Miles Errant

by Lois McMaster Bujold

Quinn's attention was now riveted upon him; a slight twitch of her eyebrow asked, What the hell . . . ?

  "Try not to have too many of them, Lieutenant Vorkosigan," said Destang dryly. "My aide has the nontraceable credit chit for your eighteen million marks. See him on your way out. Take all these women with you." He waved at the two uniformed Dendarii.

  Ivan, reminded, smiled at them. They're my officers, dammit, not my harem, Miles's thought snarled silently. But no Barrayaran officer of Destang's age would see it that way. Some attitudes couldn't be changed; they just had to be outlived.

  Destang's words were a clear dismissal. Miles ignored them at his peril. Yet Destang had not mentioned—

  "Yes, Lieutenant, run along." Captain Galeni's voice was utmost-bland. "I never finished writing my report. I'll give you one Mark, against the commodore's eighteen million, if you take the Dendarii off with you now."

  Miles's eyes widened just slightly, hearing the capital M. Galeni hasn't told Destang yet that the Dendarii are on the case. Therefore, he can't order them off, can he? A head start—if he could find Galen and Mark before Destang's team did— "That's a bargain, Captain," Miles heard his own voice saying. "It's amazing, how much one Mark can weigh."

  Galeni nodded once and turned back to Destang.

  Miles fled.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Ivan trailed along as Miles returned to their quarters to change clothes for the last time back into the Dendarii admiral's uniform in which he'd arrived, a lifetime and a half ago.

  "I don't think I really want to watch, downstairs," Ivan explained. "Destang's well launched into a bloody reaming. Bet he'll keep Galeni on his feet all night, trying to break him if he can."

  "Damn it!" Miles bundled his green Barrayaran jacket into a wad and flung it against the far wall, but it didn't carry enough momentum to begin to vent his frustration. He flopped down on a bed, pulled off a boot, hefted it, then shook his head and dropped it in disgust. "It burns me. Galeni deserves a medal, not a load of grief. Well—if Ser Galen couldn't break him, I don't suppose Destang will either. But it's not right, not right . . ." He brooded. "And I helped set him up for it, too. Damn, damn, damn . . ."

  Elli handed him his gray uniform without comment. Ivan was not so wise.

  "Yeah, nice going, Miles. I'll think of you, safely up in orbit, while Destang's headquarters crew are cleaning house down here. Suspicious as hell—they wouldn't trust their own grandmothers. We're all in for it. Scrubbed, rinsed, and hung out to dry in the cold, cold wind." He wandered over to his own bed and regarded it with longing. "No use turning in; they'll be after me before morning for something." He sat down on it glumly.

  Miles looked up at Ivan in sudden speculation. "Huh. Yeah, you are going to be rather in the middle of things for the next few days, aren't you?"

  Ivan, alert to the change in his tone, eyed him suspiciously. "Too right. So what?"

  Miles shook out his trousers. His half of the secured comm link fell onto the bed. He pulled on his Dendarii grays. "Suppose I remember to turn in my comm link before I leave. And suppose Elli forgets to turn in hers." Miles held up a restraining finger, and Elli stopped fishing in her jacket. "And suppose you stick it in your pocket, meaning to turn it back in to Sergeant Barth as soon as you get the other half." He tossed the comm link to Ivan, who caught it automatically, but then held it away from himself between thumb and forefingers as if it were something he'd found writhing under a rock.

  "And suppose I remember what happened to me the last time I helped you sub-rosa?" said Ivan truculently. "That little sleight of hand I pulled to get you back in the embassy the night you tried to burn down London is on my record, now. Destang's bird-dogs will have spasms as soon as they turn that up, in light of the present circumstances. Suppose I stick it up your—" his eyes fell on Elli, "ear, instead?"

  Miles thrust his head and arms up through his black tee-shirt and pulled it down, grinning slightly. He began stuffing his feet into his Dendarii-issue combat boots. "It's only a precaution. May never use it. Just in case I need a private line into the embassy in an emergency."

  "I cannot imagine," said Ivan primly, "any emergency that a loyal junior officer can't confide to his very own sector security commander." His voice grew stern. "Neither would Destang. Just what are you hatching in the back of your twisty little mind, Coz?"

