Chodak's man twitched, as if uncertain which way, or whom, to jump. Chodak caught him by the arm, shook his head silently, and indicated the wall by the door. Chodak holstered his stunner and leaned against the doorframe with his arms folded; after a startled moment, his man followed suit, flanking the other side. "Fly on the wall," Chodak grinned out of the corner of his mouth to him. "Consider it a gift."

"It wasn't exactly voluntary," said Miles through his teeth to Tung, only in part to keep from biting his tongue in the blast of the Eurasian's enthusiasm. "And we're not in business yet." Sorry, Ky. I can't be your front man this time. You've got to follow me. Miles kept his face stern, and removed Tung's hands from his shoulders with icy deliberation. "That Vervani freighter captain you found delivered me straight to Commander Cavilo. And I've been wondering ever since if it was an accident."

"Ah!" Tung fell back, looking as if Miles had just hit him in the stomach.

Miles felt like he had. No, Tung was no traitor. But Miles dared not give up the only edge he had. "Betrayal, or botchery, Ky?" And have you stopped beating your wife?

"Botchery," whispered Tung, gone sallow-pale. "Dammit, I'm going to kill the triple-crossing—"

"That's already been done," said Miles coldly. Tung's brows rose in surprised respect.

"I came to the Hegen Hub on a contract," continued Miles, "which is now in disarray almost beyond repair. I haven't come back here to put you in operational combat command of the Dendarii—" a beat, as Tung's worried features attempted to settle on an expression, "unless you are prepared to serve my ends. Priorities and targets are to be my choice. Only the how is yours." And just who was going to put whom in command of the Dendarii? As long as that question didn't occur to Tung.

"As my ally," began Tung.

"Not ally. Your commander. Or nothing," said Miles.

Tung stood stockily, his brows struggling to find their level. In a mild tone he finally said, "Daddy Ky's little boy is growing up, it seems."

"That's not the half of it. Are you in, or out?"

"The other half of this is something I've got to hear." Tung sucked on his lower lip. "In."

Miles stuck out his hand. "Done."

Tung took it. "Done." His grip was determined.

Miles let out a long breath. "All right. I gave you some half-truths, last time. Here's what's really going on." He began to pace, his shaking not all from the nerve disruptor nimbus. "I do have a contract with an interested outsider, but it wasn't for 'military evaluation,' which is the smoke screen I gave Oser. The part I told you about preventing a planetary civil war was not smoke. I was hired by the Barrayarans."

"They don't normally hire mercenaries," said Tung.

"I'm not a normal mercenary. I'm being paid by Barrayaran Imperial Security," God, at least one whole-truth, "to find and rescue a hostage. On the side I hope to stop a now-imminent Cetagandan invasion fleet from taking over the Hub. Our second strategic priority will be to hold both sides of the Vervain wormhole jump and as much else as we can till Barrayaran reinforcements arrive."

Tung cleared his throat. "Second priority? What if they don't arrive? There's Pol to cross. . . . And, ah, hostage-rescue does not normally take precedence over fleetwide strat-tac ops, eh?"

"Given the identity of this hostage, I guarantee their arrival. The Barrayaran emperor, Gregor Vorbarra, was kidnapped. I found him, lost him, and now I've got to get him back. As you can imagine, I expect the reward for his safe return to be substantial."

Tung's face was a study in appalled enlightenment. "That skinny neurasthenic git you had in tow before—that wasn't him, was it?"

"Yes, it was. And between us, you and I managed to deliver him straight to Commander Cavilo."

"Oh. Shit." Tung rubbed his burr-haired skull. "She'll sell him straight to the Cetagandans."

"No. She means to collect her reward from Barrayar."

Tung opened his mouth, closed it, held up a finger. "Wait a minute. . . ."

"It's complicated," Miles conceded helplessly. "That's why I'm going to delegate the simple part, holding the wormhole, to you. The hostage-rescue part will be my responsibility."

"Simple. The Dendarii mercenaries. All five thousand of us. Single-handed. Against the Cetagandan Empire. Have you forgotten how to count in the last four years?"

"Think of the glory. Think of your reputation. Think how great it'll look on your next resume."

"On my cenotaph, you mean. Nobody will be able to collect enough of my scattered atoms to bury. You going to cover my funeral expenses, son?"

"Splendidly. Banners, dancing girls, and enough beer to float your coffin to Valhalla."

Tung sighed. "Make it plum wine to float the boat, eh? Drink the beer. Well." He stood silent a moment, rubbing his lips. "The first step is to put the fleet on one-hour-alert status instead of twenty-four."

"They're not already?" Miles frowned.

"We were defensive. We figured we had at least thirty-six hours to study anything coming at us across the Hub. Or, so Oser figured it. It'll take about six hours to bring us up to one-hour readiness."

"Right . . . that's the second step, then. Your first step will be to kiss and make up with Captain Auson."

"Kiss my ass!" cried Tung. "That vacuumhead—"

"Is needed to command the Triumph while you run Fleet Tac. You can't do both. I can't reorganize the fleet this close to the action. If I had a week to weed out—well, I don't. Oser's people must be persuaded to stay on their jobs. If I have Auson," Miles's upheld hand closed cage-like, "I can run the rest. One way or another."

Tung growled frustrated acquiescence. "All right." His glower faded to a slow grin. "I'd pay money to watch you make him kiss Thorne, though."

"One miracle at a time."

Captain Auson, a big man four years ago, had put on a little more weight but seemed otherwise unchanged. He stepped into Oser's cabin, took in the stunners aimed his way, and stood, hands clenching. When he saw Miles, sitting on the edge of Oser's comconsole desk (a psychological ploy to put his head level with everyone else's; in the station chair Miles feared he looked like a child in need of a booster seat at the dinner table), Auson's expression melted from anger to horror. "Oh, hell! Not you again!"

"But of course," shrugged Miles. The stunner-armed flies on the wall, Chodak and his man, suppressed grins of happy anticipation. "The action's about to start."

"You can't take this—" Auson broke off to peer at Oser. "What did you do to him?"

"Let's just say, we adjusted his attitude. As for the fleet, it's already mine." Well, he was working on it, anyway. "The question is, will you choose to be on the winning side? Pocket a combat bonus? Or shall I give command of the Triumph to—"

Auson bared his teeth to Tung in a silent snarl.

"—Bel Thorne?"

"What?" Auson yelped. Tung flinched, wincing. "You can't—"

Miles cut over him. "Do you happen to recall how you graduated from command of the Ariel to command of the Triumph? Yes?"

Auson pointed to Tung. "What about him?"

"My contractor will contribute value equal to the Triumph, which will become Tung's vested share in the fleet corporation. In return Commodore Tung will relinquish all claim on the ship itself. I will confirm Tung's rank as Chief of Staff/Tactical, and yours as captain of the flagship Triumph. Your original contribution, equal to the value of the Ariel less liens, will be confirmed as your vested share in the fleet corporation. Both ships will be listed as owned by the fleet."

"Do you go along with this?" Auson demanded of Tung.

Miles prodded Tung with a steely look. "Yeah," said Tung grudgingly.

Auson frowned over this. "It isn't just the money . . ." He paused, brow wrinkling. "What combat bonus? What combat?"

He who hesitates, is had. "Are you in or out?"

Auson's moon face took on a cunning look. "I'm in—if he apologizes."

"What? This meatmind thinks—"

"Apologize to the man, Tung dear," Miles sang through his teeth, "and let's get on. Or the Triumph gets a captain who can be its own first mate. Who, among other manifold virtues, doesn't argue with me."

"Of course not, the little Betan flipsider's in love," snapped Auson. "I've never been able to figure out if it wants to get screwed or bugger you—"

Miles smiled and held up a restraining hand. "Now, now." He nodded toward Elena, who had holstered her stunner in favor of a nerve disrupter. Pointed steadily at Auson's head.

Her smile reminded Miles unsettlingly of one of Sergeant Bothari's. Or worse, of Cavilo's. "Have I ever mentioned, Auson, how much the sound of your voice irritates me?" she inquired.

"You wouldn't fire," said Auson uncertainly.

"I wouldn't stop her," Miles lied. "I need your ship. It would be convenient—but not necessary—if you would command her for me." His gaze flicked like a knife toward his putative Chief of Staff/Tac. "Tung?"

With ill-grace, Tung mouthed a nobly-worded, if vague, apology to Auson for past slurs on his character, intelligence, ancestry, appearance—as Auson's face darkened Miles stopped Tung's catalogue in mid-list and made him start over. "Keep it simpler."

Tung took a breath. "Auson, you can be a real shithead sometimes, but dammit, you can fight when you have to. I've seen you. In the tight and the bad and the crazy, I'll take you at my back before any other captain in the fleet."

One side of Auson's mouth curled up. "Now, that's sincere. Thank you so much. I really appreciate your concern for my safety. How tight and bad and crazy do you think this is going to get?"

Tung, Miles decided, had a most unsavory chuckle.

The captain-owners were brought in one by one, to be persuaded, bribed, blackmailed and bedazzled till Miles's mouth was dry, throat raw, voice hoarse. Only the Peregrine's captain tried to physically fight. He was stunned and bound, and his second-in-command given the immediate choice between brevet promotion and a long walk out a short airlock. He chose promotion, though his eyes said, Another day. As long as that other day came after the Cetagandans, Miles was satisfied.

They moved to the larger conference chamber across from the Tactics Room for the strangest Staff conference Miles had ever attended. Oser was fortified with a booster shot of fast-penta and propped up at the head of the table like a stuffed and smiling corpse. At least two others were tied to their chairs gagged. Tung traded his yellow pajamas for undress greys, commodore's insignia pinned hastily over his captain's tags. The reaction of the audience to Tung's initial tactical presentation ranged from dubious to appalled, overcome (almost) by the pelting headlong pace of the actions demanded of them. Tung's most compelling argument was the sinister suggestion that if they didn't set themselves up as the wormhole's defenders, they might be required to attack through it later against a prepared Cetagandan defense, a vision that generated shudders all around the table. It could be worse was always an unassailable assertion.

Partway through, Miles massaged his temples and leaned over to whisper to Elena, "Was it always this bad, or have I just forgotten?"

She pursed her lips thoughtfully and murmured back, "No, the insults were better in the old days." Miles muffled a grin.

Miles made a hundred unauthorized claims and unsupported promises, and at last things broke up, each to their duty stations. Oser and the Peregrines captain were marched away under guard to the brig. Tung paused only to frown down at the brown felt slippers. "If you're going to command my outfit, son, would you please do an old soldier a favor and get a pair of regulation boots?" At last only Elena remained.

"I want you to re-interrogate General Metzov," Miles told her. "Pull out all the Ranger tactical disposition data you can—codes, ships on-line, off-line, last known positions, personnel oddities, plus whatever he may know about the Vervani. Edit out any unfortunate references he may make to my real identity, and pass it on to Ops, with the warning that not everything Metzov thinks is true, necessarily is. It may help."

"Right."

Miles sighed, slumping wearily on his elbows at the empty conference table. "You know, the planetary patriots like the Barrayarans—us Barrayarans—have it wrong. Our officer cadre thinks that mercenaries have no honor, because they can be bought and sold. But honor is a luxury only a free man can afford. A good Imperial officer like me isn't honor-bound, he's just bound. How many of these honest people have I just lied to their deaths? It's a strange game."

"Would you change anything, today?"

"Everything. Nothing. I'd have lied twice as fast if I'd had to."

"You do talk faster in your Betan accent," she allowed.

"You understand. Am I doing the right thing? If I can bring it off. Failure being automatically wrong." Not a path to disaster, but all paths. . . .

Her brows rose. "Certainly."

His lips twisted up. "So you," whom I love, "my Barrayaran lady who hates Barrayar, are the only person in the Hub I can honestly sacrifice."

She tilted her head in consideration of this. "Thank you, my lord." She touched her hand to the top of his head, passing out of the chamber.

Miles shivered.

15

Miles returned to Oser's cabin for a fast perusal of the admiral's comconsole files, trying to get a handle on all the changes in equipment and personnel that had occurred since he'd last commanded, and to assimilate the Dendarii/Aslunder intelligence picture of events in the Hub. Somebody brought him a sandwich and coffee, which he consumed without tasting. The coffee was no longer working to keep him alert, though he was still keyed to an almost unbearable tension.

As soon as we undock, I'll crash in Oser's bed. He'd better spend at least some of the thirty-six hours transit time sleeping, or he'd be more liability than asset upon arrival. When he would have to deal with Cavilo, who made him feel like the proverbial unarmed man in the battle of wits even when he was at his best.

Not to mention the Cetagandans. Miles considered the historical three-legged-race between weapons development and tactics.

Projectile weapons for ship-to-ship combat in space had early been made obsolete by mass shielding and laser weapons. Mass shielding, designed to protect moving ships from space debris encountered at normal-space speeds up to half-cee, shrugged off missiles without even trying. Laser weapons in turn had been rendered useless by the arrival of the Sword-swallower, a Betan-developed defense that actually used the enemy fire as its own power source; a similar principle in the plasma mirror, developed in Miles's parents' generation, promised to do the same to the shorter-range plasma weapons. Another decade might see plasma all phased out.

The up-and-coming weapon for ship-to-ship fighting in the last couple of years seemed to be the gravitic imploder lance, a modification of tractor-beam technology; variously-designed artificial-gravity shields were still lagging behind in protection from it. The imploder beam made ugly twisty wreckage where it hit mass. What it did to a human body was a horror.

But the energy-sucking imploder lance's range was insanely short, in terms of space speeds and distances, barely a dozen kilometers. Now, ships had to cooperate to grapple, to slow and close up to maneuver. Given also the small scale of wormhole volumes, fighting looked like it might suddenly become tight and intimate once again, except that too-tight formations invited "sun wall" attacks of massed nuclears. Round and round. It was hinted that ramming and boarding could actually become practical popular tactics once again. Till the next surprise arrived from the devil's workshops, anyway. Miles longed briefly for the good old days of his grandfather's generation, when people could kill each other from a clean fifty thousand kilometers. Just bright sparks.

The effect of the new imploders on concentration of firepower promised to be curious, especially where a wormhole was involved. It was now possible that a small force in a small area could apply as much power per cubic whatever as a large force, which could not squeeze its largeness down to the effective range; although the difference in reserves still held good, of course. A large force willing to make sacrifices could keep beating away till sheer numbers overcame the smaller concentration. The Cetagandan ghem-lords were not allergic to sacrifice, though generally preferring to start with subordinates, or better still, allies. Miles rubbed his knotted neck muscles. The cabin buzzer blatted; Miles reached across the comconsole desk to key the door open.

A lean, dark-haired man in his early thirties wearing mercenary grey-and-whites with tech insignia stood uncertainly in the aperture. "My lord?" he said in a soft voice.

Baz Jesek, Fleet Engineering Officer. Once, Barrayaran Imperial Service deserter on the run; subsequently liege-sworn as a private Armsman to Miles in his identity as Lord Vorkosigan. And finally husband to the woman Miles loved. Once loved. Still loved.

Damn. Miles cleared his throat uncomfortably. "Come in, Commodore Jesek."

Baz trod soundlessly across the deck matting, looking defensive and guilty. "I just got in off the repairs tender, and heard the word that you were back." His Barrayaran accent was polished thin and smooth by his years of galactic exile, significantly less pronounced than four years ago.

"Temporarily, anyway."

"I'm . . . sorry you didn't find things as you'd left them, my lord. I feel like I've squandered Elena's dowry that you bestowed. I didn't realize the implications of Oser's economic maneuvers until . . . well ... no excuses."

