Miles Errant

by Lois McMaster Bujold

  Galeni pursed his lips, and remarked mildly, "I am actually a superior of yours, Lieutenant Vorkosigan."

  And chapped as hell, Miles judged, to be cut out of his own command chain—and who could blame him? Softly, now . . . "Of course, sir. What are my orders?"

  Galeni's hands clenched briefly in frustration, his mouth set in irony. "I will have to add you to my staff, I suppose, while we all await clarification. Third assistant military attaché."

  "Ideal, sir, thank you," said Miles. "Admiral Naismith needs very much to vanish just now. The Cetagandans put a price on his—my—head after Dagoola. I've been lucky twice."

  It was Galeni's turn to freeze. "Are you joking?"

  "I had four dead and sixteen wounded Dendarii because of it," said Miles stiffly. "I don't find it amusing at all."

  "In that case," said Galeni grimly, "you may consider yourself confined to the Embassy compound."

  And miss Earth? Miles sighed reluctance. "Yes, sir," he agreed in a dull tone. "As long as Commander Quinn here can be my go-between to the Dendarii."

  "Why do you need further contact with the Dendarii?"

  "They're my people, sir."

  "I thought you said this Commodore Tung ran the show."

  "He's on home leave right now. But all I really need before Admiral Naismith departs into the woodwork is to pay some bills. If you could advance me their immediate expenses, I could wrap up this mission."

  Galeni sighed; his fingers danced over his comconsole and paused. "Assistance with all due speed. Right. Just how much do they require?"

  "Roughly eighteen million marks, sir."

  Galeni's fingers hung paralyzed. "Lieutenant," he said carefully, "that is more than ten times the budget for this entire embassy for a year. Several tens of times the budget for this department!"

  Miles spread his hands. "Operating expenses for five thousand troops and techs and eleven ships for over six months, plus equipment losses—we lost a hell of a lot of gear at Dagoola—payroll, food, clothing, fuel, medical expenses, ammunition, repairs—I can show you the spreadsheets, sir."

  Galeni sat back. "No doubt. But Sector Security Headquarters is going to have to handle this one. Funds in that amount don't even exist here."

  Miles chewed on the side of his index finger. "Oh." Oh, indeed. He would not panic. . . . "In that case, sir, may I request you send to Sector HQ as soon as possible?"

  "Believe me, Lieutenant, I consider getting you transferred to someone else's command an object of the highest priority." He rose. "Excuse me. Wait here." He exited the office shaking his head.

  "What the hell?" prodded Elli. "I thought you were about to try and dismantle the guy, captain or no captain—and then you just stopped. What's so magic about being Komarran, and where can I get some?"

  "Not magic," said Miles. "Definitely not magic. But very important."

  "More important than being a Vor lord?"

  "In a weird way, yes, right now. Look, you know the planet Komarr was Barrayar's first interstellar Imperial conquest, right?"

  "I thought you called it an annexation."

  "A rose by any other name. We took it for its wormholes, because it sat across our only nexus connection, because it was strangling our trade, and most of all because it accepted a bribe to let the Cetagandan fleet pass through it when Cetaganda first tried to annex us. You may also recall who was the chief conquistador."

  "Your dad. Back when he was only Admiral Lord Vorkosigan, before he became regent. It made his reputation."

  "Yeah, well, it made more than one reputation for him. You ever want to see smoke come out of his ears, whisper, 'the Butcher of Komarr' in his hearing. They actually called him that."

  "Thirty years ago, Miles." She paused. "Was there any truth to it?"

  Miles sighed. "There was something. I've never been able to get the whole story out of him, but I'm damn sure what's in the history books isn't it. Anyway, the conquest of Komarr got messy. As a result, in the fourth year he was Imperial Regent came the Komarr Revolt, and that got really messy. Komarran terrorists have been a security nightmare for the Imperium ever since. It was pretty repressive there, I guess.

  "Anyway, so time's gone on, things have calmed down a bit, anyone from either planet with energy to spare is off settling newly-opened Sergyar. There's been a movement among the Progressives—spearheaded by my father—to fully integrate Komarr into the Empire. It's not a real popular idea with the Barrayaran right. It's a bit of an obsession with the old man—'Between justice and genocide there is, in the long run, no middle ground,'" Miles intoned. "He gets real eloquent about it. So, all right, the route to the top on dear old caste-conscious, army-mad Barrayar was and always has been through the Imperial Military Service. It was opened to Komarrans for the first time just eight years ago.

