The warrior's apprentice (11 page)

The tension in Bothari’s shoulders disturbed Miles, and the set look about his eyes. Anger? Over an ephemeral holovid which he had seen before, and ignored as readily as Miles had?

Elena paused, diverted and confused. “Don’t remember? But...”

Something clicked in Miles’s memory—the medical discharge, at last accounted for? “I didn’t realize—were you wounded at Escobar, Sergeant?” No wonder he’s twitchy about it, then.

Bothari’s lips moved about the beginning of the word, wounded. “Yes,” he muttered. His eyes shifted away from Miles and Elena.

Miles gnawed his lip. “Head wound?” he inquired in a burst of surmise.

Bothari’s gaze shifted back to Miles, quellingly. “Mm.”

Miles permitted himself to be quelled, hugging this new prize of information to himself. A head wound would account for much, that had long bemused him in his leigeman.

Taking the hint, Miles changed the subject firmly. “Be that as it may,” he swept Elena a courtly bow— whatever happened to plumed hats, for men?—”I got my cargo.”

Elena’s irritation vanished instantly in pleased interest. “Oh, grand! And have you figured out how to get it past the blockade yet?”

“Working on it. Would you care to do some shopping for me? Supplies for the trip. Put the orders in to the ship chandlers—you can do it from here on the cornconsole, Grandmother’11 show you how. Arde has a standard list. We need everything—food, fuel cells, emergency oxygen, first-aid supplies—and at the best price you can get. This thing is going to wipe out my travel allowance, so anything you can save—eh?” He gave his draftee his most encouraging smile, as if the offer of two full days locked in struggle with the electronic labyrinth of Betan business practices was a high treat.

Elena looked doubtful. “I’ve never outfitted a ship before.”

“It’ll be easy,” he assured her airily. “Just bang into it—you’ll have it figured out in no time. If I can do it, you can do it.” He zipped lightly over this argument, giving her no time to reflect on the fact that he had never outfitted a ship either. “Figure for Pilot Officer, Engineer, the Sergeant, me, and Major Daum, for eight weeks, and maybe a little margin, but not too much— remembering the budget. We boost the day after tomorrow.”

“All right—when...?” she snapped to full alertness, thunder in the crimp of her black winging eyebrows. “What about me? You’re not leaving me behind while you—”

Metaphorically, Miles slunk behind Bothari and waved a white flag. “That’s up to your father. And Grandmother, of course.”

“She’s welcome to stay with me,” said Mrs. Naismith faintly. “But Miles—you just got here...”

“Oh, I still mean to make my visit, ma’am,” Miles reassured her. “We’ll just reschedule our return to Barrayar. It’s not like I had to—to get back in time for school or anything.”

Elena stared at her father, tight-lipped with silent pleading. Bothari blew out his breath, his gaze turning calculatingly from his daughter to Mrs. Naismith to the holovid viewer, then inward to what thoughts or memories Miles could not guess. Elena barely restrained herself from hopping up and down in agitation. “Miles—my lord—you can order him to—”

Miles flicked a hand palm-out, and gave a tiny shake of his head, signalling, wait.

Mrs. Naismith glanced at Elena’s anxiety, and smiled thoughtfully behind her hand. “Actually, dear, it would be lovely having you all to myself for a time. Like having a daughter again. You could meet young people— go to parties—I have some friends over in Quartz who could take you desert-trekking. I’m too old for the sport myself, now, but I’m sure you’d enjoy it...”

Bothari flinched. Quartz, for example, was Beta Colony’s principle hermaphrodite community, and although Mrs. Naismith herself typified hermaphrodites as “people who are pathologically incapable of making up their minds,” she bristled in patriotic Betan defense of them at Bothari’s open Barrayaran revulsion to the sex. And Bothari had personally carried Miles home unconscious from more than one Betan party. As for Miles’s nearlydisastrous desert-trek... Miles shot his grandmother a look of thanks from crinkling eyes. She acknowledged it with a puckish nod, and smiled blandly at Bothari.

Bothari was unamused. Not ironically unamused, befitting the interplay, as his guerilla warfare with Mrs. Naismith on the subject of Miles’s cultural mores usually was; but genuinely enraged. An odd knot formed in Miles’s stomach. He came to a species of attention, querying his bodyguard with puzzled eyes.

