The Vor Game

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.'