Miles Errant

by Lois McMaster Bujold

  "That's all right."

  At first glance, Aziz did not look as much like death warmed over as Miles had expected, despite the unflattering hospital gown. There was color and warmth in his face, and his natural melanin level saved him from being hospital-pale. But he lay listlessly, gaunt, twisted in his covers. The bed's sides were up, unpleasantly suggesting a crib or a coffin. Quinn stood against the wall and folded her arms. She had visceral associations about hospitals and clinics too.

  "Azzie," Miles called softly bending over him. "Azzie, can you hear me?"

  Aziz's eyes tracked momentarily, but then wandered again.

  "I know you don't know me, but you might remember this, later. You were a good soldier, smart and strong. You stood by your mates in the crash. You had the sort of self-discipline that saves lives." Others, not your own. "Tomorrow, you'll go to another sort of hospital, where they'll help you keep on getting better." Among strangers. More strangers. "Don't worry about the money. I'm setting it up so it'll be there as long as you need it." He doesn't know what money is. "I'll check back on you from time to time, as I get the opportunity," Miles promised. Promised who? Aziz? Aziz was no more. Himself? His voice softened to inaudibility as he ran down.

  The aural stimulation made Aziz thrash around and emit some loud and formless moans; he had no volume control yet, apparently. Even through a filter of desperate hope, Miles could not recognize it as an attempt at communication. Animal reflexes only.

  "Take care," he whispered, and withdrew, to stand a moment trembling in the hallway.

  "Why do you do that to yourself?" Quinn inquired tartly. Her crossed arms, hugging herself, added silently, And to me?

  "First, he died for me, literally, and second," he attempted to force his voice to lightness, "don't you find a certain obsessive fascination in looking in the face of what you most fear?"

  "Is death what you most fear?" she asked curiously.

  "No. Not death." He rubbed his forehead, hesitated. "Loss of mind. My game plan all my life has been to demand acceptance of this," a vague wave down the length, or shortness, of his body, "because I was a smart-ass little bastard who could think rings around the opposition, and prove it time after time. Without the brains . . ." Without the brains I'm nothing. He straightened against the aching tension in his belly, shrugged, and twitched a smile at her. "March on, Quinn."

  After Aziz, Durham and Vifian were not so hard to deal with. They could walk and talk, if haltingly, and Vifian even recognized Quinn. They took them back to the shuttleport in the rented groundcar, and Quinn tempered her usual go-to-hell style of driving in consideration of their half-healed wounds. Upon reaching the shuttle Miles sent Durham forward to sit with the pilot, a comrade, and by the time they reached the Triumph Durham had recalled not only the man's name, but some shuttle piloting procedures. Miles turned both convalescents over to the medtech who met them at the shuttle hatch corridor, who escorted them off to sickbay to bed down again after the exhaustion of their short journey. Miles watched them exit, and felt a little better.

  "Costly," Quinn observed reflectively.

  "Yes," Miles sighed. "Rehabilitation is starting to take an awfully big bite out of the medical department's budget. I may have Fleet Accounting split it off, so Medical doesn't find itself dangerously short-changed. But what would you have? My troops were loyal beyond measure; I cannot betray them. Besides," he grinned briefly, "the Barrayaran Imperium is paying."

  "Your ImpSec boss was on about your bills, I thought, at your mission briefing."

  "Illyan has to explain why enough cash to fund a private army keeps disappearing in his department budget every year, without ever admitting to the private army's existence. Certain Imperial accountants tend to accuse him of departmental inefficiency, which gives him great pain . . . sh."

  The Dendarii shuttle pilot, having shut down his ship, ducked into the corridor and sealed the hatch. He nodded to Miles.

  "While I was waiting for you at Port Beauchene, sir, I picked up a minor story on the local news net, that you might be interested in. Minor news here on Escobar, that is." The man was bouncing lightly on his toes.

  "Say on, Sergeant LaJoie." Miles cocked an eyebrow up at him.

  "The Cetagandans have just announced their withdrawal from Marilac. They're calling it—what was that, now—'Due to great progress in the cultural alliance, we are turning police matters over to local control.' "

  Miles's fists clenched, joyously. "In other words, they're abandoning their puppet government! Ha!" He hopped from foot to foot, and pounded Quinn on the back. "You hear that, Elli! We've won! I mean, they've won, the Marilacans." Our sacrifices are redeemed. . . .

