Lois McMaster Bujold - 05 The Vor Game

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The Vor Game

Lois McMaster Bujold

"Ship duty!" chortled the ensign four ahead of Miles in line. Glee lit his face as his eyes sped down his orders, the plastic

flimsy rattling slightly in his hands. "I'm to be junior weaponry officer on the Imperial Cruiser Commodore Vorhalas. Reporting at

once to Tanery Base Shuttleport for orbital transfer." At a pointed prod he removed himself with an unmilitary skip from the way

of the next man in line, still hissing delight under his breath.

"Ensign Plause." The aging sergeant manning the desk managed to look bored and superior at the same time, holding the next

packet up with deliberation between thumb and forefinger. How long had he been holding down this post at the Imperial Military

Academy? Miles wondered. How many hundreds-thousands-of young officers had passed under his bland eye at this first supreme

moment of their careers? Did they all start to look alike after a few years? The same fresh green uniforms. The same shiny blue

plastic rectangles of shiny new-won rank armoring the high collars. The same hungry eyes, the go-to-hell graduates of the

Imperial Services' most elite school with visions of military destiny dancing in their heads. We don't just march on the future, we

charge it.

Plause stepped aside, touched his thumbprint to the lock-pad, and unzipped his envelope in turn.

"Well?" said Ivan Vorpatril, just ahead of Miles inline. "Don't keep us in suspense."

"Language school," said Plause, still reading.

Plause spoke all four of Barrayar's native languages perfectly already. "As student or instructor?" Miles inquired.

"Student."

"Ah, ha. It'll be galactic languages, then. Intelligence will be wanting you, after. You're bound off-planet for sure," said Miles.

"Not necessarily," said Plause. "They could just sit me in a concrete box somewhere, programming translating computers till I

go blind." But hope gleamed in his eyes.

Miles charitably did not point out the major drawback of Intelligence, the fact that you ended up working for Chief of Imperial

Security Simon Illyan, the man who remembered everything. But perhaps on Plause's level he would not encounter the acerb

Illyan.

"Ensign Lobachik."

Lobachik was the second most painfully earnest man Miles had ever met; Miles was therefore unsurprised when Lobachik

zipped open his envelope and choked, "ImpSec. The advanced course in Security and Counter-assassination."

"Ah, palace guard school," said Ivan with interest, kibbitzing over Lobachik's shoulder.

"That's quite an honor," Miles observed. "Illyan usually pulls his students from the twenty-year men with rows of medals."

"Maybe Emperor Gregor asked Illyan for someone nearer his own age," suggested Ivan, "to brighten the landscape. Those

prune-faced fossils Illyan usually surrounds him with would give me depressive fits. Don't let on you have a sense of humor,

Lubachik, I think it's an automatic disqualification."

Lubachik was in no danger of losing the posting if that were so, Miles reflected.

"Will I really meet the emperor?" Lubachik asked. He turned nervous eyes on Miles and Ivan.

"You'll probably get to watch him eat breakfast every day," said Ivan. "Poor sod." Did he mean Lubachik, or Gregor? Gregor,

definitely.

"You Vorish types know him-what's he like?"

Miles cut in before the glint in Ivan's eye could materialize into some practical joke. "He's very straightforward. You'll get

along fine."

Lubachik moved off, looking faintly reassured, rereading his flimsy.

"Ensign Vorpatril," intoned the sergeant. "Ensign Vorkosigan." Tall Ivan collected his packet and Miles his, and they moved

out of the way with their two comrades.

Ivan unzipped his envelope. "Ha. Imperial HQ in Vorbarr Sultana for me. I am to be, I'll have you know, aide-de-camp to

Commodore Jollif, Operations." He bowed and turned the flimsy over. "Starting tomorrow, in fact."

"Ooh," said the ensign who'd drawn ship duty, still bouncing slightly. "Ivan gets to be a secretary. Just watch out if General

Lamitz asks you to sit on his lap, I hear he-"

Ivan flipped him an amiable rude gesture. "Envy, sheer envy. I'll get to live like a civilian. Work seven to five, have my own

apartment in town-no girls on that ship of yours up there, I might point out." Ivan's voice was even and cheerful, only his eyes

failing to totally conceal his disappointment. Ivan had wanted ship duty too. They all did.

Miles did. Ship duty. Eventually, command, like my father, his father, his, his... A wish, a prayer, a dream... He hesitated for

self-discipline, for fear, for a last lingering moment of high hope. He thumbed the lock pad and unzipped the envelope with

deliberate precision. A single plastic flimsy, a handful of travel passes... His deliberation lasted only for the brief moment it took

him to absorb the short paragraph before his eyes. He stood frozen in disbelief, began reading again from the top.

"So what's up, coz?" Ivan glanced down over Miles's shoulder.

"Ivan," said Miles in a choked voice, "have I got a touch of amnesia, or did we indeed never have a meteorology course on our

sciences track?"

"Five-space math, yes. Xenobotany, yes." Ivan absently scratched a remembered itch. "Geology and terrain evaluation, yes.

Well, there was aviation weather, back in our first year."

"Yes, but..."

"So what have they done to you this time?" asked Plause, clearly prepared to offer congratulations or sympathy as indicated.

"I'm assigned as Chief Meteorology Officer, Lazkowski Base. Where the hell is Lazkowski Base? I've never even heard of it!"

The sergeant at the desk looked up with a sudden evil grin. "I have, sir," he offered. "It's on a place called Kyril Island, up near

the arctic circle. Winter training base for infantry. The grubs call it Camp Permafrost."

"Infantry?" said Miles.

Ivan's brows rose, and he frowned down at Miles. "Infantry? You? That doesn't seem right."

"No, it doesn't," said Miles faintly. Cold consciousness of his physical handicaps washed over him.

Years of arcane medical tortures had almost managed to correct the severe deformities from which Miles had nearly died at

birth. Almost. Curled like a frog in infancy, he now stood almost straight. Chalk-stick bones, friable as talc, now were almost

strong. Wizened as an infant homunculus, he now stood almost four-foot-nine. It had been a trade-off toward the end, between the

length of his bones and their strength, and his doctor still opined that the last six inches of height had been a mistake. Miles had

finally broken his legs enough times to agree with him, but by then it was too late. But not a mutant, not... it scarcely mattered any

more. If only they would let him place his strengths in the Emperor's service, he would make them forget his weaknesses. The

deal was understood.

There had to be a thousand jobs in the Service to which his strange appearance and hidden fragility would make not one whit

of difference. Like aide-de-camp, or Intelligence translator. Or even a ship's weaponry officer, monitoring his computers. It had

been understood, surely it had been understood. But infantry? Someone was not playing fair. Or a mistake had been made. That

wouldn't be a first. He hesitated a long moment, his fist tightening on the flimsy, then headed toward the door. "Where are you

going?" asked Ivan. "To see Major Cecil."

Ivan exhaled through pursed lips. "Oh? Good luck." Did the desk sergeant hide a small smile, bending his head to sort through

the next stack of packets? "Ensign Draut," he called. The line moved up one more.

Major Cecil was leaning with one hip on his clerk's desk, consulting about something on the vid, as Miles entered his office

and saluted.

Major Cecil glanced up at Miles and then at his chrono. "Ah, less than ten minutes. I win the bet." The major returned Miles's

salute as the clerk, smiling sourly, pulled a small wad of currency from his pocket, peeled off a one-mark note, and handed it

across wordlessly to his superior. The major's face was only amused on the surface; he nodded toward the door, and the clerk tore

off the plastic flimsy his machine had just produced and exited the room.

