The Vor Game

by Lois McMaster Bujold

  My career ... Claustrophobic panic rose in Miles's chest, like a man with his head caught in a drain. The nerve disruptor wavered just slightly in his hand. Over the parabolic reflector he could see Bonn standing dumbly, too congealed now even to argue any more.

  Ears were turning white out there, and fingers and feet. One man crumpled into a shuddering ball, but made no move to surrender.

  Was there any softening of doubt yet, in Metzov's rigid neck?

  For a lunatic moment Miles envisioned thumbing off the safety and shooting Metzov. And then what, shoot the grubs? He couldn't possibly get them all before they got him.

  I could be the only soldier here under thirty who's ever killed an enemy before, in battle or out of it. The grubs might fire out of ignorance, or sheer curiosity. They didn't know enough not to. What we do in the next half hour will replay in our heads as long as we breathe.

  He could try doing nothing. Only follow orders. How much trouble could he get into, only following orders? Every commander he'd ever had agreed, he needed to follow orders better. Think you'll enjoy your ship duty, then, Ensign Vorkosigan, you and your pack of frozen ghosts? At least you'd never be lonely....

  Miles, still holding up the nerve disruptor, faded backward, out of the grubs’ line-of-sight, out of the corner of Metzov's eye. Tears stung and blurred his vision. From the cold, no doubt.

  He sat on the ground. Pulled off his gloves and boots. Let his parka fall, and his shirts. Trousers and thermal underwear atop the pile, and the nerve-disruptor nested carefully on them. He stepped forward. His leg braces felt like icicles against his calves.

  I hate passive resistance. I really, really hate it.

  “What the hell do you think you're doing, Ensign?” Metzov snarled as Miles limped past him.

  “Breaking this up, sir,” Miles replied steadily. Even now some of the shivering techs flinched away from him, as if his deformities might be contagious. Pattas didn't draw away, though. Nor Bonn.

  “Bonn tried that bluff. He's now regretting it. It won't work for you either, Vorkosigan.” Metzov's voice shook too, though not from the cold.

  You should have said “Ensign." What's in a name? Miles could see the ripple of dismay run through the grubs, that time. No, this hadn't worked for Bonn. Miles might be the only man here for whom this sort of individual intervention could work. Depending on how far gone Mad Metzov was by now.

  Miles spoke now for both Metzov's benefit and the grubs'. “It's possible—barely—that Service Security wouldn't investigate the deaths of Lieutenant Bonn and his men, if you diddled the record, claimed some accident. I guarantee Imperial Security will investigate mine."

  Metzov grinned strangely. “Suppose no witnesses survive to complain?"

  Metzov's sergeant looked as rigid as his master. Miles thought of Ahn, drunken Ahn, silent Ahn. What had Ahn seen, once long ago, when crazy things were happening on Komarr? What kind of surviving witness had he been? A guilty one, perhaps? “S-s-sorry, sir, but I see at least ten witnesses, behind those nerve disrupters.” Silver parabolas—they looked enormous, like serving dishes, from this new angle. The change in point of view was amazingly clarifying. No ambiguities now.

  Miles continued, “Or do you propose to execute your firing squad and then shoot yourself? Imperial Security will fast-penta everyone in sight. You can't silence me. Living or dead, through my mouth or yours—or theirs—I will testify.” Shivers racked Miles's body. Astonishing, the effect of just that little bit of east wind, at this temperature. He fought to keep the shakes out of his voice, lest cold be mistaken for fear.

  “Small consolation, if you—ah—permit yourself to freeze, I'd say, Ensign.” Metzov's heavy sarcasm grated on Miles's nerves. The man still thought he was winning. Insane.

  Miles's bare feet felt strangely warm now. His eyelashes were crunchy with ice. He was catching up fast to the others, in terms of freezing to death, no doubt because of his smaller mass. His body was turning a blotchy purple-blue.

  The snow-blanketed base was so silent. He could almost hear the individual snow grains skitter across the sheet ice. He could hear the vibrating bones of each man around him, pick out the hollow frightened breathing of the grubs. Time stretched.

