The Vor Game

said Vervain Station, not Vervain. You know Cavilo? Your opposite number, across-system?'

'I've encountered her once or twice.' Oser's face was guarded now, waiting for his scrambling tech team to report.

'Face like an angel, mind like a rabid mongoose?'

Oser's lips twitched very slightly. 'You've met her.'

'Oh, yes. She and I had several heart-to-heart talks. They were . . . educational. Information is the most valuable trade-good in the Hub right now. At any rate, mine is. I want to deal.'

Oser held up his hand for a pause, and keyed off-line briefly. When his face retuned, its expression was black. 'Captain Thorne, this is mutiny!'

Thorne leaned into the range of the vid pick-up, and said brightly, 'No, sir, it's not. We are trying to save your ungrateful neck, if you will permit it. Listen to the man. He has lines we don't.'

'He has lines, all right,' and under his breath, 'Damn Betans, sticking together. . . .'

'Whether you fight me, or I fight you, Admiral Oser, we both lose,' said Miles rapidly.

'You can't win,' said Oser. 'You cannot take my fleet. Not with the Ariel.'

'The Ariel's just a starter-set, if it comes to that. But no, I probably can't win. What I can do is make an unholy mess. Divide your forces—screw you with your employer—every weapon-charge you expend, every piece of equipment that's damaged, every soldier hurt or killed is pure loss in an in-fight like this. Nobody wins but Cavilo, who expends nothing. Which is precisely what she sent me back here for. How much profit do you foresee in doing precisely what your enemy wishes you to, eh?'

Miles waited, breathless. Oser's jaw worked, chewing over this impassioned argument. 'What's your profit?' he asked at last.

'Ah. I'm afraid I'm the dangerous variable in that calculation, Admiral. I'm not in it for profit.' Miles grinned. 'So I don't care what I wreck.'

'Any information you had from Cavilo is worth shit,' said Oser.

He begins to barter—he's hooked, he's hooked. . . . Miles tamped down exultation, cultivated a serious expression. 'Anything Cavilo says must certainly be sifted with great care. But, ah … beauty is as beauty does. And I've found her vulnerable side.'

'Cavilo has no vulnerable side.'

'Yes, she does. Her passion for utility. Her self-interest.'

'I fail to see how that makes her vulnerable.'

'Precisely why you need to add me to your Staff at once. You need my vision.'

'Hire you!' Oser recoiled in astonishment.

Well, he'd achieved surprise, anyway. A military objective of sorts. 'I understand the post of Chief-of- Staff/Tactical is now empty.'

Oser's expression flowed from astonished to stunned to a kind of amused fury. 'You're insane.'

'No, just in a tearing hurry. Admiral, there's nothing irrevocable gone wrong between us. Yet. You attacked me—not the other way around—and now you expect me to attack you back. But I'm not on holiday, and I don't have time to waste on personal amusements like revenge.'

Oser's eyes narrowed. 'What about Tung?'

Miles shrugged. 'Keep him locked up, for now, if you insist. Unharmed, of course.' Just don't tell him I said so.

'Suppose I hang him.'

'Ah . . . that would be irrevocable.' Miles paused. 'I will point out, jailing Tung is like cutting off your right hand before heading into battle.'

'What battle? With whom?'

'It's a surprise. Cavilo's surprise. Though I've developed an idea or two on the problem, that I'd be willing to share.'

'Would you?' Oser had that same man-sucking-a-lemon expression Miles had now and then surprised on Illyan's face. It seemed almost homey.

Miles continued, 'As an alternative to my becoming your employee, I'm willing to become your employer. I'm authorized to offer a bona fide contract, all the usual perqs, equipment replacement, insurance, from my . . . sponsor.' Illyan, hear my plea. 'Not in conflict with Aslund's interests. You can collect twice for the same fight, and you don't even have to switch sides. A mercenary's dream.'

'What guarantees can you offer up front?'

'It seems to me that I'm the one who's owed a guarantee, sir. Let us begin with small steps. I won't start a mutiny; you stop trying to thrust me out airlocks. I will join you openly—everyone to know I've arrived—I will make my information available to you.' How thin his 'information' seemed, in the breeze of these airy promises. No numbers, no troop movements; all intentions, shifting mental topographies of loyalty, ambition, and betrayal. 'We will confer. You may even have an angle I lack. Then we go on from there.'

Oser thinned his lips, bemused, half-persuaded, deeply suspicious.

'The risk, I would point out,' said Miles, 'the personal risk, is more mine than yours.'

'I think—'

Miles hung suspended on the mercenary's words.

'I think I'm going to regret this,' Oser sighed.

The detailed negotiations just to bring theAriel into dock took another half day. As the initial excitement wore off, Thorne became more thoughtful. As the Ariel actually maneuvered into its clamps, Thorne grew positively meditative.

'I'm still not exactly sure what's supposed to keep Oser from bringing us in, stunning us, and hanging us at leisure,' Thorne said, buckling on a sidearm. Thorne kept the complaint to an undertone, in care for the tender ears of the escort squad kitting up nearby in the Ariel's shuttle hatch corridor.

'Curiosity,' said Miles firmly. 'All right, stun, fast-penta, and hang, then.'

'If he fast-penta's me, I'll tell him exactly the facts I was going to tell him anyway.' And a few more besides, alas. 'And he'll have fewer doubts. So much the better.'

Miles was rescued from further hollow flummery by the clank and hiss of the flex-tubes sealing. Thorne's sergeant undogged the hatch without hesitation, though he was also careful not to stand silhouetted in the aperture, Miles noted.

'Squad, form up!' the sergeant ordered. His six people checked their stunners. Thorne and the sergeant in addition bore nerve disruptors, a nicely-calculated mix of weapons; stunners to allow for human error, the nerve disruptors to encourage the other side not to risk mistakes. Miles went unarmed. With a mental salute to Cavilo– well, a rude gesture, actually—he'd put his felt slippers back on. Thorne at his side, he took the lead of the little procession and marched through the flex tube into one of the Aslunder military station's almost-finished docking bays.

True to his word, Oser had a party of witnesses lined up and waiting. The squad of twenty or so bore a mix of weapons almost identical to the Ariel's group. 'We're outnumbered,' muttered Thorne.

'It's all in the mind,' Miles muttered in return. 'March like you had an empire at your back.' And don't look over your shoulder, they may be gaining on us. They'd better be gaining on us. 'The more people who see me, the better.'

Oser himself stood waiting in parade rest, looking highly dyspeptic. Elena—Elena!— stood at his side, unarmed, face frozen. Her tight-lipped stare at Miles was tense with suspicion, not of his motives, perhaps, but certainly of his methods, Now what foolishness? her eyes asked. Miles gave her the briefest of ironic nods before saluting Oser.

Reluctantly, Oser returned the military courtesy. 'Now—'Admiral'—let us return to the Triumph and get down to business,' he grated.

'Indeed, yes. But let's have a little tour of this Station on the way, eh? The non-top-secured areas, of course. My last view was so . . . rudely cut short, after all. After you, Admiral?' Oser gritted his teeth. 'Oh, after