Miles Errant - Lois McMaster Bujold [75]
"It's been done."
"Yet the practices still go on. Apparently not enough has been done."
She looked less than thrilled. "If you would work closely with me, Admiral Naismith, you would have some input into the feature. If you don't—well, you are news. Fair game."
He shook his head reluctantly. "Sorry. You're on your own." The scene by the police groundcar compelled his attention. "Excuse me," he said distractedly. She shrugged and went to catch up with her vid-man as Miles jogged off.
They were taking Elli away.
"Don't worry, Miles, I've been arrested before," she tried to reassure him. "It's no big deal."
"Commander Quinn is my personal bodyguard," Miles protested to the police captain, "and she was on duty. Manifestly. She still is. I need her!"
"Sh, Miles, calm down," Elli whispered to him, "or they could end up taking you too."
"Me! I'm the bloody victim! It's those two goons who tried to flatten me who should be under arrest."
"Well, they're taking them away too, as soon as the forensics guys get the bags filled. You can't expect the authorities to just take our word for it all. They'll check out the facts, they'll corroborate our story, then they'll release me." She twinkled a smile at the captain, who melted visibly. "Policemen are human too."
"Didn't your mother ever tell you never to get in a car with strangers?" Miles muttered. But she was right. If he kicked up much more fuss it might occur to the constables to order his shuttle grounded, or worse. He wondered if the Dendarii would ever get back the rocket-launcher, now impounded as the murder weapon. He wondered if getting his key bodyguard arrested was step one of a deep-laid plot against him. He wondered if his fleet surgeon had any psychoactive drugs to treat galloping paranoia. If she did, he'd probably be allergic to them. He ground his teeth and took a deep, calming breath.
A two-man Dendarii mini-shuttle was rolling up to the hardstand. What was this, now? Miles glanced at his wrist chrono and realized he'd lost almost five hours out of his precious twenty-four fooling around here at the shuttleport. Knowing what time it was, he knew who had arrived, and swore in frustration under his breath. Elli used the new distraction to prod the police captain into motion, sketching Miles a breezy, reassuring salute by way of farewell. The reporter, thank God, had gone off to interview the shuttleport authorities.
Lieutenant Bone, squeaky-clean, polished, and striking in her best velvet dress grays, exited her shuttle and approached the remnant of men left at the foot of the larger shuttle's ramp. "Admiral Naismith, sir? Are you ready for our appointment . . . Oh, dear."
He flashed her a toothy grin from his bruised and dirt-smudged face, conscious of his hair, matted and sticky with drying blood, his blood-soaked collar and spattered jacket and ripped trouser knees. "Would you buy a used pocket dreadnought from this man?" he chirped at her.
"It won't do," she sighed. "The bank we're dealing with is very conservative."
"No sense of humor?"
"Not where their money is concerned."
"Right." He bit short further quips; they were too close to nervous-involuntary. He made to run his hands through his hair, winced, and changed the gesture to a gentle probing touch around the temporary plas dressing. "And all my spare uniforms are in orbit—and I'm not anxious to go carting around London without Quinn at my back. Not now, anyway. And I need to see the surgeon about this shoulder, there's something still not right—" throbbing agony, if you wanted to get technical about it—"and there are some new and serious doubts about just where our outstanding credit transfer went."
"Oh?" she said, alert to the