"I was an engineer's assistant."
"Construction? Weapons systems?"
The man's voice steadied. "No, jump ship engines. Some weapons systems. I try to get tech work on private freighters, but most of the equipment I'm trained in is obsolete in this sector. Harmonic impulse engines, Necklin color drive—hard to come by. I've got to get farther out, away from the main economic centers."
A small, high "Hm!" escaped Miles. "Do you know anything about the RG class freighters?"
"Sure. I've worked a couple. Necklin drive. They're all gone now, though."
"Not quite." A discordant excitement shivered through Miles. "I know one. It's going to be making a freight run soon, if it can get a cargo, and crew."
Jesek eyed him suspiciously. "Is it going someplace that doesn't have an extradition treaty with Barrayar?"
"Maybe."
"My lord," Bothari's voice was edged with agitation, "you're not considering harboring this deserter?"
"Well . . ." Miles voice was mild. "Technically, I don't know he's a deserter. I've merely heard some allegations."
"He admitted it."
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"Bravado, perhaps. Inverted snobbery."
"Are you hankering to be another Lord Vorloupulous?" asked Bothari dryly.
Miles laughed, and sighed; Baz's mouth twisted. Hathaway begged
to be let in on the joke.
"It's Barrayaran law again," Miles explained. "Our courts are not kindly disposed to those who maintain the letter of the law and violate its spirit. The classic precedent was the case of Lord Vorloupulous and his 2000 cooks."
"Did he run a chain of restaurants?" asked Hathaway, floundering.
"Don't tell me that's illegal on Barrayar too . . ."
"Oh, no. This was at the end of the Time of Isolation, almost a hundred years ago. Emperor Dorca Vorbarra was centralizing the
government, and breaking the power of the Counts as separate
governing entities—there was a civil war about it. One of the main
things he did was eliminate private armies, what they used to call
livery and maintenance on old Earth. Each Count was stripped down
to twenty armed followers—barely a bodyguard.
"Well, Lord Vorloupulous had a feud going with a few neighbors, for which he found this allotment quite inadequate. So he hired on
2000 'cooks,' so-called, and sent them out to carve up his enemies. He was quite ingenious about arming them, butcher knives instead of
short swords and so on. There were plenty of recently unemployed
veterans looking for work at the time, who weren't too proud to give it a try. . . ." Miles's eyes glinted amusement.
"The Emperor, naturally, didn't see it his way. Dorca marched his regular army, by then the only one on Barrayar, on Vorloupulous and arrested him for treason, for which the sentence was—still is—public exposure and death by starvation. So the man with 2000 cooks was