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emergencies. It also gives a little artistic depth to the Dendarii s cover as a
truly independent outfit. I thought Illyan was wrong in fact, I told him
so, till he finally ordered me to shut up on the subject. Someday, when I m
giving the orders, I ll see that s changed."
Her eyebrow quirked. "It could be a long wait, at your present rate of
promotion Lieutenant."
"My Dad s sensitive to charges of nepotism, Captain." He picked up the sealed
data disk he d been pushing about one-handed on the table top. "I want you to
give this into the hand of the senior military attaché on Tau Ceti, Commodore
Destang. Don t send it in via anyone else, because among my other suspicions
is the nasty one that there may be a leak in the Barrayaran courier channel
between here and there. I think the problem s on this end, but if I m wrong . . .
God, I hope it isn t Destang himself."
"Paranoid?" she inquired solicitously.
"Getting more so by the minute. Having Mad Emperor Yuri in my family tree
doesn t help a bit. I m always wondering if I m starting to come down with his
disease. Can you be paranoid about being paranoid?"
She smiled sweetly. "If anyone can, it s you."
"Hm. Well, this particular paranoia is a classic. I softened the language in the
message to Destang you better read it before you embark. After all, what
would you think of a young officer who was convinced his superiors were out
to get him?"She tilted her head, winged eyebrows climbing. "Quite." Miles
nodded. He tapped the disk with one forefinger. "The purpose of your trip is
to test a hypothesis only a hypothesis, mind you that the reason our
eighteen million marks aren t here is that they disappeared en route. Just
possibly into dear Captain Galeni s pockets. No corroborative evidence yet,
such as Galeni s sudden and permanent disappearance, and it s not the sort of
charge a young and ambitious officer had better make by mistake. I ve
embedded it in four other theories, in the report, but that s the one I m hot
about. You must find out if
HQ ever dispatched our money.""You don t sound hot. You sound unhappy."
"Yes, well, it s certainly the messiest possibility. It has a deal of forceful logic
behind it.""So what s the hook?""Galeni s a Komarran."
"Who cares? So much the more likely that you re right, then."
I care. Miles shook his head. What, after all, were Barrayaran internal politics
to Elena, who had sworn passionately never to set foot on her hated home
world again?
She shrugged, and uncoiled to her feet, pocketing the disk.
He did not attempt to capture her hands. He did not make a single move that
might embarrass them both. Old friends were harder to come by than new
lovers.
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Oh, my oldest friend.Still. Always.
Chapter Six
He ate a sandwich and slurped coffee for dinner in his cabin while he perused
Dendarii fleet status reports. Repairs had been completed and approved on
the Triumph s surviving combat drop shuttles. And paid for, alas, the money
now passed beyond recall. Refit chores were all caught up throughout the
fleet, downside leaves used up, spit spat and polish polished off. Boredom
was setting in. Boredom and bankruptcy.
The Cetagandans had it all wrong, Miles decided bitterly. It wasn t war that
would destroy the Dendarii, it was peace. If their enemies would just stay
their hands and wait patiently, the Dendarii, his creation, would collapse all
on its own without any outside assistance.His cabin buzzer blatted, a welcome
interruption to the dark and winding chain of his thoughts. He keyed the
comm on his desk. "Yes?""It s Elli."His hand leapt eagerly to tap the lock
control. "Enter! You re back before I d expected. I was afraid you d be stuck
down
there like Danio. Or worse, with Danio."
He wheeled his chair around, the room seeming suddenly brighter as the
door hissed open, though a lumen-meter might not have registered it. Elli
waved him a salute and hitched a hip over the edge of his desk. She smiled,
but her eyes looked tired.
"Told you," she said. "In fact there was some talk of making me a permanent
guest. I was sweet, I was cooperative, I was nearly prim, trying to convince
them I wasn t a homicidal menace to society and they really could let me back
out on the streets, but I was making no headway till their computers suddenly
hit the jackpot. The lab came back with ID s on those two men I . . . killed, at
the shuttleport."Miles understood the little hesitation before her choice of
terms. Someone else might have picked a breezier euphemism blew away, or
offed distancing himself from the consequences of his action. Not Quinn.
"Interesting, I take it," he said encouragingly. He made his voice calm,
drained of any hint of judgment. Would that the ghosts of your enemies only
escorted you to hell. But no, they had to hang about your shoulder
interminably, waiting until that service was called for. Maybe the notches
Danio gouged in the hilts of his weapons weren t such a tasteless idea after
all. Surely it was a greater sin to forget a single dead man in your tally. "Tell
me about them."
"They turned out to be both known to and desired by the Eurolaw Net. They
were how shall I put this soldiers of the sub-economy. Professional hit
men. Locals."
Miles winced. "Good God, what have I ever done to them?"
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"I doubt they were after you of their own accord. They were almost certainly
hirelings, contracted by a third party or parties unknown, though I imagine
we could both give it a good guess."
"Oh, no. The Cetagandan Embassy is sub-contracting my assassination now? I
suppose it makes sense: Galeni said they were understaffed. But do you
realize " he rose and began to pace in his agitation, "this means I could be
attacked again from any quarter. Anywhere, any time. By totally un-
personally-motivated strangers."
"A security nightmare," she agreed.
"I don t suppose the police were able to trace their employer?"
"No such luck. Not yet, anyway. I did direct their attention to the
Cetagandans, as candidates for the motive leg of any method-motive-
opportunity triangle they may try to put together.""Good. Can we make
anything of the method and opportunity parts ourselves?" Miles wondered
aloud. "The end results
of their attempt would seem to indicate they were a trifle under-prepared for
their task."
"From my point of view their method looked like it came awfully damn close
to working," she remarked. "It suggests, though, that opportunity might have
been their limiting factor. I mean, Admiral Naismith doesn t just go into
hiding when you go downside, tricky as it would be to find one man among
nine billion. He literally ceases to exist anywhere, zip! There was
evidence these guys had been hanging around the shuttleport for some days
waiting for you."
"Ugh." His visit to Earth was quite spoiled. Admiral Naismith was, it
appeared, a danger to himself and others. Earth was too congested. What if
his assailants next tried to blow up a whole tubeway car or restaurant to
reach their target? An escort to hell by the souls of his enemies was one thing,
but what if he were standing beside a class of primary-school children next
round?
"Oh, by the way, I did see Private Danio when I was downside," Elli added,
examining a chipped fingernail. "His case is coming up for judicial review in a
couple of days, and he asked me to ask you to come."
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