The Warrior`s Apprentice

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Miles reclined on a liquid-filled settee in the refinery's darkside observation chamber, hands behind his head, and stared into the depths of a space no longer empty. The Dendarii fleet glittered and winked, riding at station in the vacuum, a constellation of ships and men.

In his bedroom at the summer place at Vorkosigan Surleau, he had owned a mobile of space warships, classic Barrayaran military craft held in their carefully balanced arrangement by nearly invisible threads of great tensile strength. Invisible threads. He pursed his lips, and blew a puff of breath toward the crystalline windows as if he might set the Dendarii ships circling and dancing.

Nineteen ships of war and over 3000 troops and techs. "Mine," he said experimentally. "All mine." The phrase did not produce a suitable feeling of triumph. He felt more like a target.

In the first place, it was not true. The actual ownership of those millions of Betan dollars worth of capital equipment out there was a matter of amazing complexity. It had taken four solid days of negotiations to work out the "details" he had so casually waved his hand over in the docking bay. There were eight independent captain-owners, in addition to Oser's personal possession of eight ships. Almost all had creditors. At least ten percent of "his" fleet turned out to be owned by the First Bank of Jackson's Whole, famous for its numbered accounts and discreet services; for all Miles knew, he was now contributing to the support of gambling rackets, industrial espionage, and the white slave trade from one end of the wormhole nexus to the other. It seemed he was not so much the possessor of the Dendarii mercenaries as he was their chief employee.

The ownership of the Ariel and the Triumph was made particularly complex by Miles's capture of them in battle. Tung had owned his ship outright, but Auson had been deeply in debt to yet another Jackson's Whole lending institution for the Ariel. Oser, when still working for the Pelians, had stopped payments after its capture, and left the, what was it called?—Luigi Bharaputra and Sons Household Finance and Holding Company of Jackson's Whole Private Limited—to collect on its insurance, if any. Captain Auson had turned pale upon learning that an inquiry agent from said company would be arriving soon to investigate.

The inventory alone was enough to boggle Miles's mind, and when it came to the assorted personnel contracts—his stomach would hurt if it still could. Before Oser had arrived, the Dendarii had been due for a tidy profit from the Felician contract. Now the profit for 200 must be spread to support 3000.

Or more than 3000. The Dendarii kept ballooning. Another free ship had arrived through the wormhole just yesterday, having heard of them through God-knew-what rumor mill, and excited would-be recruits from Felice managed to turn up with each new ship from the planet. The metals refinery was operating as a refinery again, as control of local space fell into the hands of the Felicians; their forces were even now gobbling up Pelian installations all over the system.

There was talk of re-hiring to Felice, to blockade the wormhole in turn for the former underdogs. The phrase, "Quit while you're winning," popped unbidden into Miles's mind whenever this subject came up; the proposal secretly appalled him. He itched to be gone from here before the whole house of cards collapsed. He should be keeping reality and fantasy separate in his own mind at least, even while mixing them as much as possible in others.

Voices whispered from the catwalk, reflected to his ear by some accident of acoustics. Elena's alto captured his attention.

"You don't have to ask him. We're not on Barrayar, we're never going back to Barrayar—"

"But it will be like having a little piece of Barrayar to take with us," Baz's voice, gentle and amused as Miles had never heard it, followed. "A breath of home in airless places. God knows I can't give you much of that 'right and proper' your father wanted for you, but all the pittance I can command shall be yours."

"Mm." Her response was unenthusiastic, almost hostile. All references to Bothari seemed to fall on her like hammer blows to dead flesh these days, a muffled thud that sickened Miles but brought no response from Elena herself.

They emerged from the catwalk, Baz close behind her. He smiled at his leige-lord in shy triumph. Elena smiled too, but not with her eyes.

"Deep meditation?" she inquired lightly. "It looks more like staring out the window and biting your nails to me."

He struggled upright, causing the settee to slither under him, and responded in kind. "Oh, I just told the guard that to keep the tourists out. I actually came up here for a nap."

Baz grinned at Miles. "My lord. I understand, in the absence of other relations, that Elena's legal guardianship has fallen to you."

"Why—so it has. I haven't had much time to think about it, to tell you the truth." Miles stirred uneasily at this turn in the conversation, not quite sure just what was coming.

"Right. Then as her leige-lord and guardian, I formally request her hand in marriage. Not to mention the rest of her." His silly smile made Miles long to kick him in the teeth. "Oh, and as my leige-commander, I request your permission to marry, uh, 'that my sons may serve you, lord.' " Baz's abbreviated version of the formula was only slightly scrambled.

