Miles Errant

by Lois McMaster Bujold

  The gray Dendarii sergeant's uniform Ivan wore flattered him no less than his Barrayaran dress greens, Miles noted glumly. The man just looked good in uniform, any uniform. Elli, sitting on Miles's other side, seemed Ivan's female twin. She simulated ease, lithe body stretched out, one arm flung carelessly and protectively across the back of the seat above Miles's head. But she had taken to biting her nails again, Miles noted. Miles sat between them in Lord Vorkosigan's Barrayaran dress greens, feeling like a piece of wilted watercress between two slices of moldy bread. Too damned tired for these late-night parties.

  "Of course it's a trap," said Miles. "Who set it and why, is what we want to find out. And how much they know. Have they set this up because they believe Admiral Naismith and Lord Vorkosigan to be two separate people—or because they don't? If the latter, will it compromise Barrayar's covert connection with the Dendarii Mercenaries in future operations?"

  Elli's sideways glance met Miles's. Indeed. And if the Naismith game were over, what future had they?

  "Or maybe," said Ivan helpfully, "it's something totally unrelated, like local criminals looking for a spot of ransom. Or something really tortuous, like the Cetagandans trying to get Admiral Naismith in deep trouble with Barrayar, in hopes that we'd have better luck killing the little spook than they have. Or maybe—"

  "Maybe you're the evil genius behind it all, Ivan," Miles suggested affably, "clearing the chain of command of competition so you can have the embassy all to yourself."

  Elli glanced at him sharply, to be sure he was joking. Ivan just grinned. "Ooh, I like that one."

  "The only thing we can be sure of is that it's not a Cetagandan assassination attempt." Miles sighed.

  "I wish I was as sure as you seem to be," muttered Elli. It was late evening of the fourth day since Galeni's disappearance. The thirty-six hours since the Dendarii had been offered their peculiar contract had given Elli time for reflection; the initial charm had worn off for her even as Miles had become increasingly drawn in by the possibilities.

  "Look at the logic of it," argued Miles. "The Cetagandans either still think I'm two separate people, or they don't. It's Admiral Naismith they want to kill, not the Barrayaran prime minister's son. Killing Lord Vorkosigan could restart a bloody war. In fact, we'll know my cover's been blown the day they stop trying to assassinate Naismith—and start making a great and embarrassing public flap about Dendarii operations against them instead. They wouldn't miss that diplomatic opportunity for anything. Particularly now, with the right-of-passage treaty through Tau Ceti up in the air. They could cripple our galactic trade in one move."

  "They could be trying to prove your connection, as step one of just that plan," said Ivan, looking thoughtful.

  "I didn't say it wasn't the Cetagandans," said Miles mildly. "I just said that if it was, this isn't an assassination."

  Elli groaned.

  Miles looked at his chrono. "Time for the last check."

  Elli activated her wrist comm. "Are you still up there, Bel?"

  Captain Thorne's alto voice lilted back, signalling from the aircar that followed with its troop of Dendarii soldiers. "I have you in my sights."

  "All right, keep us that way. You watch the back from above, we'll watch the front. This will be the last voice contact till we invite you to drop in."

  "We'll be waiting. Bel out."

  Miles rubbed the back of his neck nervously. Quinn, watching the gesture, remarked, "I'm really not crazy about springing the trap by letting them take you."

  "I have no intention of letting them take me. The moment they show their hand, Bel drops in and we take them instead. But if it doesn't look like they want to kill me outright, we could learn a lot by letting their operation run on a few steps further. In view of the, ah, Situation at the embassy, it could be worth a little risk."

  She shook her head in mute disapproval.

  The next few minutes passed in silence. Miles was about halfway through a mental review of all the branching possibilities they had hammered out for this evening's action when they pulled up in front of a row of ancient, three-story houses crammed together along a crescent street. They seemed very dark and quiet, unoccupied, apparently in process of condemnation or renovation.

  Elli glanced at the numbers on the doors and swung up the bubble canopy. Miles slid out to stand beside her. From the groundcar, Ivan ran the scanners. "There's nobody home," he reported, squinting at his readouts.

  "What? Not possible," said Elli.

  "We could be early."