“She goes with us,” Bothari growled. Elena nearly clapped her hands in triumph, although Mrs. Naismith’s list of proposed treats had plainly eroded her resolve not to be left sitting in the baggage train when the troops moved out. But Bothari’s eyes raked past his daughter unresponsively, lingered for a last frown at the holovid, and met Miles’s—beltbuckle.

“Excuse me, my lord. I’ll—patrol the hall, until you’re ready to leave again.” He exited stiffly, great hands, all bone and tendon, vein and corded muscle, held halfcurled by his sides.

Yes, go, thought Miles, and see if you can patrol up your self-control out there. Overreacting a tad, aren’t you? Admittedly, nobody likes having their tail twisted.

“Whew,” said Mayhew, as the door closed. “What bit him?”

“Oh, dear,” said Mrs. Naismith. “I hope I didn’t offend him.” But she added under her breath, “the hypocritical old stick...”

“He’ll come down,” Miles promised. “Just leave him alone for a while. Meantime, there’s work to do. You heard the man, Elena. Supplies for a crew of two and a supercargo of four.”

*
      
*
      
*

The next 48 hours were a blur of motion. To prepare an eight-week run for the old ship within that time limit would have been mind-boggling for an ordinary cargo, but crammed atop that were extras needed for the camouflage scheme. These included a partial cargo of hastily purchased items to provide them with a real manifest in which to embed the false, and supplies needed for rearranging the cargo hold bulkheads, flung aboard to wait the actual work to be done en route. Most vital, and correspondingly expensive, were the extremely advanced Betan mass detector jammers, to be run off the ship’s artificial gravity and with which, Miles hoped, they would foil the Oseran Mercenaries’ cargo check. It had taken all the simulated political weight Miles could muster on the basis of his father’s name to convince the Betan company representative that he was a qualified purchaser of the new and still partially classified equipment.

The mass jammers came with an astonishingly lengthy file of instructions. Miles, studying them in bewilderment, began to have qualms over Baz Jesek’s qualifications as an engineer. These gave way, as the hours passed, to even more frantic doubts about whether the man was going to show at all. The level of liquid in Mayhew’s green bottle, now wholly expropriated by Miles, dropped steadily, and Miles sweated sleeplessly.

The Betan shuttleport authorities, Miles found, were not sympathetic to the suggestion that their stiff usage fees be paid on credit. He was forced to strip himself of his entire travel allowance. It had seemed a wildly generous one, back on Barrayar, but in the suction of these new demands it vanished literally overnight. Growing creative, Miles turned in his first-class return ticket to Barrayar upon one of the better-known commercial spacelines for a third-class one. Then Bothari’s. Then Elena’s. Then all three were exchanged for tickets on a line Miles had never heard of; then, with a low, guilty mutter of “I’ll buy everybody new ones when we get back—or run a cargo to Barrayar on the RG 132,” he cashed them in entirely. At the end of two days he found himself teetering atop a dizzying financial struc-

ture compounded of truth, lies, credit, cash purchases, advances on advances, shortcuts, a tiny bit of blackmail, false advertising, and yet another mortgage on some more of his glow-in-the-dark farmland.

Supplies were loaded. Daum’s cargo, a fascinating array of odd-shaped anonymous plastic crates, was put aboard. Jesek showed. Systems were checked, and Jesek was instantly put to work jury-rigging vital repairs. Luggage, scarcely opened, was stuffed back together and sent back up. Some good-byes were said; others carefully avoided. Miles had dutifully reported to Bothari that he’d talked to Lieutenant Croye; it wasn’t Miles’s fault if Bothari neglected to ask what he’d said. At last, they stood in Silica Shuttleport Docking Bay 27, ready to go.

“Waldo handling fee,” stated the Betan shuttleport cargo master. “Three-hundred-ten Betan dollars; foreign currencies not accepted.” He smiled pleasantly, like a very courteous shark.

Miles cleared his throat nervously, stomach churning. He mentally reviewed his finances. Daum’s resources had been stripped in the last two days; indeed, if something Miles had overheard was correct, the man was planning to leave his hotel bill unpaid. Mayhew had already put everything he had into emergency repairs on the ship. Miles had even floated one loan from his grandmother. Courteously, she’d called it her “investment”. Just like the Golden Hind, she’d said. Some kind of ass, anyway. Miles had reflected in a moment of quavering doubt. He had accepted, rawly embarrassed, but too harried to forgo the offer.