You're not going to have any sons, because I'm going to chop your balls off, you lamb-stealing, double-crossing, traitorous—he got control of himself before his emotion showed as more than a drawn, lipless grin. "I see. There—there are some difficulties." He marshalled logical argument like a shield-wall, protecting his craven, naked rage from the sting of those two honest pairs of brown eyes.

"Elena is quite young, of course—" he abandoned that line at the ire that lit her eye, as her lips formed the soundless word, You—!

"More to the point, I gave my own word to Sergeant Bothari to perform three services for him in the event of his death. To bury him on Barrayar, to see Elena betrothed with all correct ceremony, and, ah—to see her married to a suitable officer of the Barrayaran Imperial Service. Would you see me forsworn?"

Baz looked as stunned as if Miles had kicked him. His mouth opened, closed, opened again. "But—aren't I your liege-sworn Armsman? That's certainly the equal of an Imperial officer—hell, the Sergeant was an Armsman himself! Has—has my service been unsatisfactory? Tell me how I have failed you, my lord, that I may correct it!" His astonishment turned to genuine distress.

"You haven't failed me," Miles's conscience jerked the words from his mouth. "Uh . . . But of course, you've only served me for four months, now. Really a very short time, although I know it seems much longer, so much has happened .. ." Miles floundered, feeling more than crippled; legless. Elena's furious glower had chopped him off at the knees. How much shorter could he afford to get in her eyes? He trailed off weakly. "This is all very sudden …"

Elena's voice dropped to a gravelled register of rage. "How dare you—" her voice burst in her indrawn breath like a wave, formed again, "What do you owe—what can anybody owe that?" she asked, referring. Miles realized, to the Sergeant. "I was not his chattel and I am not yours, either. Dog in the manger—"

Baz's hand closed anxiously on her arm, stemming the breakers crashing across Miles. "Elena—maybe this isn't the best time to bring it up. Maybe later would be better." He glanced at Miles's stony face, and winced, confusion in his eyes.

"Baz, you're not going to take this seriously—"

"Come away. We'll talk about it."

She forced her voice back to its normal timbre. "I'll meet you at the bottom of the catwalk. In a minute."

Miles nodded a dismissal to Baz for emphasis.

"Well…" the engineer left, walking slowly, and looking back over his shoulder in worry.

They waited, by unspoken agreement, until the soft sound of his steps had gone. When she turned, the anger in her eyes had been displaced by pleading.

"Don't you see, Miles? This is my chance to walk away from it all. Start new, fresh and clean, somewhere else. As far away as possible."

He shook his head. He'd have fallen to his knees if he'd thought it would do any good. "How can I give you up? You're the mountains and the lake, the memories—you have them all. When you're with me, I'm at home, wherever I am."

"If Barrayar was my right arm, I'd take a plasma arc and burn it off. Your father and mother knew what he was all the time, and yet they sheltered him. What are they, then?"

"The Sergeant was doing all right—doing well, even, until … You were to be his expiation, don't you see it-"

"What, a sacrifice for his sins? Am I to form myself into the pattern of a perfect Barrayaran maiden like trying to work a magic spell for absolution? I could spend my whole life working out that ritual and not come to the end of it, damn it!"

"Not the sacrifice," he tried to tell her. "The altar, perhaps."

"Bah!" She began to pace, leopardess on a short chain. Her emotional wounds seemed to work themselves open and bleed before his eyes. He ached to staunch them.

"Don't you see," he launched himself again, passionate with conviction, "you'd do better with me. Acting or reacting, we carry him in us. You can't walk away from him any more than I can. Whether you travel toward or away, he'll be the compass. He'll be the glass, full of subtle colors and astigmatisms, through which all new things will be viewed. I too have a father who haunts me, and I know."

She was shaken, and shaking. "You make me," she stated, "feel quite ill."

As she stalked away, Ivan Vorpatril emerged from the catwalk. "Ah, there you are, Miles."

Ivan circled warily around Elena as they passed, his hands moving in an unconscious protective gesture toward his crotch. One corner of Elena's mouth turned venomously upward, and she tilted her head in a polite nod. He acknowledged the greeting with a fixed and nervous smile. So much, thought Miles sadly, for his chivalrous plans to protect Elena from Ivan's unwanted attentions.

Ivan settled himself beside Miles with a sigh. "Have you heard anything from Captain Dimir yet?"

"Not a thing. Are you sure they were coming to Tau Verde, and not suddenly ordered somewhere else? I don't see how a fast courier could be two weeks late."