  "Rats," said Elli. "As Miles is so fond of saying, look at the logic. The people who want to buy Lord Vorkosigan didn't give us this rendezvous till the last second. Why? So we couldn't get here first and check it out. They have to be set up and waiting." She leaned back into the car's cockpit, reaching over Ivan's shoulder. He turned his hands palm-out in acquiescence as she ran the scan again. "You're right," she admitted, "but it still feels wrong."

  Was it chance vandalism that a couple of streetlights were broken out, just here? Miles peered into the night. "Don't like it," Elli murmured. "Let's not tie your hands."

  "Can you handle me, all by yourself?"

  "You're drugged to the eyeballs."

  Miles shrugged, and let his jaw hang slack and his eyes track randomly and not quite in unison. He shambled beside her as her hand pinched his upper arm, guiding him up the steps. She tried the door, an old-fashioned one hung on hinges. "It's open." It swung wide squeaking, revealing blackness.

  Elli reluctantly reholstered her stunner and unhooked a handlight from her belt, flashing it into the darkness. An entry hall; rickety-looking stairs ascended to the left. Twin archways on either side led into empty, dirty front rooms. She sighed and stepped cautiously across the threshold. "Anybody here?" she called softly. Silence. They entered the left-hand room, the beam of the handlight darting from corner to corner.

  "We're not early," she muttered, "not late, the address is right . . . where are they?"

  He could not very well answer and stay in character. Elli released him, switched the light to her left hand, and re-drew her stunner. "You're too tanked to wander far," she decided, as if talking to herself. "I'm going to take a look around."

  One of Miles's eyelids shivered in acknowledgement. Until she finished checking for remote bugs and scanner beams, he had better keep playing Lord Vorkosigan in a convincingly kidnapped state. After a moment's hesitation, she took to the stairs. Taking the light with her, dammit.

  He was still listening to the swift, faint creak of her footsteps overhead when the hand closed over his mouth and the back of his neck was kissed by a stunner on very light power, zero range.

  He convulsed, kicking, trying to shout, trying to bite. His assailant hissed in pain and clutched harder. There were two—his hands were yanked up behind his back, a gag stuffed into his mouth before his teeth could snap closed on the hand that fed him. The gag was permeated with some sweet, penetrating drug; his nostrils flared wildly, but his vocal cords went involuntarily slack. He seemed out of touch with his body, as if it had moved leaving no forwarding address. Then a pale light came up.

  Two large men, one younger, one older, dressed in Earther clothing, shifted in the shadows, faintly blurred. Scanner shields, dammit! And very, very good ones, to beat the Dendarii equipment. Miles spotted the boxes belted to their waists—a tenth the size of the latest thing his people had. Such tiny power packs—they looked new. The Barrayaran embassy was going to have to update its secured areas . . . He went cross-eyed, for a mad moment, trying to read the maker's mark on them, until he saw the third man.

  Oh, the third. I've lost it, Miles's panicked thought gyrated. Gone right over the edge. The third man was himself.

  The alter-Miles, neatly turned out in Barrayaran dress greens, stepped forward to stare long and strangely, hungrily, into his face as he was held up by the two younger men. He began emptying the contents of Miles's pockets into his own. Stunner . . . IDs . . . half a pack of clo
ve breath mints . . . He frowned at the breath mints as if momentarily puzzled, then pocketed them with a shrug. He pointed to Miles's waist.

  Miles's grandfather's dagger had been willed explicitly to him. The 300-year-old blade was still flexible as rubber, sharp as glass. Its jewelled hilt concealed the Vorkosigan seal. They took it from beneath his jacket. The alter-Miles shrugged the sheath-strap over his shoulder and refastened his tunic. Finally, he unhooked the scanner-shield belt from his own waist and slipped it swiftly around Miles.

  The alter-Miles's eyes were hot with an exhilarated terror, as he paused to sweep one last glance over Miles. Miles had seen the look once before, in his own face in the mirrored wall of a tube station.

  No.

  He'd seen it on this one's face in the mirrored wall of a tube station.

  He must have been standing feet away that night, behind Miles at an angle. In the wrong uniform. The green one, at a moment Miles was wearing his Dendarii grays.

