He catches up with Elena, and together they just barely make the next Dendarii shuttle lifting off from the London shuttleport. They sprint up the ramp in company with a soldier Miles recognizes - one of the cryo-casualties the fleet froze and transported to Earth for revival. Miles chats with him as they strap in, discussing London's famed Unicorn Park (run by GalacTech Bioengineering, the same company that produced Linya's live fur) and the ambush at Mahata Solaris that got Sergeant Siembieda temporarily killed. Miles recalls that memory loss is a common side effect of major traumas in general and cryo-revivals in particular, and gently retells the story, omitting the more gruesome details that imprinted themselves on his memory.
As the shuttle lifts, Miles cranes to watch London dwindle away below. There the river, there the coastline, defined by the massive seawall that maintains the city's undrowned state. Somewhere in that warren, if he hasn't already bolted, Ser Galen is dragging Mark on a psychological choke-chain, to an unknown destination for an unknown purpose... Miles hopes dearly that his Dendarii can find them before Destang's cleanup crew.
And what the hell's he going to do then?
Buy Mark outright, maybe, pretending to Galen that he desires a replacement body with slightly fewer problems than his own, and thereby allow Galen to slip past Barrayar's reach while Mark comes home with Miles. Except that Miles is not sure he wants Galen to slip past Barrayar's reach, particularly not after completing such a vicious bargain. Hell.
Back aboard the Triumph, he puts out several fleet-wide notices. All personnel planetside to go on a six-hour recall alert; all individual work contracts conflicting with this directive to be cancelled. All ships to start 24-hour preflight checks.
Then he heads to Intelligence to check up on the search.
no subject
He catches up with Elena, and together they just barely make the next Dendarii shuttle lifting off from the London shuttleport. They sprint up the ramp in company with a soldier Miles recognizes - one of the cryo-casualties the fleet froze and transported to Earth for revival. Miles chats with him as they strap in, discussing London's famed Unicorn Park (run by GalacTech Bioengineering, the same company that produced Linya's live fur) and the ambush at Mahata Solaris that got Sergeant Siembieda temporarily killed. Miles recalls that memory loss is a common side effect of major traumas in general and cryo-revivals in particular, and gently retells the story, omitting the more gruesome details that imprinted themselves on his memory.
As the shuttle lifts, Miles cranes to watch London dwindle away below. There the river, there the coastline, defined by the massive seawall that maintains the city's undrowned state. Somewhere in that warren, if he hasn't already bolted, Ser Galen is dragging Mark on a psychological choke-chain, to an unknown destination for an unknown purpose... Miles hopes dearly that his Dendarii can find them before Destang's cleanup crew.
And what the hell's he going to do then?
Buy Mark outright, maybe, pretending to Galen that he desires a replacement body with slightly fewer problems than his own, and thereby allow Galen to slip past Barrayar's reach while Mark comes home with Miles. Except that Miles is not sure he wants Galen to slip past Barrayar's reach, particularly not after completing such a vicious bargain. Hell.
Back aboard the Triumph, he puts out several fleet-wide notices. All personnel planetside to go on a six-hour recall alert; all individual work contracts conflicting with this directive to be cancelled. All ships to start 24-hour preflight checks.
Then he heads to Intelligence to check up on the search.