"Not at all," Miles lied blandly. Rumors afloat about the Dendarii's liquidity difficulties could sabotage a lot more than just this repair deal. "Very well. Cash up front to be held in escrow." If he wasn't to have the use of his funds, neither should Kaymer. Beside him, Elli Quinn drew air in through her teeth. The Earther engineer and the mercenary leader shook hands solemnly.

Following the sales engineer back toward his own office, Miles paused a moment by a viewport that framed a fine view of Earth from orbit. The engineer smiled and waited politely, even proudly, watching his gaze.

Earth. Old, romantic, historic Earth, the big blue marble itself. Miles had always expected to travel here someday, although not, surely, under these conditions.

Earth was still the largest, richest, most varied and populous planet in scattered humanity's entire worm-hole nexus of explored space. Its dearth of good exit points in solar local space and governmental disunity left it militarily and strategically minor from the greater galactic point of view. But Earth still reigned, if it did not rule, culturally supreme. More war-scarred than Barrayar, as technically advanced as Beta Colony, the end-point of all pilgrimages both religious and secular—in light of which, major embassies from every world that could afford one were collected here. Including, Miles reflected, nibbling gently on the side of his index finger, the Cetagandan. Admiral Naismith must use all means to avoid them.

"Sir?" Elli Quinn interrupted his meditations. He smiled briefly up at her sculptured face, the most beautiful his money had been able to buy after the plasma burn and yet, thanks to the genius of the surgeons, still unmistakably Elli. Would that every combat casualty taken in his service could be so redeemed. "Commodore Tung is on the comconsole for you," she went on.

His smile sagged. What now? He abandoned the view and marched off after her to take over the sales engineer's office with a polite, relentless, "Will you excuse us, please?"

His Eurasian third officer's bland, broad face formed above the vid plate.

"Yes, Ky?"

Ky Tung, already out of uniform and into civilian gear, gave him a brief nod in lieu of a salute. "I've just finished making arrangements at the rehab center for our nine severely-wounded. Prognoses are good, for the most part. And they think they will be able to retrieve four of the eight frozen dead, maybe five if they're lucky. The surgeons here even think they'll be able to repair Demmi's jumpset, once the neural tissue itself has healed. For a price, of course . . ." Tung named the price in GSA Federal credits; Miles mentally converted it to Barrayaran Imperial marks, and made a small squeaking noise.

Tung grinned dry appreciation. "Yeah. Unless you want to give up on that repair. It's equal to all the rest put together."