meeting to plan for the counterattack was not so difficult as Miles had feared. They took over a conference chamber that had belonged to the refinery's senior management; the breathtaking panorama out the plexiports swept the entire installation. Miles growled, and sat with his back to it.

He quickly slid into the role of referee, controlling the flow of ideas while concealing his own dearth of hard factual information. He folded his arms, and said "Um," and "Hm," but only very occasionally "God help us," because it caused Elena to choke. Thorne and Auson, Daum and Jesek, and the three freed Felician junior officers who had not been brain-drained did the rest, although Miles found he had to steer them gently away from ideas too much like those just demonstrated not to work for the Pelians.

"It would help a great deal, Major Daum, if you could reach your command," Miles wound up the session, thinking, How can you have misplaced an entire country, for God's sake? "As a last resort, perhaps a volunteer in one of those station shuttles could sneak on down to the planet and tell them we're here, eh?"

"We'll keep trying, sir," Daum promised.

Some enthusiastic soul had found quarters for Miles in the most luxurious section of the refinery, previously reserved, like the elegant conference chamber, for senior management. Unfortunately, the housekeeping services had been rather interrupted in the past few weeks. Miles picked his way among personal artifacts from the last Pelian to camp in the executive suite, overlaying yet another strata from the Felician he had evicted in his turn. Strewn clothing, empty ration wrappings, data discs, half-empty bottles, all well stirred by the flipflops in the artificial gravity during the attack. The data discs, when examined, proved all light entertainment. No secret documents, no brilliant intelligence coups. .

Miles could have sworn the variegated fuzzy patches growing on the bathroom walls moved, when he was not looking directly at them. Perhaps it was an effect of fatigue. He was careful not to touch them when he showered. He set the lights to maximum UV when he was done, and sealed the door, reminding himself sternly that he had not demanded the Sergeant's nocturnal company on the grounds that there were Things in his closet since he was four. Aching for sleep, he crawled into clean underwear brought with him.

Bed was a null-gee bubble, warmed womb-like by infra-red. Null-gee sex, Miles had heard, was one of the high points of space travel. He'd never had a chance to try it, personally. Ten minutes of attempting to relax in the bubble convinced him he never would, either, although when heated the smells and stains that permeated the chamber suggested that a minimum of three people had tried it there before him recently. He crawled out nastily and sat on the floor until his stomach stopped trying to turn itself inside out. So much for the spoils of victory.

There was a splendid view out the plexiports of the RG 132's corrugated, gaping hull. Occasionally stress would release in some tortured flake of metal, and it would snap off spontaneously to stir the smattering of other wrinkled bits, clinging to the ship like dandruff. Miles stared at it for a time, then decided to go see if Sergeant Bothari still had that flask of scotch.

The corridor outside his executive suite ended in an observation deck, a crystal and chrome shell arched by the sweep of hard-edged stars in their powdered millions. Furthermore, it faced away from the refinery. Attracted, Miles wandered toward it.

Elena's voice, raised in a wordless cry, shot him out of somnolence into an adrenalin rush. It came from the observation deck; Miles broke into his uneven run.

He swarmed up the catwalk and spun one-handed around a gleaming upright. The dimmed observation deck was upholstered in royal-blue velvet that glowed in the starlight. Liquid-filled settees and benches in odd curving shapes seemed to invite the indolent recliner. Baz Jesek was spread-eagled backward over one, with Sergeant Bothari atop him.

The Sergeant's knees ground into the engineer's stomach and groin, and the great hands knotted about Baz's neck, twisting. Baz's face was maroon, his frantic words strangled inchoate. Elena, her tunic undone, galloped around the pair, hands clenching and unclenching in despair of daring to physically oppose Bothari. "No, Father! No!" she cried.

Had Bothari caught the engineer trying to attack her? Hot jealous rage shook Miles, dashed immediately by cold reason. Elena, of all women, was capable of defending herself; the Sergeant's paranoias had seen to that. His jealousy went ice green. He could let Bothari kill Baz …

Elena saw him. "Miles—my lord! Stop him!"

Miles approached them. "Get off him, Sergeant," he ordered. Bothari, his face yellow with rage, glanced sideways, then back to his victim. His hands did not slacken.

Miles knelt and laid his hand lightly on the corded muscles of Bothari's arm. He had the sick feeling it was the most dangerous thing he had done in his life. He dropped his voice to a whisper. "Must I give my orders twice, Armsman?"

Bothari ignored him.

