"But a great one to raise kids, yes," he says, smiling wryly.

"'Course it is." Thorne tilts its head. "You are," it pronounces, "an almost perfect Betan. So close - you have the accent, you have the in-jokes..."

Thorne reaches out and touches his cheek.

He can't quite suppress a flinch.

"Reflexes," says Thorne. "Don't worry. I won't tell."

"Well, thank you for that," he says, mildly disgruntled. "Now would you like to hear about the mission?"

"Inventory," snorts Thorne.

"Inventory isn't the mission, it's the cover," Miles corrects. "Here I am, a mercenary admiral, looking to establish a relationship with the new Baron of House Fell, biggest arms supplier this side of Beta Colony itself and considerably less inclined to hold their noses before selling swords to the swordsellers. Perfectly legitimate, at least by Jacksonian standards. And while we're here, we're going to pick up a new recruit, a middle-aged man looking to sign on as a medtech. At which point all crew leave is cancelled, we finish loading cargo as fast as we can stuff it into the hold, and we saunter innocently away as fast as we can innocently saunter."

"Aha. He'll be sorely missed, I imagine? Someone hopes very badly he'll turn up at the office party and will take exception."

"You could say that, yes. He's the top geneticist in the research arm of House Bharaputra's infernally infamous biolabs. When he deserts us the moment we make fleet rendezvous by Escobar and seeks refuge with an unnamed planetary government, we will be terribly offended that he took us in with his 'simple medtech recruit' ruse. Which should mollify Baron Bharaputra enough that he won't have his enforcement arm chase us down and wipe us off the astromap."

"Nice, simple payday," says Thorne.

"So I trust." So he hopes, more like. "Now go place our order. And since you were so keen on shore leave, you can accompany me to Baron Fell's next social gathering for high-paying and/or otherwise interesting customers. I imagine he'll fit me into his schedule sometime in the next day or so."

"Why the hell not?" Miles murmurs under his breath. "I imagine poisoning your customers is a counterproductive business practice." He selects two refreshments at random, one mysterious green leaf-shaped niblet that turns out to be a dyed pastry with a jelly filling made from mystery fruit, and one mysterious drink that turns out to have too high an ethanol concentration for Miles's skewed metabolism. He discreetly leaves the small crystal goblet on the next flat surface they pass, afraid that a second sip might be enough to trigger the soporific effect that the substance has on him in any significant quantities. Mustn't meet Baron Fell while asleep on his feet.

Thorne doesn't have that problem and keeps hold of its beverage.

"Good God. She's a quaddie," says Thorne.

"A what?"

"Quaddie. What's she doing all the way out here?"

"Not an, er, local product, then?"

"Oh, no."

"I'm relieved. I think," mutters Miles. "So where did she come from?"

"Oh, about two hundred years ago, around when hermaphrodites were invented, there were all sorts of projects, in the wake of the development of the uterine replicator in its practical form. Later there were restrictive laws about it most places, but first someone thought they'd make freefall-dwellers. Only for artificial gravity to be invented. The quaddies migrated off beyond Earth relative to here, got rather insular, I'm very surprised there's one this far out."