Bujold, Lois McMaster - Miles Vorkosigan 03 - Brothers In Arms by Lois Mcmaster Bujold

Author:Lois Mcmaster Bujold
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2003-01-21T22:43:48+00:00

. . ." Miles’s mutter trailed off as they continued to ignore him.

"You’re going to have to deal with all kinds of people who knew him, before this is done," said Galen roughly to the vid.

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"But if you can fool Vorpatril, you’ll be able to carry it off anywhere—"

"You can fool all of the people some of the time," chirped Miles, "and some of the people all of the time, but you can fool

Ivan anytime. He doesn’t pay attention."

Galen glanced over at him in irritation. "The embassy is a perfect isolated test-microcosm," he went on to the vid, "before

you go on to the larger arena of Barrayar itself. Vorpatril’s presence makes it an ideal practice opportunity. If he tumbles to

you, we can find some way to eliminate him."

"Mm." The clone seemed scarcely reassured. "Before we started, I thought you’d managed to stuff my head with

everything it was possible to know about Miles Vorkosigan. Then at the last minute you find out he’s been leading a double life

all this time—what else have you missed?"

"Miles, we’ve been over that—"

Miles realized with a start that Galen was addressing the clone with his name. Had he been so thoroughly conditioned to

his role that he had no name of his own? Strange . . .

"We knew there’d be gaps over which you’d have to improvise. But we’ll never have a better opportunity than this

chance visit of his to Earth has given us. Better than waiting another six months and trying to maneuver in on Barrayar. No.

It’s now or never." Galen took a calming breath. "So. You got through the night all right."

The clone snorted. "Yeah, if you don’t count waking up being strangled by a damned animated fur coat."

"What? Oh, the live fur. Didn’t he give it to his woman?"

"Evidently not. I nearly peed myself before I realized what it was. Woke up the cousin."

"Did he suspect anything?" Galen asked urgently.

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"I passed it off as a nightmare. It seems Vorkosigan has them fairly often."

Miles nodded sagely. "That’s what I told you. Severed heads . . . broken bones . . . mutilated relatives . . . unusual

alterations to important parts of my body . . ." The drug seemed to be imparting some odd memory effects, part of what made

fast-penta so effective for interrogation, no doubt. His recent dreams were coming back to him far more clearly than he’d ever

consciously remembered them. All in all, he was glad he usually tended to forget them.

"Did Vorpatril say anything about it in the morning?" asked Galen.

"No. I’m not talking much."

"That’s out of character," Miles observed helpfully.

"I’m pretending to have a mild episode of one of those depressions in his psyche report—who is that, anyway?" The clone

craned his neck.

"Vorkosigan himself. We’ve got him on fast-penta."

"Ah, good. I’ve been getting calls all morning over a secured comm link from his mercenaries, asking for orders."

"We agreed you’d avoid the mercenaries."

"Fine, tell them."

"How soon can you get orders cut

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