Miles closed his hands tightly around the Sergeant's wrist.

"You don't have the strength to break my grip," Bothari snarled out of the corner of his mouth.

"I have the strength to break my own fingers trying," Miles murmured back, and threw all his weight into his pull. His fingernails went white. In a moment, his brittle joints would start to snap …

The Sergeant's eyes squeezed shut, his breath hissing in and out past his stained teeth. Then, with an oath, he sprang off Baz and shook free of Miles. He turned his back, chest heaving, blind eyes lost in infinity.

Baz writhed off the bench and fell to the carpet with a thump. He gulped air in a hoarse liquid choke, and spat up blood. Elena ran to him and cradled his head in her lap, heedless of the mess.

Miles staggered up and stood, catching his breath. "All right," he said at last, "What's going on here?"

Baz tried to speak, but it came out a gurgling bark. Elena was crying, no help there. "Damn it, Sergeant—"

"Caught her nuzzling that coward," Bothari growled, still with his back to them.

"He is not a coward!" Elena yelled. "He's as good a soldier as you. He saved my life today—" she turned to Miles. "Surely you saw it, my lord, on your monitors. There was an Oseran with a servo-aim locked on me—I thought it was all over—Baz shot him with his plasma arc. Tell him!"

She was talking about the Oseran he had slain with his own medkit, Miles realized. Baz had cooked a corpse, unknowing. I saved you, Miles cried inwardly. It was me, it was me … "That's right Sergeant," he heard himself saying. "You owe her life to your brother Armsman."

"That one is no brother to me."

"By my word, I say he is!"

"It's not proper—it's not right—I have to make it right. It has to be perfect—" Bothari swung around, narrow jaw working. In his life, Miles had never seen Bothari more agitated. I've put too much strain on him lately, he thought remorsefully. Too much, too fast, too out-of-control …

Baz croaked out words. "No … dishonor!" Elena hushed him, and lurched to her feet to face Bothari, fiercely.

"You and your military honor! Well, I've faced fire, and I've killed a man, and it was nothing but butchery. Any robot could have done it. There was nothing to it. It's all a sham, a hoax, a lie, a big put-on. Your uniform doesn't awe me any more, do you hear?"

Bothari's face was dark and rigid. Miles made shushing motions at Elena. He'd no objection to growing independence of spirit, but God in heaven, her timing was terrible. Couldn't she see it? No, she was too tangled up in her own pain and shame, and the new ghost clinging to her shoulder. She had not mentioned that she'd killed a man, earlier; but, Miles knew, there were reasons one might choose not to.

He needed Baz, he needed Bothari, he needed Elena, and he needed them all working together to get them home alive. Not, then, what he ached to cry out of his own anguish and anger, but what they needed to hear.

The first thing Elena and Bothari needed was to be parted until tempers cooled, lest they tear out each other's hearts. As for Baz—"Elena," said Miles, "Help Baz to the infirmary. See that the medtech checks him for internal injuries."

"Yes, my lord," she replied, emphasizing the official nature of the order with his title, for Bothari's benefit, presumably. She levered Baz to his feet, and pulled his arm across her shoulders, with an awkward venomous glower at her father. Bothari's hands twitched, but he said nothing and made no move.

Miles escorted them down the catwalk. Baz's breathing was growing slightly more regular, he saw with relief. "I think I'd better stay with the Sergeant," he murmured to Elena. "You two going to make it all right?"

"Thanks to you," said Elena. "I tried to stop him, but I was afraid. I couldn't do it." She blinked back last tears.

"Better this way. Everybody's edgy, too tired. Him too, you know." He almost asked her for a definition of "nuzzling", but stopped himself. She bore Baz off with tender murmurs that drove Miles wild.

He bit back his frustration and mounted again to the observation deck. Bothari still stood, grievously blank and inward. Miles sighed.

"You still have that scotch, Sergeant?"

Bothari started from his reverie, and felt his hip pocket. He handed the flask silently to Miles, who gestured at the benches. They both sat. The Sergeant's hands dangled between his knees, his head lowered.

Miles took a swallow, and handed the flask over. "Drink."

Bothari shook his head, but then took it and did so. After a time he muttered, "You never called me 'Armsman' before."

"I was trying to get your attention. My apologies."

Silence, and another swig. "It's the right title."

"Why were you trying to kill him? You know how badly we need techs."

A long pause. "He's not a right one. Not for her. Deserter …"

"He wasn't trying to rape her." It was a statement.

"No," lowly. "No, I suppose not. You never know."

