“Everyone seems to have known. Except me."
So that had been the trigger of depressive Gregor's first real suicide attempt. Key and lock, click! Miles tried not to look triumphant at this sudden feat of insight. “When did you find out?"
“During the Komarr conference. I'd run across hints, before ... put them down to enemy propaganda."
Then, the ballet on the balcony had been an immediate response to the shock. Gregor'd had no one to vent it to....
“Was it true, that he really got off torturing—"
“Not everything rumored about Crown Prince Serg is true,” Miles cut hastily across this. “Though the true core is ... bad enough. Mother knows. She was eyewitness to crazy things even I don't know, about the Escobar invasion. But she'll tell you. Ask her straight, she'll tell you straight back."
“That seems to run in the family,” Gregor allowed. “Too."
“She'll tell you how different you are from him—nothing wrong with your mother's blood, that I ever heard—anyway, I probably carry almost as many of Mad Yuri's genes as you do, through one line of descent or another."
Gregor actually grinned. “Is that supposed to be reassuring?"
“Mm, more on the theory that misery loves company."
“I'm afraid of power...” Gregor's voice went low, contemplative.
“You aren't afraid of power, you're afraid of hurting people. If you wield that power,” Miles deduced suddenly.
“Huh. Close guess."
“Not dead-on?"
“I'm afraid I might enjoy it. The hurting. Like him."
Prince Serg, he meant. His father.
“Rubbish,” said Miles. “I watched my grandfather try and get you to enjoy hunting for years. You got good, I suppose because you thought it was your Vorish duty, but you damn near threw up every time you half-missed and we had to chase down some wounded beastie. You may harbor some other perversion, but not sadism."
“What I've read ... and heard,” said Gregor, “is so horribly fascinating. I can't help thinking about it. Can't put it out of my mind."
“Your head is full of horrors because the world is full of horrors. Look at the horrors Cavilo caused in the Hegen Hub."
“If I'd strangled her while she slept—which I had a chance to do—none of those horrors would have come to pass."
“If none of those horrors had come to pass, she wouldn't have deserved to be strangled. Some kind of time-travel paradox, I'm afraid. The arrow of justice flies one way. Only. You can't regret not strangling her first. Though I suppose you can regret not strangling her after...."
“No ... no ... I'll leave that to the Cetagandans, if they can catch her now that she has her head start."
“Gregor, I'm sorry, but I just don't think Mad Emperor Gregor is in the cards. It's your advisors who are going to go crazy."
Gregor stared at the pastry tray, and sighed. “I suppose it would disturb the guards if I tried to shove a cream torte up your nose."
“Deeply. You should have done it when we were eight and twelve, you could have gotten away with it then. The cream pie of justice flies one way,” Miles snickered.
Several unnatural and sophomoric things to do with a tray full of pastry were then suggested by both principals, which left them laughing. Gregor needed a good cream pie fight, Miles judged, even if only verbal and imaginary. When the laughter finally died down, and the coffee was cooling, Miles said, “I know flattery sends you straight up a wall, but dammit, you're actually good at your job. You have to know that, on some level inside, after the Vervain talks. Stay on it, huh?"
“I think I will.” Gregor's fork dove more forcefully into his last bite of dessert. “You're going to stay on yours, too, right?"
“Whatever it may be. I am to meet with Simon Illyan on just that topic later this afternoon,” said Miles. He decided to forgo that third pastry after all.
“You don't sound exactly excited about it."
“I don't suppose he can demote me, there is no rank below ensign."
“He's pleased with you, what else?"
“He didn't look pleased, when I gave him my debriefing report. He looked dyspeptic. Didn't say much.” He glanced at Gregor in sudden suspicion. “You know, don't you? Give!"
“Mustn't interfere in the chain of command,” said Gregor sententiously. “Maybe you'll move up it. I hear the command at Kyril Island is open."
Miles shuddered.