"Oh, God," said Ivan, "do you think that's possible? I'm going to be in so much trouble—"

"I don't know." Miles tried to assuage his alarm. "Your original orders were to find me, and so far you're the only one who seems to have succeeded in carrying them out. Mention that, when you ask Father to get you off the hook."

"Ha," muttered his cousin. "What's the use of living with a system of inherited power if you can't have a little nepotism now and then? Miles, your father doesn't do favors for anybody." He gazed out at the Dendarii fleet, and added elliptically, "That's impressive, y'know?"

Miles was insensibly cheered. "Do you really think so?" He added facetiously, "Do you want to join? It seems to be the hot new fashion around here."

Ivan chuckled. "No, thanks. I have no desire to diet for the Emperor. Vorloupulous's law, y'know."

Miles's smile died on his lips. Ivan's chuckle drained away like something going down the sink. They stared at each other in stunned silence.

"Oh, shit …" said Miles at last. "I forgot about Vorloupulous's law. It never even crossed my mind."

"Surely nobody could interpret this as raising a private army," Ivan reassured him feebly. "Not proper livery and maintenance. I mean, they're not liege-sworn to you or anything—are they?"

"Only Baz and Arde," said Miles. "I don't know how Barrayaran law would interpret a mercenary contract. They're not for life, after all—unless you happen to be killed …"

"Who is that Baz fellow, anyway?" asked Ivan. "He seems to be your right-hand man."

"I couldn't have done this without him. He was an Imperial Service engineer, before he—" Miles choked himself off, "quit." Miles tried to guess what the laws might be about harboring deserters. He hadn't, after all, originally intended to be caught doing so. Upon reflection, his nebulous plan for returning home with Baz and begging his father to arrange some sort of pardon began to feel more and more like a man falling from an aircraft making plans to land on that soft fluffy cloud rushing up below him. What looked solid at a distance might well turn to fog at closer range.

Miles glanced at Ivan. Then he gazed at Ivan. Then he stared at Ivan. Ivan blinked back in innocent inquiry. There was something about that cheerful, frank face that made Miles hideously uneasy.

"You know," Miles said at last, "the more I think about your being here, the weirder it seems."

"Don't you believe it," said Ivan. "I had to work for my passage. That old bird was the most insatiable—"

"I don't mean your getting here—I mean your being sent in the first place. Since when do they pull first-year cadets out of class and send them on Security missions?"

"I don't know. I assumed they wanted somebody who could identify the body or something."

"Yes, but they've got almost enough medical data on me to build a new one. That idea only makes sense if you don't think about it too hard."

"Look, when a General Staff Admiral calls a cadet in the middle of the night and says go, you go. You don't stop to debate with him. He wouldn't appreciate it."

"Well—what did your recorded orders say?"

"Come to think or it, I never saw my recorded orders. I assumed Admiral Hessman must have given them to Captain Dimir personally."

Miles decided his uneasiness stemmed from the number of times the phrase "I assumed" was turning up in this conversation. There was something else—he almost had it … "Hessman? Hessman gave you your orders?"

"In person," Ivan said proudly.

"Hessman doesn't have anything to do with either Intelligence or Security. He's in charge of Procurement. Ivan, this is getting screwier and screwier."

"An Admiral is an Admiral."

"This Admiral is on my father's shit list, though. For one thing, he's Count Vordrozda's pipeline to Imperial Service Headquarters, and Father hates his officers getting involved in party politics. Father also suspects him of peculating Service funds, some kind of sleight-of-hand in shipbuilding contracts. At the time I left home, he was itchy enough to put Captain Illyan on it personally, and you know he wouldn't waste Illyan's talents on anything minor."

"All that's way over my head. I've got enough problems with navigational math."

"It shouldn't be over your head. Oh, as a cadet, sure—but you're also Lord Vorpatril. If anything happened to me, you'd inherit the Countship of our district from my father."

"God forbid," said Ivan. "I want to be an officer, and travel around, and pick up girls. Not chase around through those mountains trying to collect taxes from homicidal illiterates and keep chicken-stealing cases from turning into minor guerilla wars. No insult intended, but your district is the most intractable on Barrayar. Miles, there are people back behind Dendarii Gorge who live in caves." Ivan shuddered. "And they like it."

"There are some great caves back there," Miles agreed. "Gorgeous colors when you get the right light on the rock formations." Homesick remembrance twinged through him.

"Well, if I ever inherit a Countship, I'm praying it will be of a city," Ivan concluded.

