Young Miles

by Lois McMaster Bujold

  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 liegelord, 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 anymore," 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 the 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 strip-packs 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 T275-389-42-1535-1742. 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, off-planet—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 hotshot 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."