Young Miles - Lois McMaster Bujold [281]
"I don't know him—" The Aslunder knelt to check for IDs. "He has a valid pass. . . ."
"He could have had me, and gotten away," said Elena to Miles, "but he kept firing at you. You were bright to stay put."
A triumph of wit, or a failure of nerve? "Yes. Quite." Miles made another attempt to stand on his own, gave up, and leaned on Thorne. "I hope you didn't kill him."
"Just stunned," said Elena, holding up the weapon as evidence. Some intelligent person must have tossed it to her when the melee began. "He probably has a broken wrist."
"Who is he?" asked Oser. Quite sincerely, Miles judged.
"Why, Admiral," Miles bared his teeth, "I told you I was going to deliver you more intelligence data than your Section could collect in a month. May I present," rather like an entree at that—he made a gesture designed to evoke a waiter lifting a domed cover from a silver platter, but which probably looked like another muscle spasm, "General Stanis Metzov. Second-in-command, Randall's Rangers."
"Since when do senior staff officers undertake field assassinations?"
"Excuse me, second-in-command as of three days ago. That may have changed. He was up to his stringy neck in Cavilo's schemes. You, I, and he have an appointment with a hypospray."
Oser stared. "You planned this?"
"Why do you think I spent the last hour flitting around the Station, if not to smoke him out?" Miles said brightly. He must have been stalking me this whole time. I think I'm going to throw up. Have I just claimed to be brilliant, or incredibly stupid? Oser looked like he was trying to figure out the answer to that same question.
Miles stared down at Metzov's unconscious form, trying to think. Had Metzov been sent by Cavilo, or was this murder attempt entirely on his own time? If sent by Cavilo—had she planned him to fall alive into her enemies' hands? If not, was there a back-up assassin around here somewhere, and if so was his target Metzov, if Metzov succeeded, or Miles, if Metzov failed? Or both? I need to sit down and draw a flow-chart.
Medical squads had arrived. "Yes, sickbay," said Miles faintly. "Till my old friend here wakes up."
"I'll agree to that," said Oser, shaking his head in something akin to dismay.
"Better put a protective as well as holding guard on our prisoner. I'm not sure if he was meant to survive capture."
"Right," Oser agreed bemusedly.
Thorne supporting one arm and Elena the other, Miles staggered home into the Triumph's hatchway.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Miles sat trembling on a bench in a glassed-in cubicle normally used for bio-isolation in the Triumph's sickbay, and watched Elena tie General Metzov to a chair with a tangle-cord. It would have given Miles a smug sense of turn-about, if the interrogation upon which they were about to embark was not so fraught with dangerous complications. Elena was disarmed again. Two stunner-armed men stood guard beyond the soundproof transparent door, glancing in occasionally. It had taken all Miles's eloquence to keep the audience for this initial questioning limited to himself, Oser, and Elena.
"How hot can this man's information be?" Oser had inquired irritably. "They let him go out in the field."
"Hot enough that I think you should have a chance to think about it before broadcasting it to a committee," Miles had argued. "You'll still have the recording."
Metzov looked sick and silent, tight-mouthed and unresponsive. His right wrist was neatly bandaged. Awakening from stun accounted for the sick; the silence was futile, and everyone knew it. It was a kind of strange courtesy, not to badger him with questions before the fast-penta cut in.
Now Oser frowned at Miles. "Are you up to this yet?"
Miles glanced down at his still-shaking hands. "As long as no one asks me to do brain surgery, yes. Proceed. I have reason to suspect that time is of the essence."
Oser nodded to Elena, who held up a hypospray to calibrate the dose, and pressed it to Metzov's neck. Metzov's eyes shut briefly in despair. After a moment his clenched hands relaxed. The muscles