  He regained control of his tightening throat before he burst into tears or some like foolishness. "Do me a favor, LaJoie. Pass the word through the Fleet. Tell them I said, 'You folks do good work.' Eh?"

  "Yes, sir. My pleasure." The grinning pilot saluted cheerfully and trod off up the corridor.

  Miles's grin stretched his face. "See, Elli! What Simon Illyan just bought would have been cheap at a thousand times the cost. A full-bore Cetagandan planetary invasion—first impeded—then bogged—foundered—failed!" And in a fierce whisper, "I did it! I made the difference."

  Quinn too was smiling, but one perfect eyebrow curved in a certain dry irony. "It's lovely, but if I was reading between the lines correctly, I thought what Barrayaran Imperial Security really wanted was for the Cetagandan military to be tied up in the guerilla war on Marilac. Indefinitely. Draining Cetagandan attention away from Barrayaran borders and jump points."

  "They didn't put that in writing." Miles's lips drew back wolfishly. "All Simon said was, 'Help the Marilacans as opportunity presents.' That was the standing order, in so many words."

  "But you knew damn well what he really wanted."

  "Four bloody years was enough. I have not betrayed Barrayar. Nor anyone else."

  "Yeah? So if Simon Illyan is so much more Machiavellian than you are, how is it that your version prevailed? Someday, Miles, you are going to run out of hairs to split with those people. And then what will you do?"

  He smiled, and shook his head, evading answer.

  His elation over the news from Marilac still made him feel like he was walking in half-gravity when he arrived at his cabin aboard the Triumph. After a surreptitious glance to be sure the corridor was unpeopled, he embraced and kissed Quinn, a deep kiss that was going to have to last them for a long while, and she went off to her own quarters. He slipped inside, and echoed the door's closing sigh with his own. Home again.

  It was home, for half his psyche, he reflected, tossing his flight bag onto his bed and heading directly for the shower. Ten years ago, Lord Miles Vorkosigan had invented the cover identity of Admiral Naismith out of his head in a desperate moment, and frantically faked his way to temporary control of the hastily re-named Dendarii Mercenaries. Barrayaran Imperial Security had discovered the cover to be useful . . . no. Credit where it was due. He had persuaded, schemed, demonstrated, and coerced ImpSec into finding use for this cover. Be careful what you pretend to be. You might become it.

  When had Admiral Naismith stopped being a pretense? Gradually, surely, but mostly since his mercenary mentor Commodore Tung had retired. Or perhaps the wily Tung had recognized before Miles had that his services in propping Miles up to his prematurely exalted rank were no longer required. Colored vid arrays of Dendarii Free Mercenary Fleet organization bloomed in Miles's head as he showered. Personnel—equipment—administration—logistics—he knew every ship, every trooper, every shuttle and piece of ordnance, now. He knew how they fit together, what had to be done first, second, third, twentieth, to place a precisely calculated force at any point on the tactical fulcrum. This was expertise, to be able to look at a ship like the Triumph and see with his mind's eye right through the walls to every engineering detail, every strength and vulnerability; to look at a commando squad, or a briefing table ringed with captains and captain-owners and k
now what each one would do or say before they knew it themselves. I'm on top. Finally, I'm on top of it all. With this lever, I can move worlds. He switched the shower to "dry" and turned in the blast of warm air. He left the bathroom still chortling under his breath. I love it.

  His chortle died away in puzzlement when he unlatched the door to his uniform cupboard and found it bare. Had his batman taken them all off for cleaning or repairs? His bewilderment grew as he tried other drawers, and found only a residue of the wildly assorted civilian togs he wore when he stretched the chain of his identity one link further and played spy for the Dendarii. Plus some of his shabbier underwear. Was this some sort of practical joke? If so, he'd have the last laugh. Naked and irritated, he snapped open the locker where his space armor dwelt. Empty. That was almost shocking. Somebody's taken it down to Engineering to re-calibrate it, or add tactics programs, or something. His batman should have returned it by now, though. What if he needed it in a hurry?

