Miles staggered off the tubeway clutching his back.
"Bones?" said Elli worriedly. "Did you do something to your spine?"
"I'm not sure." He stomped along beside her, rather bent. "Muscle spasms—that poor woman must have been fatter than I thought. Adrenalin'll fool you. …"
It was no better by the time their little personnel shuttle docked at the Triumph, the Dendarii flagship in orbit. Elli insisted on a detour to sickbay.
"Pulled muscles," said his fleet surgeon unsympathetically after scanning him. "Go lie down for a week."
Miles made false promises, and exited clutching a packet of pills in his bandaged hand. He was pretty sure the surgeon's diagnosis was correct, for the pain was easing, now that he was aboard his own flagship. He could feel the tension uncoiling in his neck at least, and hoped it would continue all the way down. He was coming down off his adrenalin-induced high, too—better finish his business here while he could still walk and talk at the same time.
He straightened his jacket, brushing rather futilely at the white flecks, and jerked up his chin, before marching into his fleet finance officer's inner sanctum.
It was evening, ship-time, only an hour skewed from London downside time, but the mercenary accountant was still at her post. Yield Bone was a precise, middle-aged woman, heavy-set, definitely a tech not a troop, whose normal tone of voice was a calming drawl. Now she spun in her station chair and squealed at him, "Oh, sir! Do you have the credit transfer . . . ?" She took in his appearance and her voice dropped to a more usual timbre. "Good God, what happened to you?" As an afterthought, she saluted.
"That's what I'm here to find out, Lieutenant Bone." He hooked a second seat into its floor brackets and swung it around to sit backwards, his arms draped over its back. As an afterthought, he returned her salute. "I thought you reported yesterday that all our resupply orders not essential for orbital life-support were on hold, and that our Earthside credit was under control."
"Temporarily under control," she replied. "Fourteen days ago you told me we'd have a credit transfer in ten days. I tried to time as many expenses as possible to come in after that. Four days ago you told me it would be another ten days—"
"At least," Miles confirmed glumly.
"I've put off as much stuff as I can again, but some of it had to be paid off, in order to get credit extended another week. We've dipped dangerously far into reserve funds since Mahata Solaris."
Miles rubbed a finger tiredly over the seat back. "Yeah, maybe we should have pushed on straight to Tau Ceti." Too late now. If only he were dealing with Sector II Security Headquarters directly . . .
"We would have had to drop three-fourths of the fleet at Earth anyway, sir."
"And I didn't want to break up the set, I know. We stay here much longer, and none of us will be able to leave—a financial black hole. . . . Look, tap your programs and tell me what happened to the downside personnel credit account about 1600 London time tonight."
"Hm?" Her fingers conjured up arcane and colorful data displays from her holovid console. "Oh, dear. It shouldn't have done that. Now where did the money go . . . ? Ah, direct override. That explains it."
"Explain it to me," Miles prodded.
"Well," she turned to him, "of course when the fleet is on station for long at any place with any kind of financial net at all, we don't just leave our liquid assets sitting around."
"We don't?"
"No, no. Anything that isn't actually outgoing is held for as long as possible in some sort of short-term, interest-generating investment. So all our credit accounts are set to ride along at the legal minimum; when a bill comes due, I cycle it through the computer and shoot just enough to cover it from the investment account into the credit account."
"Is this, er, worth the risk?"
"Risk? It's basic good practice! We made over four thousand GSA federal credits on interest and dividends last week, until we fell out of the minimum amount bracket."
"Oh," said Miles. He had a momentary flash about giving up war and playing the stock market instead. The Dendarii Free Mercenary Holding Company? Alas, the Emperor might have a word or two to say about that. . . .
"But these morons," Lieutenant Bone gestured at the schematic representing her version of Danio's adventures that afternoon, "attempted to tap the account directly through its number, instead of through Fleet Central Accounting as everyone has been told and told to do. And because we're riding so low at the moment, it bounced. Sometimes I think I'm talking to the deaf." More lurid bar graphs fountained up at her fingertips. "But I can only run it round and round for so long, sir! The investment account is now empty, so of course it's generating no extra money. I'm not sure we can even make it six more days. And if the credit transfer doesn't arrive then …" she flung up her hands, "the whole Dendarii fleet could start to slide, piecemeal, into receivership!"
