She glowed in his praise. 'You've got me doing so many things I've never done before, new people, things I'd never dreamed of—'
'Yes …' he stumbled. 'I'm sorry I got you into this nightmare. I've been demanding so much of you—but I'll get you out. My word on it. Don't be scared.'
Her mouth set in indignation. 'I'm not scared! Well—some. But I feel more alive than I've ever been. You make anything seem possible.'
The longed-for admiration in her eyes perturbed him. It was too much like hunger. 'Elena—this whole thing is balanced on a hoax. If those guys out there wake up and realize how badly they have us outnumbered, we'll crash like—' he cut himself off. That wasn't what she needed to hear. He rubbed his eyes, fingertips pressing hard against them, and paced.
'It's not balanced on a hoax,' she said earnestly. 'You balance it.'
'Isn't that what I said?' He laughed, shakily.
She studied him through narrowed eyes. 'When was the last time you slept?'
'Oh, I don't know. I've lost track, with the ships on different clocks. That reminds me, got to get them on the same clock. I'll switch the RG132, that'll be easier. We'll all keep Oseran time. It was before the jump, anyway. A day before the jump.'
'Have you had dinner?'
'Dinner?'
'Lunch?'
'Lunch? Was there lunch? I was getting things ready for the funeral, I guess.'
She looked exasperated. 'Breakfast?'
'I ate some of their field rations, when I was working on the regs last night—look, I'm short, I don't need as much as you overgrown types …'
He paced on. Her face grew sober. 'Miles,' she said, and hesitated. 'How did that pilot officer die? He looked, well, not all right, but he was alive in the shuttle. Did he jump you?'
His stomach did a roller-coaster flop. 'My God, do you think I murdered—' But he had, surely, as surely as if he had held a disruptor to the man's head and fired. He had no desire to detail the events in the RG132's wardroom to Elena. They looped in his memory, violent images flashing over and over. Bothari's crime, his crime, a seamless whole .. .
'Miles, are you all right?' Her voice was alarmed. He realized he was standing still with his eyes shut. Tears were leaking between the lids.
'Miles, sit down! You're hyper.'
'Can't sit down. If I stop I'll …' He resumed his circuit, limping mechanically.
She stared at him, her lips parted, then shut her mouth abruptly and slammed out the door.
Now he had frightened her, offended her, perhaps even sabotaged her carefully nurtured confidence … He swore at himself, savage. He was sinking in a black and sucking bog, gluey viscous terror sapping his vital forward momentum. He waded on, blindly.
Elena's voice again. '—bouncing off the walls. I think you'll have to sit on him. I've never seen him this bad …'
Miles looked up into the precious, ugly face of his personal killer. Bothari compressed his lips, and sighed. 'Right. I'll take care of it.'
Elena, eyes wide with concern but mouth calm with confidence in Bothari, withdrew. Bothari grasped Miles by the back of the collar and belt, frog-marched him over to the bed, and sat him down firmly.
'Drink.'
'Oh, hell, Sergeant—you know I can't stand scotch. Tastes like paint thinner.'
'I will,' said Bothari patiently, 'hold your nose and pour it down your throat if I have to.'
Miles took in the flinty face and prudently choked down a slug from the flask, which he recognized vaguely as confiscated from mercenary stock. Bothari, with matter-of-fact efficiency, stripped him and slung him into bed.
'Drink again.'
'Blech.' It burned foully down his throat.
'Now sleep.'
'Can't sleep. Too much to do. Got to keep them moving. Wonder if I can fake a brochure? I suppose deathgild is nothing but a primitive form of life insurance, at that. Elena can't possibly be right about Thorne. Hope to God my father never finds out about this—Sergeant, you won't … ? I thought of a docking drill with the RG132 …' His protests trailed off to a mumble, and he rolled over and slept dreamlessly for sixteen hours.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
A week later, he was still in command.
Miles took to haunting the mercenary ship's control room as they neared their destination. Daum's rendezvous was a rare metals refinery in the system's asteroid belt. The factory was a mobile of chaotic structures strung together by girdering and powersats, winged by its vast solar collectors, junkyard art. A few lights winked, picking out bright reflections and leaving the rest in charitable dimness.
Too few lights, Miles realized as they approached. The place looked shut down. An off shift? Not likely; it represented too large an investment to let stand idle for the sake of its masters' biology. By rights the smelteries should be operating around the clock to feed the war effort. Tow ships with ore chunks should be jockeying for docking space, outgoing freighters should be wheeling away with their military escorts in a traffic-control minuet …
'Are they still answering your recognition codes correctly?' Miles asked Daum. He barely kept himself from shifting from foot to foot.
'Yes.' But Daum looked strained.
He doesn't like the looks of this either, Miles thought. 'Shouldn't a strategically important installation like this be more actively guarded? Surely the Pelians and the Oserans have got to be trying to knock it out. Where are your picket ships?'
'I don't know.' Daum moistened his lips, and stared into the screen.
'We have a live transmission now, sir,' the mercenary communications officer reported.
A Felician colonel appeared in the viewscreen.
'Fehun! Thank God!' cried Daum. The tension melted in his face.
Miles let out his breath. For a horrible moment he'd been crushed by a vision of being unable to unload his prisoners along with Daum's cargo, and then what? He was quite as exhausted by the week as Bothari had predicted, and looked forward with a shiver of relief to its ending.
Lieutenant Thorne, coming on station, smiled and gave Miles a neat salute. Miles pictured the look on Thorne's face when the masquerade and betrayal were at last revealed. His ballooning anticipation turned to lead in his stomach. He returned the salute, and concealed his queasiness by turning to watch Daum's conversation. Maybe he could arrange to be elsewhere when the trap was sprung.
'—made it,' Daum was saying. 'Where is everybody? This place looks deserted.'
There was a flash of static, and the military figure in the screen shrugged. 'We drove off an attack by the Pelians a few weeks ago. The solar collectors were damaged. We're awaiting the repair crews now.'
'How are things at home? Have we freed Barinth yet?'
Another flash of static. The colonel, seated behind his desk, nodded and said, 'The war is going well.'
The colonel had a tiny sculpture on his desk, Miles noticed, a mosaic horse cleverly formed of assorted scrap electronic parts soldered together, no doubt by some refinery technician in his off hours. Miles thought of his grandfather, and wondered what kind of horses they had on Felice. Had they ever slipped back enough technologically to have used horse cavalry?
'Great!' Daum chortled, avid upon his fellow Felician's face. 'I took so long on Beta, I was afraid—so we're still in business! I'll buy you a drink when we get in, you old snake, and we'll toast the Premier together. How is