  "That means any Komarran in the service now is on the spot. They have to prove their loyalty the way I have to prove my—" he faltered, "prove myself. It also follows that if I'm working with or under any Komarran, and I turn up unusually dead one day, that Komarran is dog meat. Because my father was the Butcher, and no one will believe it wasn't some sort of revenge.

  "And not just that Komarran. Every other Komarran in the Imperial Service would be shadowed by the same cloud. It'd put things back years in Barrayaran politics. If I got assassinated now," he shrugged helplessly, "my father would kill me."

  "I trust you weren't planning on it," she choked.

  "So now we come to Galeni," Miles went on hastily. "He's in the Service—an officer—has a post in Security itself. Must have worked his tail off to get here. Highly trusted—for a Komarran. But not at a major or strategic post; certain critical kinds of security information are deliberately withheld from him; and here I come along and rub his nose in it. And if he did have any relatives in the Komarr Revolt—well . . . here I am again. I doubt if he loves me, but he's going to have to guard me like the apple of his eye. And I, God help me, am going to have to let him. It's a real tricky situation."

  She patted him on the arm. "You can handle it."

  "Hm," he grunted glumly. "Oh, God, Elli," he wailed suddenly, letting his forehead fall against her shoulder, "and I didn't get the money for the Dendarii—can't, till God knows when—what will I tell Ky? I gave him my word . . . !"

  She patted him on the head, this time. But she didn't say anything.

  CHAPTER TWO

  He let his head rest against the crisp cloth of her uniform jacket a moment longer. She shifted, her arms reaching toward him. Was she about to hug him? If she did, Miles decided, he was going to grab her and kiss her right there. And then see what happened—

  Behind him, Galeni's office doors swished open. Elli and he both flinched away from each other, Elli coming to parade rest with a toss of her short dark curls, Miles just standing and cursing inwardly at the interruption.

  He heard and knew the familiar, drawling voice before he turned.

  "—brilliant, sure, but hyper as hell. You think he's going to slip his flywheel any second. Watch out when he starts talking too fast. Oh, yeah, that's him all right."

  "Ivan," Miles breathed, closing his eyes. "How, God, have I sinned against You, that You have given me Ivan—here. . . ."

  God not deigning to answer, Miles smiled crookedly and turned. Elli had her head tilted, frowning, listening in sudden concentration.

  Galeni had returned with a tall young lieutenant in tow. Indolent as he was, Ivan Vorpatril had obviously been keeping in shape, for his athletic physique set off his dress greens to perfection. His affable, open face was even-featured, framed by wavy dark hair in a neat patrician clip. Miles could not help glancing at Elli, covertly alert for her reaction. With her face and figure Elli tended to make anyone standing next to her look grubby, but Ivan might actually play the stem to her rose and not be overshadowed.

  "Hi, Miles," said Ivan. "What are you doing here?"

  "I might ask you the same thing," said Miles.

  "I'm second a
ssistant military attaché. They assigned me here to get cultured, I guess. Earth, y'know."

  "Oh," said Galeni, one corner of his mouth twitching upward, "is that what you're here for. I'd wondered."

  Ivan grinned sheepishly. "How's life with the irregulars these days?" he asked Miles. "You still getting away with your Admiral Naismith scam?"

  "Just barely," said Miles. "The Dendarii are with me now. They're in orbit," he jabbed his finger skyward, "eating their heads off even as we speak."

  Galeni looked as if he'd bitten into something sour. "Does everybody know about this covert operation but me? You, Vorpatril—I know your security clearance is no higher than my own!"

  Ivan shrugged. "A previous encounter. It was in the family."

  "Damned Vor power network," muttered Galeni.

  "Oh," said Elli Quinn in a tone of sudden enlightenment, "this is your cousin Ivan! I'd always wondered what he looked like."

