Brothers in Arms Part 2

Ivan shrugged. "A previous encounter. It was in the family."

"d.a.m.ned Vor power network," muttered Galeni.

"Oh," said Elli Quinn in a tone of sudden enlightenment, "this is your cousin Ivan! I'd always wondered what he looked like."

Ivan, who had been sneaking little peeks at her ever since he'd entered the room, came to attention with all the quivering alertness of a bird dog pointing. He smiled blindingly and bowed over Elli's hand. "Delighted to meet you, m'lady. The Dendarii must be improving, if you are a fair sample. The fairest, surely."

Elli repossessed her hand. "We've met."

"Surely not. I couldn't forget that face."

"I didn't have this face. 'A head just like an onion' was the way you phrased it, as I recall." Her eyes glittered. "Since I was blinded at the time, I had no idea how bad the plastiskin prosthesis really looked. Until you told me. Miles never mentioned it."

Ivan's smile had gone limp. "Ah. The plasma-burn lady."

Miles smirked and edged closer to Elli, who put her hand possessively through the crook of his elbow and favored Ivan with a cold samurai smile. Ivan, trying to bleed with dignity, looked to Captain Galeni.

"Since you know each other, Lieutenant Vorkosigan, I've a.s.signed Lieutenant Vorpatril here to take you in tow and orient you to the Emba.s.sy, and to your duties here," said Galeni. "Vor or no Vor, as long as you're on the Emperor's payroll, the Emperor might as well get some use of you. I trust some clarification of your status will arrive promptly."

"I trust the Dendarii payroll will arrive as promptly," said Miles.

"Your mercenary-bodyguard-can return to her outfit. If for any reason you need to leave the Emba.s.sy compound, I'll a.s.sign you one of my men."

"Yes, sir," sighed Miles. "But I still have to be able to get in touch with the Dendarii, in case of emergencies."

"I'll see that Commander Quinn gets a secured comm link before she leaves. As a matter of fact," he touched his comconsole, "Sergeant Barth?" he spoke into it.

"Yes, sir?" a voice replied.

"Do you have that comm link ready yet?"

"Just finished encoding it, sir."

"Good, bring it to my office."

Barth, still in his civvies, appeared within moments. Galeni shepherded Elli out. "Sergeant Barth will escort you out of the Emba.s.sy compound, Commander Quinn." She glanced back over her shoulder at Miles, who sketched her a rea.s.suring salute.

"What will I tell the Dendarii?" she asked.

"Tell them-tell them their funds are in transit," Miles called. The doors hissed shut, eclipsing her.

Galeni returned to his comconsole, which was bunking for his attention. "Vorpatril, please make getting your cousin out of that... costume, and into a correct uniform your first priority."

Does Admiral Naismith spook you just a little... sir? Miles wondered irritably. "The Dendarii uniform is as real as your own, sir."

Galeni glowered at him, across his flickering desk. "I wouldn't know, Lieutenant. My father could only afford toy soldiers for me when I was a boy. You two are dismissed."

Miles, fuming, waited until the doors had closed behind them before tearing off his grey-and-white jacket and throwing it to the corridor floor. "Costume! Toy soldiers! I think I'm gonna kill that Komarran son-of-a-b.i.t.c.h!"

"Oooh," said Ivan. "Aren't we touchy today."

"You heard what he said!"

"Yeah, so... Galeni's all right. A bit regulation, maybe. There's a dozen little tin-pot mercenary outfits running around in oddball corners of the worm-hole nexus. Some of them tread a real fine line between legal and illegal. How's he supposed to know your Dendarii aren't next door to being hijackers?"

Miles picked up his uniform jacket, shook it out, and folded it carefully over his arm. "Huh."

"Come on," said Ivan. "I'll take you down to Stores and get you a kit in a color more to his taste."

"They got anything in my size?"

"They make a laser-map of your body and produce the stuff one-off, computer controlled, just like that overpriced sartorial pirate you take yourself to in Vorbarr Sultana. This is Earth, son."

"My man on Barrayar's been doing my clothes for ten years. He has some tricks that aren't in the computer.... Well, I guess I can live with it. Can the emba.s.sy computer do civilian clothes?"

Ivan grimaced. "If your tastes are conservative. If you want something in style to wow the local girls, you have to go farther afield."

"With Galeni for a duenna, I have a feeling I'm not going to get a chance to go very far afield," Miles sighed. "It'll have to do."

Miles sighted down the forest-green sleeve of his Barrayaran dress uniform, adjusted the cuff, and jerked his chin up, the better to settle his head on the high collar. He'd half-forgotten just how uncomfortable that d.a.m.n collar was, with his short neck. In front the red rectangles of his lieutenant's rank seemed to poke into his jaw; in back it pinched his still-uncut hair. And the boots were hot. The bone he'd broken in his left foot at Dagoola still twinged, even now after being re-broken, set straight, and treated with electra-stim.

