"When you can't get what you want, you take what you can get. As you are finding." He nodded toward Mark's pocket; Mark's hand closed over it protectively.
"What is it that you want me to do?" Mark demanded. "What are you setting me up for? Did you really take that Jackson's Whole garbage seriously? What do you expect me to do?"
"You can take it and retire to the pleasure domes of Mars, for as long as it lasts. Or buy an education, or two or three. Or stuff it down the first waste chute you pass. I'm not your owner. I'm not your mentor. I'm not your parents. I have no expectations. I have no desires." Rebel against that—if you can figure out how—little brother. . . . Miles held his hands palm-out and stepped back.
Mark swung into the lift tube, never turning his back. "WHY NOT?" he yelled suddenly, baffled and furious.
Miles threw back his head and laughed. "You figure it out!" he called.
The tube field took him, and he vanished, swallowed into the earth.
Miles returned to the friends who waited for him.
"Was that smart?" Elli, breaking off a rapid fill-in from Ivan, worried as he settled in beside her. "Just letting him go like that?"
"I don't know," sighed Miles. " 'If you can't help, don't hinder.' I can't help him; Galen's made him too crazy. I am his obsession. I suspect I'll always be his obsession. I know all about obsessions. The best I can do is get out of his way. In time he may calm down, without me to react against. In time he may—save himself."
His own weariness flooded in. Elli was warm against him, and he was very, very glad of her. Reminded, he keyed his wrist comm and dismissed Nim and his patrol back to the shuttleport.
"Well," Ivan blinked after a full minute of wiped-out silence from all present, "where now? D'you two want to go back to the shuttleport too?"
"Yeah," breathed Miles, "and flee the planet. . . . Desertion is not practical, I'm afraid. Destang would catch up with me sooner or later anyway. We may as well all go back to the embassy and report. The true report. There's nothing left to lie for, is there?" He squinted, trying to think.
"For all of me, there's not," rumbled Galeni. "I do not care for doctored reports anyway. Eventually, they become history. Embedded sin."
"You . . . know I didn't mean it to work out that way," Miles said to him after a silent moment. "The confrontation last night." A damned sorry weak apology that sounded, for getting the man's father blown away. . . .
"Did you imagine you controlled it? Omniscient and omnipotent? Nobody appointed you God, Vorkosigan." Ghostly faint, one corner of his mouth turned up. "I'm sure it was an oversight." He leaned back and closed his eyes.
Miles cleared his throat. "Back to the embassy then, Ivan. Ah … no rush. Drive slowly. I wouldn't mind seeing a last bit of London, eh?" He leaned on Elli and watched the early summer dawn creep over the city, time and all times jumbled and juxtaposed like the light and shadow between one street and the next.
When they all lined up in a row in Galeni's Security office at the embassy, Miles was put in mind of the set of Chinese monkeys his Dendarii chief of staff Tung kept on a shelf in his quarters. Ivan was unquestionably See-no-evil. From the tight set of Galeni's jaw, as he returned Commodore Destang's glower, he was a prime candidate for Speak-no-evil. That left Hear-no-evil for Miles, standing between them, but putting his hands over his ears probably wouldn't help much.
Miles had expected Destang to be furious, but he looked more disgusted. The commodore returned their salutes and leaned back in Galeni's station chair. When his eye fell on Miles his lips thinned in a particularly dyspeptic line.
"Vorkosigan." Miles's name hung in the air before them like a visible thing. Destang regarded it without favor, and went on, "When I finished dealing with a certain Investigator Reed of the London Municipal Assizes at 0700 this morning, I was determined that only divine intervention could save you from my wrath. Divine intervention arrived at 0900 in the person of a special courier from Imperial HQ." Destang held up a data disk marked with the Imperial seal between his thumb and forefinger. "Here are the new and urgent orders for your Dendarii irregulars."
Since Miles had passed the courier in the cafeteria, this was not wholly unexpected. He suppressed a surge forward. "Yes, sir?" he said encouragingly.
"It appears that a certain free mercenary fleet operating in the far Sector IV area, supposedly under contract to a subplanetary government, has slipped over the line from guerrilla warfare to outright piracy. Their wormhole blockade has degenerated from stopping and searching ships to confiscations. Three weeks ago they hijacked a Tau Cetan registered passenger vessel to convert into a troop transport. So far so good, but then some bright soul among them hit on die idea of augmenting their payroll by holding the passengers for ransom. Several planetary governments whose citizens are being held have fielded a negotiating team, headed by the Tau Cetans."
"And our involvement, sir?" Sector IV was a long way from Barrayar by any measure, but Miles could guess what was coming. Ivan looked wildly curious.
"Among the passengers happened to be eleven Barrayaran subjects—including the wife of Minister for Heavy Industries Lord Vorvane and her three children. As the Barrayarans are a minority of the two hundred sixteen people being held, Barrayar was of course denied control of the negotiating team. And our fleet has been denied permission by their unfriendly governments to cross three of the necessary wormhole nexuses on the shortest route between Barrayar and Sector IV. The next shortest alternate route would take eighteen weeks to traverse. From Earth, your Dendarii can arrive in that local space area in less than two weeks." Destang frowned thoughtfully; Ivan looked fascinated.
"Your orders, of course, are to rescue alive the Emperor's subjects, and as many other planetary citizens as possible, and to deal such punitive measures as you can compatible with the first goal, sufficient to prevent the perpetrators from ever repeating this performance. Since we ourselves are in the midst of critical treaty negotiations with the Tau Cetans, we don't wish them to become aware of the source of this unilateral rescue effort if, ah, anything goes wrong. Your method of achieving these goals appears to be left totally to your discretion. You'll find all the intelligence details HQ had up to eight days ago in here."
He handed the data disk across at last; Miles's hand closed over it itchily. Ivan now looked envious. Destang produced another object, which he handed to Miles with a little of the air of a man having his liver torn out. "The courier also delivered yet another credit chit for eighteen million marks. For your next six month's operating expenses."
"Thank you, sir!"
"Ha. When you're done you're to report to Commodore Rivik at Sector IV headquarters on Orient Station," Destang finished. "With luck, by the time your irregulars next return to Sector II, I will have retired."
"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir."
Destang turned his eye on Ivan. "Lieutenant Vorpatril."
"Sir?" Ivan stood to attention with his best air of eager enthusiasm. Miles prepared to protest Ivan's complete innocence, ignorance, and victimhood, but it turned out not to be necessary; Destang contemplated Ivan for a moment longer, and sighed, "Never mind."
Destang turned to Galeni, who stood stiff-legged—and stiff-necked, Miles guessed. Having beaten Destang back to the embassy that morning, they had all washed, the two embassy officers had changed to clean uniforms, and they had all filed laconic reports, which Destang had just seen. But no one had slept yet. How much more garbage could Galeni absorb before reaching his explosive limit?
"Captain Galeni," said Destang. "On the military side, you stand charged with disobeying an order to remain confined to your quarters. Since this is identical to the charge that Vorkosigan here has managed to so luckily evade, this presents me with a certain problem of justice. There's also the mitigating factor of Vorpatril's kidnapping. His rescue, and the death of an enemy of Barrayar, are the only two tangible results of last night's . . . activities. All else is speculation, improvable assertions as to your intentions and state of mind. Unless you choose to submit to a fast-penta interrogation to clear up any lingering doubts."