The Vor Game

  “Thanks, Jole,” Count Vorkosigan murmured to his aide, as his eye found Miles. “I'll see you back at the office."

  “Yes, sir.” So dismissed, Jole ducked back out, glancing back at Miles and his superior with worried eyes, and the door hissed closed again.

  Illyan still had his hand pressed to a control on his desk. “Are you officially here?” he asked Count Vorkosigan.

  “No."

  Illyan keyed something off—recording equipment, Miles realized. “Very well,” he said, editorial doubt injected into his tone.

  Miles saluted his father. His father ignored the salute and embraced him gravely, wordlessly, sat in the room's only other chair, crossed his arms and booted ankles, and said, “Continue, Simon."

  Illyan, who had been cut off in the middle of what had been shaping up, in Miles's estimation, to a really classic reaming, chewed his lip in frustration. “Rumors aside,” Illyan said to Miles, “what really happened last night out on that damned island?"

  In the most neutral and succinct terms he could muster, Miles described the previous night's events, starting with the fetaine spill and ending with his arrest/detainment/to-be-determined by Imperial Security. His father said nothing during the whole recitation, but he had a light pen in his hand which he kept turning absently around and over, tap against his knee, around and over.

  Silence fell when Miles finished. The light pen was driving Miles to distraction. He wished his father would put the damned thing away, or drop it, or anything.

  His father slipped the light pen back into his breast pocket, thank God, leaned back, and steepled his fingers, frowning. “Let me get this straight. You say Metzov hopscotched the command chain and dragooned trainees for his firing squad?"

  “Ten of them. I don't know if they were volunteers or not, I wasn't there for that part."

  “Trainees.” Count Vorkosigan's face was dark. “Boys."

  “He was babbling something about it being like the army versus the navy, back on Old Earth."

  “Huh?” said Illyan.

  “I don't think Metzov was any too stable when he was exiled to Kyril Island after his troubles in the Komarr Revolt, and fifteen years of brooding about it didn't improve his grip.” Miles hesitated. “Will ... General Metzov be questioned about his actions at all, sir?"

  “General Metzov, by your account,” said Admiral Vorkosigan, “dragged a platoon of eighteen-year-olds into what came within a hair of being a mass torture-murder."

  Miles nodded in memory. His body still twinged with assorted agonies.

  “For that sin, there is no hole deep enough to hide him from my wrath. Metzov will be taken care of, all right.” Count Vorkosigan was terrifyingly grim.

  “What about Miles and the mutineers?” asked Illyan.

  “Necessarily, I fear we will have to treat that as a separate matter."

  “Or two separate matters,” said Illyan suggestively.

  “Mm. So, Miles, tell me about the men on the other end of the guns."

  “Techs, sir, mostly. A lot of greekies."

  Illyan winced. “Good God, had the man no political sense at all?"

  “None that I ever saw. I thought it would be a problem.” Well, later he'd thought of it, lying awake on his cell cot after the med squad left. The other political ramifications had spun through his mind. Over half the slowly freezing techs had been of the Greek-speaking minority. The language separatists would have been rioting in the streets, had it become a massacre, sure to claim the general had ordered the greekies into the clean-up as racial sabotage. More deaths, chaos reverberating down the timeline like the consequences of the Solstice Massacre? “It ... occurred to me, that if I died with them, at least it would be crystal clear that it hadn't been some plot of your government or the Vor oligarchy. So that if I lived, I won, and if I died, I won too. Or at least served. Strategy, of sorts."

  Barrayar's greatest strategist of this century rubbed his temples, as if they ached. “Well ... of sorts, yes."

  “So,” Miles swallowed, “what happens now, sirs? Will I be charged with high treason?"

  “For the second time in four years?” said Illyan. “Hell, no. I'm not going through that again. I will simply disappear you, until this blows over. Where to, I haven't quite figured yet. Kyril Island is out."

  “Glad to hear it.” Miles eyes narrowed. “What about the others?"

  “The trainees?” said Illyan.

  “The techs. My ... fellow mutineers.” Illyan twitched at the term.