  He could threaten Metzov, break up his complacency with dark hints about Komarr, the truth will out. ... He could call on his father's rank and position. He could ... dammit, Metzov must realize he was overextended, no matter how mad he was. His discipline Parade bluff hadn't worked and now he was stuck with it, stonily defending his authority unto death. He can be a funny kind of dangerous, if you really threaten him. ... It was hard, to see through the sadism to the underlying fear. But it had to be there, underneath.... Pushing wasn't working. Metzov was practically petrified with resistance. What about pulling ... ?

  “But consider, sir,” Miles's words stuttered out persuasively, “the advantages to yourself of stopping now. You now have clear evidence of a mutinous, er, conspiracy. You can arrest us all, throw us in the stockade. It's a better revenge, ‘cause you get it all and lose nothing. I lose my career, get a dishonorable discharge or maybe prison—do you think I wouldn't rather die? Service Security punishes the rest of us for you. You get it all."

  Miles's words had hooked him; Miles could see it, in the red glow fading from the narrowed eyes, in the slight bending of that stiff, stiff neck. Miles had only to let the line out, refrain from jerking on it and renewing Metzov's fighting frenzy, wait....

  Metzov stepped nearer, bulking in the half-light, haloed by his freezing breath. His voice dropped, pitched to Miles's ear alone. “A typical soft Vorkosigan answer. Your father was soft on Komarran scum. Cost us lives. A court-martial for the Admiral's little boy—that might bring down that holier-than-thou buggerer, eh?"

  Miles swallowed icy spit. Those who do not know their history, his thought careened, are doomed to keep stepping in it. Alas, so were those who did, it seemed. “Thermo the damned fetaine spill,” he whispered hoarsely, “and see."

  “You're all under arrest,” Metzov bellowed out suddenly, his shoulders hunching. “Get dressed."

  The others looked stunned with relief then. After a last uncertain glance at the nerve disrupters, they dove for their clothes, donning them with frantic cold-clumsy hands. But Miles had seen it complete in Metzov's eyes sixty seconds earlier. It reminded him of that definition of his father's. A weapon is a device for making your enemy change his mind. The mind was the first and final battleground, the stuff in between was just noise.

  Lieutenant Yaski had taken the opportunity afforded by Miles's attention-arresting nude arrival on center stage to quietly disappear into the Admin building and make several frantic calls. As a result the trainee's commander, the base surgeon, and Metzov's second-in-command arrived, primed to persuade or perhaps sedate and confine Metzov. But by that time Miles, Bonn, and the techs were already dressed and being marched, stumbling, toward the stockade bunker under the argus-eyes of the nerve disrupters.

  “Am I s-supposed to th-thank you for this?” Bonn asked Miles through chattering teeth. Their hands and feet swung like paralyzed lumps; he leaned on Miles, Miles hung on him, hobbling down the road together.

  “We got what we wanted, eh? He's going to plasma the fetaine on-site before the wind shifts in the morning. Nobody dies. Nobody gets their nuts curdled. We win. I think.” Miles emitted a deathly cackle through numb lips.

  “I never thought,” wheezed Bonn, “that I'd ever meet anybody crazier than Metzov."

  “I didn't do anything you didn't,” protested Miles. “Except I made it work. Sort of. It'll all look different in the morning, anyway."

  “Yeah. Worse,” Bonn predicted glumly.

  * * * *

  Miles jerked up out of an uneasy doze on his cell cot when the door hissed open. They were bringing Bonn back.

  Miles rubbed his unshaven face. “What time is it out there, Lieutenant?"

  “Dawn.” Bonn looked as pale, stubbled, and criminally low a
s Miles felt. He eased himself down on his cot with a pained grunt.

  “What's happening?"

  “Service Security's all over the place. They flew in a captain from the mainland, just arrived, who seems to be in charge. Metzov's been filling his ear, I think. They're just taking depositions, so far."

  “They get the fetaine taken care of?"

  “Yep.” Bonn vented a grim snicker. “They just had me out to check it, and sign the job off. The bunker made a neat little oven, all right."

  “Ensign Vorkosigan, you're wanted,” said the security guard who'd delivered Bonn. “Come with me now."

  Miles creaked to his feet and limped toward the cell door. “See you later, Lieutenant."

  “Right. If you spot anybody out there with breakfast, why don't you use your political influence to send ‘em my way, eh?"

  Miles grinned bleakly. “I'll try."