Miles gazed around the crystal chamber, gorgeous in the sparked darkness. Superb spot for a nuzzle, and more. But those long white hands were down at the infirmary, probably laying cold compresses or something on Baz's brow. While he sat here getting drunk with the ugliest man in the system. What a waste.

The flask went back and forth again. "You never know," Bothari reiterated. "And she must have everything right, and proper. You see that, don't you, my lord? Don't you see it?"

"Of course. But please don't murder my engineer. I need him. All right?"

"Damn techs. Always coddled."

Miles let this pass, as an Old Service reflex complaint. Bothari had always seemed part of his grandfather's generation, somehow, although in fact he was a couple of years younger than Miles's father. Miles relaxed slightly, at this sign of a return to Bothari's normal—well, usual—state of mind. Bothari slipped into a reclining position on the carpet, shoulders against the settee.

"My lord," he added after a time. "You'd see to it, if I were killed—that she was taken care of, right. The dowry. And an officer, a fit officer. And a real go-between, a proper baba, to make the arrangements …"

Antique dream, thought Miles hazily. "I'm her leigelord, by right of your service," he pointed out gently. "It would be my duty." If I could only turn that duty to my own dreams.

"Some don't pay much attention to their duty any more," Bothari muttered. "But a Vorkosigan—Vorkosigans never fail."

"Damn right," Miles mumbled.

"Mm," said Bothari, and slid down a little farther.

After a long silence, Bothari spoke again. "If I were killed, you wouldn't leave me out there, would you, my lord?"

"Huh?" Miles tore his attention from trying to make new constellations. He had just connected the dots into a figure dubbed, mentally, Cavalryman.

"They leave bodies in space sometimes. Cold as hell … God can't find them out there. No one could."

Miles blinked. He had never known the Sergeant concealed a theological streak. "Look, what's all this all of a sudden about getting killed? You're not going to—"

"The Count your father promised me," Bothari raised his voice slightly to override him, "I'd be buried at your lady mother's feet, at Vorkosigan Surleau. He promised. Didn't he tell you?"

"Er … The subject never came up."

"His word as Vorkosigan. Your word."

"Uh, right, then." Miles stared out the chamber's transparency. Some saw stars, it seemed, and some saw the spaces between them. Cold … "You planning on heaven, Sergeant?"

"As my lady's dog. Blood washes away sin. She swore it to me …" He trailed off, gaze never leaving the depths. Presently, the flask slipped from his fingers, and he began to snore. Miles sat cross-legged, watching over him, a small figure in his underwear against the black immensity, and very far from home.

Fortunately, Baz recovered quickly, and was back on the job the next day with the aid of a neck brace to ease his lacerated cervicals. His behavior to Elena was painfully circumspect whenever Miles was around, offering no further spur to his jealousy; but of course, where Miles was there also was Bothari, which perhaps accounted for it.

Miles began by flinging all their meager resources into getting the Triumph operational, overtly to fight the Pelians. Privately, he figured it was the only thing around big enough and fast enough for them to all pile into and successfully run like hell. Tung had two jump pilots; one of them at least might be persuaded to jump them out of Tau Verde local space altogether. Miles contemplated the consequences of turning up back at Beta Colony in a stolen warship with a kidnapped pilot officer, twenty or so unemployed mercenaries, a herd of bewildered refugee technicians, and no money for Tav Calhoun—or even for Betan shuttleport landing fees. The blanket of his Class III diplomatic immunity seemed to shrink to a bare fig leaf.

Miles's attempt to throw himself into the placement and powering up of a selection of weapons from the RG 132's hold alongside the technicians was constantly interrupted by people wanting directions, or orders, or organization, or, most frequently, authorization to seize some piece of refinery equipment or resource or leftover military supplies for me work at hand. Miles blithely authorized anything put in front of him, earning a reputation for brilliant decisiveness. His signature—"Naismith"—was developing into a nicely illegible flourish. The personnel shortage was not, unfortunately, amenable to like treatment. Double shifts that became triple shifts tended to end in loss of efficiency from exhaustion. Miles took a stab at another approach.

Two bottles of Felician wine, quality unknown. A bottle of Tau Cetan liqueur, pale orange, not green, fortunately. Two nylon and plastic folding camp stools, a small and flimsy plastic table. A half-dozen silvery strippacks of Felician delicacies—Miles hoped they were delicacies—exact composition mysterious. The last gleanings of non-rotted fresh fruit from the refinery's damaged hydroponics section. It ought to be enough. Miles loaded Bothari's arms with the looted picnic, gathered up the overflow, and marched off toward the prison section.

