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for me? I need to talk to them before the next shuttle relay goes up."
She shook her head helplessly and wheeled away. She did not salute. On the
other hand, she didn t argue, either. Miles was insensibly cheered.
The booming racket around the dome circle had died down to the occasional
whine of small-arms fire, human cry, or blurred amplified voice. Fires burned
in the distance, red-orange glows in the muffling fog. Not a surgically clean
operation... the
Cetagandans were going to be extremely pissed when they d counted their
casualties, Miles judged. Time to be gone, and long gone. He tried to keep the
poisoned encodes in mind, as anodyne to the vision of Cetagandan clerks and
techs crushed in the rubble of their burning buildings, but the two nightmares
seemed to amplify instead of cancelling each other out.
Here came Tris and Oliver, both looking a little wild-eyed. Beatrice took up
station at Tris s right shoulder.
"Congratulations," Miles began, before they could speak. He had a lot of
ground to cover and not much time left. "You have achieved an army." A wave of
his arm swept the orderly array of prisoners - ex-prisoners - spread across
the camp in their shuttle groups. They waited quietly, most seated on the
ground. Or was it the Cetagandans who had ingrained such patience in them?
Whatever.
"Temporarily," said Tris. "This is the lull, I believe. If things hot up, if
you lose one or more shuttles, if somebody panics and it spreads -"
"You can tell anybody who s inclined to panic they can ride up with me if
it ll make them feel better. Ah - better also mention that I m going up in the
last load," said Miles.
Tung, dividing his attention between this confab and his headset, grimaced in
exasperation at this news.
"That ll settle  em," grinned Oliver.
"Give them something to think about, anyway," conceded Tris.
"Now I m going to give you something to think about. The new Marilac
resistance. You re it," said Miles. "My employer originally engaged me to
rescue Colonel Tremont, that he might raise a new army and carry on the fight.
When I found him... as he was, dying, I had to decide whether to follow the
letter of my contract, and deliver a catatonic or a corpse, or the spirit -
and deliver an army. I chose this, and I chose you two.
You must carry on Colonel Tremont s work."
"I was only a field lieutenant," began Tris in horror, in chorus with
Oliver s, "I m a grunt, not a staff officer. Colonel Tremont was a genius -"
"You are his heirs now. say so. Look around you. Do I make mistakes in
choosing my subordinates?"
I
After a moment s silence Tris muttered, "Apparently not."
"Build yourselves a staff. Find your tactics geniuses, your technical wizards,
and put  em to work for you. But the drive, and the decisions, and the
direction, must be yours, forged in this pit. It is you two who will remember
this place, and so remember what it is you are doing, and why, always."
Oliver spoke quietly. "And when do we muster out of this army, Brother Miles?
My time was up during the siege of Fallow
Core. If I d been anywhere else, I could have gone home."
"Until the Cetagandan army of occupation rolled down your street."
"Even then. The odds aren t good."
"The odds were worse for Barrayar, in its day, and they ran the Cetagandans
right off. It took twenty years, and more blood than either of you have seen
in your lives combined, but they did it," asserted Miles.
Oliver seemed more struck by this historical precedent than Tris, who said
skeptically, "Barrayar had those crazy Vor warriors.
Nuts who rushed into battle, who liked to die. Marilac just doesn t have that
sort of cultural tradition. We re civilized - or we were, once...."
"Let me tell you about the Barrayaran Vor," cut in Miles. "The loonies who
sought a glorious death in battle found it very early on. This rapidly cleared
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the chain of command of the accumulated fools. The survivors were those who
learned to fight dirty, and live, and fight another day, and win, and win, and
win, and for whom nothing, not comfort or security, not family or friends or
their immortal souls, was more important than winning. Dead men are losers by
definition. Survival and victory. They weren t supermen, or immune to pain.
They sweated in confusion and darkness. And with not one-half the physical
resources
Marilac possessed even now, they won. When you re Vor," Miles ran down a
little, "there is no mustering out."
After a silence Tris said, "Even a volunteer patriotic army must eat. And we
won t beat the Cetagandans by firing spitballs at them."
"There will be financial and military aid forthcoming through a covert channel
other than myself. If there is a Resistance command to deliver it to."
Tris measured Oliver by eye. The fire in her burned closer to the surface than
Miles had ever seen it, coursing down those corded muscles. The whine of the
first returning shuttles pierced the fog. She spoke quite softly. "And here I
thought I was the atheist, Sergeant, and you were the believer. Are you coming
with me - or mustering out?"
Oliver s shoulders bowed. With the weight of history, Miles realized, not
defeat, for the heat in his eyes matched Tris s.
"Coming," he grunted.
Miles caught Tung s eyes. "How we doing?"
Tung shook his head, held up fingers. "About six minutes slow, unloading
upstairs."
"Right." Miles turned back to Tris and Oliver. "I want you both to go up on
this wave, in separate shuttles, one to each troopship. When you get there,
start expediting the off-loading of your people. Lieutenant Murka will give
you your shuttle assignment -" he motioned Murka over, and packed them off.
Beatrice lingered. "I m inclined to panic," she informed Miles in a distant
tone. Her bare toe smudged whorls in the dampening dirt.
"I don t need a bodyguard anymore," Miles said. He grinned. "A keeper,
maybe..."
A smile lighted her eyes that did not yet reach her mouth. Later, Miles
promised himself. Later, he would make that mouth laugh.
The second wave of shuttles began to lift, even as the remnants of the
returning first wave were still landing. Miles prayed everyone s sensors were
operating properly, passing each other in this fog. Their timing could only
get more ragged from now on.
The fog itself was coagulating into a cold rain, silver needles pelting down.
The focus of the operation was narrowing rapidly now, more of machines and
numbers and timing, less of loyalties and souls and fearsome obligations. An [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]