Major Cecil was a man of about fifty, lean, even-tempered, watchful. Very watchful. Though he was not the titular head of

Personnel, that administrative job belonging to a higher-ranking officer, Miles had spotted Cecil long ago as the final-decision

man. Through Cecil's hands passed at the last every assignment for every Academy graduate. Miles had always found him an

accessible man, the teacher and scholar in him ascendant over the officer. His wit was dry and rare, his dedication to his duty

intense. Miles had always trusted him. Till now.

"Sir," he began. He held out his orders in a frustrated gesture. "What is this?"

Cecil's eyes were still bright with his private amusement as he pocketed the mark-note. "Are you asking me to read them to

you, Vorkosigan?"

"Sir, I question-" Miles stopped, bit his tongue, began again. "I have a few questions about my assignment."

"Meteorology Officer, Lazkowski Base," Major Cecil recited.

"It's... not a mistake, then? I got the right packet?"

"If that's what that says, you did."

"Are... you aware the only meteorology course I had was aviation weather?"

"I am." The major wasn't giving away a thing.

Miles paused. Cecil's sending his clerk out was a clear signal that this discussion was to be frank. "Is this some kind of

punishment?" What have I ever done to you?

"Why, Ensign," Cecil's voice was smooth, "it's a perfectly normal assignment. Were you expecting an extraordinary one? My

job is to match personnel requests with available candidates. Every request must be filled by someone."

"Any tech school grad could have filled this one." With an effort, Miles kept the snarl out of his voice, uncurled his fingers.

"Better. It doesn't require an Academy cadet."

"That's right," agreed the major.

"Why, then?" Miles burst out. His voice came out louder than he'd meant it to.

Cecil sighed, straightened. "Because I have noticed, Vorkosigan, watching you-and you know very well you were the most

closely-watched cadet ever to pass through these halls barring Emperor Gregor himself-"

Miles nodded shortly.

"That despite your demonstrated brilliance in some areas, you have also demonstrated some chronic weaknesses. And I'm not

referring to your physical problems, which everybody but me thought were going to take you out before your first year was up-

you've been surprisingly sensible about those-"

Miles shrugged. "Pain hurts, sir. I don't court it."

"Very good. But your most insidious chronic problem is in the area of... how shall I put this precisely... subordination. You

argue too much."

"No, I don't," Miles began indignantly, then shut his mouth.

Cecil flashed a grin. "Quite. Plus your rather irritating habit of treating your superior officers as your, ah..." Cecil paused,

apparently groping again for just the right word.

"Equals?" Miles hazarded.

"Cattle," Cecil corrected judiciously. "To be driven to your will. You're a manipulator par excellence, Vorkosigan. I've been

studying you for three years now, and your group dynamics are fascinating. Whether you were in charge or not, somehow it was

always your idea that ended up getting carried out."

"Have I been... that disrespectful, sir?" Miles's stomach felt cold.

"On the contrary. Given your background, the marvel is that you conceal that, ah, little arrogant streak so well. But

Vorkosigan," Cecil dropped at last into perfect seriousness, "the Imperial Academy is not the whole of the Imperial Service.

You've made your comrades here appreciate you because here, brains are held at a premium. You were picked first for any

strategic team for the same reason you were picked last for any purely physical contest-these young hotshots wanted to win. All

the time. Whatever it took."

"I can't be ordinary and survive, sir!"

Cecil tilted his head. "I agree. And yet, sometime, you must also learn how to command ordinary men. And be commanded by

them!

"This isn't a punishment, Vorkosigan, and it isn't my idea of a joke. Upon my choices may depend not only our fledgling

officers' lives, but also those of the innocents I inflict 'em on. If I seriously miscalculate, overmatch or mismatch a man with a job,

I not only risk him, but also those around him. Now, in six months (plus unscheduled overruns), the Imperial Orbital Shipyard is

going to finish commissioning the Prince Serg."

Miles's breath caught.

"You've got it," Cecil nodded. "The newest, fastest, deadliest thing His Imperial Majesty has ever put into space. And with the

longest range. It will go out, and stay out, for longer periods than anything we've ever had before. It follows that everyone on

board will be in each other's hair for longer unbroken periods than ever before. High Command is actually paying some attention

to the psych profiles on this one. For a change.

"Listen, now," Cecil leaned forward. So did Miles, reflexively. "If you can keep your nose clean for just six months on an

isolated downside post-bluntly, if you prove you can handle Camp Permafrost, I'll allow as how you can handle anything the

Service might throw at you. And I'll support your request for a transfer to the Prince. But if you screw up, there will be nothing I

or anybody else can do for you. Sink or swim, Ensign."

Fly, thought Miles. 7 want to fly. "Sir... just how much of a pit is this place?"

"I wouldn't want to prejudice you, Ensign Vorkosigan," said Cecil piously.

And I love you too, sir. "But... infantry? My physical limits... won't prevent my serving if they're taken into account, but I can't

pretend they're not there. Or I might as well jump off a wall, destroy myself immediately, and save everybody time." Dammit,

why did they let me occupy some of Barrayar's most expensive classroom space for three years if they meant to kill me outright?

"I'd always assumed they were going to be taken into account."

"Meteorology Officer is a technical speciality, Ensign," the major reassured him. "Nobody's going to try and drop a full field

pack on you and smash you flat. I doubt there's an officer in the Service who would choose to explain your dead body to the

Admiral." His voice cooled slightly. "Your saving grace. Mutant."

Cecil was without prejudice, merely testing. Always testing. Miles ducked his head. "As I may be, for the mutants who come

after me."

"You've figured that out, have you?" Cecil's eye was suddenly speculative, faintly approving.

"Years ago, sir."

"Hm." Cecil smiled slightly, pushed himself off the desk, came forward and extended his hand. "Good luck, then. Lord

Vorkosigan."

Miles shook it. "Thank you, sir." He shuffled through the stack of travel passes, ordering them.

"What's your first stop?" asked Cecil.

Testing again. Must be a bloody reflex. Miles answered unexpectedly. "The Academy archives."

"Ah!"

"For a downloading of the Service meteorology manual. And supplementary material."

"Very good. By the way, your predecessor in the post will be staying on a few weeks to complete your orientation."

"I'm extremely glad to hear that, sir," said Miles sincerely. "We're not trying to make it impossible, Ensign." Merely very

difficult. "I'm glad to know that too, Sir." Miles's parting salute was almost subordinate.

Miles rode the last leg to Kyril Island in a big automated air-freight shuttle with a bored backup pilot and eighty tons of

supplies. He spent most of the solitary journey frantically swotting up on weather. Since the flight schedule went rapidly awry due

to hours-long delays at the last two loading stops, he found himself reassuringly further along in his studies than he'd expected by

the time the air-shuttle rumbled to a halt at Lazkowski Base.

The cargo bay doors opened to let in watery light from a sun skulking along near the horizon. The high-summer breeze was

about five degrees above freezing. The first soldiers Miles saw were a crew of black-coveralled men with loaders under the

direction of a tired-looking corporal, who met the shuttle. No one appeared to be specially detailed to meet a new weather officer.

Miles shrugged on his parka and approached them.