  Miles sealed his boots and paused in seriousness. "I'm not sure. But I may yet see a chance to save . . . something, from this mess."

  Elli, listening intently, remarked, "I thought we had saved something. We uncovered a traitor, plugged a security leak, foiled a kidnapping, and broke up a major plot against the Barrayaran Imperium. And we got paid. What more do you want for one week?"

  "Well, it would have been nice if any of that had been on purpose, instead of by accident," Miles mused.

  Ivan and Elli looked at each other across the top of Miles's head, their faces beginning to mirror a similar unease. "What more do you want to save, Miles?" Ivan echoed.

  Miles's frown, directed to his boots, deepened. "Something. A future. A second chance. A . . . possibility."

  "It's the clone, isn't it?" said Ivan, his mouth hardening. "You've gone and let yourself get obsessed with that goddamn clone."

  "Flesh of my flesh, Ivan." Miles turned his hands over, staring at them. "On some planets, he would be called my brother. On others he might even be called my son, depending on the laws regarding cloning."

  "One cell! On Barrayar," said Ivan, "they call it your enemy when it's shooting at you. You having a little short-term memory trouble? Those people just tried to kill you! This—yesterday morning!"

  Miles smiled briefly up at Ivan without replying.

  "You know," Elli said cautiously, "if you decided you really wanted a clone, you could have one made. Without the, ah, problems of the present one. You have trillions of cells . . ."

  "I don't want a clone," said Miles. I want a brother. "But I seem to have been . . . issued this one."

  "I thought Ser Galen bought and paid for him," complained Elli. "The only thing that Komarran meant to issue you was death. By Jackson's Whole law, the planet of his origin, the clone clearly belongs to Galen."

  Jockey of Norfolk, be not bold, the old quote whispered through Miles's memory, for Dickon thy master is bought and sold. . . . "Even on Barrayar," he said mildly, "no human being can own another. Galen descended far, in pursuit of his . . . principle of liberty."

  "In any case," said Ivan, "you're out of the picture now. High command has taken over. I heard your marching orders."

  "Did you also hear Destang say he meant to kill my—the clone, if he can?"

  "Yeah, so?" Ivan was looking mulish indeed, an almost panicked stubbornness. "I didn't like him anyway. Surly little sneak."

  "Destang has mastered the art of the final report too," said Miles. "Even if I went AWOL right now, it would be physically impossible for me to get back to Barrayar, beg the clone's life from my father, have him lean on Simon Illyan for a countermand, and get the order back here to Earth before the deed was done."

  Ivan looked shocked. "Miles—I always figured to be embarrassed to ask Uncle Aral for a career favor, but I thought you'd let yourself be peeled and boiled before you'd cry to your Dad for anything! And you want to start by hopscotching a commodore? No C.O. in the service would want you after that!"

  "I would rather die," agreed Miles tonelessly, "but I can't ask another to die for me. But it's irrelevant. It couldn't succeed."

  "Thank God." Ivan stared at him, thoroughly unsettled.

  If I cannot convince two of my best friends I'm right, thought Miles, maybe I'm wrong.

  Or maybe I have to do this one alone.

  "I just want to keep a line open, Ivan," he said. "I'm not asking you to do anything—"

  "Yet," came Ivan's glum interpolation.

  "I'd give the comm link to Captain Galeni, but he will certainly be closely watched. They'd just take it away from him, and it would loo
k . . . ambiguous."

  "So on me it looks good?" asked Ivan plaintively.

  "Do it." Miles finished fastening his jacket, stood, and held out his hand to Ivan for the return of the comm link. "Or don't."

  "Argh." Ivan broke off his gaze, and shoved the comm link disconsolately into his trouser pocket. "I'll think about it."

  Miles tilted his head in thanks.

  * * *

  They caught a Dendarii shuttle just about to lift from the London shuttleport, returning personnel from leave. Actually, Elli called ahead and had it held for them; Miles rather relished the sensation of not having to rush for it, and might have outright sauntered if the pressures of Admiral Naismith's duties, now boiling up in his head, hadn't automatically quickened his steps.

  Their delay was another's gain. A last duffel-swinging Dendarii sprinted across the tarmac as the engines revved and just made it up the retracting ramp. The alert guard at the door put up his weapon as he recognized the sprinter, and gave him a hand in as the shuttle began to roll.

