Lois Bujold - Mirror Dance

Tense, Mark rose and paced the little room, two steps each way. Fear and desire pulsed in his brain. The memory of the inhuman chill of Baron Bharaputra’s eyes clashed with hot rage in his throat. If you want to find something, look where you lost it. He’d lost it all on Jackson’s Whole.

Illyan returned at last. “Sit down and roll up your left sleeve.”

Mark did so. “What’s that?”

“Patch test.”

Mark felt a burr-like prickle, as Illyan pressed the tiny med-pad onto the underside of his forearm, then peeled it away. Illyan glanced at his chrono, and leaned on the comconsole, watching Mark’s arm.

Within a minute, there was a pink spot. Within two, it was a hive. Within five, it had grown to a hard white welt surrounded by angry red streaks that ran from his wrist to his elbow.

Illyan sighed disappointment. “Lord Mark. I highly recommend that you avoid fast-penta at all costs, in your future.”

“That was an allergic reaction?”

“That was a highly allergic reaction.”

“Shit.” Mark sat and brooded. And scratched. He rolled down his sleeve before he drew blood. “If Miles had been sitting here, reading these files, making these same arguments, would you have listened to him?”

“Lieutenant Vorkosigan has a sustained record of successes that compels my attention. Results speak for themselves. And, as you yourself have repeatedly pointed out, you are not Miles. You can’t use both arguments at once,” he added icily. “Pick one.”

“Why did you even bother letting me in here, if nothing I say or do can make any difference?” Mark exploded.

Illyan shrugged. “Aside from Gregor’s direct order—at least I know where you are and what you are doing.”

“Like a detention cell, except that I enter it voluntarily. If you could lock me in a cell without a comconsole, you’d be even happier.” “Frankly, yes.”

“Just. So.” Blackly, Mark switched the comconsole back on. Illyan left him to it.

Mark jumped out of his chair, stumbled to the door, and stuck his head out. Illyan’s retreating back was halfway down the corridor. “I have my own name now, Illyan!” Mark shouted furiously. Illyan glanced back over his shoulder, raised his brows, and walked on.

Mark tried reading another report, but it seemed to turn to gibberish somewhere between his eyes and his brain. He was too rattled to continue his analysis today. He gave up at last, and called Pym for a pick-up. It was still light out. He stared into the sunset, glimpsed between the buildings on the way home to Vorkosigan House, till his eyes burned.

It was the first time that week he had returned from ImpSec in time to join the Countess for dinner. He found her and Bothari-Jesek dining casually in a ground-floor nook that looked onto a sheltered corner of the garden, densely arranged with autumn flowers and plants. Spot lighting kept the display colorful in the gathering dusk. The Countess wore a fancy green jacket and long skirt, a Vor matron’s town wear; Bothari-Jesek wore a similar costume in blue obviously borrowed from the Countess’s wardrobe. A place was set for him at the table despite the fact that he hadn’t shown up for the meal for four straight days. Obscurely touched, he slid into his seat.

“How was the Count today?” he asked diffidently.

“Unchanged,” the Countess sighed.

As was the Countess’s custom, there was a minute of silence before they plowed in, which the Countess used for an inward prayer that Mark suspected involved more this day than calling blessings upon the bread. Bothari-Jesek and he waited politely, Bothari-Jesek meditating God-knew-what, Mark rerunning his conversation with Illyan in his head and evolving all the smarter things he should have said, too late. A servant brought food in covered dishes and departed to leave them in privacy, which was the way the Countess preferred it when not dining formally with official guests. Family style. Huh.

In truth, Bothari-Jesek had been lending the Countess the support of a daughter in the days since the Count’s collapse, accompanying her on her frequent trips to the Imperial Military Hospital, running personal errands, acting as confidant; Mark suspected the Countess had revealed more of her real thoughts to Bothari-Jesek than to anyone else, and felt a little inexplicable envy. As their favorite Armsman’s only child, Elena Bothari had been practically the Vorkosigans’ foster-daughter; Vorkosigan House had been the home in which she had grown up. So if he was really Miles’s brother, did that make Elena his foster-sister too? He would have to try the idea on her. And prepare to duck. Some other time.

“Captain Bothari-Jesek,” Mark began, after he’d swallowed the first couple of bites, “what’s going on with the Dendarii at Komarr? Or does Illyan keep you in the dark too?”

“He’d better not,” said Bothari-Jesek. To be sure, Elena had allies that outranked even the ImpSec commander. “We’ve done a little reshuffling. Quinn retained the chief eyewitnesses to your, um, raid—” land of her, not to use some more forthright term, like debacle, “Green Squad, part of Orange and Blue Squads. She’s sent everyone else off in the Peregrine under my second, to rejoin the fleet. People were getting itchy, cooped up in orbit with no downside leave and no duties.” She looked distinctly unhappy at this temporary loss of her command.

“Is the Ariel still at Komarr, then?”

“Yes.”

“Quinn of course … Captain Thorne? Sergeant Taura?”

“All still waiting.”

“They must be pretty itchy themselves, by now.”

“Yes,” said Bothari-Jesek, and stabbed her fork so hard into a chunk of vat protein that it skittered across her plate. Itchy. Yes.

“So what have you learned this week, Mark?” the Countess asked him.

“Nothing you don’t already know, I’m afraid. Doesn’t Illyan pass you reports?”

“Yes, but due to the press of events I’ve only had time to glance at his analysts’ synopses. In any case, there’s only one piece of news I really want to hear.”

Right. Encouraged, Mark began to detail his survey to her, including his data-triage and his growing convictions.

“You seem to have been quite thorough,” she remarked.

He shrugged. “I now know roughly what ImpSec knows, if Illyan has been honest with me. But since ImpSec frankly doesn’t know where Miles is, it’s all futile. I swear …”

“Yes?” said the Countess.

“I swear Miles is still on Jackson’s Whole. But I can’t get Illyan to focus down. His attention is spread all over hell and gone. He has Cetagandans on the brain.”

“There are sound historical reasons for that,” said the Countess. “And current ones too, I’m afraid, though I’m sure Illyan has been cagey about confiding to you any of ImpSec’s troubles not directly connected to Miles’s situation. To say he’s had a bad month would be a gross understatement.” She hesitated too, for rather a long time. “Mark … you are, after all, Miles’s clone-twin. As close as one human being can be to another. This conviction of yours has a passionate edge. You seem to know. Do you suppose … you really do know? On some level?”

“Do you mean, like, a psychic link?” he said. What an awful idea.

She nodded, faintly flushed. Bothari-Jesek looked appalled, and gave him a strange beseeching look, Don’t you dare mess with her mind, you—!

This is the true measure of her desperation. “I’m sorry. I’m not psychic. Only psychotic.” Bothari-Jesek relaxed. He slumped, then brightened slightly with an idea. “Though it might not hurt to let Illyan think that you think so.”