  “It would be seriously unjust if I were to slither up some Vor-privileged line and leave them standing charges alone,” Miles added.

  “The public scandal of your trial would damage your father's Centrist coalition. Your moral scruples may be admirable, Miles, but I'm not sure I can afford them."

  Miles stared steadily at Prime Minister Count Vorkosigan. “Sir?"

  Count Vorkosigan sucked thoughtfully on his lower lip. “Yes, I could have the charges against them quashed, by Imperial fiat. That would involve another price, though.” He leaned forward intently, eyes peeling Miles.

  “You could never serve again. Rumors will travel even without a trial. No commander would have you, after. None could trust you, trust you to be a real officer, not an artifact protected by special privilege. I can't ask anyone to command you with his head cranked over his shoulder all the time."

  Miles exhaled, a long breath. “In a weird sense, they were my men. Do it. Kill the charges."

  “Will you resign your commission, then?” demanded Illyan.

  Miles felt sick, nauseous and cold. “I will.” His voice was thin.

  Illyan looked up suddenly from a blank brooding stare at his com console. “Miles, how did you know about General Metzov's questionable actions during the Komarr Revolt? That case was Security-classified."

  “Ah ... didn't Ivan tell you about the little leak in the ImpSec files, sir?"

  "What?"

  Damn Ivan. “May I sit down, sir?” said Miles faintly. The room was wavering, his head thumping. Without waiting for permission, he sat cross-legged on the carpet, blinking. His father made a worried movement toward him, then restrained himself. “I'd been checking upon Metzov's background because of something Lieutenant Ahn said. By the way, when you go after Metzov, I strongly suggest you fast-penta Ahn first. He knows more than he's told. You'll find him somewhere on the equator, I expect."

  “My files, Miles."

  “Uh, yes, well, it turns out that if you face a secured console to an outgoing console, you can read off Security files from anywhere in the vid net. Of course, you have to have somebody inside HQ who can and will aim the consoles and call up the files for you. And you can't flash-download. But I, uh, thought you should know, sir."

  “Perfect security,” said Count Vorkosigan in a choked voice. Chortling, Miles realized in startlement.

  Illyan looked like a man sucking on a lemon. “How did you,” Illyan began, stopped to glare at the Count, started again, “how did you figure this out?"

  “It was obvious."

  “Airtight security, you said,” murmured Count Vorkosigan, unsuccessfully suppressing a wheezing laugh. “The most expensive yet devised. Proof against the cleverest viruses, the most sophisticated eavesdropping equipment. And two ensigns waft right through it?"

  Goaded, Illyan snapped, “I didn't promise it was idiot-proof!"

  Count Vorkosigan wiped his eyes and sighed. “Ah, the human factor. We will correct the defect, Miles. Thank you."

  “You're a bloody loose cannon, boy, firing in all directions,” Illyan growled to Miles, craning his neck to see over his desk to where Miles sat in a slumping heap. “This, on top of your earlier escapade with those damned mercenaries, on top of it all—house arrest isn't enough. I won't sleep through the night till I have you locked in a cell with your hands tied behind your back."

  Miles, who thought he might kill for a decent hour's sleep right now, could only shrug. Maybe Illyan could b
e persuaded to let him go to that nice quiet cell soon.

  Count Vorkosigan had fallen silent, a strange thoughtful glow starting in his eye. Illyan noticed the expression too, and paused.

  “Simon,” said Count Vorkosigan, “there's no doubt ImpSec will have to go on watching Miles. For his sake, as well as mine."

  “And the Emperor's” put in Illyan dourly. “And Barrayar's. And the innocent bystanders'."

  “But what better, more direct and efficient way for security to watch him than if he is assigned to Imperial Security?"

  “What?” said Illyan and Miles together, in the same sharp horrified tone. “You're not serious,” Illyan went on, as Miles added, “Security was never on my top-ten list of assignment choices."

  “Not choice. Aptitude. Major Cecil discussed it with me at one time, as I recall. But as Miles says, he didn't put it on his list.” He hadn't put Arctic Weatherman on his list either, Miles recalled.