A couple of the black-clad men, watching him as he hopped down from the ramp, made remarks to each other in Barrayaran

Greek, a minority dialect of Earth origin, thoroughly debased in the centuries of the Time of Isolation. Miles, weary from his

journey and cued by the all-too-familiar expressions on their faces, made a snap decision to ignore whatever they had to say by

simply pretending not to understand their language. Plause had told him often enough that his accent in Greek was execrable

anyway.

"Look at that, will you? Is it a kid?"

"I knew they were sending us baby officers, but this is a new low."

"Hey, that's no kid. It's a damn dwarf of some sort. The midwife sure missed her stroke on that one. Look at it, it's a mutant!"

With an effort, Miles kept his eyes from turning toward the commentators. Increasingly confident of their privacy, their voices

rose from whispers to ordinary tones.

"So what's it doing in uniform, ha?"

"Maybe it's our new mascot."

The old genetic fears were so subtly ingrained, so pervasive even now, you could get beaten to death by people who didn't

even know quite why they hated you but simply got carried away in the excitement of a group feedback loop. Miles knew very

well he had always been protected by his father's rank, but ugly things could happen to less socially fortunate odd ones. There had

been a ghastly incident in the Old Town section of Vorbarr Sultana just two years ago, a destitute crippled man found castrated

with a broken wine bottle by a gang of drunks. It was considered Progress that it was a scandal, and not simply taken for granted.

A recent infanticide in the Vorkosigan's own district had cut even closer to the bone. Yes, rank, social or military, had its uses.

Miles meant to acquire all he could before he was done.

Miles twitched his parka back so that his officer's collar tabs showed clearly. "Hello, Corporal. I have orders to report in to a

Lieutenant Ahn, the base Meteorology Officer. Where can I find him?"

Miles waited a beat for his proper salute. It was slow in coming, the corporal was still goggling down at him. It dawned on

him at last that Miles might really be an officer.

Belatedly, he saluted. "Excuse me, uh, what did you say, sir?"

Miles returned the salute blandly and repeated himself in level tones.

"Uh, Lieutenant Ahn, right. He usually hides out-that is, he's usually in his office. In the main administration building." The

corporal swung his arm around to point toward a two-story pre-fab sticking up beyond a rank of half-buried warehouses at the

edge of the tarmac, maybe a kilometer off. "You can't miss it, it's the tallest building on the base."

Also, Miles noted, well-marked by the assortment of comm equipment sticking out of the roof. Very good.

Now, should he turn his pack over to these goons and pray that it would follow him to his eventual destination, whatever it

was? Or interrupt their work and commandeer a loader for transport? He had a brief vision of himself stuck up on the prow of the

thing like a sailing ship's figurehead, being trundled toward his meeting with destiny along with half a ton of Underwear, Thermal,

Long, 2 doz per unit crate, Style #6774932. He decided to shoulder his dufHe and walk.

"Thank you, Corporal." He marched off in the indicated direction, too-conscious of his limp and the leg-braces concealed

beneath his trouser legs taking up their share of the extra weight. The distance turned out to be farther than it looked, but he was

careful not to pause or falter till he'd turned out of sight beyond the first warehouse-unit.

The base seemed nearly deserted. Of course. The bulk of its population was the infantry trainees who came and went in two

batches per winter. Only the permanent crew was here now, and Miles bet most of them took their long leaves during this brief

summer breathing space. Miles wheezed to a halt inside the Admin building without having passed another man.

The Directory and Map Display, according to a hand-lettered sign taped across its vid plate, was down. Miles wandered up the

first and only hallway to his right, searching for an occupied office, any occupied office. Most doors were closed, but not locked,

lights out. An office labeled Gen. Accounting held a man in black fatigues with red lieutenant's tabs on the collar, totally absorbed

in his holovid which was displaying long columns of data. He was swearing under his breath.

"Meteorology Office. Where?" Miles called in the door. "Two." The lieutenant pointed upward without turning around,

crouched more tightly, and resumed swearing. Miles tiptoed away without disturbing him further.

He found it at last on the second floor, a closed door labeled in faded letters. He paused outside, set down his duffle, and

folded his parka atop it. He checked himself over. Fourteen hours travel had rumpled his initial crispness. Still, he'd managed to

keep his green undress uniform and half-boots free of foodstains, mud, and other unbecoming accretions. He flattened his cap and

positioned it precisely in his belt. He'd crossed half a planet, half a lifetime, to achieve this moment. Three years training to a fever

pitch of readiness lay behind him. Yet the Academy years had always had a faint air of pretense, We-are-only-practicing; now, at

last, he was face to face with the real thing, his first real commanding officer. First impressions could be vital, especially in his

case. He took a breath and knocked.

A gravelly muffled voice came through the door, words unrecognizable. Invitation? Miles opened it and strode in.

He had a glimpse of computer interfaces and vid displays gleaming and glowing along one wall. He rocked back at the heat

that hit his face. The air within was blood-temperature. Except for the vid displays, the room was dim. At a movement to his left,

Miles turned and saluted. "Ensign Miles Vorkosigan, reporting for duty as ordered, sir," he snapped out, looked up, and saw no

one.

The movement had come from lower down. An unshaven man of about forty dressed only in his skivvies sat on the floor, his

back against the comconsole desk. He smiled up at Miles, raised a bottle half-full of amber liquid, mumbled, "Salu', boy. Love

ya," and fell slowly over.

Miles gazed down on him for a long, long, thoughtful moment. The man began to snore.

After turning down the heat, shedding his tunic, and tossing a blanket over Lieutenant Ahn (for such he was), Miles took a

contemplative half-hour and thoroughly examined his new domain. There was no doubt, he was going to require instruction in the

office's operations. Besides the satellite real-time images, automated data seemed to be coming in from a dozen micro-climate

survey rigs spotted around the island. If procedural manuals had ever existed, they weren't around now, not even on the

computers. After an honorable hesitation, bemusedly studying the snoring, twitching form on the floor, Miles also took the

opportunity to go through Ahn's desk and comconsole files.

Discovery of a few pertinent facts helped put the human spectacle before Miles into a more understandable perspective.

Lieutenant Ahn, it seemed, was a twenty-year man within weeks of retirement. It had been a very, very long time since his last

promotion. It had been an even longer time since his last transfer; he'd been Kyril Island's only weather officer for the last fifteen

years.

This poor sod has been stuck on this iceberg since I was six years old, Miles calculated, and shuddered inwardly. Hard to tell,

at this late date, if Ahn's drinking problem were cause or effect. Well, if he sobered up enough within the next day to show Miles

how to go on, well and good. If he didn't, Miles could think of half a dozen ways, ranging from the cruel to the unusual, to bring

him around whether he wanted to be conscious or not. If Ahn could just be made to disgorge a technical orientation, he could

return to his coma till they came to roll him onto outgoing transport, for all Miles cared.

Ahn's fate decided, Miles donned his tunic, stowed his gear behind the desk, and went exploring. Somewhere in the chain of

command there must be a conscious, sober and sane human being who was actually doing his job, or the place couldn't even

function on this level. Or maybe it was run by corporals, who knew? In that case, Miles supposed, his next task must be to find

and take control of the most effective corporal available.

In the downstairs foyer a human form approached Miles, silhouetted at first against the light from the front doors. Jogging in

precise double time, the shape resolved into a tall, hard-bodied man in sweat pants, T-shirt, and running shoes. He had clearly just

come in off some condition-maintaining five-kilometer run, with maybe a few hundred push-ups thrown in for dessert. Iron-grey

hair, iron-hard eyes; he might have been a particularly dyspeptic drill sergeant. He stopped short to stare down at Miles,

startlement compressing to a thin-lipped frown.