* * * *
Spring in the Barrayaran capital city of Vorbarr Sultana was as beautiful as the autumn, Miles decided. He paused a moment before turning in to the front entrance to the big blocky building that was ImpSec HQ. The Earth maple still stood, down the street and around the corner, its tender leaves backlit to a delicate green glow by the afternoon sun. Barrayaran native vegetation ran to dull reds and browns, mostly. Would he ever visit Earth? Maybe.
Miles produced proper passes for the door guards. Their faces were familiar, they were the same crew he'd helped supervise for that interminable period last winter—only a few months ago? It seemed longer. He could still rattle off their pay-rates. They exchanged pleasantries, but being good ImpSec men they did not ask the question alight in their eyes, Where have you been sir? Miles was not issued a security escort to Illyan's office, a good sign. It wasn't like he didn't know the way, by now.
He followed the familiar turns into the labyrinth, up the lift tubes. The captain in Illyan's outer office merely waved him through, barely glancing up from his comconsole. The inner office was unchanged, Illyan's oversized comconsole desk was unchanged, Illyan himself was ... rather tireder-looking, paler. He ought to get out and catch some of that spring sun, eh? At least his hair hadn't all turned white, it was still about the same brown-grey mix. His taste in clothes was still bland to the point of camouflage.
Illyan pointed to a seat—another good sign, Miles took it promptly—finished whatever had been absorbing him, and at last looked up. He leaned forward to put his elbows on the comconsole and lace his fingers together, and regarded Miles with a kind of clinical disapproval, as if he were a data point that messed up the curve, and Illyan was deciding if he could still save the theory by re-classifying him as experimental error.
“Ensign Vorkosigan,” Illyan sighed. “It seems you still have a little problem with subordination."
“I know, sir. I'm sorry."
“Do you ever intend to do anything about it besides feel sorry?"
“I can't help it, sir, if people give me the wrong orders."
“If you can't obey my orders, I don't want you in my Section."
“Well ... I thought I had. You wanted a military evaluation of the Hegen Hub. I made one. You wanted to know where the destabilization was coming from. I found out. You wanted the Dendarii Mercenaries out of the Hub. They'll be leaving in about three more weeks, I understand. You asked for results. You got them."
“Lots of them,” Illyan murmured.
“I admit, I didn't have a direct order to rescue Gregor, I just assumed you'd want it done. Sir."
Illyan searched him for irony, lips thinning as he apparently found it. Miles tried to keep his face bland, though out-blanding Illyan was a major effort. “As I recall,” said Illyan (and Illyan's memory was eidetic, thanks to an Illyrican bio-chip) “I gave those orders to Captain Ungari. I gave you just one order. Can you remember what it was?” This inquiry was in the same encouraging tone one might use on a six-year-old just learning to tie his shoes. Trying to out-irony Illyan was as dangerous as trying to out-bland him.
“Obey Captain Ungari's orders,” Miles recalled reluctantly.
“Just so.” Illyan leaned back. “Ungari was a good, reliable operative. If you'd botched it, you'd have taken him down with you. The man is now half-ruined."
Miles made little negative motions with his hands. “He made the correct decisions, for his level. You can't fault him. It's just ... things got too important for me to go on playing ensign when the man who was needed was Lord V
orkosigan.” Or Admiral Naismith.
“Hm,” Illyan said. “And yet ... who shall I assign you to now? Which loyal officer gets his career destroyed next?"
Miles thought this over. “Why don't you assign me directly to yourself, sir?"
“Thanks,” said Illyan dryly.
“I didn't mean—” Miles began to sputter protest, stopped, detecting the oblique gleam of humor in Illyan's brown eyes. Roasting me for your sport, are you?
“In fact, just that proposal has been floated. Not, needless to say, by me. But a galactic operative must function with a high degree of independence. We're considering making a virtue of necessity—” a light on Illyan's comconsole distracted him. He checked something, and touched a control. The door on the wall to the right of his desk slid open, and Gregor stepped through. The emperor shed one guard who stayed in the passageway, the other trod silently through the office to take up station beyond the antechamber. All doors slid shut. Illyan rose to pull up a chair for the emperor, and gave him a nod, a sort of vestigial bow, before reseating himself. Miles, who had also risen, sketched a salute and sat too.