  “You had it right the first time,” said Illyan. “No commander in the Service will want him now. Not excepting myself."

  “None that I could, in honor, lean on to take him. Excepting yourself. I have always,” Count Vorkosigan flashed a peculiar grin, “leaned on you, Simon."

  Illyan looked faintly stunned, as a top tactician beginning to see himself outmaneuvered.

  “It works on several levels,” Count Vorkosigan went on in that same mild persuasive voice. “We can put it about that it's an unofficial internal exile, demotion in disgrace. It will buy off my political enemies, who would otherwise try to stir profit from this mess. It will tone down the appearance of our condoning a mutiny, which no military service can afford."

  “True exile,” said Miles. “Even if unofficial and internal."

  “Oh yes,” Count Vorkosigan agreed softly. “But, ah—not true disgrace."

  “Can he be trusted?” said Illyan doubtfully.

  “Apparently.” The count's smile was like the gleam off a knife blade. “Security can use his talents. Security more than any other department needs his talents."

  “To see the obvious?"

  “And the less obvious. Many officers may be trusted with the Emperor's life. Rather fewer with his honor."

  Illyan, reluctantly, made a vague acquiescent gesture. Count Vorkosigan, perhaps prudently, did not troll for greater enthusiasm from his Security chief at this time, but turned to Miles and said, “You look like you need an infirmary."

  “I need a bed."

  “How about a bed in an infirmary?"

  Miles coughed, and blinked blearily. “Yeah, that'd do."

  “Come on, we'll find one."

  He stood, and staggered out on his father's arm, his feet squishing in their plastic bags.

  “Other than that, how was Kyril Island, Ensign Vorkosigan?” inquired the count. “You didn't vid home much, your mother noticed."

  “I was busy. Lessee. The climate was ferocious, the terrain was lethal, a third of the population including my immediate superior was dead drunk most of the time. The average IQ equalled the mean temperature in degrees cee, there wasn't a woman for five hundred kilometers in any direction, and the base commander was a homicidal psychotic. Other than that, it was lovely."

  “Doesn't sound like it's changed in the smallest detail in twenty-five years."

  “You've been there?” Miles squinted. “And yet you let me get sent there?"

  “I commanded Lazkowski Base for five months, once, while waiting for my captaincy of the cruiser General Vorkraft. During the period my career was, so to speak, in political eclipse."

  So to speak. “How'd you like it?"

  “I can't remember much. I was drunk most of the time. Everybody finds their own way of dealing with Camp Permafrost. I might say, you did rather better than I."

  “I find your subsequent survival ... encouraging, sir."

  “I thought you might. That's why I mentioned it. It's not otherwise an experience I'd hold up as an example."

  Miles looked up at his father. “Did ... I do the right thing, sir? Last night?"

  “Yes,” said the count simply. “A right thing. Perhaps not the best of all possible right things. Three days from now you may think of a cleverer tactic, but you were the man on the ground at the time. I try not to second-guess my field commanders."

  Miles's heart rose in his aching chest for the first time since he'd left Kyril Island.

  * * * *

  Miles thought his father might take him to the great and familiar Imperial Military Hospital complex, a few kilometers away across town, but they found an infirmary closer than that, three floors down in ImpSec HQ. The facility was small but complete, with a couple of examining rooms, private rooms, cells for treating prisoners and guarded witnesses, a surgery, and a closed door labeled, chillingly, Interrogation Chemistry Laboratory. Illyan must have called down in advance, for a corpsman was hovering in attendance waiting to receive them. A Security surgeon arrived shortly, a little out of breath. He straightened his uniform and saluted Count Vorkosigan punctiliously before turning to Miles.

  Miles fancied the surgeon was more used to making people nervous than being made nervous by them, and was awkward about the role reversal. Was it some aura of old violence, clinging to his father still after all these years? The power, the history? Some personal charisma, that made erstwhile forceful men flatten out like cowed dogs? Miles could sense that radiating heat perfectly clearly, and yet it didn't seem to affect him the same way.

