Miles nodded. It had been a minor miracle, escaping the protection
of Bothari. He licked his lips, and grinned, enjoying the exhilaration of weightlessness and fear. He trusted Elena would prevent any
unnecessary alarm, planetside.
Miles opened the hatch. There was a puff of air, as the pressure
within the two ships equalized. He stared into a pitch-dark tunnel.
"Got a hand light?"
"On the rack there." The pilot officer pointed.
Provided, Miles floated cautiously into the tube. The darkness
skulked ahead of him, hiding in corners and cross corridors, and
crowding in behind him as he passed. He threaded his way toward the Navigation and Communications Room, where his quarry was
presumed to be lurking. The distance was actually short—the crew's
quarters were small, most of the ship being given over to cargo
space—but the absolute silence gave the journey a subjective stretch.
Zero-gee was now having its usual effect on making him regret the
last thing he'd eaten. Vanilla, he thought; I should have had vanilla.
There was a dim light ahead, spilling into the corridor from an
open hatch. Miles cleared his throat, loudly, as he approached. It
might be better not to startle the man, all things considered.
"Pilot Officer Mayhew?" he called softly, and pulled himself to the door. "My name is Miles Vorkosigan, and I'm looking for—looking for—" What the devil was he looking for? Oh, well. Wing it. "I'm looking for desperate men," he finished in style.
Pilot Officer Mayhew sat strapped in his pilot's chair in a mournful huddle. Clutched in his lap were his pilot's headset, a half-full liter squeeze bottle of a gurgling liquid of a brilliant and poisonous green, and a box hastily connected by a spaghetti-mass of wiring to a half-gutted control panel and topped by a toggle switch. Quite as
fascinating as the toggle box was a dark, slender, and by Betan law very illegal little needle gun. Mayhew blinked puffed and red-rimmed eyes at the apparition in his doorway, and rubbed a hand—still
holding the lethal needler—over a three-day beard stubble. "Oh, yeah?" he replied vaguely.
Miles was temporarily distracted by the needler. "How did you
ever get that through Betan customs?" he asked in a tone of genuine admiration. "I've never been able to carry so much as a slingshot past
'em."
Mayhew stared at the needler in his hand as if he'd just discovered it, like a wart grown unnoticed. "Bought it at Jackson's Whole once.
I've never tried to take it off the ship. I suppose they'd take it away
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from me, if I tried. They take everything away from you, down there."
He sighed.
Miles eased into the room, and arranged himself cross-legged in
midair, in what he hoped was a nice, nonthreatening sort of listening posture. "How did you ever get into this fix?" he asked, with a nod around that included the ship, the situation, and Mayhew's lap-full of objects.