"The man finessed Tung, too," Miles pointed out. He cringed inwardly, to hear Baz apologize to him. "I gather it wasn't exactly a fair fight."

"It wasn't a fight at all, my lord," Baz said slowly. "That was the problem." Baz stood to parade rest. "I've come to offer you my resignation, my lord."

"Offer rejected," said Miles promptly. "In the first place, liege-sworn Armsmen can't resign, in the second place, where am I going to get a competent fleet engineer on," he glanced at his chrono, "two hours' notice, and in the third place, in the third place ... I need a witness to clear my name if things go wrong. Wronger. You've got to fill me in on Fleet equipment capabilities, then help get it all in motion. And I've got to fill you in on what's really going on. You're the only one besides Elena I can trust with the secret half of this."

With difficulty, Miles persuaded the hesitant engineer to sit down. Miles poured out a speed-edited precis of his adventures in the Hegen Hub, leaving out only mention of Gregor's half-hearted suicide attempt; that was Gregor's private shame. Miles was not altogether surprised to learn Elena had not confided his earlier, brief and ignominious return, rescue, and departure from the Dendarii; Baz seemed to think the presence of the incognito Emperor obvious and sufficient reason for her silence. By the time Miles finished, Baz's inner guilt was quite thoroughly displaced by outer alarm.

"If the Emperor is killed—if he doesn't return—the mess at home could go on for years," Baz said. "Maybe you should let Cavilo rescue him, rather than risk—"

"Up to a point, that's just what I intend to do," said Miles. "If only I knew Gregor's mind." He paused. "If we lose both Gregor and the Wormhole battle, the Cetagandans will arrive on our doorstep just at the point we will be in maximum internal disarray. What a temptation to them—what a lure—they've always wanted Komarr—we could be looking down the throat of the second Cetagandan invasion, almost as much a surprise to them as to us. They may prefer deep-laid plans, but they're not above a little opportunism—not an opportunity this overwhelming—"

Determinedly, driven by this vision, they turned to the tech specs, Miles reminding himself about the ancient saying about the want of a nail. They had nearly completed an overview when the comm officer on duty paged Miles through his comconsole.

"Admiral Naismith, sir?" The comm officer stared with interest at Miles's face, then went on, "There's a man in the docking bay who wants to see you. He claims to have important information." Miles bethought himself of the theorized backup assassin. "What's his ID?"

"He says to tell you his name's Ungari. That's all he'll say."

Miles caught his breath. The cavalry at last! Or a clever ploy to gain admittance. "Can you give me a look at him, without letting him know he's being scanned?"

"Right, sir." The comm officer's face was replaced on the vid by a view of the Triumph's docking bay. The vid zoomed down to focus on a pair of men in Aslunder tech coveralls. Miles melted with relief. Captain Ungari. And blessed Sergeant Overholt.

"Thank you, comm officer. Have a squad escort the two men to my cabin." He glanced at Baz. "In, uh, about ten minutes." He keyed off and explained, "It's my ImpSec boss. Thank God! But—I'm not sure I'd be able to explain to him the peculiar status of your desertion charges. I mean, he's ImpSec, not Service Security, and I don't imagine your old arrest order is exactly at the top of his list of concerns right now, but it might be ... simpler, if you avoid him, eh?"

"Mm." Baz grimaced in agreement. "I believe I have duties to attend to?"

"No lie. Baz . . ." for a wild moment he longed to tell Baz to take Elena and run, safe away from the coming danger, "It's going to get real crazy soon."

"With Mad Miles back in charge, how could it be otherwise?" Baz shrugged, smiling. He started for the door.

"I'm not as crazy as Tung—Good God, nobody calls me that, do they?"

"Ah—it's an old joke. Only among a few old Dendarii." Baz's step quickened.

And there are very few old Dendarii. That, unfortunately, was not a funny joke. The door hissed closed behind the engineer.

Ungari. Ungari. Somebody in charge at last. If only I had Gregor with me, I could be done right now. But at least I can find out what Our Side has been up to all this time. Exhausted, he laid his head down on his arms on Oser's comconsole desk, and smiled. Help. Finally.

Some wriggling dream was fogging his mind; he snatched himself back from too-long-delayed sleep as the cabin buzzer blatted again. He rubbed his numb face and hit the lock control on the desk. "Enter." He glanced at the chrono; he'd lost only four minutes, on that downward slide of consciousness. It was definitely time for a break.

Chodak and two Dendarii guards escorted Captain Ungari and Sergeant Overholt into the room. Ungari and Overholt were both dressed in tan Aslunder supervisor's coveralls, no doubt with IDs and passes to match. Miles smiled happily at them.

"Sergeant Chodak, you and your men wait outside." Chodak looked sadly disappointed at this exclusion. "And if she's finished with her current task, ask Commander Elena Bothari-Jesek to attend on us here. Thanks."

Ungari waited impatiently till the door had hissed closed behind Chodak to stride forward. Miles stood up and saluted him smartly. "Glad to see y—"

To Miles's surprise, Ungari did not return the salute; instead his hands clenched on Miles's uniform jacket and lifted. Miles sensed that it was only with the greatest restraint that Ungari's grip had closed on his lapels and not his neck. "Vorkosigan, you idiot! What the hell kind of game have you been up to?"

"I found Gregor, sir. I—" don't say lost him. "I'm mounting an expedition to recover him right now. I'm so glad you made contact with me, another hour and you'd have missed the boat. If we pool our information and resources—"

Ungari's clutch did not loosen, nor did his peeled-back lips relax. "We know you found the Emperor, we traced you both here from Consortium Detention. Then you both vanished utterly."

"Didn't you ask Elena? I thought you would—look sir, sit down, please," and put me down, dammit—Ungari seemed not to notice that Miles's toes were stretched to the floor, "and tell me what all this looked like from your point of view. It's very important."

Ungari, breathing heavily, released Miles and sat in the indicated station chair, or at least on its edge. At a hand signal, Overholt took up a pose of parade rest at his shoulder. Miles gazed with some relief at Overholt, whom he'd last seen face-down unconscious on the Consortium Station concourse; the sergeant appeared fully recovered, if tired and strained.

Ungari said, "When he finally woke up, Sergeant Overholt followed you to Consortium Detention, but by then you'd disappeared. He thought they'd done it, they thought he'd done it. He spent bribe-money like water, finally got the story from the contract-slave you'd beaten up—a day later, when the man could finally talk—"

"He lived, then," said Miles. "Good, Gre—we were worried about that."

"Yes, but Overholt didn't recognize the emperor at first, in the contract-slave records—the sergeant hadn't been on the need-to-know list about his disappearance."

A faint irate look passed over the sergeant's face, as if in memory of great injustices.

"—it wasn't until he'd made contact with me here, we dead-ended, and we retraced all the steps in hopes of finding some clue about you we'd overlooked, that I identified the missing contract-slave as Emperor Gregor. Days lost."

"I was sure you'd make contact with Elena Bothari-Jesek, sir. She knew where we'd gone. You knew she was my sworn liegewoman, it's in my files."

Ungari shot him a flat-lipped glare, but did not otherwise offer explanation for this gaffe. "When the first wave of Barrayaran agents hit the Hub, we finally had enough reinforcements to mount a serious search—"

"Good! So they know Gregor's in the Hub, back home. I was afraid Illyan would still be squandering all his resources on Komarr, or worse, towards Escobar."

Ungari's fingers clenched again. "Vorkosigan, what did you do with the emperor?"

"He's safe, but in great danger." Miles thought that one over a second. "That is, he's all right for the moment, I think, but that will change with the tactical—"

"We know where he is, he was spotted three days ago by an agent in Randall's Rangers."

"Must have been just after I left," Miles calculated. "Not that he could have spotted me, I was in the brig—what are we doing about it?"

"Rescue forces are being scrambled; I don't know how large a fleet."

"What about permission to cross Pol?"

"I doubt they'll wait for it."

"We've got to alert them, not to offend Pol! The—"

"Ensign, Vervain holds the emperor!" Ungari snarled in exasperation. "I'm not going to tell the—"

"Vervain doesn't hold Gregor, Commander Cavilo does," Miles interrupted urgently. "It's strictly nonpolitical, a plot for her personal gain. I think—in fact, I'm dead certain—the Vervani government doesn't know the first thing about her 'guest.' Our rescue forces must be warned to commit no hostile act until the Cetagandan invasion shows up."

"The what?"

Miles faltered, and said in a smaller voice, "You mean you don't know anything about the Cetagandan invasion?" He paused. "Well, just because you don't have the word yet, doesn't mean Illyan hasn't figured it out. Even if we haven't spotted where they're massing, inside the Empire, as soon as ImpSec adds up how many Cetagandan warships have disappeared from their home bases, they'll realize something must be up. Somebody must still be keeping track of such things, even in the current flap over Gregor." Ungari was still sitting there looking stunned, so Miles kept explaining. "I expect a Cetagandan force to invade Vervani local space and continue on to secure the Hegen Hub, with Commander Cavilo's connivance. Very shortly. I plan to take the Dendarii fleet across-system and fight them at the Vervani wormhole, hold it till Gregor's rescue fleet arrives. I hope they're sending more than a diplomatic negotiation team. ... By the way, do you still have that blank mercenary contract credit chit Illyan gave you? I need it."

"You, mister," Ungari began when he had mastered his voice again, "are going nowhere but to our safe-house on Aslund Station. Where you will wait quietly—very quietly—until Illyan's reinforcements arrive to take you off my hands."

Miles politely ignored this impractical outburst. "You have to have been collecting data for your report to Illyan. Got anything I can use?"

"I have a complete report on Aslund Station, it's naval and mercenary dispositions and strengths, but—"

"I have all that, now." Miles tapped his fingers impatiently on Oser's comconsole. "Damn. I wish you'd spent the last two weeks on Vervain Station instead."

Ungari gritted, "Vorkosigan, you will stand up now, and come with Sergeant Overholt and me. Or so help me I will have Overholt carry you bodily."

Overholt was eyeing him with cool calculation, Miles realized.

"That could be a serious mistake, sir. Worse than your failure to contact Elena. If you will just let me explain the over-all strategic situation—"

Goaded beyond endurance, Ungari snapped, "Overholt, grab him."

Miles hit the alarm on his comconsole desk as Overholt swooped down on him. He dodged around his station chair, knocking it loose from its clamps, as Overholt missed his first grab. The cabin door hissed open. Chodak and his two guards pelted through, followed by Elena. Overholt, chasing Miles around the end of the comconsole desk, skidded straight into Chodak's stunner fire. Overholt dropped with a massive thud; Miles winced. Ungari lurched to his feet and stopped, bracketed by the aim of four Dendarii stunners. Miles felt like bursting into tears, or possibly cackles. Neither would be useful. He got control of his breath and voice.

"Sergeant Chodak, take these two men to the Triumph's brig. Put them . . . put them next to Metzov and Oser, I guess."

"Yes, Admiral."

Ungari went bravely silent, as befit a captured spy, and suffered himself to be led out, though the veins in his neck pulsed with suppressed fury as he glared back at Miles.

And I can't even fast-penta him, Miles thought mournfully. An agent of Ungari's level was certain to have been implanted with an induced allergic reaction to fast-penta; not euphoria, but anaphylactic shock and death, would result from such a dose. In a moment two more Dendarii appeared with a float pallet and removed the inert Overholt. As the door closed behind them, Elena asked, "All right, what was all that about?"

Miles sighed deeply. "That, unfortunately, was my ImpSec superior, Captain Ungari. He was not in a listening mood."

Elena's eye lit with a skewed enthusiasm. "Dear God, Miles. Metzov—Oser—Ungari—all in a row—you sure are hard on your commanding officers. What are you going to do when the time comes to let them all out?"

Miles shook his head mutely. "I don't know."

The fleet disengaged from Aslund Station within the hour, maintaining strict comm silence; the Aslunders, naturally, were thrown into a panic. Miles sat in the Triumph's comm center and monitored their frantic queries, resolved not to interfere with the natural course of events unless the Aslunders opened fire. Until he again laid hands on Gregor, he must at all costs present the correct profile to Cavilo. Let her think she was getting what she wanted, or at least what she'd asked for.

In fact, the natural course of events promised to deliver more of the results Miles wanted than he could have gained through planning and persuasion. The Aslunders had three main theories, Miles deduced from their comm chatter; the mercenaries were fleeing from the Hub altogether at secret word of some impending attack, the mercenaries were off to join one or more of Aslund's enemies, or worst of all, the mercenaries were opening an unprovoked attack on said enemies, with subsequent retribution to recoil on the Aslunder's heads. Aslunder forces went to maximum alert status. Reinforcements were called for, mobile forces shifted into the Hub, reserves brought on-line as the sudden departure of their faithless mercenaries stripped them of assumed defenses.

Miles breathed relief as the last of the Dendarii fleet cleared the Aslunders' region and headed into open space. Delayed by the confusion, no Aslunder naval pursuit force could catch them now till they decelerated near the Vervain wormhole. Where, with the arrival of the Cetagandans, it should not be hard to persuade the Aslunders to reclassify themselves as Dendarii reserves.

Timing was, if not everything, a lot. Suppose Cavilo hadn't already transmitted her go-code to the Cetagandans. The sudden movement of the Dendarii fleet might well spook her into aborting the plot. Fine, Miles decided. In that case he would have stopped the Cetagandan invasion without a shot being fired. A perfect war of maneuver, by Admiral Aral Vorkosigan's own definition. Of course, I'll have political egg on my face and a lynch mob after me from three sides, but Dad will understand. I hope. That would leave staying alive and rescuing Gregor as his only tactical goals, which in present contrast seemed absurdly, delightfully simple. Unless, of course, Gregor didn't want to be rescued. . . .

Further, finer branches of the strategy-tree must await events. Miles decided blearily. He staggered off to Oser's cabin to fall into bed and sleep for twelve solid, sodden hours.

The Triumph 's comm officer woke Miles, paging him on the vid.

Miles, in his underwear, padded across to the comconsole and slung himself into the station chair. "Yes?"

"You asked to be apprised of messages from Vervain Station, sir."

"Yes, thank you." Miles rubbed amber grains of sleep from his eyes, and checked the time. Twelve hours flight-time left till their arrival at target. "Any signs of abnormal activity levels at Vervain Station or their wormhole yet?"

"Not yet, sir."

"All right. Continue to monitor, record, and track any outbound traffic. What's the transmission time lag from us to them at present?"

"Thirty-six minutes, sir."

"Mm. Very well. Pipe the message down here." Yawning, he leaned his elbows on Oser's comconsole and studied the vid. A high-ranking Vervani officer appeared over the plate, and demanded explanation for the Oseran/Dendarii Fleet's movements. He sounded a lot like the Aslunders. No sign of Cavilo. Miles keyed the comm officer. "Transmit back that their important message was hopelessly garbled by static and a malfunction in our de-scrambler. Urgently request a repeat, with amplification."

"Yes, sir."

In the ensuing seventy minutes Miles took a leisurely shower, dressed in a properly fitting uniform (and boots) that had been provided while he slept, and ate a balanced breakfast. He strolled into the Triumph's Nav and Com just in time for the second transmission. This time, Commander Cavilo stood, arms crossed, at the Vervani officer's shoulder. The Vervani repeated himself, literally with amplification, his voice was louder and sharper this time around. Cavilo added, "Explain yourselves at once, or we will regard you as a hostile force and respond accordingly."

That was the amplification he'd wanted. Miles settled himself in the comm station chair and adjusted his Dendarii uniform as neatly as possible. He made sure the admiral's rank insignia was clearly visible in the vid. "Ready to transmit," he nodded to the comm officer. He smoothed his features into as straight-faced and dead-serious an expression as he could manage.