Miles stood with his legs slightly apart, threw back his head, and stared up with equal force. The man seemed totally oblivious

to Miles's collar tabs. Exasperated, Miles snapped, "Are all the keepers on vacation, or is anybody actually running this bloody

zoo?"

The man's eyes sparked, as if their iron had struck flint; they ignited a little warning light in Miles's brain, one mouthy moment

too late. Hi, there, sir! cried the hysterical commenter in the back of Miles's mind, with a skip, bow, and flourish. I'm your newest

exhibit! Miles suppressed the voice ruthlessly. There wasn't a trace of humor in any line of that seamed countenance looming over

him.

With a cold flare of his carved nostril, the Base Commander glared down at Miles and growled, "I run it, Ensign."

Dense fog was rolling in off the distant, muttering sea by the time Miles finally found his way to his new quarters. The

officers' barracks and all around it were plunged into a grey, frost-scummed obscurity. Miles decided it was an omen.

Oh, God, it was going to be a long winter.

Rather to Miles's surprise, when he arrived at Ahn's office next morning at an hour he guessed might represent beginning-of-

shift, he found the lieutenant awake, sober, and in uniform. Not that the man looked precisely well; pasty-faced, breathing

stertoriously, he sat huddled, staring slit-eyed at a computer-colorized weather vid. The holo zoomed and shifted dizzyingly at

signals from the remote controller he clutched in one damp and trembling palm.

"Good morning, sir." Miles softened his voice out of mercy, and closed the door behind himself without slamming it.

"Ha?" Ahn looked up, and returned his salute automatically. "What the devil are you, ah... ensign?"

"I'm your replacement, sir. Didn't anyone tell you I was coming?"

"Oh, yes!" Ahn brightened right up. "Very good, come in." Miles, already in, smiled briefly instead. "I meant to meet you on

the shuttlepad," Ahn went on. "You're early. But you seem to have found your way all right."

"I came in yesterday, sir."

"Oh. You should have reported in."

"I did, sir."

"Oh." Ahn squinted at Miles in worry. "You did?"

"You promised you'd give me a complete technical orientation to the office this morning, sir," Miles added, seizing the

opportunity.

"Oh," Ahn blinked. "Good." The worried look faded slightly. "Well, ah..." Ahn rubbed his face, looking around. He confined

his reaction to Miles's physical appearance to one covert glance, and, perhaps deciding they must have gotten the social duties of

introduction out of the way yesterday, plunged at once into a description of the equipment lining the wall, in order from left to

right.

Literally an introduction, all the computers had women's names. Except for a tendency to talk about his machines as though

they were human, Ahn seemed coherent enough as he detailed his job, only drifting into randomness, then hung-over silence,

when he ac-cidently strayed from the topic. Miles steered him gently back to weather with pertinent questions, and took notes.

After a bewildered brownian trip around the room, Ahn rediscovered his office procedural disks at last, stuck to the undersides of

their respective pieces of equipment. He made fresh coffee on a non-regulation brewer- named "Georgette"-parked discreetly in a

corner cupboard, then took Miles up to the roof of the building to show him the data-collection center there.

Ahn went over the assorted meters, collectors, and samplers rather perfunctorily. His headache seemed to be growing worse

with the morning's exertions. He leaned heavily on the corrosion-proof railing surrounding the automated station and squinted out

at the distant horizon. Miles followed him around dutifully as he appeared to meditate deeply for a few minutes on each of the

cardinal compass points. Or maybe that introspective look just meant he was getting ready to throw up.

It was pale and clear this morning, the sun up-the sun had been up since two hours after midnight, Miles reminded himself.

They were just past the shortest nights of the year for this latitude. From this rare high vantage point, Miles gazed out with interest

at Lazkowski Base and the flat landscape beyond.

Kyril Island was an egg-shaped lump about seventy kilometers wide and 160 kilometers long, and over five hundred

kilometers from the next land of any description. Lumpy and brown described most of it, both base and island. The majority of the

nearby buildings, including Miles's officers' barracks, were dug in, topped with native turf. Nobody had bothered with agricultural

terraforming here. The island retained its original Barrayaran ecology, scarred by use and abuse. Long fat rolls of turf covered the

barracks for the winter infantry trainees, now empty and silent. Muddy water-filled ruts fanned out to deserted marksmanship

ranges, obstacle courses, and pocked live-ammo practice areas.

To the near-south, the leaden sea heaved, muting the sun's best efforts at sparkle. To the far north a grey line marked the

border of the tundra at a chain of dead volcanic mountains.

Miles had taken his own officers' short course in winter maneuvers in the Black Escarpment, mountain country deep in

Barrayar's second continent; plenty of snow, to be sure, and murderous terrain, but the air had been dry and crisp and stimulating.

Even today, at high summer, the sea dampness seemed to creep up under his loose parka and gnaw his bones at every old break.

Miles shrugged against it, without effect.

Ahn, still draped over the railing, glanced sideways at Miles at this movement. "So tell me, ah, ensign, are you any relation to

the Vorkosigan? I wondered, when I saw the name on the orders the other day."

"My father," said Miles shortly.

"Good God." Ahn blinked and straightened, then sagged self-consciously back onto his elbows as before. "Good God," he

repeated. He chewed his lip in fascination, dulled eyes briefly alight with honest curiosity. "What's he really like?"

What an impossible question, Miles thought in exasperation. Admiral Count Aral Vorkosigan. The colossus of Barrayaran

history in this half-century. Conqueror of Komarr, hero of the ghastly retreat from Escobar. For sixteen years Lord Regent of

Barrayar during Emperor Gregor's troubled minority; the Emperor's trusted Prime Minister in the four years since. Destroyer of

Vordarian's Pretendership, engineer of the peculiar victory of the third Cetagandan war, unshaken tiger-rider of Barrayar's

murderous internecine politics for the past two decades. The Vorkosigan.

I have seen him laugh in pure delight, standing on the dock at Vorkosigan Surleau and yelling instructions over the water, the

morning I first sailed, dumped, and righted the skimmer by myself. I have seen him weep till his nose ran, more dead drunk than

you were yesterday, Ahn, the night we got the word Major Duvallier was executed for espionage. I have seen him rage, so brick-

red we feared for his heart, when reports came in fully detailing the stupidities that led to the last riots in Solstice. I have seen him

wandering around Vorkosigan House at dawn in his underwear, yawning and prodding my sleepy mother into helping him find

two matching socks. He's not like anything, Ahn. He's the original.

"He cares about Barrayar," Miles said aloud at last, as the silence grew awkward. "He's... a hard act to follow." And, oh yes,

his only child is a deformed mutant. That, too,

"I should think so." Ahn blew out his breath in sympathy, or maybe it was nausea.

Miles decided he could tolerate Ahn's sympathy. There seemed no hint in it of the damned patronizing pity, nor, interestingly,

of the more common repugnance. It's because I'm his replacement here, Miles decided. I could have two heads and he'd still be

overjoyed to meet me.

"That what you're doing, following in the old man's footsteps?" said Ahn equably. And more dubiously, looking around,

"Here?"

"I'm Vor," said Miles impatiently. "I serve. Or at any rate, I try to. Wherever I'm put. That was the deal."

