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"You didn't answer mine," Tung countered.

"I don't want the Dendarii Mercenaries."

"I do."

"Oh." Miles paused. "Why don't you split off with the personnel who are loyal to you and start your own, then? It's been done."

"Shall we swim through space?" Tung imitated fish fins with his waving fingers, and puffed his cheeks. "Oser controls the equipment. Including my ship. The Triumph is everything I've accumulated in a thirty-year career. Which I lost through your machinations. Somebody owes me another. If not Oser, then . . ." Tung glowered significantly at Miles.

"I tried to give you a fleet in trade," said Miles, harried. "How'd you lose control of it—old strategist?"

Tung tapped a finger to his left breast, to indicate a touché. "Things went well at first, for a year, year and a half after we departed Tau Verde. Got two sweet little contracts in a row out toward the Eastnet—small-scale commando operations, sure things. Well, not too sure—kept us on our toes. But we brought them off."

Miles glanced at Elena. "I'd heard about those, yes."

"On the third, we got into troubles. Baz Jesek had gotten more and more involved with equipment and maintenance—he is a good engineer, I'll give him that—I was tactical commander, and Oser—I thought by default, but now I think design—took up the administrative slack. Could have been good, each doing what he did best, if Oser'd been working with and not against us. In the same situation, I'd have sent assassins. Oser employed guerilla accountants.

"We took a bit of a beating on that third contract. Baz was up to his ears in engineering and repairs, and by the time I got out of sickbay, Oser'd lined up one of his no-combat specials—worm-hole guard duty work. Long-term contract. Seemed like a good idea at the time. But it gave him a wedge. With no actual combat going on, I . . ." Tung cleared his throat, "got bored, didn't pay attention. Oser'd outflanked me before I realized there was a war on. He sprang the financial reorganization on us—"

"I told you not to trust him, six months before that," Elena put in with a frown, "after he tried to seduce me."

Tung shrugged uncomfortably. "It seemed like an understandable temptation."

"To bang his commander's wife?" Elena's eyes sparked. "Anyone's wife? I knew then he wasn't level. If my oaths meant nothing to him, how little did his own?"

"He did take no for an answer, you said," Tung excused himself. "If he'd kept leaning on you, I'd have been willing to step in. I thought you ought to be flattered, ignore it, and go on."

"Overtures of that sort contain a judgment of my character that I find anything but flattering, thank you," Elena snapped.

Miles bit his knuckles, hard and secretly, remembering his own longings. "It might just have been an early move in his power-play," he put in. "Probing for weaknesses in his enemies' defenses. And in this case, not finding them."

"Hm." Elena seemed faintly comforted by this view. "Anyway, Ky was no help, and I got tired of playing Cassandra. Naturally, I couldn't tell Baz. But Oser's double-dealing didn't come as a complete surprise to all of us."

Tung frowned, frustrated. "Given the nucleus of his own surviving ships, all he had to do was swing the votes of half the other captain-owners. Auson voted with him. I could have strangled the bastard."

"You lost Auson yourself, with your moaning about the Triumph," Elena put in, still acerb. "He thought you threatened his captaincy of it."

Tung shrugged. "As long as I was Chief-of-Staff/Tactical, in charge during actual combat, I didn't think he could really hurt my ship. I was content to let the Triumph ride along as if owned by the fleet corporation. I could wait—till you got back," his dark eyes glinted at Miles, "and we found out what was going on. And then you never came back."

"The king will return, eh?" murmured Gregor, who had been listening with fascination. He raised an eyebrow at Miles.

"Let it be a lesson to you," Miles murmured back through set teeth. Gregor subsided, less humorous.

Miles