Young Miles - Lois McMaster Bujold [249]
Miles blinked hard, realizing from his wavering and disconnected thoughts that he was falling asleep sitting up. The door hissed open without Gregor's having released the lock.
"Here he is, men!"
A half-squad of grey-and-white-clad mercenaries filled the aperture and the corridor beyond. It hardly needed the stunners and shock-sticks in their hands, the purposive descent on his person, to tell Miles this hairy crew was not Elena's. The surge of adrenaline scarcely cleared the fatigue-fog from his head. And what do I pretend to be now? A moving target? He sagged against the wall, not even bothering, though Gregor lurched to his feet and made a valiant try in the constricted space, an accurate karate-kick sending a stunner flying from the hand of a closing mercenary. Two men smashed Gregor against the wall for his effort. Miles winced.
Then Miles himself was jerked from the bunk to be coiled, triple-coiled, in a tangle-net. The field burned against him. They were using enough power to immobilize a plunging horse. What do you think I am, boys?
The excited squad leader cried into his wrist comm, "I got him, sir!"
Miles raised an ironic brow. The squad leader flushed and straightened, his hand twitching in the effort not to salute. Miles smiled slightly. The squad leader's lips tightened. Ha. Almost got you going, didn't I?
"Take them away," ordered the squad leader.
Miles was carried out the door between two men, his bound feet dangling ridiculous inches from the floor. A groaning Gregor was dragged in his wake. As they passed a cross-corridor, Miles saw Chodak's strained face from the corner of his eye, floating in the shadows.
He damned his own judgment then. You thought you could read people. Your one demonstrable talent. Right, Sure. Should have, should have, should have, mocked his mind, like the caw of some vile scavenging bird surprised at a carcass.
* * *
When they were dragged across a large docking bay and through a small personnel hatch, Miles knew at once where he was. The Triumph, the pocket dreadnought that had occasionally served as the fleet's flagship, was doing that duty again now. Tung of the dubious current status had been captain-owner of the Triumph, once, before Tau Verde. Oser had used to favor his own Peregrine as flag—was this some deliberate political statement? The corridors of the ship had a strange, painful, powerful familiarity. The odors of men, metal, and machinery. That crooked archway, legacy of the lunatic ramming that had captured her on Miles's first encounter, still not properly straightened out . . . I thought I had forgotten more.
They were hustled along swiftly and secretly, a pair of squadmen going ahead to clear the corridor of witnesses before them. This was going to be a very private chat, then. Fine, that suited Miles. He would have preferred to avoid Oser altogether, but if they must meet again, he would simply have to find some way of turning it to use. He ordered his persona as if adjusting his cuffs—Miles Naismith, space mercenary and mystery entrepreneur, come to the Hegen Hub for . . . what? And his glum if faithful sidekick Greg, of course—he would have to think of some particularly benign explanation for Gregor.
They clattered down the corridor past the tactics room, the Triumph's combat nerve center, and fetched up at the smaller of the two briefing rooms across from it. The holovid plate in the center of the gleaming conference table was dark and silent. Admiral Oser sat equally dark and silent at the table's head, flanked by a pale blond man Miles presumed to be a loyal lieutenant; not anyone Miles knew from before. Miles and Gregor were forcibly seated in two chairs pulled back and distanced from the table, that their hands