Ahn shrugged bafflement, whether at Miles or at the vagaries of the Service that had sent him to Kyril Island Miles could not

tell. "Well." He pushed himself up off the rail with a grunt. "No wah-wah warnings today."

"No what warnings?"

Ahn yawned, and tapped an array of figures-pulled out of thin air, as far as Miles could tell-into his report panel representing

hour-by-hour predictions for today's weather. "Wah-wah, Didn't anybody tell you about the wah-wah?"

"No..."

"They should have, first thing. Bloody dangerous, the wah-wah." Miles began to wonder if Ahn was trying to diddle his head.

Practical jokes could be a subtle enough form of victimization to penetrate even the defenses of rank, Miles had found. The honest

hatred of a beating inflicted only physical pain.

Ahn leaned across the railing again to point. "You notice all those ropes, strung from door to door between buildings? That's

for when the wah-wah comes up. You hang onto 'em to keep from being blown away. If you lose your grip, don't fling out your

arms to try and stop yourself. I've seen more guys break their wrists that way. Go into a ball and roll."

"What the hell's a wah-wah? Sir."

"Big wind. Sudden. I've seen it go from dead calm to 160 kilometers, with a temperature drop from ten degrees cee above

freezing to twenty below, in seven minutes. It can last from ten minutes to two days. They almost always blow up from the

northwest, here, when conditions are right. The remote station on the coast gives us about a twenty-minute warning. We blow a

siren. That means you must never let yourself get caught without your cold gear, or less than fifteen minutes away from a bunker.

There's bunkers all around the grubs' practice fields out there." Ahn waved his arm in that direction. He seemed quite serious,

even earnest. "You hear that siren, you run like hell for cover. The size you are, if you ever got picked up and blown into the sea,

they'd never find you again."

"All right," said Miles, silently resolving to check out these alleged facts in the base's weather records at the first opportunity.

He craned his neck for a look at Ahn's report panel. "Where did you read off those numbers from, that you just entered on there?"

Ahn stared at his report panel in surprise. "Well-they're the right figures."

"I wasn't questioning their accuracy," said Miles patiently. "I want to know how you came up with them. So I can do it

tomorrow, while you're still here to correct me."

Ahn waved his free hand in an abortive, frustrated gesture. "Well..."

"You're not just making them up, are you?" said Miles in suspicion.

"No!" said Ahn. "I hadn't thought about it, but... it's the way the day smells, I guess." He inhaled deeply, by way of

demonstration.

Miles wrinkled his nose and sniffed experimentally. Cold, sea salt, shore slime, damp and mildew. Hot circuits in some of the

blinking, twirling array of instruments beside him. The mean temperature, barometric pressure, and humidity of the present

moment, let alone that of eighteen hours into the future, was not to be found in the olfactory information pressing on his nostrils.

He jerked his thumb at the meteorological array. "Does this thing have any sort of a smell-o-meter to duplicate whatever it is

you're doing?"

Ahn looked genuinely nonplussed, as if his internal system, whatever it was, had been dislocated by his sudden self-

consciousness of it. "Sorry, Ensign Vorkosigan. We have the standard computerized projections, of course, but to tell you the

truth I haven't used 'em in years. They're not accurate enough."

Miles stared at Ahn, and came to a horrid realization. Ahn wasn't lying, joking, or making this up. It was the fifteen years

experience, gone subliminal, that was carrying out these subtle functions. A backlog of experience Miles could not duplicate. Nor

would I wish to, he admitted to himself.

Later in the day, while explaining with perfect truth that he was orienting himself to the systems, Miles covertly checked out

all of Ahn's startling assertions in the base meteorological archives. Ahn hadn't been kidding about the wah-wah. Worse, he hadn't

been kidding about the computerized projections. The automated system produced local predictions of 86% accuracy, dropping to

73% at a week's long-range forecast. Ahn and his magical nose ran an accuracy of 96%, dropping to 94% at a week's range. When

Ahn leaves, this island is going to experience an 11 to 21% drop in forecast accuracy. They're going to notice.

Weather Officer, Camp Permafrost, was clearly a more responsible position than Miles had at first realized. The weather here

could be deadly.

And this guy is going to leave me alone on this island with six thousand armed men, and tell me to go sniff for wah-wahs?

On the fifth day, when Miles had just about decided that his first impression had been too harsh, Ahn relapsed. Miles waited

an hour for Ahn and his nose to show up at the weather office to begin the day's duties. At last he pulled the routine readings from

the substandard computerized system, entered them anyway, and went hunting.

He ran Ahn down at last still in his bunk, in his quarters in the officers' barracks, sodden and snoring, stinking of stale... fruit

brandy? Miles shuddered. Shaking, prodding, and yelling in Ahn's ear failed to rouse him. He only burrowed deeper into his

bedclothes and noxious miasma, moaning. Miles regretfully set aside visions of violence, and prepared to carry on by himself.

He'd be on his own soon enough anyway.

He limp-marched off to the motor pool. Yesterday Ahn had taken him on a scheduled maintenance patrol of the five remote-

sensor weather stations nearest the base. The outlying six had been planned for today. Routine travel around Kyril Island was

accomplished in an all-terrain vehicle called a scat-cat, which had turned out to be almost as much fun to drive as an anti-grav

sled. Scat-cats were ground-hugging iridescent teardrops that tore up the tundra, but were guaranteed not to blow away in the

wah-wah winds. Base personnel, Miles had been given to understand, had grown extremely tired of picking lost anti-grav sleds

out of the frigid sea.

The motor pool was another half-buried bunker like most of the rest of Lazkowski Base, only bigger. Miles routed out the

corporal, what's his name, Olney, who'd signed Ahn and himself out the previous day. The tech who assisted him, driving the

scat-cat up from the underground storage to the entrance, also looked faintly familiar. Tall, black fatigues, dark hair-that described

eighty percent of the men on the base-it wasn't until he spoke that his heavy accent cued

Miles. He was one of the sotto voce commenters Miles had overheard on the shuttlepad. Miles schooled himself not to react.

Miles went over the vehicle's supply check-list carefully before signing for it, as Ahn had taught him. All scat-cats were

required to carry a complete cold-survival kit at all times. Corporal Olney watched with faint contempt as Miles fumbled around

finding everything. All right, so I'm slow, Miles thought irritably. New and green. This is the only way I'm gonna get less new and

green. Step by step. He controlled his self-consciousness with an effort. Previous painful experience had taught him it was a most

dangerous frame of mind. Concentrate on the task, not the bloody audience. You've always had an audience. Probably always

will.

Miles spread out the map flimsy across the scat-cat's shell, and pointed out his projected itinerary to the corporal. Such a

briefing was also safety SOP, according to Ahn. Olney grunted acknowledgment with a finely-tuned look of long-suffering

boredom, palpable but just short of something Miles would be forced to notice.

The black-clad tech, Pattas, watching over Miles's uneven shoulder, pursed his lips and spoke. "Oh, Ensign sir."Again, the

emphasis fell just short of irony. "You going up to Station Nine?"

"Yes?"

"You might want to be sure and park your scat-cat, uh, out of the wind, in that hollow just below the station." A thick finger

touched the map flimsy on an area marked in blue. "You'll see it. That way your scat-cat'll be sure of re-starting."

"The power pack in these engines is rated for space," said Miles. "How could it not re-start?"