  Time. His people would be gathering. Quinn had once claimed he could carry on naked, and only make those around him feel overdressed. He was momentarily tempted to test her assertion, but overcame the mordant vision, and put the shirt and trousers and sandals he'd been wearing back on. He didn't need a uniform in order to dominate a briefing room, not any more.

  On the way to the meeting, he passed Sandy Hereld in the corridor, coming off duty, and gave her a friendly nod. She wheeled and walked backward in startlement. "You're back, sir! That was quick."

  He would hardly describe his several-week journey to Imperial HQ on Barrayar as quick. She must mean the trip downside. "It only took two hours."

  "What?" Her nose wrinkled. She was still walking backward, reaching the end of the corridor.

  He had a briefing room full of senior officers waiting. He waved and swung down a lift tube.

  The briefing room was comfortingly familiar, right down to the array of faces around the darkly shining table. Captain Auson of the Triumph. Elena Bothari-Jesek, recently promoted captain of the Peregrine. Her husband Commodore Baz Jesek, Fleet engineer and in charge, in Miles's absence, of all the repair and refit activities of the Dendarii Fleet in Escobar orbit. The couple, Barrayarans themselves, were with Quinn among the handful of Dendarii apprised of Miles's double identity. Captain Truzillo of the Jayhawk, and a dozen more, all tested and true. His people.

  Bel Thorne of the Ariel was late. That was unusual. One of Thorne's driving characteristics was an insatiable curiosity; a new mission briefing was like a Winterfair gift to the Betan hermaphrodite. Miles turned to Elena Bothari-Jesek, to make small talk while they waited.

  "Did you get a chance to visit your mother, downside on Escobar?"

  "Yes, thanks." She smiled. "It was . . . nice, to have a little time. We had a chance to talk about some things we'd never talked about the first time we met."

  It had been good for both of them, Miles judged. Some of the permanent strain seemed gone from Elena's dark eyes. Better and better, bit by bit. "Good."

  He glanced up as the doors hissed open, but it was only Quinn, blowing in with the secured files in hand. She was back in full officer's undress kit, and looking very comfortable and efficient. She handed the files to Miles, and he loaded them into the comconsole, and waited another minute. Still no Bel Thorne.

  Talk died away. His officers were giving him attentive, let's-get-on-with-it looks. He'd better not stand around much longer with his thumb in his ear. Before bringing the console display to life, he inquired, "Is there some reason Captain Thorne is late?"

  They looked at him, and then at each other. There can't be something wrong with Bel, it would have been reported to me first thing. Still, a small leaden knot materialized in the pit of his stomach. "Where is Bel Thorne?"

  By eye, they elected Elena Bothari-Jesek as spokesperson. That was an extremely bad sign. "Miles," she said hesitantly, "was Bel supposed to be back before you?"

  "Back? Where did Bel go?"

  She was looking at him as though he'd lost his mind. "Bel left with you, in the Ariel, three days ago."

  Quinn's head snapped up. "That's impossible."

  "Three days ago, we were still en route to Escobar," Miles stated. The leaden knot was transmuting into neutron star matter. He was not dominating this room at all well. In fact, it seemed to be tilting.

  "You took Green Squad with you. It was the new contract, Bel said," Elena added.

  "This is the new contract." Miles tapped the comconsole. A hideous explanation was beginning to suggest itself to his mind, rising from the black hole in his stomach. The looks on the faces around the table were also beginning to divide into two uneven camps, appalled surmise from the minority who had been in on that mess on Earth two years ago—oh, they were right with him—total confusion from the majority, who had not been directly involved. . . .

  "Where did I say I was going?" Miles inquired. His tone was, he thought, gentle, but several people flinched.

  "Jackson's Whole." Elena looked him straight in the eye, with much the steady gaze of a zoologist about to dissect a specimen. A sudden lack of trust . . .

  Jackson's Whole. That tears it. "Bel Thorne? The Ariel? Taura? Within ten jumps of Jackson's Whole?" Miles choked. "Dear God."

  "But if you're you," said Truzillo, "who was that three days ago?"

  "If you're you," said Elena darkly. The initiate crowd were all getting that same frowning look.

  "You see," Miles explained in a hollow voice to the What-the-hell-are-they-talking-about? portion of the room, "some people have an evil twin. I am not so lucky. What I have is an idiot twin."

