The interior of the wineshop was a shambles. Miles gasped at the fumes in the air, aromatic vapors from shattered bottles. You could get plastered just from breathing. . . . The carpeting squished underfoot.
Miles glanced around, to determine who he wanted to murder first. The one who'd unblocked the door stood out, as he was wearing only underwear.
" 'S Admiral Naismith," the doorman hissed. He came to a tilted attention, and saluted.
"Whose army are you in, soldier?" Miles growled at him. The man's hands made little waving motions, as if to offer explanations by mime. Miles couldn't dredge up his name.
Another Dendarii, in uniform this time, was sitting on the floor with his back to a pillar. Miles squatted down, considering hauling him to his feet, or at least his knees, by his jacket and bracing him. Miles stared into his face. Little red eyes like coals in the caverns of his eye-sockets stared back without recognition. "Eugh," muttered Miles, and rose without further attempt to communicate. That one's consciousness was somewhere in wormhole space.
"Who cares?" came a hoarse voice from the floor behind a display rack, one of the few that hadn't been violently upended. "Who t'hell cares?"
Oh, we've got the best and brightest here today, don't we? Miles thought sourly. An upright person emerged around the end of the display rack, saying, "Can't be, he's disappeared again …"
At last, someone Miles knew by name. All too well. Further explanation for the scene was almost redundant. "Ah, Private Danio. Fancy meeting you here."
Danio shambled to a species of attention, towering over Miles. An antique pistol, its grip defaced with notches, dangled menacingly from his ham hand. Miles nodded toward it. "Is that the deadly weapon I was called away from my affairs to come collect? They talked like you had half our bleeding arsenal down here."
"No, sir!" said Danio. "That would be against regs." He patted the gun fondly. "Jus' my personal property. Because you never know. The crazies are everywhere."
"Are you carrying any other weapons among you?"
"Yalen has his bowie knife."
Miles controlled a twinge of relief as premature. Still, if these morons were on their own, the Dendarii fleet might not have to get officially sucked into their morass after all. "Did you know that carrying any weapon is a criminal offense in this jurisdiction?"
Danio thought this over. "Wimps," he said at last.
"Nevertheless," said Miles firmly, "I'm going to have to collect them and take them back to the flagship." Miles peered around the display rack. The one on the floor—Yalen, presumably—lay clutching an unsheathed hunk of steel suitable for butchering an entire steer, should he encounter one mooing down the metalled streets and skyways of London.
Miles thought it through, and pointed. "Bring me that knife, Private Danio."
Danio pried the weapon from his comrade's grip. "Nooo …" said the horizontal one.
Miles breathed easier when he had both weapons in his possession. "Now, Danio—quickly, because they're getting nervous out there—exactly what happened here?"
"Well, sir, we were having a party. We'd rented a room." He jerked his head toward the demi-naked doorman who hovered listening. "We ran out of supplies, and came here to buy more, 'cause it was close by. Got everything all picked out and piled up, and then the bitch wouldn't take our credit! Good Dendarii credit!"
"The bitch . . . ?" Miles looked around, stepping over the disarmed Yalen. Oh, ye gods. . . . The store clerk, a plump, middle-aged woman, lay on her side on the floor at the other end of the display rack, gagged, trussed up in the naked soldier's twisted jacket and pants by way of makeshift restraints.
Miles pulled the bowie knife out of his belt and headed for her. She made hysterical gurgling noises down in her throat.
"I wouldn't let her loose if I were you," said the naked soldier warningly. "She makes a lot of noise."
Miles paused and studied the woman. Her greying hair stuck out wildly, except where it was plastered to her forehead and neck by sweat. Her terrorized eyes rolled whitely; she bucked against her bonds.
"Mm." Miles thrust the knife back in his belt temporarily. He caught the naked soldier's name off his uniform at last, and made an unwelcome mental connection. "Xaveria. Yes, I remember you now. You did well at Dagoola." Xaveria stood straighter.
Damn. So much for his nascent plan of throwing the entire lot to the local authorities, and praying they were all still incarcerated when the fleet broke orbit. Could Xaveria be detached from his worthless comrades somehow? Alas, it looked like they were all in this together.
"So she wouldn't take your credit cards. You, Xaveria—what happened next?" "Er—insults were exchanged, sir."
"And?"
"And tempers kind of got out of hand. Bottles were thrown, and thrown on the floor. The police were called. She was punched out." Xaveria eyed Danio warily.
Miles contemplated the sudden absence of actors from all this action, in Xaveria's syntax. "And?"
"And the police got here. And we told them we'd blow the place up if they tried to come in,"
"And do you actually have the means to carry out that threat, Private Xaveria?"
"No, sir. It was pure bluff. I was trying to think—well—what you would do in the situation, sir."
This one is too damned observant. Even when he's potted, Miles thought dryly. He sighed, and ran his hands through his hair. "Why wouldn't she take your credit cards? Aren't they the Earth Universals you were issued at the shuttleport? You weren't trying to use the ones left over from Mahata Solaris, were you?"
"No, sir," said Xaveria. He produced his card by way of evidence. It looked all right. Miles turned, to test it in the comconsole at the checkout, only to discover that the comconsole had been shot. The final bullet hole in the holovid plate was precisely centered, must have been intended as the coup de grace, although the console still emitted little wheezing popping noises now and then. He added the price of it to the running tally in his head and winced.
"Actually," Xaveria cleared his throat, "it was the machine that spat it up, sir."
"It shouldn't have done that," Miles began, "unless—" Unless there's something wrong with the central account, his thought finished. The pit of his stomach felt suddenly very cold. "I'll check it out," he promised. "Meanwhile we have to wrap this up and get you out of here without your being fried by the local constables."
Danio nodded excitedly toward the pistol in Miles's hand. "We could blast our way out the back. Make a run for the nearest tubeway."
Miles, momentarily bereft of speech, envisioned plugging Danio with his own pistol. Danio was saved only by Miles's reflection that the recoil might break his arm. He'd smashed his right hand at Dagoola, and the memory of the pain was still fresh.
"No, Danio," Miles said when he could command his voice. "We are going to walk quietly—very quietly—out the front door and surrender."
"But the Dendarii never surrender," said Xaveria.
"This is not a firebase," said Miles patiently. "It is a wineshop. Or at any rate, it was. Furthermore, it is not even our wineshop." Though I shall no doubt be compelled to buy it. "Think of the London police not as your enemies, but as your dearest friends. They are, you know. Because," he fixed Xaveria with a cold eye, "until they get done with you, I can't start."
"Ah," said Xaveria, quelled at last. He touched Danio on the arm. "Yeah. Maybe—maybe we better let the Admiral take us home, eh, Danio?"