Olney's eye lit, then went suddenly very neutral. "Yes, but in case of a sudden wah-wah, you wouldn't want it to blow away."

I'd blow away before it would. "I thought these scat-cats were heavy enough not to."

"Well, not away, but they have been known to blow over," murmured Pattas.

"Oh. Well, thank you."

Corporal Olney coughed. Pattas waved cheerfully as Miles drove out.

Miles's chin jerked up in the old nervous tic. He took a deep breath and let his hackles settle, as he turned the scat-cat away

from the base and headed cross-country. He powered up to a more satisfying speed, lashing through the brown bracken-like

growth. He had been what, a year and a half? two years? at the Imperial Academy proving and reproving his competence to every

bloody man he crossed every time he did anything. The third year had perhaps spoiled him, he was out of practice. Was it going to

be like this every time he took up a new post? Probably, he reflected bitterly, and powered up a bit more. But he'd known that

would be part of the game when he'd demanded to play.

The weather was almost warm today, the pale sun almost bright, and Miles almost cheerful by the time he reached Station Six,

on the eastern shore of the island. It was a pleasure to be alone for a change, just him and his job. No audience. Time to take his

time and get it right. He worked carefully, checking power packs, emptying samplers, looking for signs of corrosion, damage, or

loose connections in the equipment. And if he dropped a tool, there was no one about to make comments about spastic mutants.

With the fading tension, he made fewer fumbles, and the tic vanished. He finished, stretched, and inhaled the damp air benignly,

reveling in the unaccustomed luxury of solitude. He even took a few minutes to walk along the shoreline, and notice the

intricacies of the small sea-life washed up there.

One of the samplers in Station Eight was damaged, a humidity-meter shattered. By the time he'd replaced it he realized his

itinerary timetable had been overly optimistic. The sun was slanting down toward green twilight as he left Station Eight. By the

time he reached Station Nine, in an area of mixed tundra and rocky outcrops near the northern shore, it was almost dark.

Station Ten, Miles reconfirmed by checking his map flimsy by pen-light, was up in the volcanic mountains among the glaciers.

Best not try to go hunting it in the dark. He would wait out the brief four hours till dawn. He reported his change-of-plan via

comm-link to the base, 160 kilometers to the south. The man on duty did not sound terribly interested. Good.

With no watchers, Miles happily seized the opportunity to try out all that fascinating gear packed in the back of the scat-cat.

Far better to practice now, when conditions were good, than in the middle of some later blizzard. The little two-man bubble

shelter, when set up, seemed almost palatial for Miles's short and lonely splendor. In winter it was meant to be insulated with

packed snow. He positioned it downwind of the scat-cat, parked in the recommended low spot a few hundred meters from the

weather station, which was perched on a rocky outcrop.

Miles reflected on the relative weight of the shelter versus the scat-cat. A vid that Ahn had shown him of a typical wah-wah

remained vivid in his mind. The portable latrine traveling sideways in the air at a hundred kilometers an hour had been

particularly impressive. Ahn hadn't been able to tell him if there'd been anyone in it at the time the vid was shot. Miles took the

added precaution of attaching the shelter to the scat-cat with a short chain. Satisfied, he crawled inside.

The equipment was first-rate. He hung a heat-tube from the roof and touched it on, and basked in its glow, sitting cross-

legged. Rations were of the better grade. A pull tab heated a compartmentalized tray of stew with vegetables and rice. He mixed

an acceptable fruit drink from the powder supplied. After eating and stowing the remains, he settled on a comfortable pad, shoved

a book-disk into his viewer, and prepared to read away the short night.

He had been rather tense these last few weeks. These last few years. The book-disk, a Betan novel of manners which the

Countess had recommended to him, had nothing whatsoever to do with Barrayar, military maneuvers, mutation, politics, or the

weather. He didn't even notice what time he dozed off.

He woke with a start, blinking in the thick darkness gilded only with the faint copper light from the heat-tube. He felt he had

slept long, yet the transparent sectors of the bubble-shelter were pitchy black. An unreasoning panic clogged his throat. Dammit, it

didn't matter if he overslept, it wasn't like he would be late for an exam, here. He glanced at the glowing readout on his wrist

chrono.

It ought to be broad daylight.

The flexible walls of the shelter were pressing inward. Not one-third of the original volume remained, and the floor was

wrinkled. Miles shoved one finger against the thin cold plastic. It yielded slowly, like soft butter, and retained the dented

impression. What the hell... ?

His head was pounding, his throat constricted; the air was stuffy and wet. It felt just like... like oxygen depletion and CO2

excess in a space emergency. Here? The vertigo of his disorientation seemed to tilt the floor.

The floor was tilted, he realized indignantly, pulled deeply downward on one side, pinching one of his legs. He convulsed

from its grip. Fighting the CO2-induced panic, he lay back, trying to breathe slower and think faster.

I'm underground. Sunk in some kind of quicksand. Quick-mud. Had those two bloody bastards at the motor-pool set him up

for this? He'd fallen for it, fallen right in it.

Slow-mud, maybe. The scat-cat hadn't settled noticeably in the time it had taken him to set up this shelter. Or he would have

twigged to the trap. Of course, it had been dark. But if he'd been settling for hours, asleep...

Relax, he told himself frantically. The tundra surface, the free air, might be a mere ten centimeters overhead. Or ten meters...

relax/He felt about the shelter for something to use as a probe. There'd been a long, telescoping, knife-bitted tube for sampling

glacier ice. Packed in the scat-cat. Along with the comm link. Now located, Miles gauged by the angle of the floor, about two-

and-a-half meters down and to the west of his present location. It was the scat-cat that was dragging him down. The bubble-shelter

alone might well have floated in the tundra-camouflaged mud-pond. If he could detach the chain, might it rise? Not fast enough.

His chest felt stuffed with cotton. He had to break through to air soon, or asphyxiate. Womb, tomb. Would his parents be there to

watch, when he was found at last, when this grave was opened, scat-cat and shelter winched out of the bog by heavy hovercab...

his body frozen rictus-mouthed in this hideous parody of an amniotic sac... relax.

He stood, and shoved upward against the heavy roof. His feet sank in the pulpy floor, but he was able to jerk loose one of the

bubble's interior ribs, now bent in an overstrained curve. He almost passed out from the effort, in the thick air. He found the top

edge of the shelter's opening, and slid his finger down the burr-catch just a few centimeters. Just enough for the pole to pass

through. He'd feared the black mud would pour in, drowning him at once, but it only crept in extrusive blobs, to fall with oozing

plops. The comparison was obvious and repulsive. God, and I thought I'd been in deep shit before.

He shoved the rib upward. It resisted, slipping in his sweating palms. Not ten centimeters. Not twenty. A meter, a meter and a

third, and he was running short on probe. He paused, took a new grip, shoved again. Was the resistance lessening? Had he broken

through to the surface? He heaved it back and forth, but the sucking slime sealed it still.

Maybe, maybe a little less than his own height between the top of the shelter and breath. Breath, death. How long to claw

through it? How fast did a hole in this stuff close? His vision was darkening, and it wasn't because the light was going dim. He

turned the heat tube off and stuck it in the front pocket of his jacket. The uncanny dark shook him with horror. Or perhaps it was

the CO2. Now or never.

On an impulse, he bent and loosened his boot-catches and belt buckle, then zipped open the burr by feel. He began to dig like

a dog, heaving big globs of mud down into the little space left in the bubble.

