Lois Mcmaster Bujold -- 09 Brothers In Arms

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2024-12-04 0 0 1.11MB 308 页 5.9玖币
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file:///F|/rah/Lois%20McMaster%20Bujold/Lois%20McMaster%20Bujold%20--%2009%20Brothers%20In%20Arms.txt
Chapter One
His combat drop shuttle crouched still and silent in the repairs docking bay—malevolent, to
Miles’s jaundiced eye. Its
metal and fibreplas surface was scarred, pitted and burned. It had seemed such a proud, gleaming,
efficient vessel when it was
new. Perhaps it had undergone psychotic personality change from its traumas. It had been new such
a short few months ago. .
. .
Miles rubbed his face wearily, and blew out his breath. If there was any incipient psychosis
floating around here, it wasn’t
contained in the machinery. In the eye of the beholder indeed. He took his booted foot off the
bench he’d been draped over
and straightened up, at least to the degree his crooked spine permitted. Commander Quinn, alert to
his every move, fell in
behind him.
"There," Miles limped down the length of the fuselage and pointed to the shuttle’s portside lock,
"is the design defect I’m
chiefly concerned about."
He motioned the sales engineer from Kaymer Orbital Shipyards closer. "The ramp from this lock
extends and retracts
automatically, with a manual override—fine so far. But its recessed slot is inside the hatch,
which means that if for any reason
the ramp gets hung up, the door can’t be sealed. The consequences of which I trust you can
imagine." Miles didn’t have to
imagine them; they had burned in his memory for the last three months. Instant replay without an
off switch.
"Did you find this out the hard way at Dagoola IV, Admiral Naismith?" the engineer inquired in a
tone of genuine interest.
"Yeah. We lost . . . personnel. I was damn near one of them."
"I see," said the engineer respectfully. But his brows quirked.
How dare you be amused. . . . Fortunately for his health, the engineer did not smile. A thin man
of slightly above average
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height, he reached up the side of the shuttle to run his hands along the slot in question, pull
himself up chin-up fashion, peer
about and mutter notes into his recorder. Miles resisted an urge to jump up and down like a frog
and try to see what he was
looking at. Undignified. With his own eye-level even with the engineer’s chest, Miles would need
about a one-meter stepladder
even to reach the ramp slot on tiptoe. And he was too damn tired for calisthenics just now, nor
was he about to ask Elli Quinn
to give him a boost. He jerked his chin up in the old involuntary nervous tic, and waited in a
posture of parade rest appropriate
to his uniform, his hands clasped behind his back.
The engineer dropped back to the docking bay deck with a thump. "Yes, Admiral, I think Kaymer can
take care of this for
you all right. How many of these drop shuttles did you say you had?"
"Twelve," Fourteen minus two equalled twelve. Except in Dendarii Free Mercenary Fleet mathematics,
where fourteen
minus two shuttles equalled two hundred and seven dead. Stop that, Miles told the calculating
jeerer in the back of his head
firmly. It does no one any good now.
"Twelve." The engineer made a note. "What else?" He eyed the battered shuttle.
"My own engineering department will be handling the minor repairs, now that it looks like well
actually be holding still in
one place for a while. I wanted to see to this ramp problem personally, but my second in command,
Commodore Jesek, is chief
engineer for my fleet, and he wants to talk to your Jump tech people about re-calibrating some of
our Necklin rods. I have a
Jump pilot with a head wound, but Jumpset implant micro-neurosurgery is not one of Kaymer’s
specialties, I understand. Nor
weapons systems?"
"No, indeed," the engineer agreed hastily. He touched a burn on the shuttle’s scarred surface,
perhaps fascinated by the
violence it silently witnessed, for he added, "Kaymer Orbital mainly services merchant vessels. A
mercenary fleet is something
a bit unusual in this part of the wormhole nexus. Why did you come to us?"
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"You were the lowest bidder."
"Oh—not Kaymer Corporation. Earth. I was wondering why you came to Earth? We’re rather off the
main trade routes,
except for the tourists and historians. Er . . . peaceful."