  Looks like they managed to get it right this time, though. . . .

  "Perfect," growled the alter-Miles, freed of the scanner-shield's sonic muffling. "We didn't even have to stun the woman. She'll suspect nothing. Told you this would work." He inhaled, jerked up his chin, and smiled sardonically at Miles.

  Posturing little martinet, Miles thought poisonously. I'll get you for that.

  Well, I always was my own worst enemy.

  The switch had taken only seconds. They carried Miles through the doorway at the back of the room. With a heroic twitch, he managed to bump his head on the frame, going through.

  "What was that?" Elli's voice called instantly from upstairs.

  "Me," the alter-Miles called back promptly. "I just checked around. There's nobody down here either. This is a wash-out."

  "You think?" Miles heard her cantering down the stairs. "We could wait a while."

  Elli's wristcom chimed. "Elli?" came Ivan's voice thinly. "I just got a funny blip in the scanners a minute ago."

  Miles's heart lurched in hope.

  "Check again." The alter-Miles's voice was cool.

  "Nothing, now."

  "Nothing here either. I'm afraid something's panicked them, and they've aborted. Pull in the perimeter and take me back to the embassy, Commander Quinn."

  "So soon? You sure?"

  "Now, yes. That's an order."

  "You're the boss. Damn," said Elli regretfully, "I had my heart set on that hundred thousand Betan dollars."

  Their syncopated footsteps echoed out the hallway and were muted by the closing door. The purr of a groundcar faded in the distance. Darkness, silence scored by breathing.

  They dragged Miles along again, out a back door, through a narrow mews and into the back seat of a groundcar parked in the alley. They sat him up like a mannequin between them, while a third kidnapper drove. Miles's thoughts spun dizzily along the edge of consciousness. Goddamn scanners . . . five-year-old technology from the rim zone, which put it maybe ten years behind Earth's—they'd have to bite the budget bullet and scrap the Dendarii scanner system fleet-wide, now—if he lived to order it. . . . Scanners, hell. The fault didn't lie in the scanners. Wasn't the formerly-mythical unicorn hunted with mirrors, to fascinate the vainglorious beast while its killers circled for the strike? Must be a virgin around here somewhere. . . .

  This was an ancient district. The tortuous route the groundcar was taking could be either to confuse him or merely the best shortcut local knowledge could supply. After about a quarter hour they dove into an underground parking garage and hissed to a halt. The garage was small, clearly private, with room for only a few vehicles.

  They hauled him to a lift tube and ascended one level to a short hallway. One of the goons pulled off Miles's boots and scanner-shield belt. The stun was starting to wear off. His legs were rubbery, shot with pins and needles, but at least they propped him up. They released his wrists; clumsily, he tried to rub his aching arms. They popped the gag from his mouth. He emitted a wordless croak.

  They unlocked a door in front of him and bundled him into a windowless room. The door closed behind with a click like trap jaws snapping. He staggered and stood, feet spread a little, panting.

  A sealed light fixture in the ceiling illuminated a narrow room furnished only with two hard benches along the walls. To the left a doorframe with the door removed led to a tiny, windowless washroom.

  A man, wearing only green trousers, cream shirt, and socks, lay curled on one of the benches, facing the wall. Stiffly, gingerly, he rolled over and sat up. One hand flung up automatically, as if to shield his reddened eyes from some too-bright light; the other pressed the bench to keep him from toppling. Dark hair mussed, a four-day beard stubble. His shirt collar hung open in a V, revealing a throat strangely vulnerable, in contrast to the usual turtle-armored effect of the high, closed Barrayaran tunic collar. His face was furrowed.

  The impeccable Captain Galeni. Rather the worse for wear.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Galeni squinted at Miles. "Bloody hell," he said in a flattened voice.

  "Same to you," Miles rasped back.

  Galeni sat up straighter, bleary eyes narrowing with suspicion. "Or—is it you?"

  "I don't know." Miles considered this. "Which me were you expecting?" He staggered over to the bench opposite before his knees gave way and sat, his back against the wall, feet not quite reaching the floor. They were both silent for a few minutes, taking in the details of the other.

  "It would be pointless to throw us together in the same room unless it was monitored," said Miles at last.