He squeezed through the opening, braced himself, took his last breath, and pressed upward.

His chest was pulsing, his vision a red blur, when his head broke the surface. Air! He spat black muck and bracken bits, and

blinked, trying with little success to clear his eyes and nose. He fought one hand up, then the other, and tried to pull himself up

horizontal, flat like a frog. The cold confounded him. He could feel the muck closing around his legs, numbing like a witch's

embrace. His toes pressed at full extension on the shelter's roof. It sank and he rose a centimeter. The last of the leverage he could

get by pushing. Now he must pull. His hands closed over bracken. It gave. More. More. He was making a little progress, the cold

air raking his grateful throat. The witch's grip tightened. He wriggled his legs, futilely, one last time. All right, now. Heave!

His legs slid out of his boots and pants, his hips sucked free, and he rolled away. He lay spread-eagled for maximum support

on the treacherous surface, face up to the grey swirling sky. His uniform jacket and long underwear were soaked with slime, and

he'd lost one thermal sock, as well as both boots and his trousers.

It was sleeting.

They found him hours later, curled around the dimming heat-tube, crammed into an eviscerated equipment bay in the

automated weather station. His eye-sockets were hollow in his black-streaked face, his toes and ears white. His numb purple

fingers jerked two wires across each other in a steady, hypnotic tattoo, the Service emergency code. To be read out in bursts of

static in the barometric pressure meter in base's weather room. If and when anybody bothered to look at the suddenly-defective

reading from this station, or noticed the pattern in the white noise.

His fingers kept twitching in this rhythm for minutes after they pulled him free of his little box. Ice cracked off the back of his

uniform jacket as they tried to straighten his body. For a long time they could get no words from him at all, only a shivering hiss.

Only his eyes burned.

Floating in the heat tank in the base infirmary, Miles considered crucifixion for the two saboteurs from the motor pool from

several angles. Such as upside-down. Dangling over the sea at low altitude from an anti-grav sled. Better still, staked out face-up

in a bog in a blizzard... But by the time his body had warmed up, and the corpsman had pulled him out of the tank to dry, be

reexamined, and eat a supervised meal, his head had cooled.

It hadn't been an assassination attempt. And therefore, not a matter he was compelled to turn over to Simon Illyan, dread Chief

of Imperial Security and Miles's father's left-hand man. The vision of the sinister officers from ImpSec coming to take those two

jokers away, far away, was lovely, but impractical, like shooting mice with a maser cannon. Anyway, where could ImpSec

possibly send them that was worse than here?

They'd meant his scat-cat to bog, to be sure, while he serviced the weather station, and for Miles to have the embarrassment of

calling the base for heavy equipment to pull it out. Embarrassing, not lethal. They could not have-no one could have-forseen

Miles's inspired safety-conscious precaution with the chain, which was in the final analysis what had almost killed him. At most it

was a matter for Service Security, bad enough, or for normal discipline.

He dangled his toes over the side of his bed, one of a row in the empty infirmary, and pushed the last of his food around on his

tray. The corpsman wandered in, and glanced at the remains.

"You feeling all right now, sir?"

"Fine," said Miles morosely.

"You, uh, didn't finish your tray."

"I often don't. They always give me too much."

"Yeah, I guess you are pretty, um..." The corpsman made a note on his report panel, leaned over to examine Miles's ears, and

bent to inspect his toes, rolling them between practiced fingers. "It doesn't look like you're going to lose any pieces, here. Lucky."

"Do you treat a lot of frostbite?" Or am I the only idiot? Present evidence would suggest it.

"Oh, once the grubs arrive, this place'll be crammed. Frostbite, pneumonia, broken bones, contusions, concussions... gets real

lively, come winter. Wall-to-wall moro-unlucky trainees. And a few unlucky instructors, that they take down with 'em." The

corpsman stood, and tapped a few more entries on his panel. "I'm afraid I have to mark you as recovered now, sir."

"Afraid?" Miles raised his brows inquiringly.

The corpsman straightened, in the unconscious posture of a man transmitting official bad news. That old they-told-me-to-say-

this-it's-not-my-fault look. "You are ordered to report to the base commander's office as soon as I release you, sir."

Miles considered an immediate relapse. No. Better to get the messy parts over with. "Tell me, corpsman, has anyone else ever

sunk a scat-cat?"

"Oh, sure. The grubs lose about five or six a season. Plus minor bog-downs. The engineers get real pissed about it. The

commandant promised them next time he'd... ahem!" The corpsman lost his voice.

Wonderful, thought Miles. Just great. He could see it coming. It wasn't like he couldn't see it coming.

Miles dashed back to his quarters for a quick change of clothing, guessing a hospital robe might be inappropriate for the

coming interview. He immediately found he had a minor quandry. His black fatigues seemed too relaxed, his dress greens too

formal for office Wear anywhere outside Imperial HQ at Vorbarr Sultana. His undress greens' trousers and half-boots were still at

the bottom of the bog. He had only brought one of each uniform style with him; his spares, supposedly in transit, had not yet

arrived.

He was hardly in a position to borrow from a neighbor. His uniforms were privately made to his own fit, at approximately four

times the cost of Imperial issue. Part of that cost was for the effort of making them indistinguishable on the surface from the

machine cut, while at the same time partially masking the oddities of his body through subtleties of hand-tailoring. He cursed

under his breath, and shucked on his dress greens, complete with mirror-polished boots to the knees. At least the boots obviated

the leg braces.

General Stanis Metzov, read the sign on the door, Base Commander. Miles had been assiduously avoiding the base

commander ever since their first unfortunate encounter. This had not been hard to do in Ahn's company, despite the pared

population of Kyril Island this month; Ahn avoided everybody. Miles now wished he'd tried harder to strike up conversations with

brother officers in mess. Permitting himself to stay isolated, even to concentrate on his new tasks, had been a mistake. In five days

of even the most random conversation, someone must surely have mentioned Kyril Island's voracious killer mud.

A corporal manning the comconsole in an antechamber ushered Miles through to the inner office. He must now try to work

himself back round to Metzov's good side, assuming the general had one. Miles needed allies. General Metzov looked across his

desk unsmiling as Miles saluted and stood waiting.

Today, the general was aggressively dressed in black fatigues. At Metzov's altitude in the hierarchy, this stylistic choice

usually indicated a deliberate identification with The Fighting Man. The only concession to his rank was their pressed neatness.

His decorations were stripped down to a mere modest three, all high combat commendations. Pseudo-modest; pruned of the

surrounding foliage, they leapt to the eye. Mentally, Miles applauded, even envied, the effect; Metzov looked his part, the combat

commander, absolutely, unconsciously natural.

A fifty-fifty chance with the uniform, and I had to guess wrong, Miles fumed as Metzov's eye traveled sarcastically down, and

back up, the subdued glitter of his dress greens. All right, so Metzov's eyebrows signaled, Miles now looked like some kind of

Vorish headquarters twit. Not that that wasn't another familiar type. Miles decided to decline the roasting and cut Metzov's

inspection short by forcing the opening. "Yes, sir?"

Metzov leaned back in his chair, lips twisting. "I see you found some pants, Ensign Vorkosigan. And, ah... riding boots, too.

You know, there are no horses on this island."

None at Imperial Headquarters, either, Miles thought irritably. I didn 't design the damn boots. His father had once suggested

his staff officers must need them for riding hobbyhorses, high horses, and nightmares. Unable to think of a useful reply to the

general's sally, Miles stood in dignified silence, chin lifted, parade rest. "Sir."