"Admiral Miles Naismith, Commanding, Dendarii Free Mercenary Fleet, speaking. To Commander Cavilo, Randall's Rangers, eyes only. Ma'am. I have accomplished my mission precisely as you ordered. I remind you of the reward you promised me for my success. What are your next instructions? Naismith out."

The comm officer logged the recording into the tight-beam scrambler. "Sir," she said uncertainly, "if that's for Commander Cavilo's eyes only, should we be sending it on the Vervain command channel? The Vervani will have to de-process it before sending it on. It will be seen by a lot of eyes besides hers."

"Just so, Lieutenant," said Miles. "Go ahead and transmit."

"Oh. And when—if—they respond, what do you want me to do?

Miles checked his chrono. "By the time of their next response, our line of travel should take us behind the twin suns' interference corona. We should be out of communications for a good, oh, three hours."

"I can boost the gain, sir, and cut through—"

"No, no, Lieutenant. The interference is going to be something terrible. In fact, if you can stretch that to four hours, so much the better. But make it look real. Until we're in range for a tight-beam conference between myself and Cavilo in near-real-time, I want you to think of yourself as a non-communications officer."

"Yes, sir," she grinned. "Now I understand."

"Carry on. Remember, I want maximum inefficiency, incompetence, and error. On the Vervani channels, that is. You've worked with trainees, surely. Be creative."

"Yes, sir."

Miles went off to find Tung.

He and Tung were deeply engrossed in the tactical computer display in the Triumph's tactics room, running projected wormhole scenarios, when the comm officer paged again.

"Changes at Vervain Station, sir. All outgoing commercial ship traffic has been halted. Incoming are being denied permission to dock. Encoded transmissions on all military channels have just about tripled. And four large warships just jumped."

"Into the Hub, or out to Vervain?"

"Out to Vervain, sir."

Tung leaned forward. "Dump data into the tactics display as you confirm it, Lieutenant."

"Yes, sir."

"Thank you," said Miles. "Continue to keep us advised. And monitor civilian clear-code messages, too, any you can pick up. I want to keep tabs on the rumors as they start to fly."

"Right, sir. Out."

Tung keyed up what was laughingly called the "real-time" tactics display, a colorful schematic, as the comm officer shunted the new data. He studied the identity of the four departing warships. "It's starting," he said grimly. "You called it."

"You don't think it's something we're causing?"

"Not those four ships. They wouldn't have moved off-station if they weren't badly wanted elsewhere. Better get your ass over to—that is, transfer your flag to the Ariel, son."

Miles rubbed his lips nervously, and eyed what he'd mentally dubbed his "Little Fleet" in the schematic display in the Ariel's tactics room. The equipment was now displaying the Ariel itself plus the two next-fastest ships in the Dendarii forces. His own personal attack-group; fast, maneuverable, amenable to violent course-changes, requiring less turning-room than any other possible combination. Admittedly, they were low in firepower. But if things went as Miles projected, firing was not going to be a desirable option anyway. The Ariel's tac room was manned now by a mere skeleton crew; Miles, Elena as his personal communications officer, Arde Mayhew for all other systems. Inner Circle all, in anticipation of this next most-private conversation. If it came to actual combat, he'd turn the chamber over to Thorne, presently exiled to Nav and Com. And then, perhaps, retire to his cabin and slit his belly open.

"Let's see Vervain Station now," he told Elena in her comm station chair. The main holovid display in the center of the room whirled dizzyingly at her touch on the controls. The schematic representation of their target area seemed to boil with shifting lines and colors, representing ship movements, power shunts to various weapons systems and shieldings, and communications transmissions. The Dendarii were now barely a million kilometers out, a little more than three light-seconds. The rate of closure was slowing as the Little Fleet, fully two hours ahead of the slower ships of the main Dendarii fleet, decelerated.

"They're sure stirred up now," Elena commented. Her hand went to her ear-bug. "They're reiterating their demands that we communicate."

"But still not launching a counter-attack," Miles observed, studying the schematic. "I'm glad they realize where the true danger lies. All right. Tell them that we've got our comm problems straightened out—finally—but say again that I will speak first only to Commander Cavilo."

"They—ah—I think they're finally putting her through. I've got a tight-beam coming in on the dedicated channel."

"Trace it." Miles hung over her shoulder as she coaxed this information from the comm net. "The source is moving. . . ."

Miles closed his eyes in prayer, snapped them open again at Elena's triumphant, "Got it! There. That little ship."

"Give me its course and energy profile. Is she heading toward the wormhole?"

"No, away."

"Ha!"

"It's a fast ship—small—it's a Falcon-class courier," Elena reported. "If her goal is Pol—and Barrayar—she must intersect our triangle."

Miles exhaled. "Right. Right. She waited to speak on a line her Vervani bosses couldn't monitor. I thought she might. Wonder what lies she's told them? She's past the point of no return, does she know it?" He opened his arms to the new short vector line in the schematic. "Come, love. Come to me."

Elena raised her brow sardonically at him. "Coming through. Your sweetheart is about to appear on Monitor Three."

Miles swung into the indicated Station chair, settling himself before the holovid plate, which began to sparkle. Now was the time to muster every bit of self-control he'd ever owned. He smoothed his face to an expression of cool ironic interest, as Cavilo's fine features formed before him. Out of range of the vid pick-up, he rubbed his sweating palms on his trouser knees.

Cavilo's blue eyes were alight with triumph, constrained by her tight mouth and tense brows as if in echo of Miles's ships constraining her flight-path. "Lord Vorkosigan. What are you doing here?"

"Following your orders, ma'am. You told me to go get the Dendarii. And I've transmitted nothing to Barrayar."

A six-second time-lag, as the tight-beam flew from ship to ship and returned her answer. Alas that it gave her as much time to think as it did him.

"I didn't order you to cross the Hub."

Miles wrinkled his brow in puzzlement. "But where else would you need my fleet except at the point of action? I'm not dense."

Cavilo's pause this time was longer than accounted for by the transmission lag. "You mean you didn't get Metzov's message?" she asked.

Damn near. What a fabulous array of double meanings there. "Why, did you send him as a courier?"

Lag. "Yes!"

A palpable lie for a palpable lie. "I never saw him. Maybe he deserted. He must have realized he'd lost your love to another. Perhaps he's holed up in some spaceport bar right now, drowning his sorrows." Miles sighed deeply at this sad scenario.

Cavilo's concerned attentive expression melted to rage when this one arrived. "Idiot! I know you took him prisoner!"

"Yes, and I've been wondering ever since why you allowed that to happen. If that accident was undesired, you should have taken precautions against it."

Cavilo's eyes narrowed; she shifted her ground. "I feared Stanis's emotions made him unreliable. I wanted to give him one more chance to prove himself. I gave my backup man orders to kill him if he tried to kill you, but when Metzov missed, the dolt waited."

Substitute as soon as/succeeded for that if/tried, and the statement was probably near-truth. Miles wished he had a recording of that Ranger agent's field report, and Cavilo's blistering reply. "There, you see? You do want subordinates who can think for themselves. Like me."

Cavilo's head jerked back. "You, for a subordinate? I'd sooner sleep with a snake!"

Interesting image, that. "You'd better get used to me. You're seeking entry into a world strange to you, familiar to me. The Vorkosigans are an integral part of Barrayar's power-class. You could use a native guide."

Lag. "Exactly. I'm trying—I must—get your emperor to safety. You're blocking his flight path. Out of my way!"

Miles spared a glance for the tactics display. Yes, just so. Good, come to me. "Commander Cavilo, I feel certain you are missing an important datum in your calculations about me."

Lag. "Let me clarify my position, little Barrayaran. I hold your emperor. I control him absolutely."

"Fine, let me hear those orders from him, then."

Lag . . . fractionally briefer, yes. "I can have his throat cut before your eyes. Let me pass!"

"Go ahead," Miles shrugged. "It'll make an awful mess on your deck, though."

She grinned sourly, after the lag. "You bluff badly."

"I bluff not at all. Gregor is far more valuable alive to you than to me. You can do nothing, where you're going, except through him. He's your meal ticket. But has anyone mentioned to you yet that if Gregor dies, I could become the next emperor of Barrayar?" Well, arguably, but this was hardly time to go into the finer details of the six competing Barrayaran succession theories.

Cavilo's face froze. "He said ... he had no heir. You said so too."

"None named. Because my father refuses to be named, not because he lacks the bloodlines. But ignoring the bloodlines doesnt erase them. And I am my father's only child. And he can't live forever. Ergo . . . So, resist my boarding parties, by all means. Threaten away. Carry out your threats. Give me the Imperium--I shall thank you prettily, before I have you summarily executed. Emperor Miles the First. How does it sound? As good as Empress Cavilo?" Miles gave it an intense beat, "Or, we could work together. The Vorkosigans have traditionally felt that the substance was better than the name. The power behind the throne, as my father before me—who has held just that power, as Gregor has doubtless told you, for far too long—you're not going to dislodge him by batting your eyelashes. He's immune to women. But I know his every weakness. I've thought it through. This could be my big chance, one way or another. By the way—milady—do you care which emperor you wed?"

The time lag allowed him to fully savor her changes of expression, as his plausible calumnies thudded home. Alarm; revulsion; finally, reluctant respect.

"I underestimated you, it seems. Very well . . . Your ships may escort us to safety. Where—clearly—we must confer further."

"I will transport you to safety, aboard the Ariel. Where we will confer immediately."

Cavilo straightened, nostrils flaring. "No way."

"All right, let's compromise. I will abide by Gregor's orders, and Gregor's orders only. As I said, milady, you'd better get used to this. No Barrayaran will take orders from you directly at first, till you've established yourself. If that's the game you're choosing to play, you'd better start practicing. It only gets more complicated after this. Or, you can choose to resist, in which case I get it all." Play for time, Cavilo! Bite!

"I'll get Gregor." The vid went to the grey haze of a holding-signal.

Miles flung himself back in his station chair, rubbed his neck and rolled his head, trying to relieve his screaming nerves. He was shaking. Mayhew was staring at him in alarm.

"Damn," said Elena in a hushed voice. "If I didn't know you, I'd think you were Mad Yuri's understudy. The look on your face . . . am I reading too much into all that innuendo, or did you in fact just connive to assassinate Gregor in one breath, offer to cuckold him in the next, accuse your father of homosexuality, suggest a patricidal plot against him, and league yourself with Cavilo—what are you going to do for an encore?"

"Depends on the straight lines. I can hardly wait to find out," Miles panted. "Was I convincing?"

"You were scary."

"Good." He wiped his palms on his trousers again. "It's mind-to-mind, between Cavilo and me, before it ever becomes ship-to-ship . . She's a compulsive plotter. If I can smoke her, wind her in with words, with what-ifs, with all the bifurcations of her strategy-tree, just long enough to get her eye off the one real now ..."

"Signal," Elena warned.

Miles straightened, waited. The next face to form over the vid plate was Gregor's. Gregor, alive and well. Gregor's eyes widened, then his face went very still.

Cavilo hovered behind his shoulder, just slightly out of focus. "Tell him what we want, love."

Miles bowed sitting down, as profoundly as physically possible. "Sire. I present you with the Emperor's Own Dendarii Free Mercenary Fleet. Do with us as You will."

Gregor glanced aside, evidently as some tactical readout analogous to the Ariel's own. "By God, you've even got them with you. Miles, you are supernatural." The flash of humor was instantly muffled in sere formality. "Thank you, Lord Vorkosigan. I accept your vassal-offering of troops."

"If you would care to step aboard the Ariel, sire, you can take personal command of your forces."

Cavilo leaned forward, interrupting. "And now his treachery is made plain. Let me play a portion of his last words for you, Greg." Cavilo reached past Gregor to touch a control, and Miles was treated to an instant replay of his breathless sedition, beginning with—naturally—the flim-flam about the named heir, and ending with his offer of himself as a substitute Imperial groom. Very nicely selected, clearly unedited.

Gregor listened with his head in a thoughtful tilt, his face perfectly controlled, as the Miles-image stammered to its damning conclusion. "But does this surprise you, Cavie?" asked Gregor in an innocent tone, taking her hand and looking over his shoulder at her. From the expression on her face, something was surprising her. "Lord Vorkosigan's mutations have driven him mad, everyone knows that! He's been sulking around muttering like that for years. Of course, I trust him no further than I can throw him—"

Thanks, Gregor. I'll remember that line.

"—but as long as he feels he can further his interests by furthering ours, he'll be a valuable ally. House Vorkosigan has always been powerful in Barrayaran affairs. His grandfather Count Piotr put my grandfather Emperor Ezar on the throne. They'd make an equally powerful enemy. I should prefer us to rule Barrayar with their cooperation."

"Their extermination would do as well, surely," Cavilo glared at Miles.

"Time is on our side, love. His father is an old man. He, is a mutant. His bloodline-threat is empty, Barrayar would never accept a mutant as emperor, as Count Aral well knows and as even Miles realizes in his saner moments. But he can trouble us, if he chooses. An interesting balance of power, eh, Lord Vorkosigan?"

Miles bowed again. "I think much on it." So have you, apparently. He spared a quelling glance at Elena, who had fallen off her station chair somewhere around Gregor's word-picture of Miles's mad soliloquies, aside at state banquets no doubt, and was now sitting on the floor with her sleeve jammed in her mouth to muffle the shrieks of laughter. Her eyes blazed, over the grey cloth. She got control of her stifled giggles and scrambled back into her seat. Close your mouth, Arde.

"Then, Cavie, let's join my would-be Grand Vizier. At that point, I will control his ships. And your wish," he turned his head to kiss her hand, still resting in his grasp on his shoulder, "will be my command."

"Do you really think it's safe? If he's as psycho as you say." "Brilliant—nervous—skittish—but he's all right as long as his medications are adjusted properly, I promise you. I expect his dose is a little off at the moment, due to our irregular travels."

The transmission time-lag was much reduced, now. "Twenty minutes to rendezvous, sir," Elena reported, off-sides.

"Will you transfer in your shuttle, or ours, sire?" Miles inquired politely.

Gregor shrugged carelessly. "Commander Cavilo's choice."

"Ours," said Cavilo immediately. "I will be waiting." And ready. Cavilo broke transmission.

16

Miles watched through the vid link as the first space-armored Ranger stepped into the Ariel's shuttle hatch corridor. The wary point-man was followed immediately by four more, who scanned the empty passageway, converted into a chamber by the closed blast doors sealing each end. No enemies, no targets, not even automatic weapons threatened them. An utterly deserted chamber. Bewildered, the Rangers took up a defensive stance around the shuttle hatch.

Gregor stepped through. Miles was unsurprised to see that Cavilo had not provided the Emperor with space armor. Gregor wore neatly-pressed set of Ranger fatigues, minus insignia; his only protection was his boots. Even they would be quite inadequate, if one of those heavy-armored monsters stepped on his toe. Battle armorwas lovely stuff, proof against stunners and nerve disrupters, most poisons and biologicals; resistant (to a degree) to plasma fire and radioactivity, stuffed with clever built-in weaponry, tac comps, and telemetry.  Very suitable for a boarding expedition. Though in fact, Miles had once captured the Ariel himself with fewer personnel, less formidably armed and totally unarmored. He'd had surprise on his side, though.

Cavilo came through behind Gregor. She wore space armor though for the moment she carried her helmet tucked under her arm like a decapitated head. She stared around the empty corridor, and frowned. "All right, what's the trick?" she demanded loudly.

To answer your question. . . . Miles pressed the button on the remote-control box in his hand.