  Ivan, who had been sneaking little peeks at her ever since he'd entered the room, came to attention with all the quivering alertness of a bird dog pointing. He smiled blindingly and bowed over Elli's hand. "Delighted to meet you, m'lady. The Dendarii must be improving, if you are a fair sample. The fairest, surely."

  Elli repossessed her hand. "We've met."

  "Surely not. I couldn't forget that face."

  "I didn't have this face. 'A head just like an onion' was the way you phrased it, as I recall." Her eyes glittered. "Since I was blinded at the time, I had no idea how bad the plastiskin prosthesis really looked. Until you told me. Miles never mentioned it."

  Ivan's smile had gone limp. "Ah. The plasma-burn lady."

  Miles smirked and edged closer to Elli, who put her hand possessively through the crook of his elbow and favored Ivan with a cold samurai smile. Ivan, trying to bleed with dignity, looked to Captain Galeni.

  "Since you know each other, Lieutenant Vorkosigan, I've assigned Lieutenant Vorpatril here to take you in tow and orient you to the Embassy, and to your duties here," said Galeni. "Vor or no Vor, as long as you're on the Emperor's payroll, the Emperor might as well get some use of you. I trust some clarification of your status will arrive promptly."

  "I trust the Dendarii payroll will arrive as promptly," said Miles.

  "Your mercenary—bodyguard—can return to her outfit. If for any reason you need to leave the Embassy compound, I'll assign you one of my men."

  "Yes, sir," sighed Miles. "But I still have to be able to get in touch with the Dendarii, in case of emergencies."

  "I'll see that Commander Quinn gets a secured comm link before she leaves. As a matter of fact," he touched his comconsole, "Sergeant Barth?" he spoke into it.

  "Yes, sir?" a voice replied.

  "Do you have that comm link ready yet?"

  "Just finished encoding it, sir."

  "Good, bring it to my office."

  Barth, still in his civvies, appeared within moments. Galeni shepherded Elli out. "Sergeant Barth will escort you out of the embassy compound, Commander Quinn." She glanced back over her shoulder at Miles, who sketched her a reassuring salute.

  "What will I tell the Dendarii?" she asked.

  "Tell them—tell them their funds are in transit," Miles called. The doors hissed shut, eclipsing her.

  Galeni returned to his comconsole, which was blinking for his attention. "Vorpatril, please make getting your cousin out of that . . . costume, and into a correct uniform your first priority."

  Does Admiral Naismith spook you—just a little . . . sir? Miles wondered irritably. "The Dendarii uniform is as real as your own, sir."

  Galeni glowered at him, across his flickering desk. "I wouldn't know, Lieutenant. My father could only afford toy soldiers for me when I was a boy. You two are dismissed."

  Miles, fuming, waited until the doors had closed behind them before tearing off his gray-and-white jacket and throwing it to the corridor floor. "Costume! Toy soldiers! I think I'm gonna kill that Komarran son-of-a-bitch!"

  "Oooh," said Ivan. "Aren't we touchy today."

  "You heard what he said!"

  "Yeah, so . . . Galeni's all right. A bit regulation, maybe. There's a dozen little tin-pot mercenary outfits running around in oddball corners of the worm-hole nexus. Some of them tread a real fine line between legal and illegal. How's he supposed to know your Dendarii aren't next door to being hijackers?"

  Miles picked up his uniform jacket, shook it out, and folded it carefully over his arm. "Huh."

  "Come on," said Ivan. "I'll take you down to Stores and get you a kit in a color more to his taste."

  "They got anything in my size?"

  "They make a laser-map of your body and produce the stuff one-off, computer controlled, just like that overpriced sartorial pirate you take yourself to in Vorbarr Sultana. This is Earth, son."

  "My man on Barrayar's been doing my clothes for ten years. He has some tricks that aren't in the computer. . . . Well, I guess I can live with it. Can the embassy computer do civilian clothes?"

  Ivan grimaced. "If your tastes are conservative. If you want something in style to wow the local girls, you have to go farther afield."

  "With Galeni for a duenna, I have a feeling I'm not going to get a chance to go very far afield," Miles sighed. "It'll have to do."

