Young Miles - Lois McMaster Bujold [30]
"Mr. Calhoun," said Miles sweetly, "may I point out, the choice is not between my note and this ship. The choice is between my note and a rain of glowing debris."
"If I find out you're in collusion with that—"
"Never met him before today," Miles disclaimed.
"What's wrong with the land?" asked Calhoun suspiciously. "Besides being on Barrayar, I mean."
"It's like fertile farm country," Miles answered, not quite directly. "Wooded—one hundred centimeters of rain a year—" that ought to fetch a Betan, "barely three hundred kilometers from the capital."
Downwind, fortunately for the capital. "And I own it absolutely. Just inherited it from my grandfather recently. Go ahead and check it through the Barrayaran Embassy. Check the climate plats."
"This rainfall—it's not all on the same day or something, is it?"
"Of course not," replied Miles, straightening indignantly. Not easy, in free fall. "Ancestral land—it's been in my family for ten generations. You can believe I'll make every effort to cover that note before I'll let my home ground fall from my hands—"
Calhoun rubbed his chin irritably. "Cost plus twenty-five percent," he suggested.
"Ten percent."
"Twenty."
"Ten, or I'll let you deal directly with Pilot Officer Mayhew."
"All right," groaned Calhoun, "ten percent."
"Done!"
It was not quite that easy, of course. But thanks to the efficiency of the Betans' planetary information network, a transaction that would have taken days on Barrayar was completed in less than an hour, right from Mayhew's control room. Miles was cannily reluctant to give up the tactical bargaining advantage possession of the toggle box gave them, and Mayhew, after his first astonishment had worn off, became silent and loath to leave.
"Look, kid," he spoke suddenly, about halfway through the complicated transaction. "I appreciate what you're trying to do, but—but it's just too late. You understand, when I get downside, they're not going to just be laughing this off. Security'll be waiting at the docking bay, with a patrol from the Mental Health Board right beside 'em. They'll slap a stun-net over me so fast—you'll see me in a month or two, walking around smiling. You're always smiling, after the M.H.B. gets done . . ." He shook his head helplessly. "It's just too late."
"It's never too late while you're breathing," snapped Miles. He did the free-fall equivalent of pacing the room, shoving off from one wall, turning in midair, and shoving off from the opposite wall, a few dozen turns, thinking.
"I have an idea," he said at last. "I'll wager it would buy time, time enough at least to come up with something better—trouble is, since you're not Barrayaran, you're not going to understand what you're doing, and it's serious stuff."
Mayhew looked thoroughly baffled. "Huh?"
"It's like this." Thump, spin, turn, straighten, thump. "If you were to swear fealty to me as an Armsman simple, taking me for your liege lord—it's the most straightforward of our oath relationships—I might be able to include you under my Class III diplomatic immunity. Anyway, I know I could if you were a Barrayaran subject. Of course, you're a Betan citizen. In any case, I'm pretty sure we could tie up a pack of lawyers and several days, trying to figure out which laws take precedence. I would be legally obligated for your bed, board, dress, armament—I suppose this ship could be classed as your armament—your protection, in the event of challenge by any other liegeman—that hardly applies, here on Beta Colony—oh, there's a passel of stuff, about your family, and—do you have a family, by the way?"
Mayhew shook his head.
"That simplifies things." Thump, spin, turn, straighten, thump. "Meanwhile, neither Security nor the M.H.B. could touch you, because legally you'd be like a part of my body."
Mayhew blinked. "That sounds screwy as hell. Where do I sign? How do you register it?"
"All you have to do is kneel, place your hands between mine, and repeat about two sentences. It doesn't even need witnesses, although it's customary to have two."
Mayhew