A muffled explosion made the corridor reverberate. The flex-tube tore violently away from the shuttle hatch. The automatic doors, sensing the pressure drop, clapped shut instantly. A bare breath of air escaped. Good system. Miles had made the techs make sure it was working properly, before they'd inserted the directional mines in the shuttle clamps. He checked his monitors. Cavilo's combat shuttle was tumbling away from the side of the Ariel now, thrusters and sensors damaged in the same blast that propelled it outward, its weapons and reserve Rangers useless until the no-doubt-frantic pilot regained attitude control. If he could.

"Keep an eye on him, Bel, I don't want him coming back to haunt us," Miles spoke into his comm link to Thorne, on deck in the Ariel's tactics room.

"I can blow him up now, if you like."

"Wait a little. We're a long way from sorted out, down here." God help us now.

Cavilo was snapping her helmet on, her startled troops in defensive formation around her. All dressed up, and nothing to shoot. Let them settle down for just a moment, enough to prevent spinal-reflexive fusilades, but not enough to think. . . .

Miles glanced around at his own space-armored troops, six in number, and closed his own helmet. Not that numbers mattered. A million troops with nuclears, one guy with a club; either would suffice when the target was one unarmed hostage. Miniaturizing the situation, Miles realized sadly, had made no qualitative difference. He could still screw up just as big. The main difference was his plasma cannon, sighted down the corridor. He nodded to Elena, manning the big weapon. Not normally an indoor toy, it would stop charging space armor. And blow out the hull beyond. Miles figured that, theoretically, they could blow away, oh, one out of Cavilo's five at this range, if they came on at a dead run, before all became hand-to-hand, or glove-to-glove.

"Here we go," Miles warned through his command channel. "Re-member the drill." He pressed another control; the blast doors between his group and Cavilo's began to draw back. Slowly, not suddenly, at a rate carefully calculated to inspire dread without startling.

Pull broadcast on all channels plus loudspeaker. It was absolutely essential to Miles's plan that he get in the first word.

"Cavilo!" he shouted. "Deactivate your weapons and freeze, or I'll blow Gregor to atoms!"

Body language was a wonderful thing. It was amazing, how much expression could come through the blank shining surface of space armor. The littlest armored figure stood openhanded, stunned. Bereft of words; bereft, for precious seconds, of reactions. Because, of course, Miles had just stolen her opening line. Now what do you have to say for yourself, love? It was a desperate ploy. Miles had judged the hostage-problem logically insoluble; therefore, clearly the only thing to do was make it Cavilo's problem instead of his own.

Well, he'd obtained as much as the freeze part, anyway. But he dared not let the standoff stand. "Drop it, Cavilo! It only takes one nervous twitch to convert you from Imperial fiancee to no one of importance at all. And then to no one at all. And you're making me real tense."

"You said he was safe," Cavilo hissed to Gregor. "His meds must be further off-dose than I thought," Gregor replied, looking anxious. "No, watch—he's bluffing. I'll prove it."

Hands held out open to his sides, Gregor walked straight toward the plasma cannon. Miles's jaw fell open, behind his faceplate. Gregor, Gregor, Gregor . . . !

Gregor gazed steadily into Elena's faceplate. His step never quickened or faltered. He stopped only when his chest touched the beaded tip of the cannon. It was an enormously dramatic and arresting moment. Miles was so lost in appreciation, it took him that long to move his finger an imperceptible few centimeters and hit the button on his control box that closed the blast doors.

The shield hadn't been programmed for slow-closure; it banged shut faster than the eye could follow. Brief noises, from the other side, of plasma fire, shouts; Cavilo screaming at one of her men just in time to stop him from the fatal error of firing a mine at the wall of a closed chamber he himself occupied. Then silence.

Miles dropped his plasma rifle, tore off his helmet. "God almighty, I wasn't expecting that. Gregor, you're a genius." Gently, Gregor raised a finger and moved the tip of the plasma cannon aside. "Don't worry," said Miles. "None of our weapons are charged. I didn't want to risk any accidents."

"I was almost certain that was the case," Gregor murmured. He stared back over his shoulder at the blast doors. "What would you have done if I'd been asleep on my feet?" ,,.

"Kept talking. Tried for various compromises. I had a trick or two yet.  But behind the other blast door, there's a squad with live weapons. In the end, if she didn't bite, I was prepared to surrender."

"That's what I was afraid of."

Some peculiar muffled noises penetrated the blast doors. "Elena, take over," said Miles. "Mop up. Take Cavilo alive if possible, but I don't want any Dendarii to die trying. Take no chances, trust nothing she says."

"I have the picture." Elena waved a salute, and motioned to her squad, which broke up to insert weapons-charges. Elena began to confer over the command-channel headset with the leader of the twin squad waiting on Cavilo's other side and with the commander of the Ariel's combat shuttle, closing in from space.

Miles motioned Gregor along the corridor, removing him as swiftly as possible from the region of potential messiness. "To the tactics room, and I'll fill you in. You have some decisions to make."

They entered a lift-tube, and rose. Miles breathed easier with every meter he increased the range between Gregor and Cavilo.

"My biggest worry," Miles said, "till we spoke face-to-face, was that Cavilo really had done what she thought she had, fogged your mind. I didn't see where she could be getting her ideas except from you. Wasn't sure what I could do in that case, except play along till I could hand you over to higher experts on Barrayar. If I survived. I didn't know how fast you'd see through her."

"Oh, at once," shrugged Gregor. "She had the same hungry smile Vordrozda used to get. And a dozen lesser cannibals, since. I can smell a power-hungry flatterer at a thousand meters, now."

"I yield to my master in strategy," Miles's armored hand made a genuflecting motion. "Do you know you rescued yourself? She'd have taken you all the way home, even if I hadn't come along."

"It was easy." Gregor frowned. "All that was required was that I have no personal honor at all." Gregor's eyes, Miles realized, were deathly, devoid of triumph.

"You can't cheat an honest man," said Miles uncertainly. "Or Woman. What would you have done, if she'd got you home?"

"Depends." Gregor stared into the middle distance. "If she'd managed to get you killed, I suppose I'd have had her executed." Gregor glanced back, as they stepped out of the tube. "This is better. Maybe . . . maybe there's some way to give her a fair chance."

Miles blinked. "I'd be very careful about giving Cavilo any kind of a chance at all, if I were you. Even with tongs. Does she deserve it? Do you realize what's going on, how many she's betrayed?"

"In part. And yet . . ."

"Yet, what?"

Gregor's tone was so low as to be nearly inaudible. "I wish she had been real."

". . . and that's the present tactical situation in the Hub and Vervain local space, as far as my information goes," Miles concluded his presentation to Gregor. They had the Ariel's briefing room all to themselves; Arde Mayhew stood guard in the corridor. Miles had begun his speed-precis as soon as Elena reported that the hostile boarders had been successfully secured. He'd paused only to peel out of his ill-fitting armor and back into his Dendarii greys. The armor had been hastily borrowed from the same female soldier who'd lent him kit before, and the plumbing perforce left unconnected.

Miles froze the holovid display in the center of the table. Would that he could freeze real time and events the same way, at the touch of a keypad, that he might halt their terrible rush. "You'll notice our biggest intelligence holes are in precise information about the Cetagandan forces. I'm hoping the Vervani will plug some of those gaps, if we can persuade them we're their allies, and the Rangers may yield more. One way or another.

"Now—sire—the decision lands on you. Fight or flight? I can detach the Ariel from the Dendarii right now, to run you home, with little loss to this hot and dirty wormhole fight. Firepower and armor, not speed, are going to be at a premium there. There's not much doubt which course my father and Illyan would vote for."

"No." Gregor stirred. "On the other hand, they aren't here."

"True. Alternately, going to the opposite extreme, do you wish to be commander-in-chief of this mess? In fact, as well as name?"

Gregor smiled softly. "What a temptation. But don't you think there's a certain . . . hubris, in undertaking field leadership without a prior apprenticing in field followership?"

Miles reddened slightly. "I—ahem!—face a similar dilemma. You've met the solution, his name's Ky Tung. We'll be conferring with him when we transfer back to the Triumph, later." Miles paused. "There are a couple of other things you might do for us. If you choose. Real things."

Gregor rubbed his chin, watching Miles as he might a play. "Trot them out. Lord Vorkosigan."

"Legitimatize the Dendarii. Present them to the Vervani as the Barrayaran pickup force. I can only bluff. Your breath is law. You can conclude a legally binding defensive treaty between Barrayar and Vervain—Aslund too, if we can bring them in. Your greatest value is—sorry—diplomatic, not military. Go to Vervain Station, and deal with these people. And I do mean deal."

"Safely behind the lines," Gregor noted dryly.

"Only if we win, on the other side of the jump. If we lose, the lines will come to you."

"I would I could be a soldier. Some lowly lieutenant, with only a handful of men to care for."

"There's no moral difference between one and ten thousand, I assure you. You're just as thoroughly damned however many you get killed."

"I want to be in on the fight. Probably the only chance I'll have in my life for real risk."

"What, the risk you run every day from lunatic assassins isn't enough thrill for you? You want more?"

"Active. Not passive. Real service."

"If—in your judgment—the best and most vital service you can give everyone else risking their lives here is as a minor field officer, I will of course support you to the best of my ability," said Miles bleakly.

"Ouch," murmured Gregor. "You can turn a phrase like a knife, you know?" He paused. "Treaties, eh?"

"If you would be so kind, sire."

"Oh, stop it," Gregor sighed. "I will play my assigned part. As always."

"Thank you." Miles thought of offering some apology, some solace, then thought better of it. "The other wild card is Randall's Rangers. Who are now, unless I miss my guess, in considerable disarray. Their second-in-command has vanished, their commander has deserted at the start of the action—how was it the Vervani let her make an exit, by the way?"

"She told them she was going out to confer with you—implied she'd somehow added you to her forces. She was going to jump her fast courier to the hot side immediately thereafter, supposedly."

"Hm. She may have inadvertently paved our way—is she denying involvement with the Cetagandans?"

"I don't think the Vervani have caught on yet about the Rangers opening the door to the Cetagandans. At the time we left Vervain Station they were still putting the Rangers' failures to defend the Cetagandan-side jump down to incompetence."

"Probably with considerable supporting evidence. I doubt the bulk of the Rangers knew about the betrayal, or it couldn't have stayed secret this long. And whatever inner cadre that was working with the Cetas, were left in the dark when Cavilo took off on her Imperial tangent. You realize, Gregor, you did this? Sabotaged the Cetagandan invasion single-handedly?"

"Oh," breathed Gregor, "it took both hands."

Miles decided not to touch that one. "Anyway—if we can—we need to lock the Rangers down. Get them under control, or at least out from behind everyone's backs."

"Very well."

"I suggest a round of good-guy-bad-guy. I'll be happy to take the part of bad guy."

Cavilo was brought in between two men with hand tractors. She still wore her space armor, now marred and scarred. Her helmet was gone. The armor's weapons packs had been removed, control systems disconnected, and joints locked, turning it into a hundred-kilo prison, tight as a sarcophagus. The two Dendarii soldiers set her upright near the end of the conference table and stepped back with a flourish. A statue with a live head, some Pygmalion-like metamorphosis interrupted and horribly incomplete.

"Thank you, gentlemen, dismissed," said Miles. "Commander Bothari-Jesek, please stay."

Cavilo rolled her short-cropped blonde head in futile resistance, the limit of physically possible motion. She glared furiously at Gregor as the soldiers exited. "You snake," she snarled. "You bastard."

Gregor sat with his elbows on the conference table, chin resting in his hands. He raised his head to say tiredly, "Commander Cavilo, both my parents died violently in political intrigue before I was six years old. A fact you might have researched. Did you think you were dealing with an amateur?"

"You were out of your league from the beginning, Cavilo," said Miles, walking slowly around her as if inspecting his prize. Her head turned to follow him, then had to swivel to pick up his orbit on the other side. "You should have stuck to your original contract. Or your second plan. Or your third. You should, in fact, have stuck to something. Anything. Your total self-interest didn't make you strong, it made you a rag in the wind, anybody's to pick up. Now, Gregor—though not I—thinks you should be given a chance to earn your worthless life."

"You haven't got the balls to shove me out the airlock." Her eyes were slitted with her rage.

"I wasn't planning to." Since it clearly made her skin crawl, Miles circled her again. "No. Looking ahead—when this is over—I thought I might give you to the Cetagandans. A treaty tidbit that will cost us nothing, and help turn them up sweet. I imagine they'll be looking for you, don't you?" He fetched up before her and smiled.

Her face drained. The tendons stood out on her slender neck.

Gregor spoke. "But if you do as we ask, I will grant you safe passage out of the Hegen Hub, via Barrayar, when this is over. Together with any surviving remnant of your forces that will still follow you. It will give you a two-month head start on the Cetagandan vengeance for this debacle."

"In fact," put in Miles, "if you play your part, you could even come out of this a heroine. What fun!"

Gregor's glower at him was not entirely feigned.

"I'll get you," Cavilo breathed to Miles.

"It's the best deal you'll get today. Life. Salvage. A new start, far from here—very far from here. That, Simon Illyan will assure. Far away, but not unwatched."

Calculation began to edge out the rage in her eyes. "What do you want me to do?"

"Not much. Yield up what control you still have of your forces to an officer of our choice. Probably a Vervani liaison, they're paying for you, after all. You will introduce your replacement to your chain of command, and retire to the safety of the Triumph's brig for the duration."

"There won't be any surviving remnant of the Rangers when this is done!"

"There is that chance," Miles conceded. "You were going to throw them all away. Note, please, I'm not offering a choice between this and some better deal. It's this or the Cetagandans. Whose approval of treason is strictly limited to those who deal in their favor."

Cavilo looked like she wanted to spit, but said, "Very well. I yield. You have your deal."

"Thank you."

"But you . . ." her eyes were chips of blue ice, her voice low and venomous, "you will learn, little man. You're riding high today, but time will bring you down. I'd say, just wait twenty years, but I doubt you're going to live that long. Time will teach you how much nothing your loyalties will buy you. The day they finally grind you up and spit you out, I'm just sorry I won't be there to watch, 'cause you're gonna be hamburger."

Miles called the soldiers back in. "Take her away." It was almost a plea. As the door closed behind the prisoner and her porters, he turned to find Elena's eyes upon him.

"God, that woman makes me cold," he shivered.

"Ah?" Gregor remarked, elbows still planted. "Yet in a weird way, you seem to get along with each other. You think alike."

"Gregor!" Miles protested. "Elena?" he called for a counter-vote.

"You're both very twisty," said Elena doubtfully. "And, er, short." At Miles's tight-lipped look of outrage she explained, "It's more a matter of pattern than content. If you were power-crazy, instead of, of . . ."

"Some other kind of crazy, yes, go on."

"—you could plot like that. You seemed to kind of enjoy figuring her out."

"Thank-you-I-think." He hunched his shoulders. Was it true? Could that be himself in twenty years? Sick with cynicism and unvented rage, a shelled self thrilled only by mastery, power games, control, armor-plate with a wounded beast inside?

"Let's get back to the Triumph," he said shortly. "We've all got work to do."

Miles paced impatiently across the short breadth of Admiral Oser's cabin aboard Triumph. Gregor leaned hip-slung on the edge of the comconsole desk, watching him oscillate.

". . . naturally the Vervani will be suspicious, but with the Cetagandans breathing down their necks they'll have a real will to believe. And deal. You'll want to make it as attractive as possible, to close things up quickly, but of course don't give away any more than you have to—"

Gregor said dryly, "Perhaps you'd like to come along and operate my holoprompter?"

