Young Miles - Lois McMaster Bujold [49]
"Hey!" Miles checked himself halfway through a boiling surge forward. Meek. Meek. He tamped his outrage into a form fitting his supposed Betan persona. "I'm not insured for this sort of thing!"
The captain snorted. "Tough luck, Shorty." But he mulled on Miles in a moment of curious doubt.
Backpedal, thought Miles. "Don't I at least get a receipt?" he asked plaintively.
Auson snickered. "A receipt! That's a good one." The soldiers grinned nastily.
Miles controlled his ragged breathing with an effort. "Well . . ." he choked out, "at least don't let it stand wet. It'll rust if it's not properly dried after each use."
"Cheap pot metal," growled the mercenary captain. He ticked it with a fingernail; it rang like a bell. "Maybe I can get a good stainless blade put on that fancy hilt." Miles went green.
Auson gestured to Bothari. "Open that case there."
Bothari, as usual, glanced at Miles for confirmation. Auson frowned irritably. "Stop looking at Shorty. You take your orders from me."
Bothari straightened, and raised an eyebrow. "Sir?" he inquired dulcetly of Miles.
Meek, damn it, Sergeant, Miles thought, and sent the message by a slight compression of his lips. "Obey this man, Mr. Bothari," he replied, a little too sharply.
Bothari smiled slightly. "Yes, sir." Having established the pecking order in a form more to his taste, he at last unlocked the case, with precise, insulting deliberation. Auson swore under his breath.
The mercenary captain herded them to a final rendezvous, in what the Betans called the rec room and the Barrayarans called the wardroom. "Now," he said, "you will produce all your off-planet currency. Contraband."
"What!" cried Mayhew, outraged. "How can money be contraband?"
"Hush, Arde," hissed Miles. "Just do it." Auson might well be telling the truth, Miles realized. Foreign currency was just what Daum's people needed to buy such things as off-planet weaponry and military advisors. Or it might simply be the hold-up it appeared. No matter—judging from the lack of excitement of all hands, Daum's cargo had escaped them, and that was all that counted. Miles secreted triumph in his heart, and emptied his pockets.
"That's all?" said Auson disbelievingly, as they placed their final offerings in a little pile on the table before him.
"We're a little shor—broke, at the moment," Miles explained, "until we get to Tau Verde and make some sales."
"Shit," muttered Auson. His eyes bored exasperatedly into Miles, who shrugged helplessly and produced his most inane smile.
Three more mercenaries entered, pushing Baz and Elena before them.
"Got the engineer?" said the captain tiredly. "I suppose he's bro—short, too." He glanced up and saw Elena. His look of boredom vanished instantly, and he came smoothly to his feet. "Well, that's better. I was beginning to think they were all freaks and fright masks here. Business before pleasure, though—you carrying any non-Tau Verdan currency, honey?"
Elena glanced uncertainly at Miles. "I have some," she admitted, looking surprised. "Why?"
"Out with it, then."
"Miles?" she queried.
Miles unclenched his aching jaw. "Give him your money, Elena," he ordered in a low tone.
Auson glowered at Miles. "You're not my frigging secretary, Shorty. I don't need you to transmit my orders. I don't want to hear any more back-chat from you, hear?"
Miles smiled and nodded meekly, and rubbed one sweating palm against his trouser seam where a holster wasn't.
Elena, bewildered, laid five hundred Betan dollars on the table. Bothari's eyebrows drew down in astonishment.
"Where'd you get all that?" whispered Miles as she stepped back.
"Countess—your mother gave it to me," she whispered back. "She said I should have some spending money of my own on Beta Colony. I didn't want to take so much, but she insisted."
Auson counted it, and brightened. "So, you're the banker, eh, honey? That's a bit more reasonable. I was beginning to think you folks were holding out on me." He