  "Your clone," said Elena Bothari-Jesek.

  "My brother," he corrected automatically.

  "Little Mark Pierre," said Quinn. "Oh . . . shit."

  CHAPTER THREE

  His stomach seemed to turn inside out, the cabin wavered, and shadow darkened his vision. The bizarre sensations of the wormhole jump were gone almost as soon as they began, but left an unpleasant somatic reverberation, as if he were a struck gong. He took a deep, calming breath. That had been the fourth jump of the voyage. Five jumps to go, on the tortuous zigzag through the wormhole nexus from Escobar to Jackson's Whole. The Ariel had been three days en route, almost halfway.

  He glanced around Naismith's cabin. He could not continue to hide out in here much longer, pretense of illness or Naismithian black mood or not. Thorne needed every bit of data he could supply to plan the Dendarii raid on the clone-crèche. He had used his hibernation well, scanning the Ariel's mission logs back through time, all the way past his first encounter with the Dendarii two years ago. He now knew a great deal more about the mercenaries, and the thought of casual conversation with the Ariel's crew was far less terrifying.

  Unfortunately there was very little in the mission log to help him reconstruct what his first meeting with Naismith on Earth had looked like from the Dendarii point of view. The log had concentrated on rehabilitation and refit reports, dickerings with assorted ship's chandlers, and engineering briefings. He'd found exactly one order pertinent to his own adventures embedded in the data flow, advising all ship masters that Admiral Naismith's clone had been seen on Earth, warning that the clone might attempt to pass himself off as the Admiral, giving the (incorrect) information that the clone's legs would show up on a medical scan as normal bone and not plastic replacements, and ordering use of stunners-only in apprehending the imposter. No explanations, no later revisions or updates. All of Naismith/Vorkosigan's highest-level orders tended to be verbal and undocumented anyway, for security—from the Dendarii, not for them—a habit that had just served him well.

  He leaned back in his station chair and glowered at the comconsole display. The Dendarii data named him Mark. That's another thing you don't get to choose, Miles Naismith Vorkosigan had said. Mark Pierre. You are Lord Mark Pierre Vorkosigan, in your own right, on Barrayar.

  But he was not on Barrayar, nor ever would be if he could help it. You are not my brother, and the Bu
tcher of Komarr was never a father to me, his thought denied for the thousandth time to his absent progenitor. My mother was a uterine replicator.

  But the power of the suggestion had ridden him ever after, sapping his satisfaction with every pseudonym he'd ever tried, though he'd stared at lists of names till his eyes ached. Dramatic names, plain names, exotic, strange, common, silly . . . Jan Vandermark was the alias he'd used the longest, the closest sideways skittish approach to identity.

  Mark! Miles had shouted, being dragged away, for all he knew, to his own death. Your name is Mark!

  I am not Mark. I am NOT your damned brother, you maniac. The denial was hot and huge, but when its echoes died away, in the hollow chamber left inside his skull he seemed not to be anyone at all.

  His head was aching, a grinding tightness that crawled up his spine through his shoulders and neck and spread out under his scalp. He rubbed hard at his neck, but the tension just circulated around through his arms and back into his shoulders.

  Not his brother. But to be strictly accurate, Naismith could not be blamed for forcing him to life in the same way as the other House Bharaputran clones' progenitors. Oh, they were genetically identical, yes. It was a matter of . . . intent, perhaps. And where the money came from.

  Lord Miles Naismith Vorkosigan had been just six years old when the tissue sample from a biopsy was stolen from some clinical laboratory on Barrayar, during the last gasp of Komarran resistance to Barrayaran imperial conquest. No one, neither Barrayaran nor Komarran, was intrinsically interested in the crippled child Miles. The focus had all been on his father. Admiral Count Aral Vorkosigan, Regent of Barrayar, Conqueror (or Butcher) of Komarr. Aral Vorkosigan had supplied the will and the wit which had made Komarr into Barrayar's first off-planet conquest. And made himself the target of Komarran resistance and revenge. Hope for successful resistance had faded in time. Hope for revenge lived on in exiled bitterness. Stripped of an army, arms, support, one Komarran hate group plotted a slow, mad vengeance. To strike at the father through the son upon whom he was known to dote . . .