Still, the green uniform was home. His true self. Maybe it was time for a vacation from Admiral Naismith and his intractable responsibilities, time to remember the more reasonable problems of Lieutenant Vorkosigan, whose sole task now was to learn the procedures of one small office and put up with Ivan Vorpatril. The Dendarii didn't need him to hold their hand for routine rest and refit, nor could he have arranged any more safe and thorough a disappearance for Admiral Naismith.

Ivan's particular charge was this tiny windowless room deep in the bowels of the emba.s.sy compound; his job, to feed hundreds of data disks to a secured computer that concentrated them into a weekly report on the status of Earth, to be sent back to Security Chief Illyan and the general staff on Barrayar. Where, Miles supposed, it was computer-collated with hundreds of other such reports to create Barrayar's vision of the universe. Miles hoped devoutly that Ivan wasn't adding kilowatts and megawatts in the same column.

"By far the bulk of this stuff is public statistics," Ivan was explaining, seated before his console and actually looking at ease in his dress greens. "Population shifts, agricultural and manufacturing production figures, the various political divisions' published military budgets. The computer adds 'em up sixteen different ways, and blinks for attention when things don't match. Since all the originators have computers too, this doesn't happen too often-all the lies are embedded before it ever gets to us, Galeni says. More important to Barrayar are records of ship movements in and out of Earth local s.p.a.ce.

"Then we get to the more interesting stuff, real spy work. There's several hundred people on Earth this emba.s.sy tries to keep track of, for one security reason or another. One of the biggest groups is the Komarran rebel expatriates." A wave of Ivan's hand, and dozens of faces flickered one after another above the vid plate.

"Oh, yeah?" said Miles, interested in spite of himself. "Does Galeni have secret contacts and so on with them? Is that why he's a.s.signed here? Double agent-triple agent..."

"I bet Illyan wishes," said Ivan. "As far as I know, they regard Galeni as a leper. Evil collaborator with the imperialist oppressors and all that."

"Surely they're no great threat to Barrayar at this late date and distance. Refugees..."

"Some of these were the smart refugees, though, the ones who got their money out before the boom dropped. Some were involved in financing the Komarr Revolt during the Regency-they're mostly a lot poorer now. They're aging, though. Another half generation, if your father's integration policies succeed, and they'll have totally lost momentum, Captain Galeni says."

Ivan picked up another data disk. "And then we come to the real hot stuff, which is keeping track of what the other emba.s.sies are doing. Such as the Cetagandan."

"I hope they're on the other side of the planet," said Miles sincerely.

"No, most of the galactic emba.s.sies and consuls are concentrated right here in London. Makes watching each other ever so much more convenient."

"Ye G.o.ds," moaned Miles, "don't tell me they're across the street or some d.a.m.ned thing."

Ivan grinned. "Almost. They're about two kilometers away. We go to each other's parties a lot, to practice being snide, and play I-know-you-know-I-know games."

Miles sat, hyperventilating slightly. "Oh, s.h.i.t."

"What's up you, coz?"

"Those people are trying to kill me."

"No they're not. It'd start a war. We're at peace right now, sort of, remember?"

"Well, they're trying to kill Admiral Naismith, anyway."

"Who vanished yesterday."

"Yeah, but-one of the reasons this whole Dendarii scam has held up for so long is distance. Admiral Naismith and Lieutenant Vorkosigan never show up within hundreds of light years of each other. We've never been trapped on the same planet together, let alone the same city."

"As long as you leave your Dendarii uniform in my closet, what's to connect?"

"Ivan, how many four-foot-nine-inch black-haired grey-eyed hunchbacks can there be on this d.a.m.n planet? D'you think you trip over twitchy dwarfs on every street corner?"

"On a planet of nine billion," said Ivan, "there's got to be at least six of everything. Calm down!" He paused. "Y'now, that's the first time I've ever heard you use that word."

"What word?"

"Hunchback. You're not really, you know." Ivan eyed him with friendly worry.

Miles's fist closed, opened in a sharp throw-away gesture. "Anyway, Cetagandans. If they have a counterpart doing what you're doing-"

Ivan nodded. "I've met him. His name's ghem-lieutenant Tabor."

"Then they know the Dendarii are here, and know Admiral Naismith's been seen. They probably have a list of every purchase order we've put through the comm net, or will soon enough, when they turn their attention to it. They're tracking."

"They may be tracking, but they can't get orders from higher up any faster than we can," said Ivan reasonably. "And in any case they've got a manpower shortage. Our security staff's four times the size of theirs, on account of the Komarrans. I mean, this may be Earth, but it's still a minor emba.s.sy, even more so for them than us. Never fear," he struck a pose in his station chair, hand across his chest, "Cousin Ivan will protect you."