He wonders if we have a contract here, Miles realized. Here, on a planet of nine billion souls,
whose combined military
forces would make pocket change of the Dendarii’s five thousand—right. He thinks I’m out to make
trouble on old mother
Earth? Or that I’d break security and tell him even if I was. . . . "Peaceful, precisely," Miles
said smoothly. "The Dendarii are in
need of rest and refitting. A peaceful planet off the main nexus channels is just what the doctor
ordered." He cringed inwardly,
thinking of the doctor’s bill pending.
It hadn’t been Dagoola. The rescue operation had been a tactical triumph, a military miracle
almost. His own staff had
assured him of this over and over, so perhaps he could begin to believe it true.
The break-out on Dagoola IV had been the third largest prisoner-of-war escape in history,
Commodore Tung said.
Military history being Tung’s obsessive hobby, he ought to know. The Dendarii had snatched over
ten thousand captured
soldiers, an entire POW camp, from under the nose of the Cetagandan Empire, and made them into the
nucleus of a new
guerrilla army on a planet the Cetagandans had formerly counted on as an easy conquest. The costs
had been so small,
compared to the spectacular results—except for the individuals who’d paid for the triumph with
their lives, for whom the price
was something infinite, divided by zero.
It had been Dagoola’s aftermath that had cost the Dendarii too much, the infuriated Cetagandans’
vengeful pursuit. They
had followed with ships till the Dendarii had slipped through political jurisdictions that
Cetagandan military vessels could not
traverse; hunted on with secret assassination and sabotage teams thereafter. Miles trusted they
had outrun the assassination
teams at last.
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"Did you take all this fire at Dagoola IV?" the engineer went on, still intrigued by the shuttle.
"Dagoola was a covert operation," Miles said stiffly. "We don’t discuss it."
"It made a big splash in the news a few months back," the Earthman assured him.
My head hurts. . . . Miles pressed his palm to his forehead, crossed his arms and rested his chin
in his hand, twitching a
smile at the engineer. "Wonderful," he muttered. Commander Quinn winced.
"Is it true the Cetagandans have put a price on your life?" the engineer asked cheerfully.
Miles sighed. "Yes."
"Oh," said the engineer. "Ah. I’d thought that was just a story." He moved away just slightly, as
if embarrassed, or as if
the air of morbid violence clinging to the mercenary were a contagion that could somehow rub off
on him, if he got too close. He
just might be right. He cleared his throat. "Now, about the payment schedule for the design
modifications—what had you in
mind?"
"Cash on delivery," said Miles promptly, "acceptance to follow my engineering staff’s inspection
and approval of the
completed work. Those were the terms of your bid, I believe."
"Ah—yes. Hm." The Earthman tore his attention away from the machinery itself; Miles felt he could
see him switching
from technical to business mode. "Those are the terms we normally offer our established corporate
customers."
"The Dendarii Free Mercenary Fleet is an established corporation. Registered out of Jackson’s
Whole."
"Mm, yes, but—how shall I put this—the most exotic risk our normal customers usually run is
bankruptcy, for which we
have assorted legal protections. Your mercenary fleet is, um . . ."
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He’s wondering how to collect payment from a corpse, Miles thought.
"—a lot riskier," the engineer finished candidly. He shrugged an apology.
An honest man, at least . . .
"We shall not raise our recorded bid. But I’m afraid we’re going to have to ask for payment up
front."
As long as we’re down to trading insults . . . "But that gives us no protection against shoddy
workmanship," said Miles.
"You can sue," remarked the engineer, "just like anybody else."
"I can blow your—" Miles’s fingers drummed against his trouser seam where no holster was tied.
Earth, old Earth, old
civilized Earth. Commander Quinn, at his shoulder, touched his elbow in a fleeting gesture of
restraint. He shot her a brief
reassuring smile—no, he was not about to let himself get carried away by the—exotic—possibilities
of Admiral Miles Naismith,
Commanding, Dendarii Free Mercenary Fleet. He was merely tired, his smile said. A slight widening
of her brilliant brown
eyes replied, Bullshit, sir. But that was another argument, which they would not continue here,
out loud, in public.
"You can look," said the engineer neutrally, "for a better offer if you wish."
"We have looked," said Miles shortly. As you well know . . . "Right. Um . . . what about . . .
half up front and half on
delivery?"
The Earthman frowned, shook his head. "Kaymer does not pad its estimates, Admiral Naismith. And
our cost overruns
are among the lowest in the business. That’s a point of pride."
