The warrior's apprentice (31 page)

Miles’s lips drew back in a mirthless grin. “I’ll figure something out.”

He turned to watch the screens, thinking silently, But you are mistaken about the losses, Ivan. They were enormous.

The refinery and the ships around it dwindled to a scattered constellation of specks, sparks, water in the eyes, and gone.

CHAPTER TWENTY

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The Betan night was hot, even under the force dome that shielded the suburb of Silica. Miles touched the silver circles on his midforehead and temples, praying that his sweat was not loosening their glue. He had passed through Betan customs on the Felician pilot’s doctored I.D.’s; it would not do for his supposed implant contact to go sliding down his nose.

Artistically bonsai’d mesquite and acacia trees, picked out with colored spotlights, surrounded the low dome that was the pedestrian entrance to his grandmother’s apartment complex. The old building pre-dated the community force shield, and was therefore entirely underground. Miles hooked Elli Quinn’s hand over his arm, and patted it.

“We’re almost there. Two steps down, here. You’ll like my grandmother. She supervises life support equipment maintenance at the Silica University Hospital— she’ll know just who to see for the best work. Now here’s a door...”

Ivan, still clutching the valise, stepped through first. The cooler interior air caressed Miles’s face, and relieved him at least of his worries about his fake implant contacts. It had been nerve-wracking, crossing Customs with a false I.D., but using his real ones would have guaranteed instant entanglement in Betan legal proceedings, entailing God-knew-what delays. Time drummed in his head.

“There’s a lift tube there,” Miles began to Elli, then choked on an oath, recoiling. Popping out of the Up tube in the foyer was the very man he least wanted to see on his touch-and-go planetary stopover.

Tav Calhoun’s eyes started from his head at the sight of Miles. His face turned the color of brick. “You!” he cried. “You—you—you—” He swelled, stuttering, and advanced on Miles.

Miles tried a friendly smile. “Why, good evening, Mr. Calhoun. You’re just the man I wanted to see—”

Calhoun’s hands clenched on Miles’s jacket. “Where is my ship?”

Miles, borne backwards to the wall, felt suddenly lonely for Sergeant Bothari. “Well, there was a little problem with the ship,” he began placatingly.

Calhoun shook him. “Where is it? What have you goons done with it?”

“It’s stuck at Tau Verde, I’m afraid. Damage to the Necklin rods. But I’ve got your money.” He essayed a cheerful nod.

Calhoun’s hold did not slacken. “I wouldn’t touch your money with a hand-tractor!” he growled. “I’ve been given the royal run-around, lied to, followed, had my comconsole tapped, had Barrayaran agents questioning my employees, my girlfriend, her wife—I found out about that damned worthless hot land, by the way, you little mutant—I want blood. You’re going to therapy, because I’m calling Security right now!”

A plaintive mumble came from Elli Quinn, which Miles’s practiced ear translated as, “What’s happening?”

Calhoun noticed her in the shadows for the first time, jumped, shrugged, then turned on his heel and shot over his shoulder to Miles, “Don’t you move! This is a citizen’s arrest!” He headed for the public comconsole.

“Grab him, Ivan!” Miles cried.

Calhoun twisted away from Ivan’s clutch. His reflexes were quicker than Miles had expected for so beefy a body. Elli Quinn, head cocked to one side, slid into his path in two smooth sideways steps, her ankles and knees flexing. Her hands found his shirt. They whirled for a dizzy instant like a pair of dancers, and suddenly

Calhoun was doing spectacular cartwheels. He landed flat on his back on the pavement of the foyer. The air went out of him in a Dooming whoosh. Elli, sitting, spun around, clamped one leg across his neck, and put his arm in a lock.

Ivan, now that his target was no longer moving, took over and achieved a creditable come-along hold. “How did you do that?” he asked Elli, astonishment and admiration in his voice.

She shrugged. “Used to practice with eyes covered,” she mumbled, “to sharpen balance. It works.”

“What do we do with him, Miles?” asked Ivan. “Can he really have you arrested, even if you offer to pay him?”

“Assault!” croaked Calhoun. “Battery!”