Miles stopped, cleared his throat. "Sorry. I know you know more about treaties than I do. I ... babble when I'm nervous, sometimes."

"Yes, I know."

Miles managed to keep his mouth shut, though not his feet still, until the cabin buzzer blatted.

"Prisoners as ordered, sir," came Sergeant Chodak's voice over the intercom.

"Thank you, enter." Miles leaned across the desk and hit the door control.

Chodak and a squad marched Captain Ungari and Sergeant Overholt into the cabin. The prisoners were indeed just as Miles had ordered; washed, shaved, combed, and provided with fresh pressed

Dendarii greys with equivalent rank insignia. They also looked palpably surly and hostile about it.

"Thank you, Sergeant, you and your squad are dismissed."

"Dismissed?" Chodak's eyebrows questioned the wisdom of this. "Sure you don't want us to at least stand-to in the corridor, sir? Remember the last time."

"It won't be necessary this time."

Ungari's glare denied that airy assertion. Chodak withdrew doubtfully, keeping his stunner-aim steady on the pair until the doors closed across his view.

Ungari inhaled deeply. "Vorkosigan! You mutinous little mutant, I'm going to have you court-martialed, skinned, stuffed, and mounted for this—"

They had not yet noticed quiet Gregor, still leaning on the comconsole and also wearing courtesy Dendarii greys, though without insignia, there being no Dendarii equivalent for emperor.

"Uh, sir—" Miles motioned the dark-faced captain's eye toward Gregor.

"Those are such widely shared sentiments, Captain Ungari, that I'm afraid you might have to stand in line and wait your turn," Gregor remarked, smiling slightly.

The remaining air went out of Ungari unvoiced. He braced to attention; to his credit, the uppermost of the wildly mixed emotions on his face was profound relief. "Sire."

"My apologies, Captain," said Miles, "for my high-handed treatment of you and Sergeant Overholt, but I judged my plan for retrieving Gregor too, uh, delicate for, for—" your nerves, "I thought I'd better take personal responsibility." You were happier not watching, really. And I was happier not having my elbow jogged.

"Ensigns don't have personal responsibility for operations of this magnitude, their commanders do," Ungari snarled. "As Simon Illyan would have been the first to point out to me if your plan—however delicate—had failed. . . ."

"Well, then congratulations, sir; you have just rescued the emperor," snapped Miles. "Who, as your commander-in-chief, has a few orders for you, if you will permit him to get a word in edgewise."

Ungari's teeth closed. With visible effort, he dismissed Miles from his attention and focused on Gregor. "Sire?"

Gregor spoke. "As the only members of ImpSec within a couple million kilometers—except for Ensign Vorkosigan, who has other chores—I'm attaching you and Sergeant Overholt to my person, until we make contact with our reinforcements. I may also require courier duties of you. Before we leave the Triumph, please share any pertinent intelligence you may possess with Dendarii Ops; they're now my Imperial, uh . . ."

"Most obedient servants," suggested Miles under his breath. "Forces," Gregor concluded. "Consider that grey suit," (Ungari glanced down at his with loathing) "regulation wear, and respect it accordingly. You'll doubtless get your greens back when I get mine."

Miles put in, "I'll be detaching the Dendarii light cruiser Ariel and the faster of our two fast couriers to Gregor's personal service, when you depart for Vervain Station. If you have to split off on courier duties, I suggest you take the smaller ship and leave the Ariel with Gregor. Its captain, Bel Thorne, is my most trusted Dendarii shipmaster."

"Still thinking about my line of retreat, eh, Miles?" Gregor raised a brow at him.

Miles bowed slightly. "If things go very wrong, someone must live to avenge us. Not to mention to make damn sure the Dendarii survivors get paid. We owe them that much, I think."

"Yes," Gregor agreed softly.

"I also have my personal report on recent events for you to deliver to Simon Illyan," Miles went on, "in case I—in case you see him before I do." Miles handed Ungari a data disk.

Ungari looked dizzy at this rapid reordering of his priorities. "Vervain Station? Pol Six is where your safety lies, surely, sire."

"Vervain Station is where my duty lies, Captain, and perforce yours. Come along, I'll explain it all as we go."

"Are you leaving Vorkosigan loose?" Ungari frowned at Miles. "With these mercenaries? I have a problem with that, sire."

"I'm sorry, sir," said Miles to Ungari, "that I cannot, cannot . . ." obey you, but Miles left that unsaid. "I have a deeper problem with arranging a battle for these mercenaries and then not showing up for it. A difference between myself and . . . the Rangers' former commander. There must be some difference between us, maybe that's it. Gre—the Emperor understands."

"Hm," said Gregor. "Yes. Captain Ungari, I officially detach Ensign Vorkosigan as Our Dendarii liaison. On my personal responsibility. Which should be sufficient even for you."

"It's not me that it has to be sufficient for, sire!"

Gregor hesitated fractionally. "For Barrayar's best interests, then. A sufficient argument even for Simon. Let us go, Captain."

"Sergeant Overholt," Miles added, "you will be the Emperor's personal bodyguard and batman, until relieved."

Overholt looked anything but relieved at this abrupt field promotion. "Sir," he whispered aside to Miles, "I haven't had the advanced course!"

He referred to Simon Illyan's mandatory, personally-conducted ImpSec course for the palace guard, that gave Gregor's usual crew that hard-polished edge.

"We all have a similar problem here, Sergeant, believe me," Miles murmured back. "Do your best."

The Triumph's tactics room was alive with activity, every station chair occupied, every holovid display bright with the flow of ship and fleet tactical changes. Miles stood at Tung's elbow and felt doubly redundant. He bethought of the jape back at the Academy. Rule 1: Only overrule the tactical computer if you know something it doesn't. Rule 2: The tac comp always knows more than you do.

This was combat? This muffled chamber, swirl of lights, these padded chairs? Maybe the detachment was a good thing, for commanders. His heart hammered even now. A tac room of this caliber could cause information overload and mind-lock, if you let it. The trick was to pick out what was important, and never, ever to forget that the map was not the territory.

His job here, Miles reminded himself, was not to command. It was to watch Tung command, and learn how he did it, his alternate modes of thinking to Barrayaran Academy Standard. Miles's only legitimate point of overrule might come if some external political/strategic need took precedence over internal tactical logic. Miles prayed that event would not arise, because a shorter and uglier name for it was betraying your troops.

Miles's attention sharpened as a little jumpscout winked into existence at the throat of the wormhole. On the tactics display it was a pink point of light in a slowly moving whirlpool of darkness. On a telescreen, it was a slim ship against fixed and distant stars. From its own wired-in pilot's point of view, it was some strange extension of his own body. In yet another vid display, it was a collection of telemetry readouts, numerology, some Platonic ideal. What is truth? All. None.

"Sharkbait One reporting to Fleet One," the pilot's voice came over Tung's console. "You have ten minutes clearance. Stand by for tight-beam burst."

Tung spoke into his comm. "Fleet commence Jump, tight by the numbers."

The first Dendarii ship waiting by the wormhole jockeyed into place, glowed brightly in the tac display (though it appeared to do nothing in the televid), and vanished. A second ship followed in thirty seconds, pushing the safety limit of time margins between jumps. Two ships trying to rematerialize in the same place at the same time would result in no ships and a very large explosion.

As the Sharkbait's tightbeam telemetry was digested by the tac comp, the image rotated so that the dark vortex representing (but in no way picturing) the wormhole was suddenly mirrored by an exit vortex. Beyond that exit vortex an array of dots and specks and lines represented ships in flight, maneuvering, firing, fleeing; the hardened Homeside battle station of the Vervani, twin to the Hubside station where Miles had left Gregor; the Cetagandan attackers. A view of their destination at last. All lies, of course, it was minutes out of date.

"Yech," Tung commented. "What a mess. Here we go . . ."

The jump klaxon sounded. It was the Triumph's turn. Miles gripped the back of Tung's chair, though intellectually he knew the feeling of motion was illusory. A whirl of dreams seemed to cloud his mind, for a moment, for an hour; it was unmeasurable. The wrench in his stomach and the godawful wave of nausea that followed were anything but dreamlike. Jump over. A moment of silence throughout the room, as others struggled to overcome their disorientation. Then the murmur picked up where it had left off. Welcome to Vervain. Take a wormhole jump to hell.

The tac display spun and shifted, shunting in new data, recentering its little universe. Their wormhole was presently guarded by its beleaguered Station and a thin and battered string of Vervani Navy and Vervani-commanded Ranger ships. The Cetagandans had hit it once already, been driven off, and now hovered out of range awaiting reinforcements for the next strike. Cetagandan re-supply was streaming across the Vervain system from the other wormhole.

The other wormhole had fallen fast, the only way to fly from the attacker's viewpoint. Even with complete surprise on the Cetagandans' side for their massive first strike, the Vervani might have stopped them had not three Ranger ships apparently misunderstood their orders and broken off when they should have counterattacked. But the Cetagandans had secured their bridgehead and begun to pour through.

The second wormhole, Miles's wormhole, had been better equipped for defense—until the panicked Vervani had pulled everything that could be spared back to guard the high orbitals of the homeworld. Miles could scarcely blame them; it was a hard strategic choice either way. But now the Cetagandans boiled across the system practically unimpeded, hopscotching the heavily guarded planet, in a bold attempt to take the Hegen wormhole, if not by surprise, at least at speed.

The first method of choice for attacking a wormhole was by subterfuge, subornment, and infiltration, i.e., to cheat. The second, also preferring subterfuge in its execution, was by an end-run, sending forces around by another route (if there was one) into the contested local space. The third was to open the attack with a sacrifice ship laying down a "sun wall," a massive blanket of nuclear missilettes deployed as a unit, creating a planar wave that cleared near-space of everything including, frequently, the attack ship; but sun walls were costly, rapidly dissipated, and only locally effective. The Cetagandans had attempted to combine all three methods, as the Rangers' disarray and the filthy radioactive fog still outgassing from the vicinity of their first conquest testified.

The fourth approved approach for the problem of frontally attacking a guarded wormhole was to shoot the officer who suggested it. Miles trusted the Cetagandans would work around to that one too, by the time he was done.

Time passed. Miles hooked a station chair into clamps and studied the central display till his eyes watered and his mind threatened to fall into a hypnotic fugue, then rose and shook himself and circulated among the duty stations, kibbitzing.

The Cetagandans maneuvered. The sudden and unexpected arrival of the Dendarii force during the lull had thrown them into temporary confusion; their planned final attack on the strained Vervani must needs be converted on the fly into yet another softening-up round of hit-and-run. Expensive. At this point the Cetagandans had few ways of concealing their numbers or movements. The defending Dendarii had the implication of hidden reserves (who knew how unlimited? Not Miles, certainly) concealed on the other side of the jump. A brief hope flared in Miles that this threat alone might be enough to make the Cetagandans break off the attack.

"Naw," sighed Tung when Miles confided this optimistic thought. "They're too far into it now. The butcher's bill's too high already for them to pretend they were only fooling. Even to themselves. A Cetagandan commander who packed it in now would go home to a court martial. They'll keep going long after it's hopeless, as their brass tries desperately to cover their bleeding asses with a flag of victory."

"That is ... vile."

"That is the system, son, and not just for the Cetagandans. One of the system's several built-in defects. And besides," Tung grinned briefly, "it's not as hopeless as all that yet. A fact we will try to conceal from them."

The Cetagandan forces began to move, their directions and accelerations telegraphing their intention for a pounding pass. The trick was to try for local concentrations of force, three or four ships ganging up on one, overwhelming the defender's plasma mirrors. The Dendarii and Vervani would attempt an identical strategy against Cetagandan stragglers, but for a few bravura captains on both sides equipped with the new imploder lances playing an insane game of chicken, trying to put a target within the weapon's short range. Miles also tried to keep one eye on the Rangers' dispositions. Not every Ranger ship had Vervani advisors aboard, and battle arrays that put the Rangers in front of the Cetagandans were much to be preferred to ones that put Rangers behind Dendarii backs.

The quiet murmur of techs and computers within the tactics room scarcely changed pace. There ought to be a flourish of drums, bagpipes, something to herald this dance with death. But if reality broke in at all to this upholstered bubble, it would be sudden, absolute, and over.

A vid-comm message interrupted, intra-ship—yes, there was still a real ship encasing them—a breathless officer reporting to Tung. "Brig, sir. Watch yourselves up there. We've had a break-out. Admiral Oser's escaped, and he let all the other prisoners out too."

"Dammit," said Tung, glared at Miles, and pointed to the comm. "Handle that. Jack up Auson." He turned his attention back to his tactics display, muttering. "This wouldn't have happened in my day."

Miles slipped into the comm chair, and paged the Triumph's bridge. "Auson! Did you get the word on Oser?" Auson's irritated face appeared, "Yeah, we're working on it."

"Order extra commando guards to the tactics room, engineering, and your own bridge. This is a real bad time for interruptions down here."

"Tell me. We can see the Ceta bastards coming." Auson punched off.

Miles began monitoring internal security channels, pausing only to note the arrival of well-armed guards in the corridor. Oser had clearly had help in his escape, some loyal Oseran officer or officers, which made Miles wonder in turn about the security of the security guards. And would Oser try to combine with Metzov and Cavilo? A couple of Dendarii imprisoned for disciplinary infractions were found wandering the corridors and returned to the brig; another came back on his own. A suspected spy was cornered in a storeroom. No sign yet of the truly dangerous . . .

"There he goes!"

Miles keyed in the channel. A cargo shuttle was breaking out of its clamps, away from the side of the Triumph and into space.

Miles overrode channels, found fire control. "Don't, repeat, Do not open fire on that shuttle!"

"Uh . . ." came the reply. "Yes, sir. Do not open fire."

Why did Miles get the subliminal impression that tech hadn't been planning to open fire in the first place? Clearly a well-coordinated escape. The witch-hunt later was going to be nasty. "Patch me through to that shuttle!" Miles demanded of the comm officer. And, oh yes, send a guard to the shuttle hatch corridors . . . too late.

"I'll try, sir, but they're not answering."

"How many aboard?"

"Several, but we're not sure exactly—"

"Patch me through. They've got to listen, even if they won't reply."

"I have a channel, sir, but I have no idea if they're listening."

"I'll try it." Miles took a breath. "Admiral Oser! Turn your shuttle around and come back to the Triumph. It's too dangerous out there, you're running headlong into a fire zone. Return, and I will personally guarantee your safety—"

Tung was looking down over Miles's shoulder. "He's trying to make it to the Peregrine. Dammit, if that ship pulls out, our defensive array will collapse."

Miles glanced back at the tac comp. "Surely not. I thought we put the Peregrine in the reserve area precisely because we doubted its reliability."

"Yes, but if the Peregrine pulls out I can name three other captain-owners who will follow it. And if four ships pull out—"

"The Rangers will break despite their Vervani commander, and we'll be cooked, right, I see." Miles glanced again at the tac comp. "I don't think he's going to make it—Admiral Oser! Can you read me?"

"Yike!" Tung returned to his seat, absorbed in the Cetagandans once again. Four Cetagandan ships were combining against the edge of the Dendarii formation, while another attempted to penetrate the center, clearly trying to close the range for a lance attack. Casually, in passing, a Cetagandan plasma gunner from it picked off the stray shuttle. Just bright sparks.

"He didn't know the Cetagandans were making their attack run till his stolen shuttle cleared the Triumph," Miles whispered. "Good plan, rotten timing. . . . He could have turned around, he chose to try and run for it. . . ." Oser chose his death? Was that the comforting argument?