The term cost overrun made Miles’s teeth hurt, in light of Dagoola. How much did these people
really know about
Dagoola, anyway?
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"If you’re truly worried about our workmanship, the monies could be placed in an escrow account in
the control of a
neutral third party, such as a bank, until you accept delivery. Not a very satisfactory compromise
from Kaymer’s point of
view, but—that’s as far as I can go."
A neutral third Earther party, thought Miles. If he hadn’t checked up on Kaymer’s workmanship, he
wouldn’t be here. It
was his own cash flow Miles was thinking about. Which was definitely not Kaymer’s business.
"You having cash flow problems, Admiral?" inquired the Earther with interest. Miles fancied he
could see the price rising
in his eyes.
"Not at all," Miles lied blandly. Rumors afloat about the Dendarii’s liquidity difficulties could
sabotage a lot more than just
this repair deal. "Very well. Cash up front to be held in escrow." If he wasn’t to have the use of
his funds, neither should
Kaymer. Beside him, Elli Quinn drew air in through her teeth. The Earther engineer and the
mercenary leader shook hands
solemnly.
Following the sales engineer back toward his own office, Miles paused a moment by a viewport that
framed a fine view of
Earth from orbit. The engineer smiled and waited politely, even proudly, watching his gaze.
Earth. Old, romantic, historic Earth, the big blue marble itself. Miles had always expected to
travel here someday,
although not, surely, under these conditions.
Earth was still the largest, richest, most varied and populous planet in scattered humanity’s
entire worm-hole nexus of
explored space. Its dearth of good exit points in solar local space and governmental disunity left
it militarily and strategically
minor from the greater galactic point of view. But Earth still reigned, if it did not rule,
culturally supreme. More war-scarred
than Barrayar, as technically advanced as Beta Colony, the end-point of all pilgrimages both
religious and secular—in light of
which, major embassies from every world that could afford one were collected here. Including,
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Miles reflected, nibbling gently
on the side of his index finger, the Cetagandan. Admiral Naismith must use all means to avoid
them.
"Sir?" Elli Quinn interrupted his meditations. He smiled briefly up at her sculptured face, the
most beautiful his money
had been able to buy after the plasma burn and yet, thanks to the genius of the surgeons, still
unmistakably Elli. Would that
every combat casualty taken in his service could be so redeemed. "Commodore Tung is on the
comconsole for you," she went
on.
His smile sagged. What now? He abandoned the view and marched off after her to take over the sales
engineer’s office
with a polite, relentless, "Will you excuse us, please?"
His Eurasian third officer’s bland, broad face formed above the vid plate. "Yes, Ky?"
Ky Tung, already out of uniform and into civilian gear, gave him a brief nod in lieu of a salute.
"I’ve just finished making
arrangements at the rehab center for our nine severely wounded. Prognoses are good, for the most
part. And they think they
will be able to retrieve four of the eight frozen dead, maybe five if they’re lucky. The surgeons
here even think they’ll be able
to repair Demmi’s Jumpset, once the neural tissue itself has healed. For a price, of course . . ."
Tung named the price in GSA
Federal credits; Miles mentally converted it to Barrayaran Imperial marks, and made a small
squeaking noise.
Tung grinned dry appreciation. "Yeah. Unless you want to give up on that repair. It’s equal to all
the rest put together."
Miles shook his head, grimacing. "There are a number of people in the universe I’d be willing to
double-cross, but my
own wounded aren’t among ’em."
"Thank you," said Tung, "I agree. Now, I’m just about ready to leave this place. Last thing I have
to do is sign a chit
taking personal responsibility for the bill. Are you quite sure you’re going to be able to collect
the pay owed us for the Dagoola
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operation here?"
"I’m on my way to do that next," Miles promised. "Go ahead and sign, I’ll make it right."
"Very good, sir," said Tung. "Am I released for my home leave after that?"
Tung the Earth man, the only Earther Miles had ever met—which probably accounted for the
unconscious favorable
feelings he had about this place, Miles reflected. "How much time off do we owe you by now, Ky,
about a year and a half?"
With pay, alas, a small voice added in his mind, and was suppressed as unworthy. "You can take all
you want."
"Thank you." Tung’s face softened. "I just talked to my daughter. I have a brand-new grandson!"
