"I strongly suspect that Mother knows some things even I don't," says Miles. "But moving on - I - "
He sighs and turns and paces some more.
"Ugh. I can't just tell you anyway, is the thing. Sometimes I wish I could. But... see, perhaps you've noticed this, or perhaps not because nobody tells you a damn thing about my Service career - I have a little bit of an enormous insubordination problem. I ignore orders, I argue, I am a vast pain in the ass to command for anything more complicated than sitting on a box of ciphered data disks like a mother hen on her eggs as they travel from point A to point B. And sometimes even then. I'm like that because I am very smart and very good at my job and often temporarily put in situations where I am under the command of someone less smart and less good at my job than I am, and having to dodge their misaimed instructions is tedious and counterproductive. But the point, the aim of it all, is to get the job done. And there's no justification I can honestly concoct in which the job actually requires you to know Barrayaran military secrets, unless you have been concealing an ambition to join ImpSec from me all this time—no?—didn't think so."
Pace pace pace.
"So I can't just unilaterally decide that you get to hear the shop talk because you deserve to. Even though I truly believe you do. If I am told to conceal sensitive information from you, and I can think of no way it is strongly in Barrayar's interests not to, I must."
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2014-09-02 03:13 pm (UTC)He sighs and turns and paces some more.
"Ugh. I can't just tell you anyway, is the thing. Sometimes I wish I could. But... see, perhaps you've noticed this, or perhaps not because nobody tells you a damn thing about my Service career - I have a little bit of an enormous insubordination problem. I ignore orders, I argue, I am a vast pain in the ass to command for anything more complicated than sitting on a box of ciphered data disks like a mother hen on her eggs as they travel from point A to point B. And sometimes even then. I'm like that because I am very smart and very good at my job and often temporarily put in situations where I am under the command of someone less smart and less good at my job than I am, and having to dodge their misaimed instructions is tedious and counterproductive. But the point, the aim of it all, is to get the job done. And there's no justification I can honestly concoct in which the job actually requires you to know Barrayaran military secrets, unless you have been concealing an ambition to join ImpSec from me all this time—no?—didn't think so."
Pace pace pace.
"So I can't just unilaterally decide that you get to hear the shop talk because you deserve to. Even though I truly believe you do. If I am told to conceal sensitive information from you, and I can think of no way it is strongly in Barrayar's interests not to, I must."