  Acclimatization, perhaps. The former Lord Regent was the man who used to take a two-hour lunch every day, regardless of any crisis short of war, and disappear into his Residence. Only Miles knew the interior view of those hours, how the big man in the green uniform would bolt a sandwich in five minutes and then spend the next hour and a half down on the floor with his son who could not walk, playing, talking, reading aloud. Sometimes, when Miles was locked in hysterical resistance to some painful new physical therapy, daunting his mother and even Sergeant Bothari, his father had been the only one with the firmness to insist on those ten extra agonizing leg stretches, the polite submission to the hypospray, to another round of surgery, to the icy chemicals searing his veins. “You are Vor. You must not frighten your liege people with this show of uncontrol, Lord Miles.” The pungent smell of this infirmary, the tense doctor, brought back a flood of memories. No wonder, Miles reflected, he had failed to be afraid enough of Metzov. When Count Vorkosigan left, the infirmary seemed altogether empty.

  There did not appear to be much going on in ImpSec HQ this week. The infirmary was numbingly quiet, except for a trickle of headquarters staff coming down to cadge headache or cold remedies or hangover-killers from the pliant corpsman. A couple of techs spent three hours rattling around the lab one evening on a rush job, and rushed off. The doctor arrested Miles's incipient pneumonia just before it turned into galloping pneumonia. Miles brooded, and waited for the six-day antibiotic therapy to run its course, and plotted details of a home leave in Vorbarr Sultana that must surely be forthcoming when the medics released him.

  “Why can't I go home?” Miles complained to his mother on next visit. “Nobody's telling me anything. If I'm not under arrest why can't I take home leave? If I am under arrest, why aren't the doors locked? I feel like I'm in limbo."

  Countess Cordelia Vorkosigan vented an unladylike snort. “You are in limbo, kiddo.” Her flat Betan accent fell warmly on Miles ears, despite her sardonic tone. She tossed her head—she wore her red-roan hair pinned back from her face and waving loose down the back today, gleaming against a rich autumn brown jacket picked out with silver embroidery, and the swinging skirts of a Vor-class woman. Grey-eyed, striking, her pale face seemed so alive with flickering thought one scarcely noticed she was not beautiful. For twenty-one years she'd passed as a Vor matron in the wake of her Great Man, yet still seemed as unimpressed by Barrayaran hierarchies as ever—though not, Miles thought, unmoved by Barrayaran wounds.

  So why do I never think of my ambiti
on as ship command like my mother before me? Captain Cordelia Naismith, Betan Astronomical Survey, had been in the risky business of expanding the wormhole nexus jump by blind jump, for humanity, for pure knowledge, for Beta Colony's economic advancement, for—what had driven her? She'd commanded a sixty-person survey vessel, far from home and help—there were certain enviable aspects to her former career, to be sure. Chain-of-command, for example, would have been a legal fiction out in the far-beyond, the wishes of Betan HQ a matter for speculation and side bets.

  She moved now so wavelessly through Barrayaran society, only her most intimate observers realized how detached she was from it, fearing no one, not even the dread Illyan, controlled by no one, not even the Admiral himself. It was the casual fearlessness, Miles decided, that made his mother so unsettling. The Admiral's Captain. Following in her footsteps would be like firewalking.

  “What's going on out there?” Miles asked. “This place is almost as much fun as solitary confinement, y'know? Have they decided I'm a mutineer after all?"

  “I don't think so,” said the Countess. “They're discharging the others—your Lieutenant Bonn and the rest—not precisely dishonorably, but without benefits or pensions or that Imperial Liegeman status that seems to mean so much to Barrayaran men—"

  “Think of it as a funny sort of Reservist,” Miles advised. “What about Metzov and the grubs?"

  “He's being discharged the same way. He lost the most, I think."

  “They're just turning him loose?” Miles frowned.

  Countess Vorkosigan shrugged. “Because there were no deaths, Aral was persuaded he couldn't make a court martial with any harsher punishment stick. They decided not to involve the trainees with any charges."