  Miles followed the guard up the stockade's short corridor. Lazkowski Base's stockade was not exactly what one would call a high-security facility, being scarcely more than a living quarters bunker with doors that only locked from the outside and no windows. The weather usually made a better guard than any force screen, not to mention the 500-kilometer-wide icewater moat surrounding the island.

  The Base security office was busy this morning. Two grim strangers stood waiting by the door, a lieutenant and a big sergeant with the Horus-eye insignia of Imperial Security on their sleek uniforms. Imperial Security, not Service Security. Miles's very own Security, who had guarded his family all his father's political life. Miles regarded them with possessive delight.

  The Base security clerk looked harried, his desk console lit up and blinking. “Ensign Vorkosigan, sir, I need your palm print on this."

  “All right. What am I signing?"

  “Just the travel orders, sir."

  “What? Ah...” Miles paused, holding up his plastic-mitted hands. “Which one?"

  “The right, I guess would do, sir."

  With difficulty, Miles peeled off the right mitten with his awkward left. His hand glistened with the medical gel that was supposed to be healing the frostbite. His hand was swollen, red-blotched and mangled-looking, but the stuff must be working. All his fingers now wriggled. It took three tries, pressing down on the ID pad, before the computer recognized him.

  “Now yours, sir,” the clerk nodded to the Imperial Security lieutenant. The ImpSec man laid his hand on the pad and the computer bleeped approval. He lifted it and glanced dubiously at the sticky sheen, looked around futilely for some towel, and wiped it surreptitiously on his trouser seam just behind his stunner holster. The clerk dabbed nervously at the pad with his uniform sleeve, and touched his intercom.

  “Am I glad to see you fellows,” Miles told the ImpSec officer. “Wish you'd been here last night."

  The lieutenant did not smile in return. “I'm just a courier, Ensign. I'm not supposed to discuss your case."

  General Metzov ducked through the door from the inner office, a sheaf of plastic flimsies in one hand and a Service Security captain at his elbow, who nodded warily to his counterpart on the Imperial side. The general was almost smiling. “Good morning, Ensign Vorkosigan.” His glance took in Imperial Security without dismay. Dammit! ImpSec should be making that near-murderer shake in his combat boots. “It seems there's a wrinkle in this case even I hadn't realized. When a Vor lord involves himself in a military mutiny, a charge of high treason follows automatically."

  “What?” Miles swallowed, to bring his voice back down. “Lieutenant, I'm not under arrest by Imperial Security, am I?"

  The lieutenant produced a set of handcuffs and proceeded to attach Miles to the big sergeant. Overholt, read the name on the man's badge, which Miles mentally redubbed Overkill. He had only to lift his arm to dangle Miles like a kitten.

  “You are being detained, pending further investigation,” said lieutenant formally.

  “How long?"

  “Indefinitely."

  The lieutenant headed for the door, the sergeant and perforce Miles following. “Where?” Miles asked frantically.

  “Imperial Security Headquarters."

  Vorbarr Sultana! “I need to get my things—"

  “Your quarters have already been cleared."

  “Will I be coming back here?"

  “I don't know, Ensign."

  Late dawn was streaking Camp Permafrost with grey and yellow when the scat-cat deposited them at the shuttlepad. The Imperial Security sub-orbital courier shuttle sat on the icy concrete like a bird of prey accidentally placed in a pigeon cote. Slick and black and deadly, it seemed to break the sound barrier just resting there. Its pilot was at the ready, engines primed for takeoff.

  Miles shuffled awkwardly up the ramp after Sergeant Overkill, the handcuff jerking coldly on his wrist. Tiny ice crystals danced in the northeasterly wind. The temperature would be stabilizing this morning, he could tell by the particular dry bite of the relative humidity in his sinuses. Dear God, it was past time to get off this island.

  Miles took one last sharp breath, then the shuttle door sealed behind them with a snaky hiss. Within was a thick, upholstered silence that even the howl of the engines scarcely penetrated.

  At least it was warm.