"That's so rea.s.suring," Miles muttered.

Ivan grinned at his sarcasm, and turned back to his work.

The day wore on interminably in the quiet, changeless room. His claustrophobia, Miles discovered, was developed to a much higher pitch than it used to be. He absorbed lessons from Ivan, and paced from wall to wall between times.

"You could do that about twice as fast, you know," Miles observed to Ivan, plugging away at his data a.n.a.lysis.

"But then I'd be done right after lunch," said Ivan, "and then I wouldn't have anything to do at all."

"Surely Galeni could find something."

"That's what I'm afraid of," said Ivan. "Quitting time rolls around soon enough. Then we go party."

"No, then you go party. I go to my room, as ordered. Maybe I'll catch up on my sleep, finally."

"That's it, think positive," said Ivan. "I'll work out with you in the emba.s.sy gym, if you want. You don't look so good, you know. Pale and, um... pale."

Old, thought Miles, is the word you just edited.

He glanced at the distorted reflection of his face in a bit of chrome plating on the console. That bad, eh?

"Exercise," Ivan thumped his chest, "will be good for you."

"No doubt," muttered Miles.

The days fell quickly into a set pattern. Miles was awakened by Ivan in the room they shared, did a stint in the gym, showered, breakfasted, and went to work in the data room. He began to wonder if he would ever be permitted to see Earth's beautiful sunlight again. After three days Miles took the computer-stuffing job away from Ivan and started finishing it by noon, so that he might at least have the later hours for reading and study. He devoured emba.s.sy and security procedures, Earth history, galactic news. In the later afternoon they knocked off for another grueling workout in the gym. On the nights Ivan stayed in, Miles watched vid dramas with him; on the nights he went out, travelogues of all the sites of interest he wasn't allowed to go visit.

Elli reported in daily on the secured comm link on the status of the Dendarii fleet, still holding in orbit. Miles, closeting himself with the comm link, found himself increasingly hungry for that outside voice. Her reports were succinct. But afterwards they drifted off into inconsequential small talk, as Miles found it harder and harder to cut her off, and she never hung up on him. Miles fantasized about courting her in his own persona-would a commander accept a date from a mere lieutenant? Would she even like Lord Vorkosigan? Would Galeni ever let him leave the emba.s.sy to find out?

Ten days of clean living, exercise, and regular hours had been bad for him, Miles decided. His energy level was up. Up, and bottled in the immobilized persona of Lord Vorkosigan, while the list of ch.o.r.es facing Admiral Naismith piled up and up and up h.e.l.lip "Will you stop fidgeting, Miles?" Ivan complained. "Sit down. Take a deep breath. Hold still for five minutes. You can do it if you try."

Miles made one more circuit of the computer room, then flung himself into a chair. "Why hasn't Galeni called me yet? The courier from Sector HQ got in an hour ago!"

"So, give the man time to go to the bathroom and get a cup of coffee. Give Galeni time to read his reports. This is peacetime, everybody's got lots of leisure to sit around writing reports. They'd be hurt if n.o.body read 'em."

"That's the trouble with your government-supported troops," said Miles, "you're spoiled. You get paid not to make war."

"Wasn't there a mercenary fleet that did that once? They'd show up in orbit somewhere, and get paid-to not make war. Worked, didn't it? You're just not a creative enough mercenary commander, Miles."

"Yeah, LaVarr's fleet. It worked real good till the Tau Cetan Navy caught up with 'em, and then LaVarr was sent to the disintegration chamber."

"No sense of humor, the Tau Cetans."

"None," Miles agreed. "Neither has my father."

"Too true. Well-"

The comconsole blinked. Ivan had to duck out of the way as Miles pounced on it. "Yes sir?" said Miles breathlessly.

"Come to my office, Lieutenant Vorkosigan," said Galeni. His face was saturnine as ever, no cues there.

"Yes, sir, thank you sir." Miles cut the com and plunged for the door. "My eighteen million marks, at last!"

"Either that," said Ivan genially, "or he's found a job for you in inventory. Maybe you're going to get to count all the goldfish in the fountain in the main reception court."

"Sure, Ivan."

"Hey, it's a real challenge! They keep moving around, you know."

"How do you know?" Miles paused, his eyes lighting. "Ivan, did he actually make you do that?"

"It had to do with a suspected security breach," said Ivan. "It's a long story."

"I'll bet." Miles beat a brief tattoo on the desk, and vaulted around its corner. "Later. I'm gone."

Miles found Captain Galeni sitting staring dubiously at the display on his comconsole, as if it was still in code.

"Hm." Galeni leaned back in his chair. "Well, your orders have arrived from Sector HQ, Lieutenant Vorkosigan."