The Cetagandans did not so much break off their attack run as complete it, in depressingly good order. The score was slightly in the Dendarii's favor. A number of Cetagandan ships had been badly chewed, and one blown up entirely. Dendarii and Ranger damage control channels were frantic. The Dendarii had not lost ships yet, but had lost fire-power, engines, flight control, life support, shielding. The next attack run would be more devastating.

They can afford to lose three to our one. If they keep coming, keep nibbling, they must inevitably win, Miles reflected coldly. Unless we are reinforced.

Hours passed, while the Cetagandans formed up again. Miles took short breaks in the wardroom provided for that purpose off the tactics room, but was too keyed up to emulate Tung's amazing fifteen-minute instant naps. Miles knew Tung wasn't faking relaxation for morale effect; nobody could simulate such a disgusting snore.

It was possible to watch the Cetagandan reinforcements coming on across the Vervain system in the televid. That was the time tradeoff, the risk. The longer the Cetas waited, the better-equipped they could be, but the longer they waited, the better the chance that their enemies would recover too. There was doubtless a tac comp aboard the Cetagandan command ship that had generated a probability curve marking the optimum intersection of Us and Them. If only the damned Vervani would be more aggressive in attacking that supply stream from their planetary base. . . .

And here they came on again. Tung watched his displays, his hands unconsciously clenching and unclenching in his lap between jerky, thick-fingered dances on his control panel, sending orders, correcting, anticipating. Miles's fingers twitched in tiny echoes, his mind trying to get around Tung's thought, to absorb everything. Their picture of reality was getting lacy with hidden holes, as data points dropped out due to damaged sensors or senders on various ships. The Cetagandans flew through the Dendarii formation, pounding ... a Dendarii ship blew apart, another, weapons dead, tried to scramble out of range, three Ranger ships broke away as a unit ... it looked bad. . . .

"Sharkbait Three reporting," an abrupt voice overrode all other comm channels, making Miles jump in his seat. "Hold this wormhole clear. Help coming."

"Not now, "snarled Tung, but began to attempt a rapid re-deployment to cover the tiny volume of space, keep it clear of debris, missiles, enemy fire, and most of all enemy ships with imploder lances. Those Cetagandan ships that were in position to respond seemed almost to prick their ears, hesitating as Dendarii ship movements telegraphed changes coming. The Dendarii might be in retreat . . . some exploitable opportunity might be about to open up. ...

"Whatinhell's that?" Tung said, as something huge and temporarily indecipherable appeared in the throat of the wormhole and began instantly to accelerate. He punched up readouts. "It's too big to be that fast, k's too fast to be that big."

Miles recognized the energy profile even before the televiewer yielded up a visual. What a shakedown cruise they're having. "It's the Prince Serg. Our Barrayaran Imperial reinforcements have just arrived." He took a dizzy breath. "Did I not promise you . . ."

Tung swore horribly, in pure aesthetic admiration. Other ships followed, Aslunder, Polian Navy, spreading out rapidly into attack— not defensive—formation.

The ripple in the Cetagandan formations was like a silent cry of dismay. An imploder-armed Cetagandan ship dove bravely at the Prince Serg, and was sliced in half discovering that the Serg's imploder lances had been improved to triple the Cetagandans' range. That was the first mortal blow.

The second came over the commlink, a call to the Cetagandan aggressors to surrender or be destroyed—in the name of the Hegen Alliance Navy, Emperor Gregor Vorbarra and Admiral Count Aral Vorkosigan, Joint Commanders.

For a moment, Miles thought Tung was about to faint. Tung inhaled alarmingly, and bellowed with delight, "Aral Vorkosigan! Here? Hot damn!" And in an only slightly more private whisper, "How'd they lure him out of retirement? Maybe I'll get to meet him!"

Tung the military history nut was one of Miles's father's most fanatical fans, Miles recalled, and until and unless firmly suppressed could rattle off every public detail of the Barrayaran admiral's early campaigns. "I'll see what I can arrange," Miles promised.

"If you can arrange that, son. . . ." With an effort, Tung pulled his mind away from his beloved hobby of studying military history and back to his (admittedly, closely related) job of making it.

The Cetagandan ships were breaking, first in panicked singles and then in more coordinated groups, trying to organize a properly covered retreat. The Prince Serg and its support group did not waste a millisecond, but followed up instantly, attacking and disordering attempted self-covering arrays of enemy ships, worrying the resulting stragglers. In the ensuing hours the retreat became a true rout when the Vervani ships protecting their high planetary orbitals, encouraged, at last broke orbit and joined the attack. The Vervani reserve was merciless, in the terror for their homes the Cetagandans had instilled in them.

The mopping-up detail, the appalling damage control problems, the personnel rescues, were so absorbing that it took Miles those several hours to gradually realize the war was over for the Dendarii fleet. They had done their job.

17

Before departing the tactics room, Miles prudently checked with the Triumph's security to determine how their roundup of escaped prisoners was progressing. Missing and still unaccounted for remained Oser, the Peregrine's captain and two other loyal Oseran officers, Commander Cavilo, and General Metzov.

Miles was fairly certain he had witnessed Oser and his officers converted to radioactive ash in his monitors. Had Metzov and Cavilo been aboard that fleeing shuttle too? Fine irony, for Cavilo to die at the hands of the Cetagandans after all. Though—admittedly—it would have been equally ironic had she died at the hands of the Vervani, Randall's Rangers, the Aslunders, the Barrayarans, or anyone else she'd double-crossed in her brief, cometary career in the Hegen Hub. Her end was neat and convenient if true, but—he didn't like to think that her last, savage remarks to him had now acquired the prophetic weight of a dying curse. He ought to fear Metzov more than Cavilo. He ought to, but he didn't. He shuddered, and borrowed a commando guard for the walk back to his cabin.

On the way, he encountered a shuttle-load of wounded being transferred to the Triumph's sickbay. The Triumph, in the reserve group (such as it was) had taken no hits its shields couldn't handle, but other ships had not been so fortunate. Space battle casualty lists usually had the proportions reversed from planetary, the dead outnumbering the wounded, yet in lucky circumstances where the artificial environment was preserved, soldiers might survive their injuries. Uncertainly, Miles changed course and followed the procession along. What good could he do in sickbay?

The triage people had not sent minor cases to the Triumph. Three hideous burns and a massive head injury went to the head of the line, and were whisked off by the anxiously waiting staff. A few soldiers were conscious, quietly waiting their turns, immobilized with air bag braces on their float pallets, eyes cloudy with pain and pain-killers.

Miles tried to say a few words to each. Some stared uncomprehendingly, some seemed to appreciate it; he lingered a little longer with these, giving what encouragement he could. He then withdrew and stood dumbly by the door for several minutes, awash in the familiar, terrifying odors of a sickbay after a battle, disinfectants and blood, burnt meat, urine, and electronics, until he realized exhaustion was making him thoroughly stupid and useless, shaky and near-tears. He pushed off from the wall and stumped out. Bed. If anyone really wanted his command presence, they could come find him.

He hit the code lock on Oser's cabin. Now that he'd inherited it, he supposed he ought to change the numbers. He sighed and entered. As he stepped inside he became conscious of two unfortunate facts. First, although he had dismissed his commando guard upon entering sickbay, he had forgotten to call him back, and second, he was not alone. The door closed behind him before he could recoil into the corridor, and he banged into it backing up.

The dusky red hue of General Metzov's face was even more arresting to the eye than the silver gleam of the nerve disrupter parabola in his hand, aim centered on Miles's head.

Metzov had somehow acquired a set of Dendarii greys, a little small for him. Commando Cavilo, standing behind Metzov, had acquired a similar set, a little large for her. Metzov looked huge and furious. Cavilo looked . . . strange. Bitter, ironic, weirdly amused. Bruises marred her neck. She bore no weapon.

"Got you," Metzov whispered triumphantly. "At last." With a rictus smile, he advanced stepwise on Miles till he could pin him to the wall by his neck with one big hand. He dropped the nerve disrupter with a clatter and wrapped the other hand around Miles's neck, not to break but to squeeze it.

"You'll never survive—" was all Miles managed to choke out before his air pinched off. He could feel his trachea begin to crunch, purpling, his head felt on the verge of dark explosion as his blood supply was cut off. No talking Metzov out of this murder. . . .

Cavilo slipped forward, crouching, soundless and unnoticed as a cat, to take up the dropped nerve disrupter, then step back, around to Miles's left.

"Stanis, darling," she cooed. Metzov, obsessed with Miles's lingering strangulation, did not turn his head. Cavilo, clearly imitating Metzov's cadences, recited. " 'Open your legs to me, you bitch, or I'll blow your brains out.' "

Metzov's head twisted round then, his eyes widening. She blew his brains out. The crackling blue bolt hit him square between the eyes. He almost snapped Miles's neck, plastic-reinforced though those bones were, in his last convulsion, before he dropped to the deck. The blistering electrochemical smell of nerve-disruptor death slapped Miles in the face.

Miles sagged frozen against the wall, not daring to move. He raised his eyes from the corpse to Cavilo. Her lips were curved in a smile of immense satisfaction, satiated. Had Cavilo's line been a direct and recent quote? What had they been doing, all the long hours they must have been waiting in the hunter's blind of Oser's cabin? The silence lengthened.

"Not," Miles swallowed, trying to clear his bruised throat, and croaked, "not that I'm complaining, mind you, but why aren't you going ahead and shooting me too?"

Cavilo smirked. "A quick revenge is better than none. A slow and lingering one is better still, but to savor it fully I must survive it. Another day, kid." She tilted the nerve disrupter up as if to flourish it into a holster, then let it hang pointed down by her side in her relaxed hand. "You've sworn you'll see me safe out of the Hegen Hub, Vor lord. And I've come to believe you are actually stupid enough to keep your word. Not that I'm complaining, mind you. Now, if Oser had issued more than one weapon between us, or if he'd given the nerve disrupter to me and the code to his cabin to Stanis and not the other way around, or if Oser'd taken us with him as I begged . . . things might have worked out differently."

Very differently. Very slowly, and very, very carefully, Miles inched over to the comconsole and called security. Cavilo watched him thoughtfully. After a few moments, coming up on the time they might expect the reinforcements to storm in, she strolled over to his side. "I underestimated you, you know."

"I never underestimated you."

"I know. I'm not used to that . . . thank you." Contemptuously, she tossed the nerve disrupter onto Metzov's body. Then, with a sudden baring of her teeth, she wheeled, wrapped an arm around Miles's neck, and kissed him vigorously. Her timing was perfect; Security, Elena and Sergeant Chodak in the lead, burst through the door just before Miles managed to fight her off.

Miles stepped from the Triumph's shuttle through the short flex tube and on board the Prince Serg. He stared around enviously at the clean, spacious, beautifully-lit corridor, at the row of smart and gleaming honor guards snapping to attention, at the polished officers waiting in their Barrayaran Imperial dress greens. He stole an anxious glance down at his own Dendarii grey-and-whites. The Triumph, key and pride of the Dendarii fleet, seemed to shrink into something small and gritty and battered and used.

Yeah, but you guys would not look so pretty now if we had not used ourselves so hard, Miles consoled himself.

Tung, Elena, and Chodak were all goggling like tourists too. Miles called them firmly to attention to receive and return the crisp welcoming salutes of their hosts.

"I'm Commander Natochini, executive officer of the Prince Serg," the senior Barrayaran introduced himself. "Lieutenant Yegorov, here, will escort you and Commander Bothari-Jesek to Admiral Vorkosigan for your meeting, Admiral Naismith. Commodore Tung, I will be personally conducting your tour of the Prince Serg, and will be pleased to answer any of your questions. If the answers aren't classified, of course."

"Of course." Tung's broad face looked immensely pleased. In fact, if Tung grew any smugger he might implode.

"We will join Admiral Vorkosigan for lunch in the senior officers' mess, after your meeting and our tour," Commander Natochini continued to Miles. "Our last dinner guest there was the President of Pol and his entourage, twelve days ago."

Certain that the mercenaries understood the magnitude of the privilege they were being granted, the Barrayaran exec led the happy Tung and Chodak off down the corridor. Miles heard Tung chuckle under his breath, "Lunch with Admiral Vorkosigan, heh, heh. . . ."

Lieutenant Yegorov motioned Miles and Elena in the opposite direction. "You are Barrayaran, ma'am?" he inquired of Elena.

"My father was liege-sworn Armsman to the late Count Piotr for eighteen years," Elena stated. "He died in the Count's service."

"I see," said the lieutenant respectfully. "You are acquainted with the family, then." That explains you, Miles could almost see him thinking.

"Ah, yes."

The lieutenant glanced down a little more dubiously at "Admiral Naismith."

"And, uh, I understand you are Betan, sir?"

"Originally," said Miles, in his flattest Betan accent.

"You . . . may find the way we Barrayarans do things to be a little more formal than what you're used to," the lieutenant warned. "The Count, you understand, is accustomed to the respect and deference due his rank."

Miles watched, delighted, as the earnest officer sought a polite way of saying, Call him sir, don't wipe your nose on your sleeve, and none of your damned Betan egalitarian backchat, either. "You may find him rather formidable," Yegorov concluded.

"A real stuffed shirt, eh?"

The lieutenant frowned. "He is a great man."

"Aw, I bet if we pour enough wine into him at lunch, he'll loosen up and tell dirty stories with the best of 'em."

Yegorov's polite smile became fixed. Elena, eyes dancing, leaned down and whispered forcefully, "Admiral, behave!"

"Oh, all right," Miles sighed regretfully.

The lieutenant glanced gratefully at Elena, over Miles's head.

Miles admired the spit and polish, in passing. Besides just being new, the Prince Serg had been designed with diplomacy as well as war in mind, a ship fit to carry the emperor on state visits without loss of military efficiency. He saw a young ensign, down a cross-corridor that had a wall panel apart, directing some tech crew on minor repairs—no, by God, it was original installation. The Prince Serg had broken orbit with work crews still aboard, Miles had heard. He glanced back over his shoulder. There but for the grace of God and General Metzov go I. If he'd kept his nose clean on Kyril Island for just six months ... he felt an illogical twinge of envy for that busy ensign.

They entered officers' country. Lieutenant Yegorov led them through an antechamber and into a spartanly-appointed flag office twice the size of anything Miles had seen on a Barrayaran ship before. Admiral Count Aral Vorkosigan looked up from his comconsole desk as the doors slid silently back.

Miles stepped through, his belly suddenly shaking inside. To conceal and control his emotion he tossed off, "Hey, you Imperial snails are going to go all fat and soft, lolling around in this kind of luxury, y'know?"

"Ha!" Admiral Vorkosigan stumbled out of his chair and banged around the corner of his desk in his haste. Well, no wonder, how can he see with all that water standing in his eyes? He enfolded Miles in a hard embrace. Miles grinned and blinked and swallowed, face smashed against that cool green sleeve, and almost had control of his features again when Count Vorkosigan held him out at arm's length for an anxious, searching inspection. "You all right, boy?"

"Just fine. How'd you like your wormhole jump?"

"Just fine," breathed Count Vorkosigan back. "Mind you, there were moments when certain of my advisors wanted to have you shot. And there were moments when I agreed with 'em."

Lieutenant Yegorov, cut off in mid-announcement of their arrival (Miles hadn't heard him speaking, and he doubted his father had either), was standing with his mouth still open, looking perfectly stunned. Lieutenant Jole, suppressing a grin himself, arose from the other side of the comconsole desk and guided Yegorov gently and mercifully back out the door.

"Thank you, Lieutenant. The Admiral appreciates your services, that will be all. . . ."