"Oh." Miles rubbed his neck. He'd been mistaken, his headache wasn't waning. "Isn't there some way you can shift the stuff around from account to account to create, er . . . virtual money? Temporarily?"
"Virtual money?" Her lips curled in loathing.
"To save the fleet. Just like in combat. Mercenary accounting. . . ."he clasped his hands together, between his knees, and smiled up at her hopefully. "Of course, if it's beyond your abilities …"
Her nostrils flared. "Of course it's not. But the kind of thing you're talking about relies mostly on time lags. Earth's financial network is totally integrated; there are no time lags unless you want to start working it interstellar. I'll tell you what would work, though …" her voice trailed off. "Well, maybe not. …"
"What?"
"Go to a major bank and get a short-term loan against, say, some major capital equipment." Her eyes, glancing around by implication through the walls to the Triumph, revealed what order of capital equipment she had in mind. "We might have to conceal certain other outstanding liens from them, and the extent of depreciation, not to mention certain ambiguities about what is and is not owned by the Fleet corporation versus the Captain-owners—but at least it would be real money."
And what would Commodore Tung say when he found out that Miles had mortgaged his command ship? But Tung wasn't here. Tung was on leave. It could be all over by the time Tung got back.
"We'd have to ask for two or three times the amount we really needed, to be sure of getting enough," Lieutenant Bone went on. "You would have to sign for it, as senior corporation officer."
Admiral Naismith would have to sign for it, Miles reflected. A man whose legal existence was strictly—virtual, not that an Earth bank could be expected to find that out. The Dendarii fleet propped his identity most convincingly. This could be almost the safest thing he'd ever done. "Go ahead and set it up, Lieutenant Bone. Um . . . use the Triumph, it's the biggest thing we've got."
She nodded, her shoulders straightening, as she regained some of her accustomed serenity. "Yes, sir. Thank you, sir."
Miles sighed, and shoved to his feet. Sitting down had been a mistake; his tired muscles were seizing up. Her nostrils wrinkled as he passed upwind of her. Perhaps he'd better take a few minutes to clean up. It would be hard enough to explain his disappearance, when he returned to the embassy, without explaining his remarkable appearance as well.
"Virtual money," he heard Lieutenant Bone mutter disapprovingly to her comconsole as he exited, "Good God."
Chapter Four
By the time Miles had showered, groomed, and donned a fresh uniform and glossy spare boots, his pills had cut in and he was feeling no pain at all. When he caught himself whistling as he splashed on after-shave and adjusted a rather flashy and only demi-regulation black silk scarf around his neck, tucked into his grey-and-white jacket, he decided he'd better cut the dosage in half next round. He was feeling much too good.
Too bad the Dendarii uniform did not include a beret one could tilt at a suitably rakish angle, though. He might order one added. Tung would probably approve; Tung had theories about how spiffy
uniforms helped recruiting and morale. Miles was not entirely sure this wouldn't just result in acquiring a lot of recruits who wanted to play dress-up. Private Danio might like a beret . . . Miles abandoned the notion. Elli Quinn was waiting patiently for him in the Triumph's number six shuttle hatch corridor. She swung gracefully to her feet and ahead of him into their shuttle, remarking, "We'd better hustle. How long do you think your cousin can cover for you at the embassy?"
"I suspect it's already a lost cause," Miles said, strapping himself in beside her. In light of the warnings on the pain pill packet about operating equipment, he let her take the pilot's seat again. The little shuttle broke smoothly away from the side of the flagship and began to drop through its orbital clearance pattern.
Miles meditated morosely on his probable reception when he showed up back at the embassy. Confined-to-quarters was the least he might expect, though he plead mitigating circumstances for all he was worth. He did not feel at all like hustling back to that doom. Here he was on Earth on a warm summer night, with a glamorous, brilliant woman friend. It was only—he glanced at his chronometer—2300. Night life should just be getting rolling. London, with its huge population, was an around-the-clock town. His heart rose inexplicably.
