Miles Errant

by Lois McMaster Bujold

"Too much. It was a good try, though. Dammit." He stopped just short of pounding his bad hand on the bench in frustration. "I was so close. I almost had him."

  "The guard? It looked like he had you."

  "No, my clone. My brother. Whatever he is." Flashes of his dream came back to him, and he shuddered. "Skittish fellow. I think he's afraid he's going to end up in a jar."

  "Eh?"

  "Eugh." Miles attempted to sit up. The stun had left him feeling nauseated. Muscles spasmed jerkily in his arms and legs. Galeni, clearly in no better shape, tottered back to his own bench and sat.

  Some time later the door opened. Dinner, thought Miles.

  The guard jerked his stunner at them. "Both of you. Out." The second guard backed him up from behind, several meters beyond hope of reach, with another stunner. Miles did not like the looks on their faces, one solemn and pale, the other smiling nervously.

  "Captain Galeni," Miles suggested in a voice rather higher in pitch than he'd meant it to come out as they exited, "I think it might be a good time for you to talk to your father, now."

  A variety of expressions chased across Galeni's face: anger, mulish stubbornness, thoughtful appraisal, doubt.

  "That way." The guard gestured them toward the lift tube. They dropped down, toward the garage level.

  "You can do this, I can't," Miles coaxed Galeni in a sotto voce singsong out of the corner of his mouth.

  Galeni hissed through his teeth: frustration, acquiescence, resolve. As they entered the garage, he turned abruptly to the closer guard and jerked out unwillingly, "I wish to speak to my father."

  "You can't."

  "I think you had better let me." Galeni's voice was dangerous, edged, at last, with fear.

  "It's not up to me. He gave us our orders and left. He's not here."

  "Call him."

  "He didn't tell me where he would be." The guard's voice was tight and irritated. "And if he had, I wouldn't anyway. Stand over there by that lightflyer."

  "How are you going to do it?" asked Miles suddenly. "I really am curious to know. Think of it as my last request." He sidled over toward the lightflyer, his eyes shifting in search of cover, any cover. If he could vault over or dodge around the vehicle before they fired . . .

  "Stun you, fly you out over the south coast, drop you in the water," the guard recited. "If the weights work loose and you wash ashore, the autopsy would show only that you'd drowned."

  "Not exactly a hands-on murder," Miles observed. "Easier for you that way, I expect." These men were not professional killers, if Miles read them right. Still, there was a first time for everything. That pillar over there was not wide enough to stop a stun bolt. The array of tools on the far wall presented possibilities . . . his legs were cramping furiously. . . .

  "And so the Butcher of Komarr gets his at last," the solemn guard observed in a detached voice. "Indirectly." He raised his stunner.

  "Wait!" squeaked Miles.

  "What for?"

  Miles was still groping for a reply when the garage doors slid open.

  "Me!" yelled Elli Quinn. "Freeze!"

  A Dendarii patrol streamed past her. In the instant it took the Komarran guard to shift his aim, a Dendarii marksman dropped him. The second guard panicked and bolted for the lift tube. A sprinting Dendarii tackled him from behind, and had him laid out face down on the floor with his hands locked behind him within seconds.

  Elli strolled up to Miles and Galeni, pulling a sonic eavesdropper-sensor from her ear. "Gods, Miles, I couldn't believe it was your voice. How did you do that?" As she took in his appearance, an expression of extreme disquiet stole over her face.

  Miles captured her hands and kissed them. A salute might have been more proper, but his adrenaline was still pumping and this was more heartfelt. Besides, he wasn't in uniform. "Elli, you genius! I should have known the clone couldn't fool you!"

  She stared at him, almost recoiling, her voice circling upward in pitch. "What clone?"

  "What do you mean, what clone? That's why you're here, isn't it? He blew it—and you came to rescue me—didn't you?"

  "Rescue you from what? Miles, you ordered me a week ago to find Captain Galeni, remember?"

  "Oh," said Miles. "Yes. So I did."

  "So we did. We've been sitting outside this block of housing units all night, waiting to pick up a positive voiceprint analysis on him, so we could notify the local authorities. They don't appreciate false alarms. But what finally came over the sensors suggested we'd better not wait for the local authorities, so we took a chance—visions of us being arrested en masse for breaking and entering dancing in my head—"

  A Dendarii sergeant drifted up and saluted. "Damn, sir, how'd you do that?" He trotted on waving a scanner without waiting for reply.