  Miles, Elli Quinn, and Elena Bothari-Jesek held seats in the rear. The running soldier, pausing to catch his breath, spotted Miles, grinned, and saluted.

  Miles returned both. "Ah, Sergeant Siembieda." Ryann Siembieda was a conscientious tech sergeant from Engineering, in charge of maintenance and repair of battle armor and other light equipment. "You're thawed out."

  "Yes, sir."

  "They told me your prognosis was good."

  "They threw me out of the hospital two weeks ago. I've been on leave. You too, sir?" Siembieda nodded toward the silver shopping bag at Miles's feet containing the live fur.

  Miles shoved it unobtrusively under his seat with his boot heel. "Yes and no. Actually, while you were playing, I was working. As a result, we will all be working again soon. It's good you got your leave while you could."

  "Earth was great," sighed Siembieda. "It was quite a surprise to wake up here. Did you see the Unicorn Park? It's right here on this island. I was there yesterday."

  "I didn't see much, I'm afraid," said Miles in regret.

  Siembieda dug a holocube out of his pocket and handed it over.

  The Unicorn and Wild Animal Park (a division of GalacTech Bioengineering) occupied the grounds of the great and historical estate of Wooton, Surrey, the guide cube informed him. In the vid display, a shining white beast that looked like a cross between a horse and a deer, and probably was, bounded across the greensward into the topiary.

  "They let you feed the tame lions," Siembieda informed him.

  Miles blinked at an unbidden mental image of Ivan in a toga being tossed out the back of a float truck to a herd of hungry, tawny cats galloping excitedly along behind. He'd been reading too much Earth history. "What do they eat?"

  "Protein cubes, same as us."

  "Ah," said Miles, trying not to sound disappointed. He handed the cube back.

  The sergeant hovered on, however. "Sir. . ." he began hesitantly.

  "Yes?" Miles let his tone be encouraging.

  "I've reviewed my procedures—been tested and cleared for light duties—but . . . I haven't been able to remember anything at all about the day I was killed. And the medics wouldn't tell me. It . . . bothers me a bit, sir."

  Siembieda's hazel eyes were strange and wary; it bothered him a lot, Miles judged. "I see. Well, the medics couldn't tell you much anyway; they weren't there."

  "But you were, sir," said Siembieda suggestively.

  Of course, thought Miles. And if I hadn't been, you wouldn't have died the death intended for me. "Do you remember our arriving at Mahata Solaris?"

  "Yes, sir. Some things, right up to the night before. But that whole day is gone, not just the fight."

  "Ah. Well, there's no mystery. Commodore Jesek, myself, you, and your tech team paid a visit to a warehouse for a quality-control check of our resupplies—there'd been a problem with the first shipment—"

  "I remember that." Siembieda nodded. "Cracked power cells leaking radiation."

  "Right, very good. You spotted the defect, by the way, unloading them into inventory. There are those who might simply have stored them."

  "Not on my team," muttered Siembieda.

  "We were jumped by a Cetagandan hit squad at the warehouse. We never did find out if there was any collusion, though we suspected some in high places when our orbital permits were revoked and we were invited to leave Mahata Solaris local space by the authorities. Or maybe they just didn't like the excitement we'd brought with us. Anyway, a gravitic grenade went off and blew out the end of the warehouse. You were hit in the neck by a freak fragment of something metal, ricocheting from the explosion. You bled to death in seconds." Quite incredible quantities of blood from such a lean young man, once it was spread out and smeared around in the fight—the smell of it, and the burning, came back to Miles as he spoke, but he kept his voice calm and steady. "We had you back to the Triumph and iced down in an hour. The surgeon was very optimistic, as you didn't have gross tissue damage." Not like one of the techs, who'd been blown most grossly to bits in that same moment.

  "I'd . . . wondered what I'd done. Or not done."

  "You scarcely had time to do anything. You were practically the first casualty."

  Siembieda looked faintly relieved. And what goes on in the head of a walking dead man? Miles wondered. What personal failure could he possibly fear more than death itself?

  "If it's any consolation," put in Elli, "that sort of memory loss is common in trauma victims of all kinds, not just cryo-revivals. You ask around, you'll find you're not the only one."