Jole glanced back over his shoulder, quirked a pensive brow, and followed Yegorov out. Miles just glimpsed the blond lieutenant drape himself across a chair in the antechamber, head back in the relaxed posture of a man anticipating a long wait, before the door slid closed. Jole could be supernaturally courteous at times.

"Elena." With an effort, Count Vorkosigan broke away from Miles to take both Elena's hands in a firm brief grip. "You are well?"

"Yes, sir."

"That pleases me . . . more than I can say. Cordelia sends her love and her best hopes. If I saw you, I was to remind you, ah—I must get the phrase exact, it was one of her Betan cracks—'Home is where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.'"

"I can hear her voice," smiled Elena. "Tell her thank you. Tell her ... I will remember."

"Good." Count Vorkosigan pressed her no further. "Sit, sit," he waved them at chairs, which he snugged up closed to the comconsole desk, and sat himself. For an instant, changing gears, his features relaxed, then concentrated with attention once again. God, he looks tired, Miles realized; for a split second, almost ghastly. Gregor, you have much to answer for. But Gregor knew that.

"What's the latest word on the cease-fire?" Miles asked.

"Still holding nicely, thank you. The only Cetagandan ships that haven't jumped back where they came from, had damaged Necklin rods or control systems or injured pilots. Or all three. We're letting them repair two of them and jump them out with skeleton crews, the rest are not salvageable. I estimate controlled commercial travel could resume in six weeks."

Miles shook his head. "So ends the Five-Day War. I never once saw a Cetagandan face-to-face. All that effort and bloodshed, just to return to the status quo ante."

"Not quite for everyone. A number of Cetagandan senior officers have been recalled to their capital, to explain their 'unauthorized adventure' to their emperor. Their apologies are expected to be fatal."

Miles snorted. "Expiate their failure, rather. 'Unauthorized adventure.' Does anyone believe that? Why do they even bother?"

"Finesse, boy. A retreating enemy should be offered all the face he can carry off. Just don't let him carry off anything else."

"I understand you finessed the Polians. All this time, I expected it would be Simon Illyan to show up in person to haul us lost boys home."

"He longed to come, but there was no way we could both leave home at the same time. The wobbly cover we'd put over Gregor's absence could have collapsed at any moment."

"How did you pull that one off, by the way?"

"Picked out a young officer who looked a lot like Gregor, told him there was an assassination plot afoot against the Emperor and that he was to be the bait. Bless him, he volunteered at once. He—and his Security, who had the same tale told them—spent the next several weeks leading a life of ease down at Vorkosigan Surleau, eating off the best plates—but with indigestion. We finally sent him off on a rustic camping trip, as inquiries from the capital were getting pressing. People will twig soon, I'm sure, if they haven't already, but now we've got Gregor back we can explain it away any way we like. Any way he likes." Count Vorkosigan frowned an odd brief frown, odd because not wholly displeased.

"I was surprised," said Miles, "though very happy, that you got your forces past Pol so fast. I was afraid they wouldn't let you through till the Cetagandans were in the Hub. And then it would be too late."

"Yes, well, that's the other reason you got me instead of Simon. As Prime Minister and former Regent, it was perfectly reasonable for me to make a state visit to Pol. We came up with a quick list of the top five diplomatic concessions they've been wanting from us for years, and suggested it for an agenda.

"It being all formal and official and aboveboard, it was then perfectly reasonable for us to combine my visit with the Prince Serg's shakedown cruise. We were in orbit at Pol, shuttling up and down to official receptions and parties," (his hand unconsciously rubbed his abdomen in a pain-warding motion) "with me still trying desperately to talk our way into the Hub without shooting anybody, when word of the Cetagandan surprise attack on Vervain broke. At that point, getting permission to proceed was suddenly expedited. And we were only days, not weeks, away from the action. Getting the Aslunders to lie down with the Polians was a trickier matter. Gregor astonished me, handling that. The Vervani were no problem, they were highly motivated to seek allies by then."

"I hear Gregor is now quite popular on Vervain."

"He's being feted in their capital even as we speak, I believe." Count Vorkosigan glanced at his chrono. "They've gone wild over him. Letting him ride shotgun in the Prince Serg's tac room may have been a better idea that I thought. Purely from a diplomatic standpoint." Count Vorkosigan looked rather abstracted.

"It . . . astonished me, that you permitted him to jump with you into the fire zone. I hadn't expected that."

"Well, when you came down to it, the Prince Serg's fleet tac room had to have been among the most tightly defended few cubic meters anywhere in Vervain local space. It was, it was . . ."

Miles watched with fascination as his father tried to spit out the words perfectly safe, and gagged on them instead. Light dawned. "It wasn't your idea, was it? Gregor ordered himself aboard!"

"He had several good arguments to support his position," Court Vorkosigan said. "The propaganda angle certainly seems to be bearing fruit."

"I thought you'd be too . . . prudent. To permit him the risk." Count Vorkosigan studied his own square hands. "I was not in love with the idea, no. But I once swore an oath to serve an emperor. The most morally dangerous moment for a guardian is when the temptation to become a puppet-master seems most rational. I always knew the moment must . . . no. I knew that if the moment never came, I should have failed my oath most profoundly." He paused. "It was still a shock to the system, though. The letting-go."

Gregor faced you down? Oh, to have been a fly on the wall of that chamber. "Even with you to practice on, all these years," Count Vorkosigan added meditatively.

"Ah . . . how's your ulcers?" Count Vorkosigan grimaced. "Don't ask." He brightened slightly--"Better, the last three days. I may actually demand food for lunch, instead of that miserable medical mush."

Miles cleared his throat. "How's Captain Ungari?"

Count Vorkosigan twitched a lip. "He's not overly pleased with you."

"I ... cannot apologize. I made a lot of mistakes, but disobeying his order to wait on Aslund Station wasn't one of them."

"Apparently not." Count Vorkosigan frowned at the far wall. "And yet . . . I'm more than ever convinced the regular Service is not the place for you. It's like trying to fit a square peg—no, worse than that. Like trying to fit a tesseract into a round hole."

Miles suppressed a twinge of panic. "I won't be discharged, will I?"

Elena regarded her fingernails and put in, "If you were, you could get a job as a mercenary. Just like General Metzov. I understand Commander Cavilo is looking for a few good men." Miles nearly meowed at her; she traded a smirk for his exasperated look.

"I was almost sorry to learn that Metzov was killed," remarked Count Vorkosigan. "We'd been planning to try and extradite him, before things went crazy with Gregor's disappearance."

"Ah! Did you finally decide the death of that Komarran prisoner way back when during their revolt was murder? I thought it might be—"

Count Vorkosigan held up two fingers. "Two murders."

Miles paused. "My God, he didn't try and track down poor Ahn before he left, did he?" He'd almost forgotten Ahn.

"No, but we tracked him down. Though not, alas, before Metzov had left Barrayar. And yes, the Komarran rebel had been tortured to death. Not wholly intentionally, he apparently had had some hidden medical weakness. But it was not, as the original investigator had suspected, in revenge for the death of the guard. It was the other way around. The Barrayaran guard corporal, who had participated in or at least acquiesced to the torture, though over some feeble protest, according to Ahn—the corporal suffered a revulsion of feeling, and threatened to turn Metzov in.

"Metzov murdered him in one of his panic-rages, then made Ahn help him cook up and vouch for the cover story about the escape. So Ahn was twice tainted with the thing. Metzov kept Ahn in terror, yet was equally in Ahn's power if the facts ever came out, a kind of strange lock on each other . . . which Ahn at last escaped. Ahn seemed almost relieved, and volunteered to be fast-penta'd, when Illyan's agents came for him."

Miles thought of the weatherman with regret. "Will anything bad happen to Ahn now?"

"We'd planned to make him testify, at Metzov's trial . . . Illyan thought we might even turn it to our favor, with respect to the Komarrans. Present that poor idiot guard corporal to them as an unsung hero. Hang Metzov as proof of the emperor's good faith and commitment to justice for Barrayarans and Komarrans alike . . . nice scenario." Count Vorkosigan frowned bitterly. "I think we will quietly drop it now. Again."

Miles puffed out his breath. "Metzov. A goat to the end. Must be some bad karma, clinging to him . . . not that he didn't earn it."

"Beware of wishing for justice. You might get it."

"I've already learned that, sir."

"Already?" Count Vorkosigan cocked an eyebrow at him. "Hm."

"Speaking of justice," Miles seized the opening. "I'm concerned over the matter of Dendarii pay. They took a lot of damage, more than a mercenary fleet will usually tolerate. Their only contract was my breath and voice. If ... if the Imperium does not back me, I will be forsworn."

Count Vorkosigan smiled slightly. "We have already considered the matter."

"Will Illyan's covert ops budget stretch, to cover this?"

"Illyan's budget would burst trying to cover this. But you, ah, seem to have a friend in a high place. We will draw you an emergency credit chit from ImpSec, this fleet's fund, and the Emperor's privy purse, and hope to recoup it all later from a special appropriation rammed through the Council of Ministers and the Council of Counts. Submit a bill."

Miles fished a data disk from his pocket. "Here, sir. From the Dendarii fleet accountant. She was up all night. Some damage estimates are still preliminary." He set it on the comconsole desk.

One corner of Count Vorkosigan's mouth twisted up. "You're learning, boy. . . ." He inserted the disk in his desk for a fast scan: "I'll have a credit chit prepared over lunch. You can take it with you when you depart."

"Thank you, sir."

"Sir," Elena put in, leaning forward earnestly, "what will happen to the Dendarii fleet now?"

"Whatever it chooses, I presume. Though they cannot linger, this close to Barrayar."

"Are we to be abandoned again?" asked Elena.

"Abandoned?"

"You made us an Imperial force, once. I thought. Baz thought. Then Miles left us, and then . . . nothing."

"Just like Kyril Island," Miles remarked. "Out of sight, out of mind." He shrugged dolefully. "I gather they suffered a similar deterioration of morale."

Count Vorkosigan gave him a sharp look. "The fate of the Dendarii —like your future military career, Miles—is a matter still under discussion."

"Do I get to be in on that discussion? Do they?"

"We'll let you know." Count Vorkosigan planted his hands on his desktop, and rose. "That's all I can say now, even to you. Lunch, officers?"

Miles and Elena perforce rose too. "Commodore Tung knows nothing of our real relationship yet," Miles cautioned. "If you wish to keep that covert, I'm going to have to play Admiral Naismith when we rejoin him."

Count Vorkosigan's smile turned peculiar. "Illyan and Captain Ungari must certainly favor not breaking a potentially useful cover identity. By all means. Should be fascinating."

"I should warn you, Admiral Naismith is not very deferential."

Elena and Count Vorkosigan looked at each other, and both broke into laughter. Miles waited, wrapped in what dignity he could muster, till they subsided. Finally.

Admiral Naismith was painfully polite during lunch. Even Lieutenant Yegorov could have found no fault.

The Vervani government courier handed the credit chit across the homeside station commandant's comconsole desk. Miles testified receipt of it with thumbprint, retina scan, and Admiral Naismith's flourishing illegible scrawl, nothing at all like Ensign Vorkosigan's careful signature. "It's a pleasure doing business with you honorable gentlemen," Miles said, pocketing the chit with satisfaction and carefully sealing the pocket.

"It's the least we can do," said the jumppoint station commandant. "I cannot tell you my emotions, knowing that the next pass the Cetagandans made was going to be their last, nerving to fight to the end, when the Dendarii materialized to reinforce us."

"The Dendarii couldn't have done it alone," said Miles modestly. "All we did was help you hold the bridgehead till the real big guns arrived."

"And if it had not been held, the Hegen Alliance forces—the big guns, as you say—could not have jumped into Vervani local space."

"Not without great cost, certainly," Miles conceded.

The station commandant glanced at his chrono. "Well, my planet will be expressing its opinion of that in more tangible form quite shortly. May I escort you to the ceremony, Admiral? It's time."

"Thank you." Miles rose, and preceded him out of his office, his hand rechecking the tangible thanks in his pocket. Medals, huh. Medals buy no fleet repairs.

He paused at a transparent portal, caught half by the vista from the jump station and half by his own reflection. Oseran/Dendarii dress greys were all right, he decided; soft grey velvet tunic set off with blinding white trim and silver buttons on the shoulders, matching trousers and grey synthasuede boots. He fancied the outfit made him look taller. Perhaps he would keep the design.

Beyond the portal floated a scattering of ships, Dendarii, Ranger, Vervani and Alliance. The Prince Serg was not among them, being now in orbit above the Vervani homeworld while high-level—literally—talks continued, hammering out the details of the permanent treaty of friendship, commerce, tariff reduction, mutual defense pact, &etc, among Barrayar, Vervain, Aslund and Pol. Gregor, Miles had heard, was being quite luminous in both the public relations and the actual nuts and bolts part of the business. Better you than me, boy. The Vervani jumppoint station was letting its own repairs schedule slacken to lend aid to the Dendarii; Baz was working around the clock. Miles tore himself away from the vista and followed the station commandant.

They paused in the corridor outside the large briefing room where the ceremony was to take place, waiting for the attendees to settle. The Vervani apparently wished the principals to make a grand entrance. The commandant went in to prepare. The audience was not large—too much vital work going on—but the Vervani had scraped up enough warm bodies to make it look respectable, and Miles had contributed a platoon of convalescent Dendarii to fluff up the crowd. He would accept on their behalf, in his speech, he decided.

As Miles waited, he saw Commander Cavilo arrive with her Barrayaran honor guard. As far as he knew, the Vervani were not yet aware that the honor-guard's weapons were lethally charged and they had orders to shoot to kill if their prisoner attempted escape. Two hard-faced women in Barrayaran auxiliary uniforms made sure Cavilo was watched both night and day. Cavilo did a good job of ignoring their presence.

The Ranger dress uniform was a neater version of their fatigues, in tan, black, and white, subliminally reminding Miles of a guard dog's fur. This bitch bites, he reminded himself. Cavilo smiled and drifted up to Miles. She reeked of her poisonous green-scented perfume; she must have bathed in it.

Miles tilted his head in salute, reached into a pocket, and took out two nose filters. He thrust one up each nostril, where they expanded softly to create a seal, and inhaled deeply to test them. Working fine. They would filter out much smaller molecules than the vile organics of that damned perfume. Miles breathed out through his mouth.

Cavilo watched this performance with an expression of thwarted fury. "Damn you," she muttered.

Miles shrugged, palms out, as if to say, What would you have of me? "Are you and your survivors about ready to move out?"

"Right after this idiot charade. I have to abandon six ships, too damaged to jump."

"Sensible of you. If the Vervani don't catch on to you soon, the Cetagandans, when they realize they can't get at you themselves, will probably tell them the ugly truth. You shouldn't linger in these parts."

"I don't intend to. If I never see this place again it will be too soon. That goes double for you, mutant. If not for you . . ." she shook her head bitterly.

"By the way," Miles added, "the Dendarii have now been paid three times for this operation. Once by our original contractors the Aslunders, once by the Barrayarans, and once by the grateful Vervani. Each agreed to cover all our expenses in full. Leaves a very tidy profit."

She actually hissed. "You better pray we never meet again."

"Goodbye, then."

They entered the chamber to collect their honors. Would Cavilo have the iron nerve to accept hers on behalf of the Rangers her twisted plots had destroyed? Yes, it turned out. Miles gagged quietly.