  "Only to find you'd beaten us to it."

  "Well, in a sense, yes . . ." Miles massaged his throbbing forehead. Galeni stood scratching his beard and taking it all in without comment. Galeni could say nothing at noticeable volume.

  "Remember, three or four nights ago when you took me to be kidnapped so's I could penetrate the opposition and find out who they were and what they wanted?"

  "Yeah . . ."

  "Well," Miles took a deep breath, "it worked. Congratulations. You have just converted an absolute disaster into a major intelligence coup. Thank you, Commander Quinn. By the way, the guy you walked out of that empty house with—wasn't me."

  Elli's eyes widened; her hand went to her mouth. Then the dark glints narrowed in furious thought. "Sonofabitch," she breathed. "But Miles—I thought the clone story was something you'd made up!"

  "So did I. It's thrown everyone off, I expect."

  "Then he was—he is—a real clone?"

  "So he claims. Fingerprints—retina—voiceprint—all the same. There is, thank God, one objective difference. You radiograph my bones, you'll find a crazy-quilt pattern of old breaks, except for the synthetics in my legs. His bones have none. Or so he says." Miles cradled his throbbing left hand. "I think I'll leave the beard on for the moment, just in case."

  Miles turned to Captain Galeni. "How shall we—Imperial Security—handle this, sir?" he said deferentially. "Do we really want to call in the local authorities?"

  "Oh, so I'm 'sir' again, am I?" muttered Galeni. "Of course we want the police. We can't extradite these people. But now that they're guilty of a crime right here on Earth, the Eurolaw authorities will hold them for us. It'll break up this whole radical splinter group."

  Miles tamped down his personal urgency, trying to make his voice cool and logical. "But a public trial would bring out the whole clone story. In all its details. It would attract a lot of undesirable attention to me, from a security viewpoint. Including, you may be sure, Cetagandan attention."

  "It's too late to put a lid on this."

  "I'm not so sure. Yes, rumors will float, but a few sufficiently confused rumors might actually be useful. Those two," Miles gestured to the captured guards, "are small fry. My clone knows more than they do, and he's already back at the embassy. Which is, legally, Barrayaran soil. What do we need them for? Now that we have you back, and have the clone, the plot is void. Put this group under surveillance like the rest of the Komarran expatriates here on Earth, and they're no further danger to us."

  Galeni met his eyes, then looked away, pale profile tense with the unspoken corollary: and your career will be uncompromised by a splashy public scandal. And you won't have to confront your father. "I . . . don't know."

  "I do," said Miles confidently. He gestured a waiting Dendarii over. "Sergeant. Take a couple of techs upstairs and suck out these people's comconsole files. Take a fast scan around for secret files. And while you're about it, search the house for a couple of anti-personnel-scan devices on belts, should be stored somewhere. Take them to Commodore Jesek and tell him I want him to find the manufacturer. As soon as you call the all-clear, we decamp."

  "Now, that is illegal," Elli remarked.

  "What are they going to do, go t
o the police and complain? I think not. Ah—you want to leave any messages on the comconsole, Captain?"

  "No," said Galeni softly after a moment. "No messages."

  "Right."

  A Dendarii rendered first aid to Miles's broken finger and numbed his hand. The sergeant was back down in less than half an hour, anti-scan belts hung over his shoulder, and flipped a data disc at Miles. "You got it, sir."

  "Thank you."

  Galen had not yet returned. All things considered, Miles counted that as a plus.

  Miles knelt by the still-conscious Komarran and held a stunner to his temple.

  "What are you going to do?" croaked the man.

  Miles's lips peeled back in a grin, cracking to bleed. "Why—stun you, of course, fly you out over the south coast, and drop you in. What else? Nighty-night." The stunner buzzed, and the struggling Komarran jerked and slumped. The Dendarii soldier retrieved his restraints, and Miles left the two Komarrans lying side by side on the garage floor. They let themselves out and keyed the garage doors closed carefully.

  "Back to the embassy, then, and nail the little bastard," said Elli Quinn grimly, calling up the route to their destination from her rented car's console. The rest of the patrol withdrew to covert observation positions.

  Miles and Galeni settled back. Galeni looked as exhausted as Miles felt.