Miles straightened his jacket. “I’m afraid so. There was some fine print in that contract—look, there’s a janitor’s closet on the second level. We better take him down there, before somebody comes through here.”

“Kidnapping,” gurgled Calhoun, as Ivan dragged him to the lift tube.

They found a coil of wire in the roomy janitor’s closet. “Murder!” shrieked Calhoun as they approached him with it. Miles gagged him; his eyes rolled whitely. By the time they finished all the extra loops and knots just in case, the salvage operator began to resemble a bright orange mummy.

“The valise, Ivan,” Miles ordered.

His cousin opened it, and they began stuffing Calhoun’s shirt and sarong rope with bundles of Betan dollars.

“... thirty-eight, thirty-nine, forty thousand,” Miles counted.

Ivan scratched his head. “Y’know, there’s something backwards about this...”

Calhoun was rolling his eyes and moaning urgently. Miles ungagged him for a moment.

“—plus ten percent!” Calhoun panted.

Miles gagged him again, and counted out another four thousand dollars. The valise was much lighter now. They locked the closet behind them.

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“Miles!” His grandmother fell on him ecstatically. “Thank God, Captain Dimir found you, then. The Embassy people have been terribly worried. Cordelia says your father didn’t think he could get the date for the challenge in the Council of Counts put off a third time—” She broke off as she saw Elli Quinn. “Oh, my.”

Miles introduced Ivan, and named Elli hastily as a friend from off-planet with no connections and no place to stay. He quickly outlined his hopes for leaving the injured mercenary in his grandmother’s hands. Mrs. Naismith assimilated this at once, merely remarking, “Oh, yes, another of your strays.” Miles silently called down blessings upon her.

His grandmother herded them to her living room. Miles sat on the couch with a twinge, remembering Bothari. He wondered if the Sergeant’s death would become like a veteran’s scar, echoing the old pain with every change of weather.

As if reflecting his thought, Mrs. Naismith said, “Where’s the Sergeant, and Elena? Making reports at the Embassy? I’m surprised they let you out even to visit me. Lieutenant Croye gave me the impression they were going to hustle you aboard a fast courier for Barrayar the instant they laid hands on you.”

“We haven’t been to the Embassy yet,” confessed Miles uneasily. “We came straight here.”

“Told you we should have reported in first,” said Ivan. Miles made a negative gesture.

His grandmother glanced at him with a new penetrating concentration. “What’s wrong, Miles? Where is Elena?”

“She’s safe,” replied Miles, “but not here. The Sergeant was killed two, almost three months ago now. An accident.”

“Oh,” said Mrs. Naismith. She sat silent a moment, sobered. “I confess I never did understand what your mother saw in the man, but I know he will be sadly missed. Do you want to call Lieutenant Croye from here?” She tilted her head at Miles, and added, “Is that where you’ve been for the last five months? Training to be a jump pilot? I shouldn’t have thought you’d have to do it in secret, surely Cordelia would have supported you—”

Miles touched a silver circle in embarrassment. “This is a fake. I borrowed a jump pilot’s I.D. to get through customs.”

“Miles...” Impatience thinned her lips, and worry creased twin verticals between her eyebrows. “What’s going on? Is this more to do with those ghastly Barrayaran politics?”

“I’m afraid so. Quickly—what have you heard from home since Dimir left here?”

“According to your mother, you’re scheduled to be challenged in the Council of Counts on some sort of trumped-up treason charge, and very soon.”

Miles gave Ivan a short I-told-you-so nod; Ivan began nibbling on a thumbnail.

“There’s evidently been a lot of behind-the-scenes maneuvering—I didn’t understand half of her message discs. I’m convinced only a Barrayaran could figure out how their government works. By all right reason it should have collapsed years ago. Anyway, most of it seemed to revolve around changing the substance of the charge from treason by violation of something called Vorloupulous’s law to treason by intent to usurp the Imperial throne.”

What!” Miles shot to his feet. The heat of terror flushed through him. “This is pure insanity! I don’t want Gregor’s job! Do they think I’m out of my mind? In the first place, I’d need to command the loyalty of the whole Imperial Service, not just some grubby free mercenary fleet—”

“You mean there really was a mercenary fleet?” His grandmother’s eyes widened. “I thought it was just a wild rumor. What Cordelia said about the charges makes more sense, then.”