  * * *

  Miles sighted down the forest-green sleeve of his Barrayaran dress uniform, adjusted the cuff, and jerked his chin up, the better to settle his head on the high collar. He'd half-forgotten just how uncomfortable that damned collar was, with his short neck. In front the red rectangles of his lieutenant's rank seemed to poke into his jaw; in back it pinched his still-uncut hair. And the boots were hot. The bone he'd broken in his left foot at Dagoola still twinged, even now after being re-broken, set straight, and treated with electra-stim.

  Still, the green uniform was home. His true self. Maybe it was time for a vacation from Admiral Naismith and his intractable responsibilities, time to remember the more reasonable problems of Lieutenant Vorkosigan, whose sole task now was to learn the procedures of one small office and put up with Ivan Vorpatril. The Dendarii didn't need him to hold their hand for routine rest and refit, nor could he have arranged any more safe and thorough a disappearance for Admiral Naismith.

  Ivan's particular charge was this tiny windowless room deep in the bowels of the embassy compound; his job, to feed hundreds of data disks to a secured computer that concentrated them into a weekly report on the status of Earth, to be sent back to Security Chief Illyan and the general staff on Barrayar. Where, Miles supposed, it was computer-collated with hundreds of other such reports to create Barrayar's vision of the universe. Miles hoped devoutly that Ivan wasn't adding kilowatts and megawatts in the same column.

  "By far the bulk of this stuff is public statistics," Ivan was explaining, seated before his console and actually looking at ease in his dress greens. "Population shifts, agricultural and manufacturing production figures, the various political divisions' published military budgets. The computer adds 'em up sixteen different ways, and blinks for attention when things don't match. Since all the originators have computers too, this doesn't happen too often—all the lies are embedded before it ever gets to us, Galeni says. More important to Barrayar are records of ship movements in and out of Earth local space.

  "Then we get to the more interesting stuff, real spy work. There're several hundred people on Earth this embassy tries to keep track of, for one security reason or another. One of the biggest groups is the Komarran rebel expatriates." A wave of Ivan's hand, and dozens of faces flickered one after another above the vid plate.

  "Oh, yeah?" said Miles, interested in spite of himself. "Does Galeni have secret contacts and so on with them? Is that why he's assigned here? Double agent—triple agent . . ."

  "I bet Illyan wishes," said Ivan. "As far as I know, they regard Galeni as a leper. Evil collaborator with the imperialist oppressors and all that."

  "Surely they're no great threat to Barrayar at this late date and distanc
e. Refugees . . ."

  "Some of these were the smart refugees, though, the ones who got their money out before the boom dropped. Some were involved in financing the Komarr Revolt during the Regency—they're mostly a lot poorer now. They're aging, though. Another half generation, if your father's integration policies succeed, and they'll have totally lost momentum, Captain Galeni says."

  Ivan picked up another data disk. "And then we come to the real hot stuff, which is keeping track of what the other embassies are doing. Such as the Cetagandan."

  "I hope they're on the other side of the planet," said Miles sincerely.

  "No, most of the galactic embassies and consuls are concentrated right here in London. Makes watching each other ever so much more convenient."

  "Ye gods," moaned Miles, "don't tell me they're across the street or some damned thing."

  Ivan grinned. "Almost. They're about two kilometers away. We go to each other's parties a lot, to practice being snide, and play I-know-you-know-I-know games."

  Miles sat, hyperventilating slightly. "Oh, shit."

  "What's up you, coz?"

  "Those people are trying to kill me."

  "No they're not. It'd start a war. We're at peace right now, sort of, remember?"

  "Well, they're trying to kill Admiral Naismith, anyway."

  "Who vanished yesterday."

  "Yeah, but—one of the reasons this whole Dendarii scam has held up for so long is distance. Admiral Naismith and Lieutenant Vorkosigan never show up within hundreds of light years of each other. We've never been trapped on the same planet together, let alone the same city."

  "As long as you leave your Dendarii uniform in my closet, what's to connect?"

  "Ivan, how many four-foot-nine-inch black-haired gray-eyed hunchbacks can there be on this damned planet? D'you think you trip over twitchy dwarfs on every street corner?"

  "On a planet of nine billion," said Ivan, "there's got to be at least six of everything. Calm down!" He paused. "Y'know, that's the first time I've ever heard you use that word."

  "What word?"

  "Hunchback. You're not really, you know." Ivan eyed him with friendly worry.