  * * *

  CHAPTER SIX

  Autumn in the city of Vorbarr Sultana was a beautiful time of year, and today was exemplary. The air was high and blue, the temperature cool and perfect, and even the tang of industrial haze smelled good. The autumn flowers were not yet frosted off, but the Earth-import trees had turned their colors. As he was hustled out of the Security lift van and into a back entrance to the big blocky building that was Imperial Security Headquarters, Miles glimpsed one such tree. An Earth maple, with carnelian leaves and a silver-grey trunk, across the street. Then the door closed. Miles held that tree before his mind's eye, trying to memorize it, just in case he never saw it again. The Security lieutenant produced passes that sped Miles and Overholt through the door guards, and led them into a maze of corridors to a pair of lift tubes. They entered the up tube, not the down one. So, Miles was not being taken directly to the ultra-secure cell block beneath the building. He woke to what this meant, wished wistfully for the down tube.

  They were ushered into an office on an upper level, past a Security captain, then into an inner office. A man, slight, bland, civilian clothed, with brown hair greying at the temples, sat at his very large comconsole desk, studying a vid. He glanced up at Miles's escort. “Thank you, Lieutenant, Sergeant. You may go."

  Overholt detached Miles from his wrist as the lieutenant asked, “Uh, will you be safe, sir?"

  “I expect so,” said the man dryly.

  Yeah, but what about me? Miles wailed inwardly. The two soldiers exited, and left Miles alone, standing literally on the carpet. Unwashed, unshaven, still wearing the faintly reeking black fatigues he'd flung on—only last night? Face weather-raked, with his swollen hands and feet still encased in their plastic medical mittens—his toes now wriggled in their squishy matrix. No boots. He had dozed, in a jerky intermittent exhaustion, on the two-hour shuttle flight, without being noticeably refreshed. His throat was raw, his sinuses felt stuffed with packing fiber, and his chest hurt when he breathed.

  Simon Illyan, Chief of Barrayaran Imperial Security, crossed his arms and looked Miles over slowly, from head to toe and back again. It gave Miles a skewed sense of deja vu.

  Practically everyone on Barraryar feared this man's name, though few knew his face. This effect was carefully cultivated by Illyan, building in part—but only in part—on the legacy of his formidable predecessor, the legendary Security Chief Negri. Illyan and his department, in turn, had provided security for Miles's father for the twenty years of his political career, and had slipped up only once, during the night of the infamous soltoxin attack. Offhand, Miles knew of no one Illyan feared except Miles's mother. He'd once asked his father if this was guilt, about the soltoxin, but Count Vorkosigan had replied, No, it was onl
y the lasting effect of vivid first impressions. Miles had called Illyan “Uncle Simon” all his life until he'd entered the Service, “Sir” after that.

  Looking at Illyan's face now, Miles thought he finally grasped the distinction between exasperation, and utter exasperation.

  Illyan finished his inspection, shook his head, and groaned, “Wonderful. Just wonderful."

  Miles cleared his throat. “Am I ... really under arrest, sir?"

  “That is what this interview will determine,” Illyan sighed, leaning back in his chair. “I have been up since two hours after midnight over this escapade. Rumors are flying all over the Service, as fast as the vid net can carry them. The facts appear to be mutating every forty minutes, like bacteria. I don't suppose you could have picked some more public way to self-destruct? Attempted to assassinate the Emperor with your pocket-knife during the Birthday Review, say, or raped a sheep in the Great Square during rush hour?” The sarcasm melted to genuine pain. “He had so much hope of you. How could betray him so?"

  No need to ask who “he” was. The Vorkosigan. “I ... don't think I did, sir. I don't know."

  A light blinked on Illyan's comconsole. He exhaled, with a sharp glance at Miles, and touched a control. The second door to his office, camouflaged in the wall to the right of his desk, slid open, and two men in dress greens ducked through.

  Prime Minister Admiral Count Aral Vorkosigan wore the uniform as naturally as an animal wears its fur. He was a man of no more than middle height, stocky, grey-haired, heavy-jawed, scarred, almost a thug's body and yet with the most penetrating grey eyes Miles had ever encountered. He was flanked by his aide, a tall blond lieutenant named Jole. Miles had met Jole on his last home leave. Now, there was a perfect officer, brave and brilliant—he'd served in space, been decorated for some courage and quick thinking during a horrendous on-board accident, been rotated through HQ while recovering from his injuries, and promptly been snabbled up as his military secretary by the Prime Minister, who had a sharp eye for hot new talent. Jaw-dropping gorgeous, to boot, he ought to be making recruiting vids. Miles sighed in hopeless jealousy every time he ran across him. Jole was even worse than Ivan, who while darkly handsome had never been accused of brilliance.