"Of course." Tung's broad face looked immensely pleased. In fact, if Tung grew any smugger he might implode.
"We will join Admiral Vorkosigan for lunch in the senior officers' mess, after your meeting and our tour," Commander Natochini continued to Miles. "Our last dinner guest there was the President of Pol and his entourage, twelve days ago."
Certain that the mercenaries understood the magnitude of the privilege they were being granted, the Barrayaran exec led the happy Tung and Chodak off down the corridor. Miles heard Tung chuckle under his breath, "Lunch with Admiral Vorkosigan, heh, heh. . . ."
Lieutenant Yegorov motioned Miles and Elena in the opposite direction. "You are Barrayaran, ma'am?" he inquired of Elena.
"My father was liege-sworn Armsman to the late Count Piotr for eighteen years," Elena stated. "He died in the Count's service."
"I see," said the lieutenant respectfully. "You are acquainted with the family, then." That explains you, Miles could almost see him thinking.
"Ah, yes."
The lieutenant glanced down a little more dubiously at "Admiral Naismith."
"And, uh, I understand you are Betan, sir?"
"Originally," said Miles, in his flattest Betan accent.
"You . . . may find the way we Barrayarans do things to be a little more formal than what you're used to," the lieutenant warned. "The Count, you understand, is accustomed to the respect and deference due his rank."
Miles watched, delighted, as the earnest officer sought a polite way of saying, Call him sir, don't wipe your nose on your sleeve, and none of your damned Betan egalitarian backchat, either. "You may find him rather formidable," Yegorov concluded.
"A real stuffed shirt, eh?"
The lieutenant frowned. "He is a great man."
"Aw, I bet if we pour enough wine into him at lunch, he'll loosen up and tell dirty stories with the best of 'em."
Yegorov's polite smile became fixed. Elena, eyes dancing, leaned down and whispered forcefully, "Admiral, behave!"
"Oh, all right," Miles sighed regretfully.
The lieutenant glanced gratefully at Elena, over Miles's head.
Miles admired the spit and polish, in passing. Besides just being new, the Prince Serg had been designed with diplomacy as well as war in mind, a ship fit to carry the emperor on state visits without loss of military efficiency. He saw a young ensign, down a cross-corridor that had a wall panel apart, directing some tech crew on minor repairs—no, by God, it was original installation. The Prince Serg had broken orbit with work crews still aboard, Miles had heard. He glanced back over his shoulder. There but for the grace of God and General Metzov go I. If he'd kept his nose clean on Kyril Island for just six months … he felt an illogical twinge of envy for that busy ensign.
They entered officers' country. Lieutenant Yegorov led them through an antechamber and into a spartanly-appointed flag office twice the size of anything Miles had seen on a Barrayaran ship before. Admiral Count Aral Vorkosigan looked up from his comconsole desk as the doors slid silently back.
Miles stepped through, his belly suddenly shaking inside. To conceal and control his emotion he tossed off, "Hey, you Imperial snails are going to go all fat and soft, lolling around in this kind of luxury, y'know?"
"Ha!" Admiral Vorkosigan stumbled out of his chair and banged around the corner of his desk in his haste. Well, no wonder, how can he see with all that water standing in his eyes? He enfolded Miles in a hard embrace. Miles grinned and blinked and swallowed, face smashed against that cool green sleeve, and almost had control of his features again when Count Vorkosigan held him out at arm's length for an anxious, searching inspection. "You all right, boy?"
"Just fine. How'd you like your wormhole jump?"
"Just fine," breathed Count Vorkosigan back. "Mind you, there were moments when certain of my advisors wanted to have you shot. And there were moments when I agreed with 'em."
Lieutenant Yegorov, cut off in mid-announcement of their arrival (Miles hadn't heard him speaking, and he doubted his father had either), was standing with his mouth still open, looking perfectly stunned. Lieutenant Jole, suppressing a grin himself, arose from the other side of the comconsole desk and guided Yegorov gently and mercifully back out the door.
"Thank you, Lieutenant. The Admiral appreciates your services, that will be all. . . ."
Jole glanced back over his shoulder, quirked a pensive brow, and followed Yegorov out. Miles just glimpsed the blond lieutenant drape himself across a chair in the antechamber, head back in the relaxed posture of a man anticipating a long wait, before the door slid closed. Jole could be supernaturally courteous at times.
"Elena." With an effort, Count Vorkosigan broke away from Miles to take both Elena's hands in a firm brief grip. "You are well?"
"Yes, sir."
"That pleases me . . . more than I can say. Cordelia sends her love and her best hopes. If I saw you, I was to remind you, ah—I must get the phrase exact, it was one of her Betan cracks—'Home is where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.'"
"I can hear her voice," smiled Elena. "Tell her thank you. Tell her … I will remember."
"Good." Count Vorkosigan pressed her no further. "Sit, sit," he waved them at chairs, which he snugged up closed to the comconsole desk, and sat himself. For an instant, changing gears, his features relaxed, then concentrated with attention once again. God, he looks tired, Miles realized; for a split second, almost ghastly. Gregor, you have much to answer for. But Gregor knew that.
"What's the latest word on the cease-fire?" Miles asked.
"Still holding nicely, thank you. The only Cetagandan ships that haven't jumped back where they came from, had damaged Necklin rods or control systems or injured pilots. Or all three. We're letting them repair two of them and jump them out with skeleton crews, the rest are not salvageable. I estimate controlled commercial travel could resume in six weeks."
Miles shook his head. "So ends the Five-Day War. I never once saw a Cetagandan face-to-face. All that effort and bloodshed, just to return to the status quo ante."
"Not quite for everyone. A number of Cetagandan senior officers have been recalled to their capital, to explain their 'unauthorized adventure' to their emperor. Their apologies are expected to be fatal."
Miles snorted. "Expiate their failure, rather. 'Unauthorized adventure.' Does anyone believe that? Why do they even bother?"
"Finesse, boy. A retreating enemy should be offered all the face he can carry off. Just don't let him carry off anything else."
"I understand you finessed the Polians. All this time, I expected it would be Simon Illyan to show up in person to haul us lost boys home."
"He longed to come, but there was no way we could both leave home at the same time. The wobbly cover we'd put over Gregor's absence could have collapsed at any moment."
"How did you pull that one off, by the way?"
"Picked out a young officer who looked a lot like Gregor, told him there was an assassination plot afoot against the Emperor and that he was to be the bait. Bless him, he volunteered at once. He—and his Security, who had the same tale told them—spent the next several weeks leading a life of ease down at Vorkosigan Surleau, eating off the best plates—but with indigestion. We finally sent him off on a rustic camping trip, as inquiries from the capital were getting pressing. People will twig soon, I'm sure, if they haven't already, but now we've got Gregor back we can explain it away any way we like. Any way he likes." Count Vorkosigan frowned an odd brief frown, odd because not wholly displeased.