Lois Bujold - The Vor Game

On the way back to Cell 13 with his escort, Miles passed another prisoner being checked in at the guard station. He was a shambling, wild-eyed man, his blond hair damped to brown with sweat. Miles's shock of recognition was the greater for the changes it had to encompass. Oser's lieutenant. The bland-faced killer was transformed.

He wore only grey trousers, his torso was bare. Livid shock-stick marks dappled his skin. Recent hypospray injection points marched like little pink paw prints up his arm. He mumbled continuously through wet lips, shivered and giggled. Just coming back from interrogation, it seemed.

Miles was so startled he reached over to grasp the man's left hand, to check—yes, there were his own scabbed-over teeth marks across the knuckles, souvenir of last week's fight at the Triumph 's airlock, across the system. The silent lieutenant wasn't silent any more.

Miles's guards motioned him sternly along. Miles almost tripped, staring back over his shoulder till the door of Cell 13 sighed shut, imprisoning him once more.

What are you doing here? That had to be the most-asked, least-answered question in the Hegen Hub, Miles decided. Though he bet the Oseran lieutenant had answered it—Cavilo must command one of the sharpest counter-intelligence departments in the Hub. How fast had the Oseran mercenary traced Miles and Gregor here? How soon had Cavilo's people spotted him and picked him up? The marks on his body were not over a day old. . . .

Most important question of all, had the Oseran come to Vervain Station as part of a general, systematic sweep, or had he followed specific clues—was Tung compromised? Elena arrested? Miles shuddered, and paced frenetically, helplessly. Have I just killed my friends?

So, what Oser knew, Cavilo now knew, the whole silly mix of truth, lies, rumors and mistakes. So the identification of Miles as "Admiral Naismith" hadn't necessarily come from Gregor as Miles had first assumed. (The Tau Verde veteran had clearly been scrounged up as an unbiased cross-check.) If Gregor was systematically withholding information from her, Cavilo would now realize it. If he was withholding anything. Maybe he was in love by now. Miles's head throbbed, feeling on the verge of exploding.

The guards came for him in the middle of the night-cycle, and made him dress. Interrogation at last, eh? He thought of the drooling Oseran, and cringed. He insisted on washing up, and adjusted every burr-seam and cuff of his Ranger fatigues with slow deliberation, till the guards began to shift impatiently and tap fingers suggestively on shock sticks. He too would shortly be a drooling fool. On the other hand, what could he possibly say under fast-penta at this point that could make things worse? Cavilo had it all, as far as he could tell. He shrugged off the guards' grasps, and marched out of the brig between them with all the forlorn dignity he could muster.

They led him through the night-dimmed ship and exited a lift-tube at something marked "G-Deck." Miles snapped alert. Gregor was supposed to be around here somewhere. . . . They arrived at an otherwise-blank cabin door marked 10A, where the guards beeped the code-lock for permission to enter. The door slid aside.

Cavilo sat at a comconsole desk, a pool of light in the somber room making her blond-white hair gleam and glow. They had arrived at the Commander's personal office, apparently, adjoining her quarters. Miles strained his eyes and ears for signs of the Emperor. Cavilo was fully-dressed in her neat fatigues. At least Miles wasn't the only one going short on sleep these days; he fancied optimistically that she looked a little tired. She placed a stunner out on her desk, ominously ready to her right hand, and dismissed the guards. Miles craned his neck, looking for the hypospray. She stretched, and sat back. The scent of her perfume, a greener, sharper, less musky scent than she'd worn as Livia Nu, sublimated from her white skin and tickled Miles's nose. He swallowed.

"Sit down, Lord Vorkosigan."

He took the indicated chair, and waited. She watched him with calculating eyes. The insides of his nostrils began to itch abominably. He kept his hands down, and still. The first question of this interview would not catch him with his fingers shoved up his nose.

"Your Emperor is in terrible trouble, little Vor lord. To save him, you must return to the Oseran Mercenaries, and retake them. When you are back in command, we will communicate further instructions."

Miles boggled. "Danger from what?" he choked. "You?"

"Not at all! Greg is my best friend. The love of my life, at last. I'd do anything for him. I'd even give up my career." She smirked piously. Miles's lip curled in repelled response; she grinned. "If any other course of action occurs to you besides following your instructions to the letter, well … it could land Greg in unimaginable troubles. At the hands of worse enemies."

Worse than you? Not possible . . . is it? "Why do you want me in charge of the Dendarii Mercenaries?"

"I can't tell you." Her eyes widened, positively sparkling at her private, ironic joke. "It's a surprise."

"What would you give me to support this enterprise?"

"Transportation to Aslund Station."

"What else? Troops, guns, ships, money?"

"I'm told you could do it with your wits alone. This I wish to see."

"Oser will kill me. He's already tried once."

"That's a chance I must take."

I really like that 'I,' lady. "You mean me to be killed," Miles deduced. "What if I succeed instead?" His eyes were starting to water; he sniffed. He would have to rub his madly-itching nose soon.

"The key of strategy, little Vor," she explained kindly, "is not to choose a path to victory, but to choose so that all paths lead to a victory. Ideally. Your death has one use; your success, another. I will emphasize that any premature attempt to contact the Barrayaran could be very counterproductive. Very."

A nice aphorism on strategy; he'd have to remember that one. "Let me hear my marching orders from my own supreme commander, then. Let me talk to Gregor."

"Ah. That will be your reward for success."

"The last guy who bought that line got shot in the back of his head for his credulity. What say we save steps, and you just shoot me now?" He blinked and sniffed, tears now running down the inside of his nose.

"I don't wish to shoot you." She actually batted her eyelashes at him, then straightened, frowning. "Really, Lord Vorkosigan, I hardly expected you to dissolve into tears."

He inhaled; his hands made a helpless pleading gesture. Startled, she tossed him a handkerchief from her breast pocket. A green-scented handkerchief. Without other recourse, he pressed it to his face.

"Stop crying, you cowar—" Her sharp order was interrupted by his first, mighty sneeze, followed by a rapid volley of repeats.

"I'm not crying, you bitch, I'm allergic to your goddamn perfume!" Miles managed to choke out between paroxysms.

She held her hand to her forehead and broke into giggles; real ones, not mannered ploys for a change. The real, spontaneous Cavilo at last; he'd been right, her sense of humor was vile.

"Oh, dear," she gasped. "This gives me the most marvelous idea for a gas grenade. A pity I'll never . . . ah, well."