do it in your head if you're Betan enough.'
Miles waited eagerly all day for his father, in this parade of hallucinatory figures; he had done something extremely clever, although he could not quite remember what, and he ached for a chance at last to impress the Count. But his father never came. Miles wept with disappointment.
Other shadows came and went, the medtech, the surgeon, Elena and Tung, Auson and Thorne, Arde Mayhew, but they were distant, figures reflected on lead glass. After he had cried for a long time, he slept.
When he woke again, the little private room off the sickbay of the Triumph was clear and unwavering in outline, but Ivan Vorpatril sat beside his bed.
'Other people' Miles groaned, 'get to hallucinate orgies and giant cicadas and things. What do I get? Relatives. I can see relatives when I'm conscious. It's not fair …'
Ivan turned worriedly to Elena, who was perched on the end of the bed. 'I thought the surgeon said the antidote would have cleared him out by now.'
Elena rose, and bent over Miles in concern, long white fingers across his brow. 'Miles? Can you hear me?'
'Of course I can hear you.' He suddenly realized the absence of another sensation. 'Hey! My stomach doesn't hurt.'
'Yes, the surgeon blocked off some nerves during the repair operation. You should be completely healed up inside within a couple of weeks.'
'Operation?' He attempted a surreptitious peek down the shapeless garment he seemed to be occupying, looking for he knew not what. His torso seemed to be as smooth, or lumpy, as ever, no important body parts accidentally snipped off—'I don't see any dotted lines.'
'He didn't cut. It was all shoving things down your gullet, and hand-tractor work, except for installing the biochip on your vagus nerve. A bit grotesque, but very ingenious.'
'How long was I out?'
'Three days. You were—'
'Three days! The payroll raid—Baz—' he lunged convulsively upward; Elena pushed him back down firmly.
'We took the payroll. Baz is back, with his whole group. Everything's fine, except for you almost bleeding to death.'
'Nobody dies of ulcers. Baz back? Where are we, anyway?'
'Docked at the refinery. I didn't think you could die of ulcers either, but the surgeons says holes in your body with blood pouring out are the same whether they're on the inside or the outside, so I guess you can. You'll get a full report—' she pushed him back down again, looking exasperated, 'but I thought you'd better see Ivan privately first, without all the Dendarii standing around.'
'Uh, right.' He stared in bewilderment at his big cousin. Ivan was dressed in civilian gear, Barrayaran-style trousers, a Betan shirt, but Barrayaran regulation Service boots.
'Do you want to feel me, to see if I'm real?' Ivan asked cheerfully.
'It wouldn't do any good, you can feel hallucinations, too. Touch them, smell them, hear them …' Miles shivered. 'I'll take your word for it. But Ivan—what are you doing here?'
'Looking for you.'
'Did Father send you?'
'I don't know.'
'How can you not know?'
'Well, he didn't talk to me personally—look, are you sure Captain Dimir hasn't arrived yet, or got any messages to you, or anything? He had all the dispatches and secret orders and things.'
'Who?'
'Captain Dimir. He's my commanding officer.'
'Never heard of him. Or from him.'
'I think he works out of Captain Illyan's department,' Ivan added helpfully. 'Elena thought you might have heard something that you didn't have time to mention, maybe.'
'No …'
'I don't understand it,' sighed Ivan. 'They left Beta Colony a day ahead of me in an Imperial fast courier. They should have been here a week ago.'
'How was it you traveled separately?'
Ivan cleared his throat. 'Well, there was this girl, you see, on Beta Colony. She invited me home—-I mean, Miles, a Betan! I met her right there in the shuttleport, practically the first thing. Wearing one of those sporty little sarongs, and nothing else—' Ivan's hands were beginning to wave in dreamy descriptive curves; Miles hastened to cut off what he knew could be a lengthy digression.
'Probably trolling for galactics. Some Betans collect them. Like a Barrayaran getting banners of all the provinces.' Ivan had such a collection at home, Miles recalled. 'So what happened to this Captain Dimir?'
'They left without me.' Ivan looked aggrieved. 'And I wasn't even late!'
'How did you get here?'
'Lieutenant Croye reported you'd gone to Tau Verde IV. So I hitched a ride with a merchant vessel bound for one of those neutral countries down there. The Captain dropped me off here at this refinery.'
Miles's jaw dropped. 'Hitched—dropped you off—do you realize the risks—'
Ivan blinked. 'She was very nice about it. Er—motherly, you know.'
Elena studied the ceiling, coolly disdainful. 'That pat on the ass she gave you in the shuttle tube didn't look exactly maternal to me.'
Ivan reddened. 'Anyway, I got here.' He brightened. 'And ahead of old Dimir! Maybe I won't be in as much trouble as I thought.'
Miles ran his hands through his hair. 'Ivan—would it be too much trouble to begin at the beginning? Assuming there is one.'
'Oh, yeah, I guess you wouldn't know about the big flap.'
'Flap? Ivan, you're the first word we've had from home since we left Beta Colony. The blockade, you know—although you seem to have passed through it like so much smoke …'
'The old bird was clever, I'll give her that. I never knew older women could—'
'The flap,' Miles rerouted him urgently.
'Yes. Well. The first report we had at home, from Beta Colony, was that you had been kidnapped by some fellow who was a deserter from the Service—'
'Oh, ye gods! Mother—what did Father—'
'They were pretty worried, I guess, but your mother kept saying that Bothari was with you, and anyway somebody at the Embassy finally thought to talk with your Grandmother Naismith, and she didn't think you'd been kidnapped at all. That calmed your mother down a lot, and she, um, sat on your father—anyway, they decided to wait for further reports.'
'Thank God.'
'Well, the next reports were from some military agent here in Tau Verde local space. Nobody would tell me what was in them—well, nobody would tell my mother, I guess, which make sense when you think about it. But Captain Illyan was running in circles between Vorkosigan House and General Headquarters and the Imperial Residence and Vorhartung Castle twenty-six hours a day for while. It didn't help that all the information they got was three weeks out of date, either—'
'Vorhartung Castle?' murmured Miles in surprise. 'What does the Council of Counts have to do with this?'
'I couldn't figure it either. But Count Henri Vorvolk was pulled out of class at the Academy three times to attend secret committee sessions at the Counts, so I cornered him—seems there was some fantastic rumor going around that you were in Tau Verde local space building up your own mercenary fleet, nobody knew why—at least, I thought it was a fantastic rumor—' Ivan stared around at the little sickbay cubicle, at the ship it implied. 'Anyway, your father and Captain Illyan finally decided to send a fast courier to investigate.'
'Via Beta Colony, I gather. Ah—did you happen to run across a fellow named Tav Calhoun while you were there?'