Mayhew raised an eyebrow as they passed him in a corridor. "Where are you going with all that?"

"Courting, Arde," Miles grinned. "Courting."

The Pelians had left a makeshift brig, a storage area hastily vented, plumbed, and partitioned into a series of tiny, bleak metal boxes. Miles would have felt more guilty about locking human beings in them if it had not been a case of turn-about.

They surprised Captain Tung hanging by one hand from the overhead light fixture and working, as yet vainly, on levering its cover apart with a flattened snap torn from his uniform jacket.

"Good afternoon, Captain," Miles addressed the dangling ankles with sunny good cheer. Tung scowled down upon him, estimation in his eyes; measured Bothari, found the sum of the calculation not in his favor, and dropped to the floor with a grunt. The guard locked the door again behind them.

"What were you going to do with it if you got it apart?" Miles asked curiously, looking up.

Tung swore at him, like a man spitting, then clamped into recalcitrant silence. Bothari set up the table and stools, dumped out the groceries, and leaned against the wall by the door, skeptical. Miles sat down and opened a bottle of wine. Tung remained standing.

"Do join me, Captain," Miles invited cordially. "I know you haven't had supper yet. I was hoping we might have a little chat."

"I am Ky Tung, Captain, Oseran Free Mercenary Fleet. I am a citizen of the People's Democracy of Greater South America, Earth; my social duty number is T275389-42-1535-1742. This 'chat' is over." Tung's lips flattened together in a granite slit.

"This is not an interrogation," Miles amplified, "which would be far more efficiently conducted by the medical staff anyway. See, I'll even give you some information." He rose, and bowed formally. "Permit me to introduce myself. My name is Miles Naismith." He gestured at the other stool. "Do, please, sit down. I spend enough time with a crick in my neck."

Tung hesitated, but finally sat, compromising by making it on the edge of his seat.

Miles poured wine, and took a sip. He groped for one of his grandfather's wine connoisseur phrases as a conversation opener, but the only one that sprang to his memory was "thin as piss", which didn't seem exactly inviting. He wiped the lip of the plastic cup on his sleeve, instead, and pushed it toward Tung. "Observe. No poison, no drugs."

Tung folded his arms. "The oldest trick in the book. You take the antidote before you come in."

"Oh," said Miles. "Yes, I suppose I could have done that." He shook a packet of rather rubbery protein cubes out between them, and eyed them almost as dubiously as Tung did. "Ah. Meat." He popped one in his mouth and chewed industriously. "Go ahead, ask me anything," he added around a mouthful.

Tung struggled with his resolve, then blurted, "My troops. How are they?"

Miles promptly detailed a list, by full name, of the dead, and of the wounded and their current medical status. "The rest are under lock and key, as you are; excuse me from mapping their exact locations for you—just in case you can do more with that light than I think you can."

Tung sighed sadness and relief, and absently helped himself to a protein cube.

"Sorry things got so messy," Miles apologized. "I realize how it must burn you to have your opponent blunder to victory. I'd have preferred something neater and more tactical myself, like Komarr, but I had to take the situation as I found it."

Tung snorted. "Who wouldn't? Who do you think you are? Lord Vorkosigan?"

Miles inhaled a lungful of wine. Bothari abandoned the wall to pound him, not very helpfully, on the back, and glare suspiciously at Tung. But by the time Miles had regained his breath he had regained his balance. He mopped his lips.

"I see. You mean Admiral Aral Vorkosigan of Barrayar. You, ah, confused me a bit—he's Count Vorkosigan, now."

"Oh, yeah? Still alive, is he?" remarked Tung, interested.

"Very much so."

"Have you ever read his book on Komarr?"

"Book? Oh, the Komarr report. Yes, I'd heard it had been picked up by a couple of military schools, offplanet—off Barrayar, that is."

"I've read it eleven times," Tung said proudly. "Most succinct military memoir I've ever seen. The most complex strategy laid out logically as a wiring diagram—politics, economics, and all—I swear the man's mind must operate in five dimensions. And yet I find most people haven't heard of it. It should be required reading—I test all my junior officers on it."

"Well, I've heard him say that war is the failure of politics—I guess they've always been a part of his strategic thinking."

Sure, when you get to that level—" Tung's ears pricked. "Heard? I didn't think he'd done any interviews—do you happen to remember where and when you saw it? Can copies be had?"

