Chapter Thirteen

Ivan trailed along, as Miles returned to their quarters to change clothes for the last time back into the Dendarii admiral's uniform in which he'd arrived, a lifetime and a half ago.

"I don't think I really want to watch, downstairs," Ivan explained. "Destang's well launched into a bloody reaming. Bet he'll keep Galeni on his feet all night, trying to break him if he can."

"Damn it!" Miles bundled his green Barrayaran jacket into a wad and flung it against the far wall, but it didn't carry enough momentum to begin to vent his frustration. He flopped down on a bed, pulled off a boot, hefted it, then shook his head and dropped it in disgust. "It burns me. Galeni deserves a medal, not a load of grief. Well—if Ser Galen couldn't break him, I don't suppose Destang will either. But it's not right, not right …" He brooded. "And I helped set him up for it, too. Damn, damn, damn …"

Elli handed him his grey uniform without comment. Ivan was not so wise.

"Yeah, nice going, Miles. I'll think of you, safely up in orbit, while Destang's headquarters crew are cleaning house down here. Suspicious as hell—they wouldn't trust their own grandmothers. We're all in for it. Scrubbed, rinsed, and hung out to dry in the cold, cold wind." He wandered over to his own bed and regarded it with longing. "No use turning in; they'll be after me before morning for something." He sat down on it glumly.

Miles looked up at Ivan in sudden speculation. "Huh. Yeah, you are going to be rather in the middle of things for the next few days, aren't you?"

Ivan, alert to the change in his tone, eyed him suspiciously. "Too right. So what?"

Miles shook out his trousers. His half of the secured comm link fell onto the bed. He pulled on his Dendarii greys. "Suppose I remember to turn in my comm link before I leave. And suppose Elli forgets to turn in hers." Miles held up a restraining finger, and Elli stopped fishing in her jacket. "And suppose you stick it in your pocket, meaning to turn it back in to Sergeant Barth as soon as you get the other half." He tossed the comm link to Ivan, who caught it automatically, but then held it away from himself between thumb and forefingers as if it were something he'd found writhing under a rock.

"And suppose I remember what happened to me the last time I helped you sub-rosa?" said Ivan truculently. "That little sleight of hand I pulled to get you back in the embassy the night you tried to burn down London is on my record, now. Destang's bird-dogs will have spasms as soon as they turn that up, in light of the present circumstances. Suppose I stick it up your—" his eyes fell on Elli, "ear, instead?"

Miles thrust his head and arms up through his black T-shirt and pulled it down, grinning slightly. He began stuffing his feet into his Dendarii-issue combat boots. "It's only a precaution. May never use it. Just in case I need a private line into the embassy in an emergency."

"I cannot imagine," said Ivan primly, "any emergency that a loyal junior officer can't confide to his very own sector security commander." His voice grew stern. "Neither would Destang. Just what are you hatching in the back of your twisty little mind, Coz?"

Miles sealed his boots and paused seriously. "I'm not sure. But I may yet see a chance to save . . . something, from this mess."

Elli, listening intently, remarked, "I thought we had saved something. We uncovered a traitor, plugged a security leak, foiled a kidnapping, and broke up a major plot against the Barrayaran Imperium. And we got paid. What more do you want for one week?"

"Well, it would have been nice if any of that had been on purpose, instead of by accident," Miles mused.

Ivan and Elli looked at each other across the top of Miles's head, their faces beginning to mirror a similar unease. "What more do you want to save, Miles?" Ivan echoed.

Miles's frown, directed to his boots, deepened. "Something. A future. A second chance. A … possibility."

"It's the clone, isn't it?" said Ivan, His mouth hardening, "You've gone and let yourself get obsessed with that goddamn clone."

"Flesh of my flesh, Ivan." Miles turned his hands over, staring at them. "On some planets, he would be called my brother. On others he might even be called my son, depending on the laws regarding cloning."

"One cell! On Barrayar," said Ivan, "they call it your enemy when it's shooting at you. You having a little short-term memory trouble? Those people just tried to kill you! This—yesterday morning!"

Miles smiled briefly up at Ivan without replying.

"You know," Elli said cautiously, "if you decided you really wanted a clone, you could have one made. Without the, ah, problems of the present one. You have trillions of cells …"

"I don't want a clone," said Miles, I want a brother. "But I seem to have been . . . issued this one."

"I thought Ser Galen bought and paid for him," complained Elli. "The only thing that Komarran meant to issue you was death. By Jackson's Whole law, the planet of his origin, the clone clearly belongs to Galen."

Jockey of Norfolk, be not bold, the old quote whispered through Miles's memory, for Dickon thy master is bought and sold. . . . "Even on Barrayar," he said mildly, "no human being can own another. Galen descended far, in pursuit of his … principle of liberty."

"In any case," said Ivan, "you're out of the picture now. High command has taken over. I heard your marching orders."

"Did you also hear Destang say he meant to kill my—the clone, if he can?"

"Yeah, so?" Ivan was looking mulish indeed, an almost panicked stubbornness. "I didn't like him anyway. Surly little sneak."

"Destang has mastered the art of the final report too," said Miles. "Even if I went AWOL right now, it would be physically impossible for me to get back to Barrayar, beg the clone's life from my father, have him lean on Simon Illyan for a countermand, and get the order back here to Earth before the deed was done."

Ivan looked shocked. "Miles—I always figured to be embarrassed to ask Uncle Aral for a career favor, but I thought you'd let yourself be peeled and boiled before you'd cry to your Dad for anything! And you want to start by hopscotching a commodore? No C.O. in the service would want you after that!"

"I would rather die," agreed Miles tonelessly, "but I can't ask another to die for me. But it's irrelevant. It couldn't succeed."

"Thank God." Ivan stared at him, thoroughly unsettled.

If I cannot convince two of my best friends I'm right, thought Miles, maybe I'm wrong.

Or maybe I have to do this one alone.

"I just want to keep a line open, Ivan," he said. "I'm not asking you to do anything—"

"Yet," came Ivan's glum interpolation.

"I'd give the comm link to Captain Galeni, but he will certainly be closely watched. They'd just take it away from him, and it would look . . . ambiguous."

"So on me it looks good?" asked Ivan plaintively.

"Do it." Miles finished fastening his jacket, stood, and held out his hand to Ivan for the return of the comm link. "Or don't."

"Argh." Ivan broke off his gaze, and shoved the comm link disconsolately into his trouser pocket. "I'll think about it."

Miles tilted his head in thanks.

They caught a Dendarii shuttle just about to lift from the London shuttleport, returning personnel from leave. Actually, Elli called ahead and had it held for them; Miles rather relished the sensation of not having to rush for it, and might have outright sauntered if the pressures of Admiral Naismith's duties, now boiling up in his head, hadn't automatically quickened his steps.

Their delay was another's gain. A last duffle-swinging Dendarii sprinted across the tarmac as the engines revved, and just made it up the retracting ramp. The alert guard at the door put up his weapon as he recognized the sprinter, and gave him a hand in as the shuttle began to roll.