The mention of mercenaries draws Piotr's brows down. Now that seems a hell of a lot less plausible. It's hard to tell if the little mutant is lying, but if he's trying to con his way into some position of even remote power here, Piotr's not buying it.

"Mercenaries," Piotr repeats flatly, and now he's scrutinizing Miles with active suspicion. "I'd like to know what mercenary company would welcome a crippled mutant into their ranks -- and how you got off-planet in the first place. Is your mother a wealthy woman?" A wealthy prole, right. And in the scant twenty years between the end of the Time of Isolation and the invasion, how many proles had left the planet, outside of military or diplomatic excursions? Piotr's eyes narrow slightly. "How old are you?"