  "Bastard?" sighed Miles. "No. That's the one thing he is not, I'm afraid."

  "Nail him first," Galeni murmured. "Define him later."

  "Agreed," said Miles.

  * * *

  "How shall we go in?" asked Galeni as they approached the embassy in the late-morning light.

  "Only one way," said Miles. "Through the front door. Marching. Pull up at the front, Elli."

  Miles and Galeni looked at each other and snickered. Miles's beard was well behind Galeni's in development—Galeni's after all had a four-day head start—but his split lips, bruises, and the dried blood on his shirt made up for it, Miles figured, in augmenting his general air of seedy degradation. Besides, Galeni had found his boots and uniform jacket back at the Komarrans' house, and Miles had not. Carried off by the clone, perhaps. Miles was not sure which of them smelled worse—Galeni had been incarcerated longer, but Miles fancied he'd sweated harder—and he wasn't going to ask Elli Quinn to sniff and rate them. From Galeni's twitching lips and crinkling eyes Miles thought he might be undergoing the same delayed reaction of lunatic relief that was presently bubbling up through his own chest. They were alive, and it was a miracle and a wonderment.

  They matched steps, going up the ramp. Elli sauntered behind, watching the performance with interest.

  The guard at the entrance saluted by reflex even as astonishment spread over his face. "Captain Galeni! You're back! And, er. . ." he glanced at Miles, opened and closed his mouth, "you. Sir."

  Galeni returned the salute blandly. "Call Lieutenant Vorpatril up here for me, will you? Vorpatril only."

  "Yes, sir." The embassy guard spoke into his wrist comm, not taking his eyes off them; he kept looking sideways at Miles with a very puzzled expression. "Er—glad to have you back, Captain."

  "Glad to be back, Corporal."

  In a moment, Ivan popped out of a lift tube and came running across the marble-paved foyer.

  "My God, sir, where have you been?" he cried, grabbing Galeni by the shoulders. He remembered himself belatedly, and saluted.

  "My absence wasn't voluntary, I assure you." Galeni tugged on one earlobe, blinking, and ran the hand through his beard stubble, clearly a little touched by Ivan's enthusiasm. "As I shall explain in detail, later. Right now—Lieutenant Vorkosigan? It is perhaps time to surprise your, er, other relative."

  Ivan glanced at Miles. "They let you out, then?" He looked more closely, then stared. "Miles . . ."

  Miles bared his teeth and moved them out of earshot of the mesmerized corporal. "All shall be revealed when we arrest the other me. Where am I, by the way?"

  Ivan's lips wrinkled in dawning dismay. "Miles . . . are you trying to diddle my head? It's not very funny. . . ."

  "No diddle. And not funny. The individual you've been rooming with for the last four days—wasn't me. I've been rooming with Captain Galeni, here. A Komarran revolutionary group tried to plant a ringer on you, Ivan. The sucker is my clone, for real. Don't tell me you never noticed anything!"

  "Well . . ." said Ivan. Belief, and growing embarrassment, began to suffuse his features. "You did seem sort of, um, off your feed, the last couple of days."

  Elli nodded thoughtfully, highly sympathetic to Ivan's embarrassment.

  "In what way?" asked Miles.

  "Well . . . I've seen you manic. And I've seen you depressive. But I've never seen you—well—neutral."

  "I had to ask. And yet you never suspected anything? He was that good?"

  "Oh, I wondered about it the very first night!"

  "And what?" yelped Miles. He felt like tearing his hair.

  "And I decided it couldn't be. After all, you'd made that clone story up yourself a few days ago."

  "I shall now demonstrate my amazing prescience. Where is he?"

  "Well, that's why I was so surprised to see you, see."

  Galeni was now standing with his arms crossed and his hand to his forehead, supportingly; Miles could not read his lips, though they were moving slightly—counting to ten, perhaps. "Why, Ivan?" said Galeni, and waited.

  "My God, he hasn't left for Barrayar already, has he?" said Miles urgently. "We've got to stop him—"

  "No, no," said Ivan. "It was the locals. That's why we're all in such a flap, here."

  "Where is he?" snarled Miles, going for a grip on Ivan's green uniform jacket with his good hand.