  For answer Galeni flipped an index finger up toward the light fixture.

  "Ah. Visual too?"

  "Yes."

  Miles bared his teeth and smiled upward.

  Galeni was still regarding him with wary, almost painful uncertainty.

  Miles cleared his throat. There was a bitter tang lingering in his mouth. "I take it you've met my alter-ego?"

  "Yesterday. I think it was yesterday." Galeni glanced at the light.

  His kidnappers had relieved Miles of his own chrono, too. "It's now about one in the morning, of the start of the fifth day since you disappeared from the embassy," Miles supplied, answering Galeni's unspoken question. "Do they leave that light on all the time?"

  "Yes."

  "Ah." Miles fought down a queasy twinge of associative memory. Continuous illumination was a Cetagandan prison technique for inducing temporal disorientation. Admiral Naismith was intimately familiar with it.

  "I saw him for just a few seconds," Miles went on, "when they made the switch." His hand touched the absence of a dagger, massaged the back of his neck. "Do I—really look like that?"

  "I thought it was you. Till the end. He told me he was practicing. Testing."

  "Did he pass?"

  "He was in here for four or five hours."

  Miles winced. "That's bad. That's very bad."

  "I thought so."

  "I see." A sticky silence filled the room. "Well, historian. And how do you tell a forgery from the real thing?"

  Galeni shook his head, then touched his hand to his temple as though he wished he hadn't; blinding headache, apparently. Miles had one too. "I don't believe I know anymore." Galeni added reflectively, "He saluted."

  A dry grin cracked one corner of Miles's mouth. "Of course, there could be just one of me, and all this a ploy to drive you crazy. . . ."

  "Stop that!" Galeni almost shouted. A ghastly answering smile lit his face for a moment nonetheless.

  Miles glanced up at the light. "Well, whoever I am, you should still be able to tell me who they are. Ah—I hope it's not the Cetagandans? I would find that just a little too weird for comfort, in light of my . . . duplicate. He's a surgical construct, I trust." Not a clone—please, don't let him be my clone. . . .

  "He said he was a clone," said Galeni. "Of course, at least half of what he said was lies, whoever he was."

  "Oh." Stronger exclamations seemed wholly inadequate. />
  "Yes. It made me rather wonder about you. The original you, that is."

  "Ah . . . hem! Yes. I think I know now why I popped out with that . . . that story when the reporter cornered me. I'd seen him once before. In the tubeway, when I was out with Commander Quinn. Eight, ten days ago now. They must have been maneuvering in to make the switch. I thought I was seeing myself in the mirror. But he was wearing the wrong uniform, and they must have aborted."

  Galeni glanced down at his own sleeve. "Didn't you notice?"

  "I had a lot on my mind."

  "You never reported this!"

  "I was on some pain meds. I thought it might be a little hallucination. I was a bit stressed out. By the time I'd got back to the embassy I'd forgotten about it. And besides," he smirked weakly, "I didn't think our working relationship would benefit from planting serious doubts about my sanity."

  Galeni's lips compressed with exasperation, then softened with something like despair. "Perhaps not."

  It alarmed Miles, to see despair in Galeni's face. He babbled on, "Anyway, I was relieved to realize I hadn't suddenly become clairvoyant. I'm afraid my subconscious must be brighter than the rest of my brain. I just didn't get its message." He pointed upward again. "Not Cetagandans?"

  "No." Galeni leaned back against the far wall, stone-faced. "Komarrans."

  "Ah," Miles choked. "A Komarran plot. How . . . fraught."

  Galeni's mouth twisted. "Quite."

  "Well," said Miles thinly, "they haven't killed us yet. There must be some reason to keep us alive."

  Galeni's lips drew back on a deathly grin, his eyes crinkling. "None whatsoever." The words came out in a wheeing chuckle, abruptly cut off. A private joke between Galeni and the light fixture, apparently. "He imagines he has reason," Galeni explained, "but he's very mistaken." The bitter thrust of those words was also directed upward.

  "Well, don't tell them," said Miles through his teeth. He took a deep breath. "Come on, Galeni, spill it. What happened the morning you disappeared from the embassy?"