"You're not in line for any I can think of," grinned Miles. He tried to recapture the thread of their conversation, but Ivan's remarks made lines of inheritance map themselves in his head. He traced his own descent through his Grandmother Vorkosigan to Prince Xav to Emperor Dorca Vorbarra himself. Had the great Emperor ever foreseen what a turn his law, that finally broke the private armies and the private wars of the Counts forever, would give his great-great-grandson?

"Who's your heir, Ivan?" Miles asked idly, staring out at the Dendarii ships, but dreaming of the Dendarii Mountains. "Lord Vortaine, isn't it?"

"Yeah, but I expect to outlive the old boy any minute. His health wasn't too good, last I heard. Too bad this inheritance thing doesn't work backwards, I'd be in for a bundle."

"Who does get his bundle?"

"His daughter, I guess. His titles go to—let me think—Count Vordrozda, who doesn't even need 'em. From what I've heard of Vordrozda, he'd rather have the money. Don't know if he'd go as far as marrying the daughter to get it, though, she's about fifty years old."

They both gazed into space.

"God," said Ivan after a while, "I hope those orders Dimir got when I ducked out weren't to go home or something. They'll think I've been AWOL for three weeks—there won't be enough room on my record for all the demerits. Thank God they've eliminated the old-style discipline parades."

"You were there when Dimir got his orders? And you didn't stick around to see what they were?" asked Miles, astonished.

"It was like pulling teeth to get that pass out of him. I didn't want to risk it. There was this girl, you see—I wish now I'd taken my beeper."

"You left your comm link?"

"There was this girl—I really did almost really forget it. But he was opening the stuff by then, and I didn't want to go back in and get nabbed."

Miles shook his head hopelessly. "Can you remember anything unusual about the orders? Anything out of the ordinary?"

"Oh, sure. It was the damndest packet. In the first place, it was delivered by an Imperial Household courier in full livery. Lessee, four data discs, one green for Intelligence, two red for Security, one blue for Operations. And the parchment, of course."

Ivan had the family memory, at least. What would it be like to have a mind that retained nearly everything, but never bothered to put it any kind of order? Exactly like living in Ivan's room, Miles decided. "Parchment? " he said. "Parchment?"

"Yeah, I thought that was kind of unusual."

"Do you have any idea how bloody—" he surged up, sat back down, squeezed his temples with the heels of his hands in an effort to get his brain into motion. Not only was Ivan an idiot, but he generated a telepathic damping field that turned people nearby into idiots too. He would point this out to Barrayaran Intelligence, who would make of his cousin the newest weapon in their arsenal—if anyone could be found who could remember what they were doing once they closed on him … "Ivan, there are only three kinds of thing written on parchment any more. Imperial edicts, the originals of the official edicts from the Council of Counts and from the Council of Ministers, and certain orders from the Council of Counts to their own members."

"I know that."

"As my father's heir, I am a cadet member of that Council."

"You have my sympathy," said Ivan, his gaze wandering back to the window. "Which of those ships out there is the fastest, d'you think, the Illyrican cruiser or the—"

"Ivan, I'm psychic," Miles announced suddenly. "I'm so psychic, I can tell what color the ribbon was on that parchment without even seeing it."

"I know what color it was," said Ivan irritably. "It was—"

"Black," Miles cut across him. "Black, you idiot! And you never thought to mention it!"

"Look, I have to take that stuff from my mother and your father, I don't have to take it from you, too—" Ivan paused. "How did you know?"

"I know the color because I know the contents." Miles rose to pace uncontrollably back and forth. "You know them too, or you would if you ever stopped to think. I've got a joke for you. What's white, taken from the back of a sheep, tied up with black bows, shipped thousands of light years, and lost?"

"If that's your idea of a joke, you're weirder than—"

"Death." Miles's voice fell to a whisper, making Ivan jump. "Treason. Civil war. Betrayal, sabotage, almost certainly murder. Evil …"

"You haven't had any more of that sedative you're allergic to, have you?" asked Ivan anxiously.

Miles's pacing was becoming frenetic. The urge to pick Ivan up and shake him, in the hope that all that information floating randomly around inside his head would start to polymerize into some chain of reason, was almost overwhelming.

"If Dimir's courier ship's Necklin rods were sabotaged during the stopover at Beta Colony, it would be weeks before the ship was missed. For all the Barrayaran embassy would know, it left on its mission, made the jump—no way for Beta Colony to know if it came out the other side or not. What a thorough way to get rid of the evidence." Miles imagined the dismay and terror of the men aboard as the jump began to go wrong, as their bodies began to run and smear like watercolors in the rain—he forced his mind back to abstract reason.

