opportunities, for want of a little resolve, or imagination, or something.'
Mayhew blinked at this unexpected point of view. 'By God, Van told the truth for once. You're not from the Mental Health Board … I could take you hostage,' he offered placatingly, swinging the needler toward Miles.
'No, don't do that,' said Miles hastily. 'I can't explain, but—they'd overreact, down there. It's a bad idea.'
'Oh.' The needler's aim drifted off. 'But anyway, don't you see,' he tapped his headset, attempting to explain, 'what I want, they can't give me? I want to ride the jumps. And I can't, not any more.'
'Only in this ship, I gather.'
'This ship is going for scrap,' his despair was flat, unexpectedly rational, 'just as soon as I can't stay awake any more.'
'That's a useless attitude,' scoffed Miles. 'Apply a little logic to the problem, at least. I mean like this. You want to be a jump pilot. You can only be a jump pilot for an RG ship. This is the last RG ship. Ergo, what you need is this ship. So get it. Be a pilot-owner. Run your own cargos. Simple, see? May I have some more of that stuff, please?' One got used to the ghastly taste quite quickly, Miles found.
Mayhew shook his head, clutching his despair and his toggle box to him like a familiar, comforting child's toy. 'I tried. I've tried everything. I thought I had a loan. It folded, and anyway, Calhoun outbid me.'
'Oh.' Miles passed the bottle back, feeling deflated.
He gazed at the pilot, to whom he was now floating at right angles. 'Well, all I know is, you can't give up. Shur—surrender besmirches the honor of the Vor.' He began to hum a little, a snatch of some half-remembered childhood ballad; 'The Seige of Silver Moon'. It had a Vor lord in it, he recalled, and a beautiful witch-woman who rode in a magic flying mortar; they had pounded their enemies' bones in it, at the end. 'Gimme another drink. I want to think. 'If thou wilt swear thyself to me, thy leige lord true to thee I'll be …' '
'Huh?' said Mayhew.
Miles realized he'd been singing aloud, albeit softly. 'Nothing, sorry.' He floated in silence a few minutes longer. 'That's the trouble with the Betan system,' he said after a time. 'Nobody takes personal responsibility for anyone. It's all these faceless fictional corporate entities—government by ghosts. What you need is a leige lord, to take sword in hand and slice through all the red tape. Just like Vorthalia the Bold and the Thicket of Thorns.'
'What I need is a drink,' said Mayhew glumly.
'Hm? Oh, sorry.' Miles handed the bottle back. An idea was forming up in the back of his mind, like a nebula just starting to contract. A little more mass, and it would start to glow, a pro to star … 'I have it!' he cried, straightening out suddenly, and accidentally giving himself an unwanted spin.
Mayhew flinched, nearly firing his needler through the floor. He glanced uncertainly at the squeeze bottle. 'No, I have it,' he corrected.
Miles overcame the spin. 'We'd better do this from here. The first principle of strategy—never give up an advantage. Can I use your comconsole?'
'What for?'
'I,' said Miles grandly, 'am going to buy this ship. And then I shall hire you to pilot it.'
Mayhew stared in bewilderment, looking from Miles to the bottle and back. 'You got that much money?'
'Mm … Well, I have assets …'
A few minutes work with the comconsole brought the salvage operator's face on the screen. Miles put his proposition succinctly. Calhoun's expression went from disbelief to outrage.
'You call that a compromise?' he cried. 'At cost! And backed by—I'm not a damned real estate broker!'
'Mr. Calhoun,' said Miles sweetly, 'may I point out, the choice is not between my note and this ship. The choice is between my note and a rain of glowing debris.'
'If I find out you're in collusion with that—'
'Never met him before today,' Miles disclaimed.
'What's wrong with the land?' asked Calhoun suspiciously. 'Besides being on Barrayar, I mean.'
'It's like fertile farm country,' Miles answered, not quite directly. 'Wooded—100 centimeters of rain a year—' that ought to fetch a Betan, 'barely 300 kilometers from the capital.'
Downwind, fortunately for the capital. 'And I own it absolutely. Just inherited it from my grandfather recently. Go ahead and check it through the Barrayaran Embassy. Check the climate plats.'
'This rainfall—it's not all on the same day or something, is it?'
'Of course not,' replied Miles, straightening indignantly. Not easy, in free fall. 'Ancestral land—it's been in my family for ten generations. You can believe I'll make every effort to cover that note before I'll let my home ground fall from my hands—'
Calhoun rubbed his chin irritably. 'Cost plus 25%,' he suggested.
'Ten percent.'
'Twenty.'
'Ten, or I'll let you deal directly with Pilot Officer Mayhew.'
'All right,' groaned Calhoun, 'ten percent.'
'Done!'
It was not quite that easy, of course. But thanks to the efficiency of the Betans' planetary information network, a transaction that would have taken days on Barrayar was completed in less than an hour, right from Mayhew's control room. Miles was cannily reluctant to give up the tactical bargaining advantage possession of the toggle box gave them, and Mayhew, after his first astonishment had worn off, became silent and loathe to leave.
'Look, kid,' he spoke suddenly, about halfway through the complicated transaction. 'I appreciate what you're trying to do, but—but it's just too late. You understand, when I get downside, they're not going to just be laughing this off. Security'll be waiting at the docking bay, with a patrol from the Mental Health Board right beside 'em. They'll slap a stun-net over me so fast—you'll see me in a month or two, walking around smiling. You're always smiling, after the M.H.B. gets done …' He shook his head helplessly. 'It's just too late.'
'It's never too late while you're breathing,' snapped Miles. He did the free-fall equivalent of pacing the room, shoving off from one wall, turning in midair, and shoving off from the opposite wall, a few dozen turns, thinking.
'I have an idea,' he said at last. 'I'll wager it would buy time, time enough at least to come up with something better—trouble is, since you're not Barrayaran, you're not going to understand what you're doing, and it's serious stuff.'
Mayhew looked thoroughly baffled. 'Huh?'
'It's like this.' Thump, spin, turn straighten, thump. 'If you were to swear fealty to me as an Armsman simple, taking me for your liege lord—it's the most straightforward of our oath relationships—I might be able to include you under my Class III diplomatic immunity. Anyway, I know I could if you were a Barrayaran subject. Of course, you're a Betan citizen. In any case, I'm pretty sure we could tie up a pack of lawyers and several days, trying to figure out which laws take precedence. I would be legally obligated for your bed, board, dress, armament —I suppose this ship could be classed as your armament—your protection, in the event of challenge by any other leigeman—that hardly applies, here on Beta Colony—oh, there's a passel of stuff, about your family, and—do you have a family, by the way?'
Mayhew shook his head.
'That simplifies things.' Thump, spin, turn, straighten, thump. 'Meanwhile, neither Security nor the M.H.B. could touch you, because legally you'd be like a part of my body.'
Mayhew blinked. 'That sounds screwy as hell. Where do I sign? How do you register it?'
'All you have to do is kneel, place your hands between mine, and repeat about two sentences. It doesn't even need witnesses, although it's customary to have two.'
Mayhew shrugged. 'All right. Sure, kid.'
Thump, spin, turn, straighten, thump. 'All-right-surekid. I thought you wouldn't understand it. What I've described is only a tiny part of my half of the bargain, your privileges. It also includes your obligations, and a ream of rights I have over you. For instance—just one for-instance—if you were to refuse to carry out an order of mine in the heat of battle, I would have the right to strike off your head. On the spot.'