Yet what might they do? Drinking was out; God knew what would happen if he dropped alcohol on top of his current pharmaceutical load, with his peculiar physiology, except that it could be guaranteed not to improve his coordination. A show? It would immobilize them for a rather long time in one spot, security-wise. Better to do something that kept them moving.
To hell with the Cetagandans. He was damned if he would become hostage to the mere fear of them. Let Admiral Naismith have one last fling, before being hung back in the closet. The lights of the shuttleport flashed beneath them, reached up to pull them in. As they rolled into their rented hardstand (140 GSA federals per diem) with its waiting Dendarii guard, Miles blurted, "Hey, Elli. Let's go—let's go window shopping."
And so it was they found themselves strolling in a fashionable arcade at midnight. Not just Earth's but the galaxy's wares were spread out for the visitor with funds. The passers-by were a parade worth watching in their own right, for the student of fad and fashion. Feathers were in this year, and synthetic silk, leather, and fur, in revival of primitive natural fabrics from the past. And Earth had such a lot of past to revive. The young lady in the—the Aztec-Viking outfit, Miles guessed—leaning on the arm of the young man in faintly 24th-century boots and plumes particularly caught his eye. Perhaps a Dendarii beret wouldn't be too unprofessionally archaic after all.
Elli, Miles observed sadly, was not relaxing and enjoying this. Her attention on the passers-by was more in the nature of a hunt for concealed weapons and sudden movements. But she paused at last in real intrigue before a shop discreetly labeled, CULTURED FURS: A DIVISION OF GALACTECH BIOENGINEER-ING. Miles eased her inside.
The display area was spacious, a sure tip-off to the price range they were operating in. Red fox coats, white tiger carpets, extinct leopard jackets, gaudy Tau Cetan beaded lizard bags and boots and belts, black and white macaque monkey vests—a holovid display ran a continuous program explaining the stock's origins not in the slaughter of live animals, but in the test tubes and vats of GalacTech's R&D division. Nineteen extinct species were offered in natural colors. Coming up for the fall line, the vid assured them, were rainbow rhino leather and triple-length white fox in designer pastels. Elli buried her hands to the wrists in something that looked like an explosion of apricot Persian cat.
"Does it shed?" Miles inquired bemusedly.
"Not at all," the salesman assured them. "GalacTech cultured furs are guaranteed not to shed, fade, or discolor. They are also soil-resistant."
An enormous width of silky black fur poured through Elli's arms. "What is this? Not a coat. …"
"Ah, that's a very popular new item," said the salesman. "The very latest in biomechanical feedback systems. Most of the fur items you see here are ordinary tanned leathers—but this is a live fur. This model is suitable for a blanket, spread, or throw rug. Various sorts of outerwear are upcoming from R&D next year."
"A live fur?" Her eyebrows rose enchantingly. The salesman rose on his toes in unconscious echo—Elli's face was having its usual effect on the uninitiated.
"A live fur," the salesman nodded, "but with none of the defects of a live animal. It neither sheds nor eats nor," he coughed discreetly, "requires a litter box."
"Hold on," said Miles. "How can you advertise it as living, then? Where's it getting its energy from, if not the chemical breakdown of food?"
"An electromagnetic net in the cellular level passively gathers energy from the environment. Holovid carrier waves and the like. And every month or so, if it seems to be running down, you can give it a boost by placing it in your microwave for a few minutes on the lowest setting. Cultured Furs cannot be responsible, however, for the results if the owner accidentally sets it on high."
"That still doesn't make it alive," Miles objected.
"I assure you," said the salesman, "this blanket was blended from the very finest assortment of felis domesticus genes. We also have the white Persian and the chocolate-point Siamese stripe in stock, in the natural colors, and I have samples of decorator colors that can be ordered in any size."
"They did that to a cat?" Miles choked as Elli gathered up the whole huge boneless double-armful.