Metzov leaned forward, clasping his hands, abandoning his heavy humor, eyes gone hard again. "You lost a valuable, fully-

equipped scat-cat as a result of leaving it parked in an area clearly marked as a Permafrost Inversion Zone. Don't they teach map-

reading at the Imperial Academy any more, or is it to be all diplomacy in the New Service-how to drink tea with the ladies?"

Miles called up the map in his mind. He could see it clearly. "The blue areas were labelled P.I.Z. Those initials were not

defined. Not in the key or anywhere."

"Then I take it you also failed to read your manual."

He'd been buried in manuals ever since he'd arrived. Weather office procedurals, equipment tech-specs... "Which one, sir?"

"Lazkowski Base Regulations."

Miles tried frantically to remember if he'd ever seen such a disk. "I... think Lieutenant Ahn may have given me a copy... night

before last." Ahn had in fact dumped an entire carton of disks out on Miles's bed in officers' quarters. He was doing some

preliminary packing, he'd said, and was willing Miles his library. Miles had read two weather disks before going to sleep that

night. Ahn, clearly, had returned to his own cubicle to do a little preliminary celebrating. The next morning Miles had taken the

scat-cat out...

"And you haven't read it yet?"

"No, sir."

"Why not?"

I was set up, Miles's thought wailed. He could feel the highly-interested presence of Metzov's clerk, undismissed, standing

witness by the door behind him. Making this a public, not a private, dressing-down. And if only he'd read the damn manual,

would those two bastards from the motor pool even have been able to set him up? Will or nill, he was going to get down-checked

for this one. "No excuse, sir."

"Well, Ensign, in Chapter Three of Lazkowski Base Regulations you will find a complete description of all the permafrost

zones, together with the rules for avoiding them. You might look into it, when you can spare a little leisure from... drinking tea."

"Yes, sir." Miles's face was set like glass. The general had a right to skin him with a vibra-knife, if he chose-in private. The

authority lent Miles by his uniform barely balanced the deformities that made him a target of Barrayar's historically-grounded,

intense genetic prejudices. A public humiliation that sapped that authority before men he must also command came very close to

an act of sabotage. Deliberate, or unconscious?

The general was only warming up. "The Service may still provide warehousing for excess Vor lordlings at Imperial

Headquarters, but out here in the real world, where there's fighting to be done, we have no use for drones. Now, I fought my way

up through the ranks. I saw casualties in Vordarian's Pretendership before you were born-"

I WAS a casualty in Vordarian's Pretendership before I was born, thought Miles, his irritation growing wilder. The soltoxin

gas that had almost killed his pregnant mother and made Miles what he was, had been a purely military poison.

"-and I fought the Komarr Revolt. You infants who've come up in the past decade and more have no concept of combat. These

long periods of unbroken peace weaken the Service. If they go on much longer, when a crisis comes there'll be no one left who's

had any real practice in a crunch."

Miles's eyes crossed slightly, from internal pressure. Then should His Imperial Majesty provide a war every five years, as a

convenience for the advancement of his officers' careers? His mind boggled slightly over the concept of "real practice." Had Miles

maybe acquired his first clue why this superb-looking officer had washed up on Kyril Island?

Metzov was still expanding, self-stimulated. "In a real combat situation, a soldier's equipment is vital. It can be the difference

between victory and defeat. A man who loses his equipment loses his effectiveness as a soldier. A man disarmed in a

technological war might as well be a woman, useless! And you disarmed yourself!"

Miles wondered sourly if the general would then agree that a woman armed in a technological war might as well be a man...

no, probably not. Not a Barrayaran of his generation.

Metzov's voice descended again, dropping from military philosophy to the immediately practical. Miles was relieved. "The

usual punishment for a man bogging a scat-cat is to dig it out himself. By hand. I understand that won't be feasible, since the depth

to which you sank yours is a new camp record. Nevertheless, you will report at 1400 to Lieutenant Bonn of Engineering, to assist

him as he sees fit." Well, that was certainly fair. And would probably be educational, too. Miles prayed this interview was

winding down. Dismissed, now? But the general fell silent, squinty-eyed and thoughtful.

"For the damage you did to the weather station," Metzov began slowly, then sat up more decisively-his eyes, Miles could

almost swear, lighting with a faint red glow, the corner of that seamed mouth twitching upward, "you will supervise basic-labor

detail for one week. Four hours a day. That's in addition to your other duties. Report to Sergeant Neuve, in Maintenance, at 0500

daily."

A slight choked inhalation sounded from the corporal still standing behind Miles, which Miles could not interpret. Laughter?

Horror?

But... unjust! And he would lose a significant fraction of the precious time remaining to decant technical expertise from Ahn...

"The damage I did to the weather station was not a stupid accident like the scat-cat, sir! It was necessary to my survival."

General Metzov fixed him with a very cold eye. "Make that six hours a day, Ensign Vorkosigan."

Miles spoke through his teeth, words jerked out as though by pliers. "Would you have preferred the interview you'd be having

right now if I'd permitted myself to freeze, sir?"

Silence fell, very dead. Swelling, like a road-killed animal in the summer sun.

"You are dismissed, Ensign," General Metzov hissed at last. His eyes were glittering slits.

Miles saluted, about-faced, and marched, stiff as any ancient ramrod. Or board. Or corpse. His blood beat in his ears; his chin

jerked upward. Past the corporal, who was standing at attention doing a fair imitation of a waxwork. Out the door, out the outer

door. Alone at last in the Administration Building's lower corridor.

Miles cursed himself silently, then out loud. He really had to try to cultivate a more normal attitude toward senior officers. It

was his bloody upbringing that lay at the root of the problem, he was sure. Too many years of tripping over herds of generals,

admirals, and senior staff at Vorkosigan House, at lunch, dinner, all hours. Too much time sitting quiet as a mouse, cultivating

invisibility, permitted to listen to their extremely blunt argument and debate on a hundred topics. He saw them as they saw each

other, maybe. When a normal ensign looked at his commander, he ought to see a god-like being, not a> a... future subordinate.

New ensigns were supposed to be a subhuman species anyway.

And yet... What is it about this guy Metzov? He'd met others of the type before, of assorted political stripes. Many of them

were cheerful and effective soldiers, as long as they stayed out of politics. As a party, the military conservatives had been eclipsed

ever since the bloody fall of the cabal of officers responsible for the disastrous Escobar invasion, over two decades ago. But the

danger of revolution from the far right, some would-be junta assembling to save the Emperor from his own government, remained

quite real in Miles's father's mind, he knew.

So, was it some subtle political odor emanating from Metzov that had raised the hairs on the back of Miles's neck? Surely not.

A man of real political subtlety would seek to use Miles, not abuse him. Or are you just pissed because he stuck you on some

humiliating garbage detail? A man didn't have to be politically extreme to take a certain sadistic joy in sticking it to a

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TheVorGameLoisMcMasterBujold1"Shipduty!"chortledtheensignfouraheadofMilesinline.Gleelithisfaceashiseyesspeddownhisorders,theplasticflimsyrattlingslightlyinhishands."I'mtobejuniorweaponryofficerontheImperialCruiserCommodoreVorhalas.ReportingatoncetoTaneryBaseShuttleportfororbitaltransfer."Atapointedp...

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Lois McMaster Bujold - 05 The Vor Game

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