The first medal I ever won, Miles thought as the station commandant pinned his on him with embarrassingly fulsome praise, and I can't even wear it at home. The medal, the uniform, and Admiral Naismith himself must soon return to the closet. Forever? The life of Ensign Vorkosigan was not too attractive, by comparison. And yet . . . the mechanics of soldiering was the same, from side to side. If there was any difference between himself and Cavilo, it must be in what they chose to serve. And how they chose to serve it. Not all paths, but one path. . . .

When Miles arrived back on Barrayar for home leave, a few weeks later, Gregor invited him for lunch at the Imperial Residence. They sat at a wrought-iron table in the North Gardens, which were famous for having been designed by Emperor Ezar, Gregor's grandfather. In summer the spot would be deeply shaded; now it was laced with light filtering through young leaves, rippling in the soft airs of spring. The guards did their guarding out of sight, and servants waited out of earshot unless Gregor touched his pager. Replete with the first three courses, Miles sipped scalding coffee and plotted an assault on a second pastry, which cowered across the table linen under a thick camouflage of cream. Or would that overmatch his forces? This had it all over the contract slave rations they'd once divided, not to mention Cavilo's doggie chews.

Even Gregor seemed to be seeing it all with new eyes. "Space stations are really boring, y'know? All those corridors," he commented, staring out past a fountain, eye following a curving brick path that dove into a riot of flowers. "I stopped seeing how beautiful Barrayar was, looking at it every day. Had to forget to remember. Strange."

"There were moments I couldn't remember which space station I was on," Miles agreed around a mouthful of pastry and cream. "The luxury trade's another matter, but the Hegen Hub stations did tend to the utilitarian." He grimaced at the association of that last word.

The conversation wandered over the recent events in the Hegen Hub. Gregor brightened upon learning that Miles had never issued an actual battle order in the Triumph's fleet tac room either, except to handle the internal security crisis as delegated by Tung.

"Most officers have finished their jobs when the action begins, because the battle transpires too rapidly for the officers to affect it," Miles assured him. "Once you set up a good tac comp—and, if you're lucky, a man with a magic nose—it's better to keep your hands in your pockets. I had Tung, you had . . . ahem."

"And nice deep pockets," said Gregor. "I'm still thinking about it. It seemed almost unreal, till I visited sickbay afterwards. And realized, such-and-such a point of light meant this man's arm lost, that man's lungs frozen. . . ."

"Gotta watch out for those little lights. They tell such soothing lies," Miles agreed. "If you let them." He chased another gooey bite with coffee, paused, and remarked, "You didn't tell Illyan the truth about your topple off the balcony, did you." It was observation, not question.

"I told him I was drunk, and climbed down." Gregor watched the flowers. ". . . how did you know?"

"He doesn't talk about you with secret terror in his eyes."

"I've just got him . . . giving a little. I don't want to screw it up now. You didn't tell him either—for that I thank you."

"You're welcome." Miles drank more coffee. "Do me a favor in return. Talk to someone."

"Who? Not Illyan. Not your father."

"How about my mother?"

"Hm." Gregor bit into his torte, upon which he had been making furrows with his fork, for the first time.

"She could be the only person on Barrayar to automatically put Gregor the man before Gregor the emperor. All our ranks look like optical illusions to her, I think. And you know she can keep her own counsel."

"I'll think about it."

"I don't want to be the only one who ... the only one. I know when I'm out of my depth."

"You do?" Gregor raised his brows, one corner of his mouth crooking up.

"Oh, yes. I just don't normally let on."

"All right. I will," said Gregor.

Miles waited.

"My word," Gregor added.

Miles relaxed, immeasurably relieved. "Thank you." He eyed a third pastry. The portions were sort of dainty. "Are you feeling better, these days?"

"Much, thank you." Gregor went back to plowing furrows in his cream.

"Really?"

Crosshatches. "I don't know. Unlike that poor sod they had parading around playing me while I was gone, I didn't exactly volunteer for this."

"All Vor are draftees, in that sense."

"Any other Vor could run away and not be missed."

"Wouldn't you miss me a little?" said Miles plaintively. Gregor snickered. Miles glanced around the garden. "It doesn't look like such a tough post, compared to Kyril Island."

"Try it alone in bed at midnight, wondering when your genes are going to start generating monsters in your mind. Like Great Uncle Mad Yuri. Or Prince Serg." His glance at Miles was secretly sharp.

"I ... know about Prince Serg's, uh, problems," said Miles carefully.

"Everyone seems to have known. Except me."

So that had been the trigger of depressive Gregor's first real suicide attempt. Key and lock, click! Miles tried not to look triumphant at this sudden feat of insight. "When did you find out?"

"During the Komarr conference. I'd run across hints, before . . . put them down to enemy propaganda."

Then, the ballet on the balcony had been an immediate response to the shock. Gregor'd had no one to vent it to. ...

"Was it true, that he really got off torturing—"

"Not everything rumored about Crown Prince Serg is true," Miles cut hastily across this. "Though the true core is ... bad enough. Mother knows. She was eyewitness to crazy things even I don't know, about the Escobar invasion. But she'll tell you. Ask her straight, she'll tell you straight back."

"That seems to run in the family," Gregor allowed. "Too."

"She'll tell you how different you are from him—nothing wrong with your mother's blood, that I ever heard—anyway, I probably carry almost as many of Mad Yuri's genes as you do, through one line of descent or another."

Gregor actually grinned. "Is that supposed to be reassuring?"

"Mm, more on the theory that misery loves company."

"I'm afraid of power . . ." Gregor's voice went low, contemplative.

"You aren't afraid of power, you're afraid of hurting people. If you wield that power," Miles deduced suddenly.

"Huh. Close guess."

"Not dead-on?"

"I'm afraid I might enjoy it. The hurting. Like him."

Prince Serg, he meant. His father.

"Rubbish," said Miles. "I watched my grandfather try and get you to enjoy hunting for years. You got good, I suppose because you thought it was your Vorish duty, but you damn near threw up every time you half-missed and we had to chase down some wounded beastie. You may harbor some other perversion, but not sadism."

"What I've read . . . and heard," said Gregor, "is so horribly fascinating. I can't help thinking about it. Can't put it out of my mind."

"Your head is full of horrors because the world is full of horrors. Look at the horrors Cavilo caused in the Hegen Hub."

"If I'd strangled her while she slept—which I had a chance to do— none of those horrors would have come to pass."

"If none of those horrors had come to pass, she wouldn't have deserved to be strangled. Some kind of time-travel paradox, I'm afraid. The arrow of justice flies one way. Only. You can't regret not strangling her first. Though I suppose you can regret not strangling her after. . . ."

"No ... no ... I'll leave that to the Cetagandans, if they can catch her now that she has her head start."

"Gregor, I'm sorry, but I just don't think Mad Emperor Gregor is in the cards. It's your advisors who are going to go crazy."

Gregor stared at the pastry tray, and sighed. "I suppose it would disturb the guards if I tried to shove a cream torte up your nose."

"Deeply. You should have done it when we were eight and twelve, you could have gotten away with it then. The cream pie of justice flies one way," Miles snickered.

Several unnatural and sophomoric things to do with a tray full of pastry were then suggested by both principals, which left them laughing. Gregor needed a good cream pie fight, Miles judged, even if only verbal and imaginary. When the laughter finally died down, and the coffee was cooling, Miles said, "I know flattery sends you straight up a wall, but dammit, you're actually good at your job. You have to know that, on some level inside, after the Vervain talks. Stay on it, huh?"

"I think I will." Gregor's fork dove more forcefully into his last bite of dessert. "You're going to stay on yours, too, right?"

"Whatever it may be. I am to meet with Simon Illyan on just that topic later this afternoon," said Miles. He decided to forgo that third pastry after all.

"You don't sound exactly excited about it."

"I don't suppose he can demote me, there is no rank below ensign."

"He's pleased with you, what else?"

"He didn't look pleased, when I gave him my debriefing report. He looked dyspeptic. Didn't say much." He glanced at Gregor in sudden suspicion. "You know, don't you? Give!"

"Mustn't interfere in the chain of command," said Gregor sententiously. "Maybe you'll move up it. I hear the command at Kyril Island is open."

Miles shuddered.

Spring in the Barrayaran capital city of Vorbarr Sultana was as beautiful as the autumn, Miles decided. He paused a moment before turning in to the front entrance to the big blocky building that was ImpSec HQ. The Earth maple still stood, down the street and around the corner, its tender leaves backlit to a delicate green glow by the afternoon sun. Barrayaran native vegetation ran to dull reds and browns, mostly. Would he ever visit Earth? Maybe.

Miles produced proper passes for the door guards. Their faces were familiar, they were the same crew he'd helped supervise for that interminable period last winter—only a few months ago? It seemed longer. He could still rattle off their pay-rates. They exchanged pleasantries, but being good ImpSec men they did not ask the question alight in their eyes, Where have you been sir? Miles was not issued a security escort to Illyan's office, a good sign. It wasn't like he didn't know the way, by now.

He followed the familiar turns into the labyrinth, up the lift tubes. The captain in Illyan's outer office merely waved him through, barely glancing up from his comconsole. The inner office was unchanged, Illyan's oversized comconsole desk was unchanged, Illyan himself was . . . rather tireder-looking, paler. He ought to get out and catch some of that spring sun, eh? At least his hair hadn't all turned white, it was still about the same brown-grey mix. His taste in clothes was still bland to the point of camouflage.

Illyan pointed to a seat—another good sign, Miles took it promptly —finished whatever had been absorbing him, and at last looked up. He leaned forward to put his elbows on the comconsole and lace his fingers together, and regarded Miles with a kind of clinical disapproval, as if he were a data point that messed up the curve, and Illyan was deciding if he could still save the theory by re-classifying him as experimental error.

"Ensign Vorkosigan," Illyan sighed. "It seems you still have a little problem with subordination."

"I know, sir. I'm sorry."

"Do you ever intend to do anything about it besides feel sorry?"

"I can't help it, sir, if people give me the wrong orders."

"If you can't obey my orders, I don't want you in my Section."

"Well . . . I thought I had. You wanted a military evaluation of the Hegen Hub. I made one. You wanted to know where the destabilization was coming from. I found out. You wanted the Dendarii Mercenaries out of the Hub. They'll be leaving in about three more weeks, I understand. You asked for results. You got them."

"Lots of them," Illyan murmured.

"I admit, I didn't have a direct order to rescue Gregor, I just assumed you'd want it done. Sir."

Illyan searched him for irony, lips thinning as he apparently found it. Miles tried to keep his face bland, though out-blanding Illyan was a major effort. "As I recall," said Illyan (and Illyan's memory was eiditic, thanks to an Illyrican bio-chip) "I gave those orders to Captain Ungari. I gave you just one order. Can you remember what it was?" This inquiry was in the same encouraging tone one might use on a six-year-old just learning to tie his shoes. Trying to out-irony Illyan was as dangerous as trying to out-bland him.

"Obey Captain Ungari's orders," Miles recalled reluctantly.

"Just so." Illyan leaned back. "Ungari was a good, reliable operative. If you'd botched it, you'd have taken him down with you. The man is now half-ruined."

Miles made little negative motions with his hands. "He made the correct decisions, for his level. You can't fault him. It's just . . . things got too important for me to go on playing ensign when the man who was needed was Lord Vorkosigan." Or Admiral Naismith.

"Hm," Illyan said. "And yet . . . who shall I assign you to now? Which loyal officer gets his career destroyed next?"

Miles thought this over. "Why don't you assign me directly to yourself, sir?"

"Thanks," said Illyan dryly.

"I didn't mean—" Miles began to sputter protest, stopped, detecting the oblique gleam of humor in Illyan's brown eyes. Roasting me for your sport, are you?

"In fact, just that proposal has been floated. Not, needless to say, by me. But a galactic operative must function with a high degree of independence. We're considering making a virtue of necessity—" a light on Illyan's comconsole distracted him. He checked something, and touched a control. The door on the wall to the right of his desk slid open, and Gregor stepped through. The emperor shed one guard who stayed in the passageway, the other trod silently through the office to take up station beyond the antechamber. All doors slid shut. Illyan rose to pull up a chair for the emperor, and gave him a nod, a sort of vestigial bow, before reseating himself. Miles, who had also risen, sketched a salute and sat too.

"Did you tell him about the Dendarii yet?" Gregor asked Illyan.

"I was working around to it," said Illyan.

Gradually. "What about the Dendarii?" Miles asked, unable to keep the eagerness out of his voice, try though he might for a junior version of Illyan's impassive surface.

"We've decided to put them on a permanent retainer," said Illyan. "You, in your cover identity as Admiral Naismith, will be our liaison officer."

"Consulting mercenaries?" Miles blinked. Naismith lives!

Gregor grinned. "The Emperor's Own. We owe them, I think something more than just their base pay for their services to us—and to Us—in the Hegen Hub. And they have certainly demonstrated the, er, utility of being able to reach places cut off to our regular forces by political barriers."

Miles interpreted the expression on Illyan's face as deep mourning for his Section budget, rather than disapproval as such.

"Simon shall be alert for, and pursue, opportunities to use them actively," Gregor went on. "We'll need to justify that retainer, after all."

"I see them as more use in espionage than covert ops," Illyan put in hastily. "This isn't a license to go adventuring, or worse, some kind of letter of marque and reprisal. In fact, the first thing I want you to do is beef up your intelligence department. I know you're in funds for it. I'll lend you a couple of my experts."

"Not bodyguard-puppeteers again, sir?" Miles asked nervously.

"Shall I ask Captain Ungari if he wants to volunteer?" inquired Illyan with a repressed ripple of his lips. "No. You will operate independently. God help us. After all, if I don't send you someplace else, you'll be right here. So the scheme has that much merit even if the Dendarii never do anything."

"I fear it is primarily your youth, which is the cause of Simon's lack of confidence," murmured twenty-five-year-old Gregor. "We feel it is time he gave up that prejudice."

Yes, that had been an Imperial We, Miles's Barrayaran-tuned ears did not deceive him. Illyan had heard it as clearly. The chief leaner, leaned upon. Illyan's irony this time was tinged with underlying . . . approval?

"Aral and I have labored twenty years to put ourselves out of work. We may live long enough to retire after all." He paused. "That's called 'success' in my business, boys. I wouldn't object." And under his breath ". . . get this hellish chip taken out of my head at last. . . ."

"Mm, don't go scouting surfside retirement cottages just yet," said Gregor. Not caving or backpedaling or submission, merely an expression of confidence in Illyan. No more, no less. Gregor glanced at Miles's . . . neck? The deep bruises from Metzov's grip were almost gone by now, surely. "Were you still working around to the other thing, too?" he asked Illyan.

Illyan opened a hand. "Be my guest." He rummaged in a drawer underneath his comconsole.

"We—and We—thought we owed you something more, too, Miles," said Gregor.

Miles hesitated between a shucks-t'weren't-nothin' speech and a what-did-you-bring-me?! and settled on an expression of alert inquiry.

Illyan reemerged, and tossed Miles something small that flashed red in the air. "Here. You're a lieutenant. Whatever that means to you."

Miles caught them between his hands, the plastic collar rectangles of his new rank. He was so surprised he said the first thing that came into his head, which was, "Well, that's a start on the subordination problem."

Illyan favored him with a driven glower. "Don't get carried away. About ten percent of ensigns are promoted after their first year of service. Your Vorish social circle will think it's all nepotism anyway."

"I know," said Miles bleakly. But he opened his collar and began switching tabs on the spot.

Illyan softened slightly. "Your father will know better, though. And Gregor. And, er . . . myself."

Miles looked up, to catch his eye direct for almost the first time this interview. "Thank you."

"You earned it. You won't get anything from me you don't earn. That includes the dressing-downs."

"I'll look forward to them, sir."