“Did you tell him about the Dendarii yet?” Gregor asked Illyan.
“I was working around to it,” said Illyan.
Gradually. “What about the Dendarii?” Miles asked, unable to keep the eagerness out of his voice, try though he might for a junior version of Illyan's impassive surface.
“We've decided to put them on a permanent retainer,” said Illyan. “You, in your cover identity as Admiral Naismith, will be our liaison officer."
“Consulting mercenaries?” Miles blinked. Naismith lives!
Gregor grinned. “The Emperor's Own. We owe them, I think something more than just their base pay for their services to us—and to Us—in the Hegen Hub. And they have certainly demonstrated the, er, utility of being able to reach places cut off to our regular forces by political barriers."
Miles interpreted the expression on Illyan's face as deep mourning for his Section budget, rather than disapproval as such.
“Simon shall be alert for, and pursue, opportunities to use them actively,” Gregor went on. “We'll need to justify that retainer, after all."
“I see them as more use in espionage than covert ops,” Illyan put in hastily. “This isn't a license to go adventuring, or worse, some kind of letter of marque and reprisal. In fact, the first thing I want you to do is beef up your intelligence department. I know you're in funds for it. I'll lend you a couple of my experts."
“Not bodyguard-puppeteers again, sir?” Miles asked nervously.
“Shall I ask Captain Ungari if he wants to volunteer?” inquired Illyan with a repressed ripple of his lips. “No. You will operate independently. God help us. After all, if I don't send you someplace else, you'll be right here. So the scheme has that much merit even if the Dendarii never do anything."
“I fear it is primarily your youth, which is the cause of Simon's lack of confidence,” murmured twenty-five-year-old Gregor. “We feel it is time he gave up that prejudice."
Yes, that had been an Imperial We, Miles's Barrayaran-tuned ears did not deceive him. Illyan had heard it as clearly. The chief leaner, leaned upon. Illyan's irony this time was tinged with underlying ... approval?
“Aral and I have labored twenty years to put ourselves out of work. We may live long enough to retire after all.” He paused. “That's called ‘success’ in my business, boys. I wouldn't object.” And under his breath “...get this hellish chip taken out of my head at last...."
“Mm, don't go scouting surfside retirement cottages just yet,” said Gregor. Not caving or backpedaling or submission, merely an expression of confidence in Illyan. No more, no less. Gregor glanced at Miles's ... neck? The deep bruises from Metzov's grip were almost gone by now, surely. “Were you still working around to the other thing, too?” he asked Illyan.
Illyan opened a hand. “Be my guest.” He rummaged in a drawer underneath his comconsole.
“We—and We—thought we owed you something more, too, Miles,” said Gregor.
Miles hesitated between a shucks-t'weren't-nothin' speech and a what-did-you-bring-me?! and settled on an expression of alert inquiry.
Illyan reemerged, and tossed Miles something small that flashed red in the air. “Here. You're a lieutenant. Whatever that means to you."
Miles caught them between his hands, the plastic collar rectangles of his new rank. He was so surprised he said the first thing that came into his head, which was, “Well, that's a start on the subordination problem."
Illyan favored him with a driven glower. “Don't get carried away. About ten percent of ensigns are promoted after their first year of service. Your Vorish social circle will think it's all nepotism anyway."
“I know,” said Miles bleakly. But he opened his collar and began switching tabs on the spot.
Illyan softened slightly. “Your father will know better, though. And Gregor. And, er ... myself."
Miles looked up, to catch his eye direct for almost the first time this interview. “Thank you."
“You earned it. You won't get anything from me you don't earn. That includes the dressing-downs."
“I'll look forward to them, sir."
* * *
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