"I don't understand. Where d'you think Dimir is?" asked Ivan.

"Dead. Quite thoroughly dead. You were meant to be quite thoroughly dead too, but you missed the boat." A high, wheezing laugh escaped Miles. He took hold of himself, literally, wrapping his arms around his torso. "I guess they figured if they were going to all that trouble to get rid of that parchment, they'd throw you in at the same time. There's a certain economy in the plot—you might expect it from a mind that ended up in Procurement."

"Back up," demanded Ivan. "What do you figure the parchment was, anyway—and who the devil are 'they'? You're beginning to sound as paranoid as old Bothari."

"The black ribbon. It had to have been a capital charge. An Imperial order for my arrest on a capital charge laid in the Council of Counts. The charge? You said it yourself. Violation of Vorloupulous's law. Treason, Ivan! Now ask yourself—who would benefit by my conviction for treason?"

"Nobody," said Ivan promptly.

"All right," Miles rolled his eyes upward. "Try it this way. Who would suffer by my conviction for treason?"

"Oh, it would destroy your father, of course. I mean, his office overlooks the Great Square. He could stand at his window and watch you starve to death every working day." An embarrassed laugh escaped Ivan. "It would have to about drive him crazy."

Miles paced. "Take his heir, by execution or exile, break his morale, bring him down and his Centrist coalition with him—or—force him to make the false charges real, attempting my rescue. Then bring him down for treason as well. What a demonic fork!" His intellect admired the plot's abstract perfection, even while rage at its cruelty nearly took his breath away.

Ivan shook his head. "How could anything like that get this far and not be quashed by your father? I mean, he may be famous for impartiality, but there are limits even for him."

"You saw the parchment. If Gregor himself had been worked over into a state of suspicion …" Miles spoke slowly. "A trial clears as well as convicts. If I showed up voluntarily, it would go a long way toward proving I had no treasonable intent. That cuts both ways, of course—if I don't show, it's a strong presumption of guilt. But I could hardly show up if I weren't informed it was taking place, could I?"

"The Council of Counts is such a cantankerous body of old relics," argued Ivan. "Your plotters would be taking an awful chance they could swing the vote their way. Nobody would want to get caught voting for the losing side in something like that. Either way, there'd be blood drawn at the end."

"Maybe they were forced. Maybe my father and Illyan finally moved in on Hessman, and he figured the best defense would be a counterattack."

"So what's in it for Vordrozda? Why doesn't he just throw Hessman to the wolves?"

"Ah," said Miles. "There I'm … I really wonder if I haven't gone a little paro, but—follow this chain. Count Vordrozda, Lord Vortaine, you, me, my father—who is my father heir to?"

'Your grandfather. He's dead, remember? Miles, you can't convince me that Count Vordrozda would knock off five people to inherit the Dendarii Province. He's the Count of Lorimel, for God's sakes! He's a rich man. Dendarii would drain his purse, not fill it."

"Not my grandfather. We're talking about another title altogether. Ivan, there is a large faction of historically-minded people on Barrayar who claim, defensibly, that the salic bar to Imperial inheritance has no foundation in Barrayaran law or custom. Dorca himself inherited through his mother, after all."

"Yes, and your father would like to ship every one of that faction off to, er, summer camp."

"Who is Gregor's heir?"

"Right now, nobody, which is why everybody is on his back to marry and start swiving—"

"If salic descent were allowed, who would be his heir?"

Ivan refused to be stampeded. "Your father. Everybody knows that. Everybody also knows he wouldn't touch the Imperium with a stick, so what? This is pretty wild, Miles."

"Can you think of another theory that will account or the facts?"

"Sure," said Ivan, happily continuing the role of devil's advocate. "Easy. Maybe that parchment was addressed to someone else. Damir took it to him, which is why he hasn't shown up here. Have you ever heard of Occam's Razor, Miles?"

"It sounds simpler, until you start to think about it. Ivan, listen. Think back on the exact circumstances of your midnight departure from the Imperial Academy, and that dawn lift-off. Who signed you out? Who saw you go? Who do you know, for certain, who knows where you are right now? Why didn't my father give you any personal messages for me—or my mother or Captain Illyan either, for that matter?" His voice became insistent. "If Admiral Hessman took you off to some quiet, isolated place right now and offered you a glass of wine with his own hands, would you drink it?"

Ivan was silent for a long, thoughtful time, staring out at the Dendarii Free Mercenary Fleet. When he turned back to Miles, his face was painfully somber. "No."