“What did Mother say?”

“That your father went to a great deal of trouble to goad this Count Vor-what’s-his-name—I can never keep all those Vor-people straight—”

“Vordrozda?”

“Yes, that was it.”

Miles and Ivan exchanged wild looks.

“To goad Vordrozda to up the charge from the minor to the major, while appearing publicly to want just the opposite. I didn’t understand what difference it made, since the penalty’s the same.”

“Did Father succeed?”

“Apparently. At least as of two weeks ago, when the fast courier that arrived yesterday left Barrayar.”

“Ah.” Miles began to pace. “Ah. Clever, clever—maybe. ..”

“I don’t understand it either,” complained Ivan. “Usurpation is a much worse charge!”

“But it happens to be one I’m innocent of. And furthermore, it’s a charge of intent. About all I’d have to do is show up to disprove it. Violating Vorloupulous’s law is a charge of fact—and in fact, although not in intent, I’m guilty of it. Given that I showed up for my trial, and spoke the truth as I’m sworn to, it’d be a lot harder to wriggle out of.”

Ivan finished his second thumbnail. “What makes you think your innocence or guilt is going to have anything to do with the outcome?”

“I beg your pardon?” said Mrs. Naismith.

“That’s why I said, maybe,” explained Miles. “This thing is so damned political—how many votes d’you suppose Vordrozda will have sewn up in advance, before any evidence or testimony is even presented? He’s got to have some, or he’d never have dared to float this in the first place.”

“You’re asking me?” said Ivan plaintively.

“You...” Miles eye fell on his cousin. “You... I am absolutely convinced you are the key to this thing, if only I can figure out how to fit you into the lock.”

Ivan looked as if he were trying, and failing, to picture himself as a key to anything. “Why?”

“For one thing, until we report in somewhere, Hessman and Vordrozda will think you’re dead.”

“What?” said Mrs. Naismith.

Miles explained about the disappearance of Captain Dimir’s mission. He touched his forehead, and added to

Ivan, “And that’s the real reason for this, besides Calhoun, of course.”

“Speaking of Calhoun,” said his grandmother, “he’s been coming around here regularly, looking for you. You’d best be on the lookout for him, if you really mean to stay covert.”

“Uh,” said Miles, “thanks. Anyway, Ivan, if Dimir’s ship was sabotaged, it would have to have taken somebody on the inside to do it. What’s to keep whoever doesn’t want me to show up for my trial from trying again, if we so-conveniently place ourselves in his hands by popping up at the Embassy?”

“Miles, your mind is crookeder than your bac—I mean—anyway, are you sure you’re not catching Bothari’s disease?” said Ivan. “You’re making me feel like I’ve got a bulls-eye painted on my back.”

Miles grinned, feeling bizarrely exhilarated. “Wakes you up, doesn’t it?” It seemed to him he could hear the gates of reason clicking over in his own brain, cascading faster and faster. His voice took on a faraway tone. “You know, if you’re trying to take a roomful of people by surprise, it’s a lot easier to hit your targets if you don’t yell going through the door.”

They kept the rest of the visit almost as brief as Miles had hoped. They emptied out the valise onto the living room floor, and Miles counted out piles of Betan dollars to clear his various Betan debts, including his grandmother’s original “investment”. Rather bemusedly, she agreed to be his agent for the task of distribution.

The largest pile was for Elli Quinn’s new face. Miles gulped when his grandmother quoted him the approximate price for the best work. When he was finished, he had one meager wad of bills left in his hand.

Ivan snickered. “By God, Miles, you’ve made a profit. I think you’re the first Vorkosigan to do so in five generations. Must be that bad Betan blood.”

Miles weighed the dollars, wryly. “It’s getting to be a kind of family tradition, isn’t it? My father gave away 275,000 marks the day before he left the Regency, just so he would have the exact financial balance as the day he took it up sixteen years earlier.”

Ivan raised his eyebrows. “I never knew that.”