  "Calm down, that's what I'm trying to tell you!" Ivan glanced down at Miles's white-knuckled fist. "Yeah, it's you all right, isn't it? The local police came through here a couple of hours ago and arrested you—him—whatever. Well, not arrested, exactly, but they had a detention order, forbidding you to leave this legal jurisdiction. You—he—was frantic 'cause it meant you'd miss your ship. You were shipping out tonight. They subpoenaed you for questioning, before the municipal bench's investigator, to ascertain if there was enough evidence to file formal charges."

  "Charges for what, what are you babbling about, Ivan!"

  "Well, that's it, why it's such a mess. Somewhere, they got this short circuit in their brains about embassies—they came and arrested you, Lieutenant Vorkosigan, for suspicion of conspiracy to commit murder. To wit, you are suspected of hiring those two goons who tried to assassinate Admiral Naismith at the shuttleport last week."

  Miles stamped in a circle. "Ah. Ah. Agh!"

  "The ambassador is filing protests all over the place. Naturally, we couldn't tell them why we thought they were mistaken."

  Miles clutched Quinn's elbow. "Don't panic."

  "I'm not panicking," Quinn observed, "I'm watching you panic. It's more entertaining."

  Miles pressed his forehead. "Right. Right. Let us begin by assuming all is not lost. Let us assume the kid hasn't panicked—hasn't broken. Yet. Suppose he has climbed up on an aristocratic high horse and is sneering a lot of no-comments at them. He'd do that well, it's how he thinks Vor are supposed to act. Little schmuck. Assume he's holding out."

  "Assume away," remarked Ivan. "So what?"

  "If we hurry, we can save—"

  "Your reputation?" said Ivan.

  "Your . . . brother?" ventured Galeni.

  "Our asses?" said Elli.

  "Admiral Naismith," Miles finished. "He's the one at risk, now." Miles's gaze crossed Elli's; her eyebrows arched in dawning worry. "The key word is cover, as in blown—or, just possibly, permanently assured.

  "You and I," he nodded to Galeni, "have to get cleaned up. Meet me back here in fifteen minutes. Ivan, bring a sandwich. Two sandwiches. We'll take you along for muscle." Ivan was well endowed in that resource. "Elli, you drive."

  "Drive where?" asked Quinn.

  "The As
sizes. We go to the rescue of poor, misunderstood Lieutenant Vorkosigan. Who will return with us gratefully, whether he wants to or not. Ivan, better bring a hypospray with two cc's of tholizone, in addition to those sandwiches."

  "Hold it, Miles," said Ivan. "If the ambassador couldn't get him sprung, how do you expect us to?"

  Miles grinned. "Not us. Admiral Naismith."

  * * *

  The London Municipal Assizes was a big black crystal of a building some two centuries old. A slash of similar architecture erupted unevenly through a district of even older styles, representing the bombings and fires of the Fifth Civil Disturbance. Urban renewal here seemed to wait on disaster. London was so filled up, a cramped jigsaw of juxtaposed eras, with Londoners stubbornly hanging on to bits of their past; there was even a committee to save the singularly ugly disintegrating remnants of the late twentieth century. Miles wondered if Vorbarr Sultana, presently expanding madly, would look like this in a thousand years, or whether it would obliterate its history in the rush to modernize.

  Miles paused in the Assizes's soaring foyer to adjust his Dendarii admiral's uniform. "Do I look respectable?" he asked Quinn.

  "The beard makes you look, um . . ."

  Miles had hastily trimmed the edges. "Distinguished? Older?"

  "Hung over."

  "Ha."

  The four of them took the lift tube to the ninety-seventh level.

  "Chamber W," the reception panel directed them after accessing its files. "Cubicle 19."

  Cubicle 19 proved to contain a secured Euronet JusticeComp terminal and a live human being, a serious young man.

  "Ah, Investigator Reed." Elli smiled winningly at him as they entered. "We meet again."

  The briefest glance showed Investigator Reed to be alone. Miles cleared a twinge of panic from his throat.

  "Investigator Reed is in charge of looking into that unpleasant incident at the shuttleport, sir," Elli explained, mistaking his choke for a request for an introduction and slipping back into professional mode. "Investigator Reed, Admiral Naismith. We had a long talk on my last trip here."

  "I see," said Miles. He kept his face blandly polite.

  Reed was frankly staring at him. "Uncanny. So you really are Vorkosigan's clone!"