Miles swallowed—perhaps it was pride going down that made that lump—took Sergeant Bothari aside, and lowered his voice. “Uh, Sergeant—I know my father made you a travel allowance . . .”

Bothari’s lips twisted thoughtfully, and he gave Miles a penetrating stare. He knows he can kill this scheme right here, Miles realized, and return to his life of boredom—God knows my father’d back him up. He loathed wheedling Bothari, but added, “I could repay you in eight weeks, two for one—for your left pocket? My word on it.”

Bothari frowned. “It’s not necessary for you to redeem your word to me, my lord. That was pre-paid, long ago.” He looked down at his leige lord, hesitated a long moment, sighed, then dolefully emptied his pockets into Miles’s hands.

“Thanks.” Miles smiled awkwardly, turned away, then turned back. “Uh—can we keep this between you and me? I mean, no need to mention it to my father?”

An involuntary smile turned one corner of the Sergeant’s mouth. “Not if you pay me back,” he murmured blandly.

And so it was done. What a joy, Miles thought, to be a military ship captain—just bill it all to the Emperor. They must feel like a courtesan with a charge card. Not like us poor working girls.

He stood in the Nav and Com room of his own ship and watched Arde Mayhew, far more alert and focused than Miles had ever seen him before, complete the traffic control checklist. In the screen the glimmering ochre crescent of Beta Colony turned beneath them.

“You are cleared to break orbit,” came the voice of traffic control. A wave of dizzy excitement swept through Miles. They were really going to bring this off...

“Uh, just a minute, RG 132,” the voice added. “You have a communication.”

“Pipe it up,” said Mayhew, settling under his headset.

This time a frantic face appeared on the viewscreen. Not one Miles wanted to see. He braced himself, quelling guilt.

Lieutenant Croye spoke urgently, tense. “My lord! Is Sergeant Bothari with you?”

“Not just this second. Why?” The Sergeant was below, with Daum, already beginning to tear out bulkheads.

“Who is with you?”

“Just Pilot Officer Mayhew and myself.” Miles found he was holding his breath. So close...

Croye relaxed just a little. “My lord, you could not have known this, but that engineer you hired is a deserter from Imperial Service. You must shuttle down immediately, and find some pretext for him to accompany you. Make sure the Sergeant is with you—the man must be regarded as dangerous. We’ll have a Betan Security patrol waiting at the docking bay. And also,” he glanced aside at something, “what the devil did you do to that Tav Calhoun fellow? He’s here at the Embassy, howling for the ambassador...”

Mayhew’s eyes widened in alarm.

“Uh...” said Miles. Tachycardia, that’s what it was called. Could 17-year-olds have heart attacks? “Lieutenant Croye, that transmission was extremely garbled. Could you repeat?” He shot Mayhew an imploring glance. Mayhew gestured at a panel. Croye began his message again, starting to look disturbed. Miles opened the panel and stared at a spidery maze of wires. His head seemed to swim dizzily in panic. So close...

“You’re still garbled, sir,” said Miles brightly. “Here, I’ll fix it. Oh, damn.” He pulled six tiny wires at random. The screen dissolved in sparkling snow. Croye was cut off in mid-sentence.

“Boost, Arde!” cried Miles. Mayhew needed no urging. Beta Colony wheeled away beneath them.

Quite dizzy. And nauseated. Blast it, this wasn’t free fall. He sat abruptly on the deck, weak from the neardisaster. No, it was something more. He had a paranoid flash about alien plagues, then realized what was happening to him.

Mayhew stared, looking first alarmed, then sardonically understanding. “It’s about time that stuff caught up with you,” he remarked, and keyed the intercom. “Sergeant Bothari? Would you report to Nav and Com, please? Your, uh, lord needs you.” He smiled acidly at Miles, who was beginning to seriously repent some of the harsh things he’d said to Mayhew three days ago.

The Sergeant and Elena appeared. Elena was saying, “— everything’s so dirty. The medical cabinet doors just came off in my hands, and—” Bothari snapped to alertness at Miles’s hunched huddle, and quizzed Mayhew with angry eyes.