  "Better strap down," said Miles, as the craft yawed around for takeoff.

  Siembieda nodded, looking a little more cheerful, and swung forward to find a seat.

  "Do you remember your burn?" Miles asked Elli curiously. "Or is it all a merciful blank?"

  Elli's hand drifted across her cheek. "I never quite lost consciousness."

  The shuttle shot forward and up. Lieutenant Ptarmigan's hands at the controls, Miles judged dryly. Some hooted commentary from forward passengers confirmed his guess. Miles's hand hesitated over, and fell away from, the control in his seat-arm that would comm link him to the pilot; he would not brass-harass Ptarmigan unless he started flying upside down. Fortunately for Ptarmigan, the craft steadied.

  Miles craned his neck for a look out the window as the glittering lights of Greater London and its island fell away beneath them. In another moment he could see the river mouth, with its great dikes and locks running for forty kilometers, defining the coastline to human design, shutting out the sea and protecting the historical treasures and several million souls of the lower Thames watershed. One of the huge channel-spanning bridges gleamed against the leaden dawn water beyond. And so men organized themselves for the sake of their technology as they never had for their principles. The sea's politics were inarguable.

  The shuttle wheeled, gaining altitude rapidly, giving Miles a last glimpse of the shrinking maze of London. Somewhere down there in that monstrous city Galen and Mark hid, or ran, or plotted, while Destang's intelligence team quartered and re-quartered Galen's old haunts and the comconsole net looking for traces of them, in a deadly game of hide and seek. Surely Galen had the sense to avoid his friends and stay off the net at all costs. If he cut his losses and ran now, he had a chance of eluding Barrayaran vengeance for another half-lifetime.

  But if Galen were running, why had he doubled back to pick up Mark? What possible use was the clone to him now? Did Galen have some dim paternal sense of responsibility to his creation? Somehow, Miles doubted it was love that bound those two together. Could the clone be used—servant, slave, soldier? Could the clone be sold—to the Cetagandans, to a medical laboratory, to a sideshow?

  Could the clone be sold to Miles?

  Now, there was a proposition that even the hypersuspicious Galen would buy. Let him believe Miles wanted a new body, without the bone dyscrasias that had plagued him since birth . . . let him believe M
iles would pay a high price to have the clone for this vile purpose . . . and Miles might gain possession of Mark and slip Galen enough cover and funds to finance his escape without Galen ever realizing he was the object of charity for his son's sake. The idea had only two flaws; one, until he made contact with Galen he couldn't do any deal at all; two, if Galen would make such a diabolical bargain Miles was not so sure he cared to see him elude Barrayar's time-cold vengeance after all. A curious dilemma.

  * * *

  It was like coming home, to step aboard the Triumph again. Knots Miles had not been conscious of undid themselves in the back of his neck as he inhaled the familiar recycled air and soaked the small subliminal chirps and vibrations of the properly functioning, live ship in through his bones. Things were looking in rather better repair all over than at any time since Dagoola, and Miles made a mental note to find out which aggressive engineering sergeants he had to thank for it. It would be good to be just Naismith again, with no problem more complex than what could be laid out in plain military language by HQ, finite and unambiguous.

  He issued orders. Cancel further work contracts by individual Dendarii or their groups. All personnel presently scattered downside on work or leave to go on a six hour recall alert. All ships to begin their twenty-four hour preflight checks. Send Lieutenant Bone to me. It gave him a pleasantly megalomanic sense of drawing all things toward a center, himself, though that humor cooled when he contemplated the unsolved problem waiting for him in his Intelligence division.

  Quinn in tow, Miles went to pay Intelligence a visit. He found Bel Thorne manning the security comconsole. If manning was the right term; Thorne was one of Beta Colony's hermaphrodite minority, hapless heirs of a century-past genetic project of dubious merit. It had been one of the lunatic fringe's loonier experiments, in Miles's estimation. Most of the men/women stuck to their own comfortable little subculture on tolerant Beta Colony; that Thorne had ventured out into the wider galactic world bespoke either courage, terminal boredom, or most probably if you knew Thorne, a low taste for unsettling people. Captain Thorne kept soft brown hair cut in a deliberately ambiguous style, but wore hard-earned Dendarii uniform and rank with crisp definition.