The Vor Game

Miles ran the latest data through the weather computers, that he might present Bonn with the most refined possible update on predicted wind vectors over the next 26.7-hour Barrayaran day. But before he had the printout in his hand, he saw Bonn and Yaski out the window, down below, hurrying away from the Admin building into the dark. Perhaps they were meeting with the ordnance chief elsewhere? Miles considered chasing after them, but the new prediction was not significantly different from the older one. Did he really need to go watch them cauterize the poison dump? It could be interesting —educational—on the other hand, he had no real function there now. As his parents' only child—as the father, perhaps, of some future Count Vorkosigan—it was arguable if he even had the right to expose himself to such a vile mutagenic hazard for mere curiosity. There seemed no immediate danger to the base, till the wind shifted anyway. Or was cowardice masquerading as logic? Prudence was a virtue, he had heard.

Now thoroughly awake, and too rattled to even imagine recapturing sleep, he pottered around the weather office, and caught up on all the routine files he had set aside that morning in favor of the repairs junket. An hour of steady plugging finished off everything that even remotely looked like work. When he found himself compulsively dusting equipment and shelves, he decided it was time to go back to bed, sleep or no sleep. But a shifting light from the window caught his eye, a scat-cat pulling up out front.

Ah, Bonn and Yaski, back. Already? That had been fast, or hadn't they started yet? Miles tore off the plastic flimsy with the new wind readout and headed downstairs to the Base Engineering office at the end of the corridor.

Bonn's office was dark. But light spilled into the corridor from the Base Commander's office. Light, and angry voices rising and falling. Clutching the flimsy, Miles approached.

The door was open to the inner office. Metzov sat at his desk console, one clenched fist resting on the flickering colored surface. Bonn and Yaski stood tensely before him. Miles rattled the flimsy cautiously to announce his presence.

Yaski's head swivelled around, and his gaze caught Miles. 'Send Vorkosigan, he's a mutant already, isn't he?'

Miles gave a vaguely-directed salute and said immediately, 'Pardon me, sir, but no, I'm not. My last encounter with a military poison did teratogenic damage, not genetic. My future children should be as healthy as the next man's. Ah, send me where, sir?'

Metzov glowered across at Miles, but did not pursue Yaski's unsettling suggestion. Miles handed the flimsy wordlessly to Bonn, who glanced at it, grimaced, and stuffed it savagely into his trouser pocket.

'Of course I intended them to wear protective gear,' continued Metzov to Bonn in irritation. 'I'm not mad.'

'I understood that, sir. But the men refuse to enter the bunker even with contamination gear,' Bonn reported in a flat, steady voice. 'I can't blame them. The standard precautions are inadequate for fetaine, in my estimation. The stuff has an incredibly high penetration value, for its molecular weight. Goes right through permeables.'

'You can't blame them?' repeated Metzov in astonishment. 'Lieutenant, you gave an order. Or you were supposed to.'

'I did, sir, but—'

'But—you let them sense your own indecision. Your weakness. Dammit, when you give an order you have to give it, not dance around it.'

'Why do we have to save this stuff?' said Yaski plaintively.

'We've been over that. It's our charge,' Metzov grunted at him. 'Our orders. You can't ask a man to give an obedience you don't give yourself.'

What, blind? 'Surely Research still has the recipe,' Miles put in, feeling he was at last getting the alarming drift of this argument. 'They can mix up more if they really want it. Fresh.'

'Shut up, Vorkosigan,' Bonn growled desperately out of the corner of his mouth, as General Metzov snapped, 'Open your lip tonight with one more sample of your humor, Ensign, and I'll put you on charges.'

Miles's lips closed over his teeth in a tight glassy smile. Subordination. The Prince Serg, he reminded himself. Metzov could go drink the fetaine, for all Miles cared, and it would be no skin off his nose. His clean nose, remember?

'Have you never heard of the fine old battlefield practice of shooting the man who disobeys your order, Lieutenant?' Metzov went on to Bonn.

'I … don't think I can make that threat, sir,' said Bonn stiffly.

And besides, thought Miles, we're not on a battlefield. Are we?

'Techs!' said Metzov in a tone of disgust. 'I didn't say threaten, I said shoot. Make one example, the rest will fall in line.'

Miles decided he didn't much care for Metzov's brand of humor, either. Or was the general speaking literally?

'Sir, fetaine is a violent mutagen,' said Bonn doggedly. 'I'm not at all sure the rest would fall into line, no matter what the threat. It's a pretty unreasonable topic. I'm … a little unreasonable about it myself.'

'So I see.' Metzov stared at him coldly. His glare passed on to Yaski, who swallowed and stood straighter, his spine offering no concession. Miles tried to cultivate invisibility.

'If you're going to go on pretending to be military officers, you techs need a lesson in how to extract obedience from your men, Metzov decided. 'Both of you go and assemble your crew in front of Admin in twenty minutes. We're going to have a little old-fashioned discipline parade.'

'You're not—seriously thinking of shooting anyone, are you?' said Lieutenant Yaski in alarm.

Metzov smiled sourly. 'I doubt I'll have to.' He regarded Miles. 'What's the outside temperature right now, Weather Officer?'

'Five degrees of frost, sir,' replied Miles, careful now to speak only when spoken to.

'And the wind?'

'Winds from the east at nine kilometers per hour, sir.'

'Very good.' Metzov's eye gleamed wolfishly. 'Dismissed, gentlemen. See if you can carry out your orders, this time.'

General Metzov stood, heavily gloved and parka-bundled, beside the empty metal bannerpole in front of Admin, and stared down the half-lit road. Looking for what? Miles wondered. It was pushing midnight now. Yaski and Bonn were lining up their tech crews in parade for array, some fifteen thermal-coveralled and parka-clad men.

Miles shivered, and not just from the cold. Metzov's seamed face looked angry. And tired. And old. And scary. He reminded Miles a bit of his grandfather on a bad day. Though Metzov was in fact younger than Miles's father; Miles had been a child of his father's middle age, some generational skew there. His grandfather, the old General Count Piotr himself, had sometimes seemed a refugee from another century. Now, the really old-fashioned discipline parades had involved lead-lined rubber hoses. How far back in Barrayaran history was Metzov's mind rooted?

Metzov smiled, a gloss over rage, and turned his head at a movement down the road. In a horribly cordial voice he confided to Miles, 'You know, Ensign, there was a secret behind that carefully-cultivated interservice rivalry they had back on Old Earth. In the event of a mutiny you could always persuade the army to shoot the navy, or vice versa, when they could no longer discipline themselves. A hidden disadvantage to a combined Service like ours.'

'Mutiny!' said Miles, startled out of his resolve to speak only when spoken to. 'I thought the issue was poison exposure.'

'It was. Unfortunately, due to Bonn's mishandling, it's now a matter of principle.' A muscle jumped in Metzov's jaw. 'It had to happen sometime, in the New Service. The Soft Service.'

Typical Old Service talk, that, old men bullshitting each other about how tough they'd had it in the old days. 'Principle, sir, what principle? It's waste disposal,' Miles choked.

'It's a mass refusal to obey a direct order, Ensign. Mutiny by any barracks-lawyer's definition. Fortunately, this sort of thing is easy to dislocate, if you move quickly, while it's still small and confused.' The motion down the