Lois Bujold - Weatherman

Miles, who thought he might kill for a decent hour’s sleep right now, could only shrug. Maybe Illyan could be persuaded to let him go to that nice quiet cell soon.

Count Vorkosigan had fallen silent, a strange thoughtful glow starting in his eye. Illyan noticed the expression, too, and paused.

“Simon,” said Count Vorkosigan, “there’s no doubt ImpSec will have to go on watching Miles. For his sake, as well as mine.”

“And the Emperor’s,” put in Illyan dourly. “And Barrayar’s. And the innocent bystanders’.”

“But what better, more direct and efficient way for security to watch him than if he is assigned to Imperial Security?”

“What?” said Illyan and Miles together, in the same sharp horrified tone. “You’re not serious,” Illyan went on, as Miles added, “Security was never on my top-ten list of assignment choices.”

“Not choice. Aptitude. Major Cecil discussed it with me at one time, as I recall. But as Miles says, he didn’t put it on his list.”

He hadn’t put Arctic Weatherman on his list either, Miles recalled.

“You had it right the first time,” said Illyan. “No commander in the Service will want him now. Not excepting myself.”

“None that I could, in honor, lean on to take him. Excepting yourself. I have always”— Count Vorkosigan flashed a peculiar grin—“leaned on you, Simon.”

Illyan looked faintly stunned, as a top tactician beginning to see himself outmaneuvered.

“It works on several levels,” Count Vorkosigan went on in that same mild persuasive voice. “We can put it about that it’s an unofficial internal exile, demotion in disgrace. It will buy off my political enemies, who would otherwise try to stir profit from this mess. It will tone down the appearance of our condoning a mutiny, which no military service can afford.”

“True exile,” said Miles. “Even if unofficial and internal.”

“Oh, yes,” Count Vorkosigan agreed softly. “But, ah—not true disgrace.”

“Can he be trusted?” said Illyan doubtfully.

“Apparently.” The count’s smile was like the gleam off a knife blade. “Security can use his talents. Security more than any other department needs his talents.”

“To see the obvious?”

“And the less obvious. Many officers may be trusted with the Emperor’s life. Rather fewer with his honor.”

Illyan, reluctantly, made a vague acquiescent gesture. Count Vorkosigan, perhaps prudently, did not troll for greater enthusiasm from his Security chief at this time, but turned to Miles and said, “You look as though you need an infirmary.”

“I need a bed.”

“How about a bed in an infirmary?”

Miles coughed, blinking blearily. “Yeah, that’d do.”

“Come on, we’ll find one.”

He stood, and staggered out on his father’s arm, his feet squishing in their plastic bags.

“Other than that, how was Kyril Island, Ensign Vorkosigan?” inquired the count. “You didn’t vid home much, your mother noticed.”

“I was busy. Lessee. The climate was ferocious, the terrain was lethal, a third of the population including my immediate superior was dead drunk most of the time. The average IQ equalled the mean temperature in degrees cee, there wasn’t a woman for five hundred kilometers in any direction, and the base commander was a homicidal psychotic. Other than that, it was lovely.”

“Doesn’t sound as if it’s changed in the smallest detail in twenty-five years.”

“You’ve been there?” Miles squinted. “And yet you let me get sent there?”

“I commanded Lazkowski Base for five months, once, while waiting for my captaincy of the cruiser General Vorkraft. During the period my career was, so to speak, in political eclipse.”

So to speak. “How’d you like it?”

“I can’t remember much. I was drunk most of the time. Everybody finds their own way of dealing with Camp Permafrost. I might say, you did rather better than I.”

“I find your subsequent survival . . . encouraging, sir.”

“I thought you might. That’s why I mentioned it. It’s not otherwise an experience I’d hold up as an example.”

Miles looked up at his father. “Did . . . I do the right thing, sir? Last night?”

“Yes,” said the count simply. “A right thing. Perhaps not the best of all possible right things. Three days from now you may think of a cleverer tactic, but you were the man on the ground at the time. I try not to second-guess my field commanders.”

Miles’s heart rose in his aching chest for the first time since he’d left Kyril Island. He nodded, satisfied.

Photo by Carol Collins

http://www.dendarii.com

http://www.spectrumliteraryagency.com/bujold.htm

Lois McMaster Bujold was born in 1949, the daughter of an engineering professor at Ohio State University, from whom she picked up her early interest in science fiction. She now lives in Minneapolis, and has two grown children. She began writing with the aim of professional publication in 1982. She wrote three novels in three years; in October of 1985, all three sold to Baen Books, launching her career. Bujold went on to write many other books for Baen, mostly featuring her popular character Miles Naismith Vorkosigan, his family, friends, and enemies. Her books have been translated into twenty-one languages. Her fantasy from Eos includes the award-winning Chalion series and the Sharing Knife series.

Falling Free

Shards of Honor

Barrayar

The Warrior's Apprentice

"The Mountains of Mourning"

The Vor Game

Cetaganda

Ethan of Athos

"Labyrinth"

"The Borders of Infinity"

Brothers in Arms

Mirror Dance

Memory

Komarr

A Civil Campaign

“Winterfair Gifts”

Diplomatic Immunity

CryoBurn

The Spirit Ring

The Curse of Chalion

Paladin of Souls

The Hallowed Hunt

The Sharing Knife, Vol. 1: Beguilement

The Sharing Knife, Vol. 2: Legacy

The Sharing Knife, Vol. 3: Passage

The Sharing Knife, Vol. 4: Horizon