The Vor Game

'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