The Vor Game

fourth stood guard at the nearest cross-corridor. 'It seems we just got lucky,' she told them. 'Scout ahead and clear the aisles on our escape route—subtly. Then disappear. You weren't here and didn't see this.'

They nodded and withdrew. Miles heard a retreating mutter. 'Was that him?'

'Yeah . . .'

Miles, Gregor, and Elena, with the bodies, piled cozily into the lock and closed the inner door temporarily. Chodak stood guard outside. Elena helped Gregor pull the boots from the Oseran nearest his size while Miles stripped off his blue prisoner's outfit and stood, revealing Victor Rotha's wrinkled clothing, much the worse for four days wear, sleep, and sweat. Miles wished for boots to replace the vulnerable sandals, but none here came close to his size.

Gregor and Elena exchanged looks, each warily amazed at the other, as Gregor yanked on grey-and-whites and plunged his feet into the boots.

'It's really you.' Elena shook her head in dismay. 'What are you doing here?'

'It was by mistake,' said Gregor.

'No lie. Whose?'

'Mine, I'm afraid,' said Miles. Somewhat to his annoyance, Gregor did not gainsay this.

A peculiar smile, her first, quirked Elena's lips. Miles decided not to ask her to explain it. This hurried practical exchange did not in the least resemble any of the dozens of conversations he had rehearsed in his head for this first, poignant meeting with her.

'The search will be up in minutes, when these guys don't report back,' Miles jittered. He collected two stunners, the tangle-field, and the vibra-knife, and stuck them in his waistband. On second thought, he swiftly relieved the four Oserans of credit cards, pass chits, IDs, and odd cash, stuffing his pockets and Gregor's, and made sure Gregor ditched his prisoner's traceable ID. To his secret delight, he also found a half-eaten ration bar, and bit into it there and then. He chewed as Elena led the way back out the lock. He conscientiously offered a bite to Gregor, who shook his head. Gregor'd probably had dinner in that cafeteria.

Chodak hastily straightened Gregor's uniform, and they all marched off, Miles to the center, half-concealed, half-guarded. Before he could go half-paranoid at his conspicuousness they took to a drop-tube, emerged several decks down, and found themselves at a large cargo-lock, engaged to a shuttle. One of Elena's scout squad, leaning as if idle against the wall, nodded. With a half-salute to Elena, Chodak split off and they hurried away. Miles and Gregor followed Elena across the flex-seal of the shuttle hatch and into the empty cargo hold of one of the Triumph's shuttles, stepping from the artificial gravity field of the mother ship abruptly into the vertigo of free fall. They floated forward to the pilot's compartment. Elena sealed the compartment hatch behind them, and anxiously gestured Gregor to the vacant seat at the engineering/comm station.

The pilot's and co-pilot's seats were filled. Arde Mayhew grinned cheerfully over his shoulder at Miles, and waved/saluted hello. Miles recognized the shaved bullet-head of the second man even before he turned.

'Hello, son.' Ky Tung's smile was far more ironic than cheerful. 'Welcome back. You took your sweet time.' Tung, arms folded, did not salute.

'Hello, Ky,' Miles nodded to the Eurasian. Tung had not changed, anyway. Still looked any age between forty and sixty. Still built like an ancient tank. Still seemed to see more than he spoke, most uncomfortable for the guilty of conscience.

Mayhew the pilot spoke into his comm. 'Traffic control, I've traced that red light on my panel now. Defective pressure reading. All fixed. We're ready to break away.'

'About time, C-2,' a disembodied voice returned. 'You're clear.'

The pilot's swift hands activated hatch seal controls, aimed attitude jets. Some hissing and clanks, and the shuttle popped away from its mothership and started on its trajectory. Mayhew killed the comlink and breathed a long sigh of relief. 'Safe. For now.'

Elena wedged herself across the aisle behind Miles, long legs locking. Miles hooked an arm around a handhold to anchor against Mayhew's current mild accelerations. 'I hope you're right,' said Miles, 'but what makes you think so?'

'He means, safe to talk,' said Elena. 'Not safe in any cosmic sense. This is a routine scheduled run, except for us unlisted passengers. Iknow you haven't been missed yet, or traffic control would have stopped us. Oser will search the Triumph and the military station for you first. We may even be able to slip you back aboard the Triumph after the search has passed to wider areas.'

'This is Plan B,' Tung explained, swiveling around to half-face Miles. 'Or maybe Plan C. Plan A, on the assumption that your rescue was going to be a lot noisier, was to flee at once to the Ariel, now on picket-station, and declare the revolution. I'm grateful for the chance to bring things off a little, er, less spontaneously.'

Miles choked. 'God! That would have been worse than the first time.' Pitched into an interlocking chain of events he did not control, drafted gonfalonier to some mercenary military mutiny, thrust to the lead of its parade with all the free will of a head on a pike. . . . 'No. No spontaneity, thanks. Definitely not.'

'So,' Tung steepled his thick fingers, 'what is your plan?'

'My what?'

'Plan,' Tung pronounced the word with sardonic care. 'In other words, why are you here?'

'Oser asked me that same question,' sighed Miles. 'Would you believe, I'm here by accident? Oser wouldn't. You wouldn't happen to know why he wouldn't, would you?'

Tung pursed his lips. 'Accident? Maybe. . . . Your 'accidents,' I once noticed, have ways of entangling your enemies that are the green envy of mature and careful strategists. Far too consistent for chance, I concluded it had to be unconscious will. If only you'd stuck with me, son, between us we could've … or maybe you are simply a supreme opportunist. In which case I direct your attention to the opportunity now before you to retake the Dendarii Mercenaries.'

'You didn't answer my question,' Miles noted.

'You didn't answer mine,' Tung countered.

'I don't want the Dendarii Mercenaries.'

'I do.'

'Oh.' Miles paused. 'Why don't you split off with the personnel who are loyal to you and start your own, then? It's been done.'

'Shall we swim through space?' Tung imitated fish fins with his waving fingers, and puffed his cheeks. 'Oser controls the equipment. Including my ship. The Triumph is everything I've accumulated in a thirty-year career. Which I lost through your machinations. Somebody owes me another. If not Oser, then . . .'Tung glowered significantly at Miles.

'I tried to give you a fleet in trade,' said Miles, harried. 'How'd you lose control of it—old strategist?'

Tung tapped a finger to his left breast, to indicate a touche. 'Things went well at first, for a year, year and a half after we departed Tau Verde. Got two sweet little contracts in a row out toward the East-net —-small-scale commando operations, sure things. Well, not too sure– kept us on our toes. But we brought them off.'

Miles glanced at Elena. 'I'd heard about those, yes.'

'On the third, we got into troubles. Baz Jesek had gotten more and more involved with equipment and maintenance—he is a good engineer, I'll give him that—I was tactical commander, and Oser—I thought by default, but now I think design—took up the administrative slack. Could have been good, each doing what he did best, if Oser'd been working with and not against us. In the same situation, I'd have sent assassins. Oser employed guerrilla accountants.

'We took a bit of a beating on that third contract. Baz was up to his ears in engineering and repairs, and by the time I got out of sickbay, Oser'd lined up one of his no-combat specials—wormhole guard duty work. Long-term contract. Seemed like a good idea at the time. But it gave him a wedge. With no actual combat going on, I …' Tung cleared his throat, 'got bored, didn't pay attention. Oser'd outflanked me before I realized there was a war on. He sprang the financial reorganization on us—'

'I told you not to trust him, six months before that,' Elena put in with a frown, 'after he tried to seduce me.'

Tung shrugged uncomfortably. 'It seemed like an understandable temptation.'