Borders of Infinity

This reference to Taura went straight over Ryoval's head; he had his idea-fixee now, and its ramifications and his rage were an effective block against incoming data. Really, it should not be at all hard to convince a man who had been conspiring deeply against his rivals, that those rivals were conspiring against him in turn.

'Fell, or Bharaputra?' Ryoval reiterated furiously. 'Did you think to conceal a theft for Bharaputra with that wanton destruction?'

Theft? Miles wondered intently. Not of Taura, surely—of some tissue sample Bharaputra had been dealing for, perhaps? Oh ho. . . .

'Isn't it obvious?' said Miles sweetly. 'You gave your brother the motive, in your sabotage of his plans to extend his life. And you wanted too much from Bharaputra, so they supplied the method, placing their super-soldier inside your facility where I could rendezvous with her. They even made you pay for the privilege of having your security screwed! You played right into our hands. The master plan, of course,' Miles buffed his fingernails on his T-shirt, 'was mine.'

Miles glanced up through his eyelashes. Ryoval seemed to be having trouble breathing. The baron cut the vid connection with an abrupt swat of his shaking hand. Blackout.

Humming thoughtfully, Miles went to get a shower.

He was back in Nav and Com in fresh grey-and-whites, full of salicylates for his aches and contusions and with a mug of hot black coffee in his hands as antidote to his squinting red eyes, when the next call came in.

So far from breaking into a tirade like his half-brother, Baron Fell sat silent a moment in the vid, just staring at Miles. Miles, burning under his gaze, felt extremely glad he'd had the chance to clean up. So, had Baron Fell missed his quaddie at last? Had Ryoval communicated to him yet any part of the smouldering paranoid misconceptions Miles had so lately fanned to flame? No pursuit had yet been launched from Fell Station—it must come soon, or not at all, or any craft light enough to match the Ariel's acceleration would be too light to match its firepower. Unless Fell planned to call in favors from the consortium of Houses that ran the Jumppoint Station. . . . One more minute of this heavy silence, Miles felt, and he would break into uncontrollable blither. Fortunately, Fell spoke at last.

'You seem, Admiral Naismith,' Baron Fell rumbled, 'whether accidentally or on purpose, to be carrying off something that does not belong to you.'

Quite a few somethings, Miles reflected, but Fell referred only to Nicol if Miles read him right. 'We were compelled to leave in rather a hurry,' he said in an apologetic tone.

'So I'm told.' Fell inclined his head ironically. He must have had a report from his hapless squad commander. 'But you may yet save yourself some trouble. There was an agreed-upon price for my musician. It's of no great difference to me, if I give her up to you or to Ryoval, as long as I get that price.'

Captain Thorne, working the Ariel's monitors, flinched under Miles's glance.

'The price you refer to, I take it, is the secret of the Betan rejuvenation technique,' said Miles.

'Quite.'

'Ah . . . hum.' Miles moistened his lips. 'Baron, I cannot.'

Fell turned his head. 'Station commander, launch pursuit ships—'

'Wait!' Miles cried.

Fell raised his brows. 'You reconsider? Good.'

'It's not that I will not tell you,' said Miles desperately, 'it's just that the truth would be of no use to you. None whatsoever. Still, I agree you deserve some compensation. I have another piece of information I could trade you, more immediately valuable.'

'Oh?' said Fell. His voice was neutral but his expression was black.

'You suspected your half-brother Ryoval in the murder of your clone, but could not chain any evidence to him, am I right?'

Fell looked fractionally more interested. 'All my agents and Bharaputra's could not turn up a connection. We tried.'

'I'm not surprised. Because it was Bharaputra's agents who did the deed.' Well, it was possible, anyway.

Fell's eyes narrowed. 'Killed their own product?' he said slowly.

'I believe Ryoval struck a deal with House Bharaputra to betray you,' said Miles rapidly. 'I believe it involved the trade of some unique biological samples in Ryoval's possession; I don't think cash alone would have been worth their risk. The deal was done on the highest levels, obviously. I don't know how they figured to divide the spoils of House Fell after your eventual death—maybe they didn't mean to divide it at all. They seem to have had some ultimate plan of combining their operations for some larger monopoly of biologicals on Jackson's Whole. A corporate merger of sorts.' Miles paused to let this sink in. 'May I suggest you may wish to reserve your forces and favors against enemies more, er, intimate and immediate than myself? Besides, you have all our credit chit but we have only half our cargo. Will you call it even?'

Fell glowered at him for a full minute, the face of a man thinking in three different directions at once. Miles knew the feeling. He then turned his head, and grated out of the corner of his mouth, 'Hold pursuit ships.'

Miles breathed again.

'I thank you for this information, Admiral,' said Fell coldly, 'but not very much. I shall not impede your swift exit. But if you or any of your ships appear in Jacksonian space again—'

'Oh, Baron,' said Miles sincerely, 'staying far, far away from here is fast becoming one of my dearest ambitions.'

'You're wise,' Fell growled, and moved to cut the link.

'Baron Fell,' Miles added impulsively. Fell paused. 'For your future information—is this link secured?'

'Yes.'

'The true secret of the Betan rejuvenation technique—is that there is none. Don't be taken in again. I look the age I do, because it is the age I am. Make of it what you will.'

Fell said absolutely nothing. After a moment a faint, wintry smile moved his lips. He shook his head and cut the com.

Just in case, Miles lingered on in sort of a glassy puddle in one corner of Nav and Com until the Comm Officer reported their final clearance from Jumppoint Station traffic control. But Miles calculated Houses Fell, Ryoval, and Bharaputra were going to be too busy with each other to concern themselves with him, at least for a while. His late transfer of information both true and false among the combatants—to each according to his measure—had the feel of throwing one bone to three starving, rabid dogs. He almost regretted not being able to stick around and see the results. Almost.

Hours after the Jump he woke in his cabin, fully dressed but with his boots set neatly by his bed, with no memory of how he'd got there. He rather fancied Murka must have escorted him. If he'd fallen asleep while walking alone he'd surely have left the boots on.

Miles first checked with the duty officer as to the Ariel's situation and status. It was refreshingly dull. They were crossing a blue star system between Jump points on the route to Escobar, unpeopled and empty of everything but a smattering of routine commercial traffic. Nothing pursued them from the direction of Jackson's Whole. Miles had a light meal, not sure if it was breakfast, lunch, or dinner, his bio-rhythm being thoroughly askew from shiptime after his downside adventures. He then sought out Thorne and Nicol. He found them in Engineering. A tech was just polishing out the last dent in Nicol's float chair.

Nicol, now wearing a white tunic and shorts trimmed with pink piping, lay sprawled on her belly on a bench watching the repairs. It gave Miles an odd sensation to see her out of her cup, it was like looking at a hermit crab out of its shell, or a seal on the shore. She looked strangely vulnerable in one-gee, yet in null gee she'd looked so right, so clearly at ease, he'd stopped noticing the oddness of the extra arms very quickly. Thorne helped the tech fit the float cup's blue shell over its reconditioned antigrav mechanism, and turned to greet Miles as the tech proceeded to lock it in place.

Miles sat down-bench from Nicol. 'From the looks of things,' he told her, 'you should be free of pursuit from Baron Fell. He and his half-brother are going to be fully occupied avenging themselves on each other for a while. Makes me glad I'm an only child.'

'Hm,' she said pensively.

'You should be safe,' Thorne offered encouragingly.

'Oh—no, it's not that,' Nicol said. 'I was just thinking about my sisters. Time was I couldn't wait to get