"Your face. I never had a chance. All the happiness to you, Admiral."

"Thank you, Bel."

And here is Nicol, in a custom float-chair designed to be piloted with her lower hands and support her null-gee-designed body while her upper arms remain free. She zips in, positions herself agreeably relative to furniture and people, and looks at Thorne.

"Nicol! It's so nice to see you again."

Nicol smiles just a little bit - then she's all business. "Captain Thorne. Admiral Naismith. You're - mercenaries, are you not?"

"We are...?"

"And - if I read you correctly - you have some understanding for my situation? Empathy for the position I find myself in."

"You're dangling over a pit," murmurs Thorne.

"And I mean to find a way to safety."

"Safety from what? It seems to me that Baron Fell offers... reasonable security. Against threats such as Baron Ryoval. You could hardly ask for a more powerful protector in Jacksonian local space than the Baron of the local arms dealers."

"He's dying. Or thinks he is, at any rate."

"I gathered as much. What confuses me are his dark hints about why he won't just occupy a clone like any other soullessly unscrupulous rich man."

"He had one commissioned, and House Bharaputra was happy to take the job. The clone was fourteen, full-sized, all ready - and assassinated a few months ago. He doesn't know who did it, though his half-brother tops the list of suspects. And the new one isn't even decanted yet. It'll be years before he can transplant, and during those years anything could happen to him, or the new clone."

"What a fascinating choice of target," murmurs Miles. "Assassinate the new body, leaving him trapped in the... old. And what is this unknown enemy's next move? Wait him out?"

"I couldn't say, but I don't want to find out what happens to me if I'm still here then. And - I can't buy my way out of unless the baron decides to let me. I didn't realize back on Earth what it'd mean - and the cost of living just keeps going up - and there's five years left in my contract."

"So you," says Miles, attempting to keep the irony out of his voice, "want us... to help you jump a Syndicate contract. Smuggle you out in secret, no doubt."

"I can pay you. More now than I'd be able to later on, for certain. This - wasn't the gig I thought I was signing up for. If I ever want to get all the way back home I have to reach a wider audience and bring in more money than I'm ever going to collect under contract. I want out, before I - fall downside and never come up again." She pauses. "You aren't afraid of Baron Fell, are you?"

"Yes," he admits. "Or at least, let's say, inclined to be careful of him."

Thorne looks scornful.

Nicol glances between them, then produces a wad of Betan dollars - a single on top conceals its value, but when Thorne flips through it it's at least a couple thousand worth of middle denominations under that. "Does this," Nicol asks, "improve your nerve?"

"What do we mercenaries think of that?" Thorne wonders to Miles.

Thorne smiles and fans through the money and stacks it back up. "The idea's sound," it tells Nicol. "But the amount's wrong -" When Nicol frowns uncertainly and reaches into her jacket, Thorne peels off the single and hands back the larger bills. "One dollar. To make it a proper deal, you see."

Nicol is confused, but shakes Thorne's outstretched hand with a smile.