"Pet it," the salesman instructed Elli eagerly.
She did so, and laughed. "It purrs!"
"Yes. It also has programmable thermotaxic orientation—in other words, it snuggles up."
Elli wrapped it around herself completely, black fur cascading over her feet like the train of a queen's robe, and rubbed her cheek into the silky shimmer. "What won't they think of next? Oh, my. You want to rub it all over your skin."
"You do?" muttered Miles dubiously. Then his eyes widened as he pictured Elli, in all her lovely skin, lolling on the hairy thing. "You do?" he said in an entirely changed tone. His lips peeled back in a hungry grin. He turned to the salesman. "We'll take it."
The embarrassment came when he pulled out his credit card, stared at it, and realized he couldn't use it; It was Lieutenant Vorkosigan's, chock full of his embassy pay and utterly compromising to his present cover. Quinn, beside him, glanced over his shoulder at his hesitation. He tilted the card toward her to see, shielded in his palm, and their eyes met.
"Ah . . . no," she agreed. "No, no." She reached for her wallet.
I should have asked the price first, Miles thought to himself as they exited the shop carting the unwieldy bundle in its elegant silver plastic wrappings. The package, the salesman had finally convinced them, did not require air-holes. Well, the fur had delighted Elli, and a chance to delight Elli was not to be lost for mere imprudence—or pride—on his part. He wanted to delight her. He would pay her back later.
But now, where could they go to try it out? He tried to think, as they exited the arcade and made their way to the nearest tubeway access port. He didn't want the night to end. He didn't know what he did want. No, he knew perfectly well what he wanted, he just didn't know if he could have it.
Elli, he suspected, didn't know how for his thought had taken him either. A little romance on the side was one thing; the change of career he was thinking of proposing to her—nice turn of phrase, that—would overturn her existence. Elli the space-born, who called all downsiders dirtsuckers in careless moments, Elli with a career agenda of her own. Elli who walked on land with all the dubious distaste of a mermaid out of water. Elli was an independent country. Elli was an island. And he was an idiot and this couldn't go on unresolved much longer or he would burst.
A view of Earth's famous moon, Miles figured, was what they needed, preferably shining on water. The town's old river, unfortunately, went underground in this sector, absorbed into arterial pipes below the 23rd-century building boom that had domed the half of the landscape not occupied by dizzily soaring spires and prese
rved historic architecture. Quietude, some fine and private place, was not easy to come by in a city of roiling millions.
The grave's a fine and private place, but none, I think, do there embrace. . . . The deathly flashbacks to Dagoola had faded of late weeks, but this one took him unawares in an ordinary public lift tube descending to the bubble-car system. Elli was falling, torn out of his numb grip by a vicious vortex– design defect in the anti-grav system—swallowed by darkness—
"Miles, ow!" Elli objected. "Let go of my arm! What's the matter?"
"Falling," Miles gasped.
"Of course we're falling, this is the down-tube. Are you all right? Let me see the pupils of your eyes." She grabbed a hand-grip and pulled them to the side of the tube, out of the central fast traffic zone. Midnight Londoners continued to flow past them. Hell had been modernized, Miles decided wildly, and this was a river of lost souls gurgling down some cosmic drain, faster and faster.
The pupils of her eyes were large and dark. . . .
"Do your eyes get dilated or constricted when you get one of your weird drug reactions?" she demanded worriedly, her face centimeters from his.
"What are they doing now?"
"Pulsing."
"I'm all right." Miles swallowed. "The surgeon double-checks anything she puts me on, now. It may make me a little dizzy, she told me that." He had not loosed his grip.
In the lift tube, Miles realized suddenly, their height difference was voided. They hung face to face, his boots dangling above her ankles—he didn't even need to hunt up a box to stand on, nor risk a twist in his neck—impulsively, his lips dove onto hers. There was a split-second wail of terror in his mind, like the moment after he'd plunged from the rocks into thirty meters of clear green water that he knew was icy cold, after he'd surrendered all choice to gravity but before the consequences engulfed him.
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