Lois Bujold - The Warrior's Apprentice

Miles nodded approval, and pressed the buzzer.

The man who answered the door had dark almond eyes, high cheekbones, skin the color of coffee and cream, and bright copper-colored hair, tightly curled as wire, cropped close to his head. His eyes searched the trio anxiously, widening a little at Miles; he had only seen Miles's face that morning, over the viewscreen. "Mr. Naismith? I'm Carle Daum. Come in."

Damn closed the door behind them quickly, and fussed at the lock. Miles deduced they'd just passed through a weapons scan, and the Felician was sneaking a peek at his readout. The man turned back with a look of nervous suspicion, one hand automatically touching his right hip pocket. His gaze did not linger elsewhere in the little hotel room, and Bothari's lips twitched satisfaction at Daum's unconscious revelation of the weapon he must watch for. Legal stunner, most likely, thought Miles, but you never know.

"Won't you sit down?" the Felician invited. His speech had a soft and curious resonance to Miles's ear, neither the flat nasal twang, heavy on the r's, of the Betans, nor the clipped cold gutturals of Barrayar. Bothari indicated he would prefer to stand, and took up position to Daum's right, uncomfortably far over in the Felician's peripheral vision. Miles and Mayhew sat before a low table. Daum sat across from them, his back to a "window", actually a viewscreen, bright with a panorama of mountains and a lake from some other world. The wind that really howled far overhead would have scoured such trees to sticks in a day. The window silhouetted Daum, while revealing his visitors' expressions in full light; Miles appreciated the choice of views.

"Well, Mr. Naismith," began Daum. "Tell me something about your ship. What is its cargo capacity?"

"It's an RG class freighter. It can easily handle twice the mass of your manifest, assuming those figures you put into the com system are quite correct…?"

Daum did not react to this tiny bait. Instead he said, "I'm not very familiar with jump ships. Is it fast?"

"Pilot Officer Mayhew?" Miles prodded.

"Huh? Oh. Uh, do you mean acceleration? Steady, just steady. We boost a little longer, and get there nearly as fast in the end."

"Is it very maneuverable?"

Mayhew stared. "Mr. Daum, it's a freighter."

Daum's lips compressed with annoyance. "I know that. The question is—"

"The question is," Miles interrupted, "can we either outrun or evade your blockade. The answer is no. You see, I've done my homework."

Frustration darkened Daum's face. "Then we seem to be wasting each other's time. So much time lost …" He began to rise.

"The next question is, is there another way to get your cargo to its destination? Yes, I believe," said Miles firmly.

Daum sat back, tense with mistrust and hope. "Go on."

"You've done as much yourself already, in the Betan's comm system. Camouflage. I believe your cargo can be camouflaged well enough to pass a blockade inspection. But we'll have to work together on it, and somewhat more frankly—ah …" Miles made a calculation, based on the Felician's age and bearing, "Major Daum?"

The man twitched. Ah ha, thought Miles, nailed him on the first try. He compressed this internal crow to a suave smile.

"If you're a Pelian spy, or an Oseran mercenary, I swear I'll kill you—" Daum began. Bothari's eyelids drooped, in a pose of deceptive calm.

"I'm not," said Miles, "although it would be a great ploy, if I were. Load up you and your weapons, take you halfway, and make you get out and walk—I appreciate your need for caution."

"What weapons?" said Daum, attempting belatedly to regain his cover.

"What weapons?" echoed Mayhew, in a frantic, nearsilent whisper to Miles's ear.

"Your plowshares and pruning hooks, then," said Miles tolerantly. "But I suggest we end the game and get to work. I am a professional—" and if you buy that, I have this nice farmland on Barrayar for sale, "and so, obviously, are you, or you wouldn't have gotten this far."

Mayhew's eyes widened. Under the guise of shifting in his seat, Miles kicked him preemptively in the ankle. Make a note, he thought; next time, wake him earlier and brief him better. Although getting the pilot officer functional that morning had been rather like trying to raise the dead. Miles was not sure he could have succeeded, earlier.

"You're a mercenary soldier?" said Daum.

"Ah . . ." said Miles. He had meant to imply, a professional shipmaster—but might this be even more attractive to the Felician? "What do you think, Major?"

Bothari stopped breathing a moment. Mayhew, however, looked suddenly dismayed. "So that's what you meant yesterday," he murmured. "Recruiting …"

Miles, who had meant nothing of a kind in his facetious crack about looking for desperate men, murmured back, "Of course," in a tone of maximum off-handedness. "Surely you realized . .."

Daum looked doubtfully at Mayhew, but then his gaze fell on Bothari. Bothari maintained parade rest and an expression of remarkable blankness. Belief hardened in Daum's eyes. "By God," he muttered, "if the Pelians can hire galactics, why can't we?" He raised his voice. "How many troops are in your outfit? What ships do you have?"

Oh, hell—now what? Mile's extemporized like mad. "Major Daum, I didn't mean to mislead you—" Bothari breathed, gratefully, Miles saw from the corner of his eye, "I'm, uh—detached from my outfit at the moment. They're tied up on another contract. I was just visiting Beta Colony for, uh, medical reasons, so I have only myself and, ah, my immediate staff, and a ship my fleet could spare, here to offer you. But we're expected to operate independently, in my bunch," exhale, Sergeant, please exhale, "so since it will be a little time yet before I can rejoin them, and I find your problem tactically interesting, my services are yours."

Daum nodded slowly, "I see. And by what rank should I address you?"

Miles nearly appointed himself Admiral on the spot. Captain? Yeoman? he wondered wildly. "Let's just leave it at Mr. Naismith, for now," he suggested coolly. "A centurion without his hundred men is, after all, a centurion in name only. At the moment, we need to be dealing with realities." Do we ever …

"What's the name of your outfit?"

Miles free-associated frantically. "The Dendarii Mercenaries." It fell trippingly from the tongue, at least.

Daum studied him hungrily. "I've been tied down in this damn place for two months, looking for a carrier that would haul me, that I could trust. If I wait much longer, could be delay will destroy the purpose of my mission as certainly as any betrayal. Mr. Naismith, I've waited long enough—too long. I'm going to take a chance on you."

Miles nodded satisfaction, as if he had been concluding such transactions all of a somewhat longer life than he actually possessed. "Then Major Daum, I undertake to get you to Tau Verde IV. My word on it. The first thing I need is more intelligence. Tell me all you know about the Oseran Mercenaries' blockade procedures…"

"It was my understanding, my lord," said Bothari severely as they left Daum's hotel for the slidewalk, "that Pilot Officer Mayhew here was to transport your cargo. You didn't tell me anything about going along yourself."

Miles shrugged, elaborately casual. "There are so many variables, so much at stake—I've just got to be on the spot. It's unfair to dump it all on Arde's shoulders. I mean, would you?"

Bothari, apparently caught between his disapproval of his leige lord's get-rich-quick scheme and his low opinion of the pilot officer, gave a noncommittal grunt, which Mayhew chose not to notice.

Miles's eyes glinted. "Besides, it'll put a little excitement in your life, Sergeant. It has to be dull as dirt, following me around all day. I'd be bored to tears."