"Congratulations," said Miles. "Your first?"
"Yes."
"Go on, then. If anything comes up, we’ll take care of it. You’re only indispensable in combat,
eh? Uh . . . where will you
be?"
"My sister’s home: Brazil. I have about four hundred cousins there."
"Brazil, right. All right." Where the devil was Brazil? "Have a good time."
"I shall." Tung’s departing semi-salute was distinctly breezy. His face faded from the vid.
"Damn," Miles sighed, "I’m sorry to lose him even to a leave. Well, he deserves it."
Elli leaned over the back of his comconsole chair. Her breath barely stirred his dark hair, his
dark thoughts. "May I
suggest, Miles, that he’s not the only senior officer who could use some time off? Even you need
to dump stress sometimes.
And you were wounded too."
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"Wounded?" Tension clamped Miles’s jaw. "Oh, the bones. Broken bones don’t count. I’ve had the
damn brittle bones all
my life. I just have to learn to resist the temptation to play field officer. The place for my ass
is in a nice padded tactics-room
chair, not on the line. If I’d known in advance that Dagoola was going to get so—physical, I’d
have sent somebody else in as the
fake POW. Anyway, there you are. I had my leave in sickbay."
"And then spent a month wandering around like a cryo-corpse who’d been warmed up in the microwave.
When you
walked into a room it was like a visit from the Undead."
"I ran the Dagoola rig on pure hysteria. You can’t be up that long and not pay for it after with a
little down. At least, I
can’t."
"My impression was there was more to it than that."
He whirled the chair around to face her with a snarl. "Will you back off. Yes, we lost some good
people. I don’t like losing
good people. I cry real tears—in private, if you don’t mind!"
She recoiled, her face falling. He softened his voice, deeply ashamed of his outburst. "Sorry,
Elli. I know I’ve been edgy.
The death of that poor POW who fell from the shuttle shook me more than . . . more than I should
have let it. I can’t seem to . .
."
"I was out of line, sir."
The "sir" was like a needle through some voodoo doll she held of him. Miles winced. "Not at all."
Why, why, why, of all the idiotic things he’d done as Admiral Naismith, had he ever established as
explicit policy not to
seek physical intimacy with anyone in his own organization? It had seemed like a good idea at the
time. Tung had approved.
Tung was a grandfather, for God’s sake, his gonads had probably withered years ago. Miles
remembered how he had deflected
the first pass Elli had ever made at him. "A good officer doesn’t go shopping in the company
store," he’d explained gently. Why
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hadn’t she belted him in the jaw for that fatuousness? She had absorbed the unintended insult
without comment, and never
tried again. Had she ever realized he’d meant that to apply to himself, not her?
When he was with the fleet for extended periods, he usually tried to send her on detached duties,
from which she
invariably returned with superb results. She had headed the advance team to Earth, and had Kaymer
and most of their other
suppliers all lined up by the time the Dendarii fleet made orbit. A good officer; after Tung,
probably his best. What would he
not give to dive into that lithe body and lose himself now? Too late, he’d lost his option.
Her velvet mouth crimped quizzically. She gave him a—sisterly, perhaps—shrug. "I won’t hassle you
about it any more.
But at least think about it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a human being who needed to get laid
worse than you do now."
Oh, God, what a straight line—what did those words really mean? His chest tightened. Comradely
comment, or
invitation? If mere comment, and he mistook it for invitation, would she think he was leaning on
her for sexual favors? If the
reverse, would she be insulted again and not breathe on him for years to come? He grinned in
panic. "Paid," he blurted. "What
I need right now is paid, not laid. After that—after that, um . . . maybe we could go see some of
the sights. It seems practically
criminal to come all this way and not see any of Old Earth, even if it was by accident. I’m
supposed to have a bodyguard at all
times downside anyway, we could double up."
She was sighing, straightening up. "Yes, duty first, of course."
Yes, duty first. And his next duty was to report in to Admiral Naismith’s employers. After that,
all his troubles would be
vastly simplified.
Miles wished he could have changed to civilian clothes before embarking on this expedition. His
crisp grey-and-white
Dendarii admiral’s uniform was conspicuous as hell in this shopping arcade. Or at least made Elli
change—they could have
pretended to be a soldier on leave and his girlfriend. But his civilian gear had been stashed in a
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