"Ah …" Miles trod a thin line. "It was a personal conversation."

"You've met him?"

Miles had the unnerving sensation of suddenly acquiring half a meter of height in Tung's eyes. "Well, yes," he admitted cautiously.

"Do you know—has he written anything like the Komarr Report about the Escobar invasion?" Tung asked eagerly. "I've always felt it should be a companion volume—defensive strategy next to offensive—get the other half of his thinking. Like Sri Simka's two volumes on Walshea and Skya IV."

Miles placed Tung at last; a military history nut. He knew the type very, very well. He suppressed an exhilarated grin.

"I don't think so. Escobar was a defeat, after all. He never talks about it much—I understand. Maybe a touch of vanity there."

"Mm," allowed Tung. "It was an amazing book, though. Everything that seemed so totally chaotic at the time revealed this complete inner skeleton—of course, it always seems chaotic when you're losing."

It was Miles's turn to prick his ears. "At the time? Were you at Komarr?"

"Yes, I was a junior lieutenant in the Selby Fleet, that Komarr hired—what an experience. Twenty-three years ago, now. Seemed like every natural weak point in mercenary-employer relations got blown up in our faces—and that was before the first shot was even fired. Vorkosigan's intelligence pathfinders at work, we learned later."

Miles made encouraging noises, and proceeded to pump this unexpected spring of reminiscence for all it was worth. Pieces of fruit became planets and satellites; variously shaped protein bits became cruisers, couriers, smart bombs and troop carriers. Defeated ships were eaten. The second bottle of wine introduced other well known mercenary battles. Miles frankly hung on Tung's words, self-consciousness forgotten.

Tung leaned back at last with a contented sigh, full of food and wine and emptied of stories. Miles, knowing his own capacity, had been nursing his own wine to the limits of politeness. He swirled the last of it around in the bottom of his cup, and essayed a cautious probe.

"It seems a great waste for an officer of your experience to sit out a good war like this, locked in a box."

Tung smiled. "I have no intention of staying in this box."

"Ah—yes. But there may be more than one way to get out of it, don't you see. Now, the Dendarii Mercenaries are an expanding organization. There's a lot of room for talent at the top."

Tung's smiled soured. "You took my ship."

"I took Captain Auson's ship, too. Ask him if he's unhappy about it."

"Nice try—ah—Mr. Naismith. But I have a contract. A fact that, unlike some, I remember. A mercenary who can't honor his contract when it's rough as well as when it's smooth is a thug, not a soldier."

Miles fairly swooned with unrequited love. "I cannot fault you for that, sir."

Tung eyed him with amused tolerance. "Now, regardless of what that ass Auson seems to think, I have you pegged as a hot-shot junior officer in over his head—and sinking fast. Seems to me it's you, not I, who's going to be looking for a new job soon. You seem to have at least an average grasp of tactics—and you have read Vorkosigan on Komarr—but any officer who can get Auson and Thorne hitched together to plow a straight line shows a genius for personnel. If you get out of this alive, come see me—I may be able to find something on the exec side for you."

Miles sat looking at his prisoner in open-mouthed appreciation of a chutzpah worthy of his own. Actually, it sounded pretty good. He sighed regret. "You honor me, Captain Tung. But I'm afraid I too have a contract."

"Pigwash."

"Beg pardon?"

"If you have a contract with Felice, it beats me where you got it. I doubt Daum was authorized to make any such agreement. The Felicians are as cheap as their counterparts the Pelians. We could have ended this war six months ago if the Pelians had been willing to pay the piper. But no—they chose to "economize" and only buy a blockade, and a few installations like this one—and for that, they act like they're doing us a favor. Peh!" Frustration edged his voice with disgust.

"I didn't say my contract was with Felice," said Miles mildly. Tung's eyes narrowed in puzzlement; good. The man's evaluations were entirely too close to the truth for comfort.

"Well, keep your tail down, son," Tung advised "In the long run more mercenaries have had their asses shot off by their contractors than by their enemies."

Miles took his leave courteously; Tung ushered him out with the panache of a genial host.

"Is there anything else you need?" asked Miles.

"A screwdriver," said Tung promptly.

Miles shook his head and smiled regretfully as the door was closed on the Eurasian. "Damned if I'm not tempted to send him one," said Miles to Bothari. "I'm dying to see what he thinks he can do with that light."

"Just what did all that accomplish?" asked Bothari. "He burned up your time with ancient history and didn't give away anything."

Miles smiled. "Nothing unimportant."