dissonance

[isthisart]

Dr. Cheung's at a funeral all day, so Linya decides to go up to London and see if Miles is out of his Mood.

Security has decided to be deeply unhelpful today. She is currently showing them various forms of ID and repeating in a slow, patient voice that she has been here before, there is not more than one of her, and she promises she is not there to assassinate her husband or whatever fool thing has them skittish today. Perhaps she shouldn't drop in while the captain's missing; it seems to make them worse. But she got in before while he was missing...

Comments

[middlingalong]

"Er, getting arrested," says Ivan. "For trying to assassinate yourself. What."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Okay, you first. Explain whatever happened to me as though I wasn't there, because in fact I wasn't."

[middlingalong]

"Some police officers came in and said they had a detention order for you and you asked if it'd been signed by the Emperor of Barrayar and they said they didn't need it to be you just had to not leave London until you came to see the municipal bench about ascertaining if there was enough evidence to lay charges and you went off with them and Miles what the hell?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"You remember that kidnapping attempt that you said was a trap and I said I knew that and wanted to find out what kind? Well, it turns out the trap was an actual clone substitution plot, and for the past four days you've been talking to the substituted clone. By all accounts he does a just about flawless me. Which means now I probably have to worry about him breaking out of wherever the locals have put him, unless he's talked his way out by now, so our next stop should be the Assizes, as soon as I've showered, shaved, and changed."

[middlingalong]

"Maybe don't shave. He does a flawless you."

[thisvorlunatic]

Miles makes a face. "Ugh. Point. But if you ever find yourself confused, try getting the object of your confusion to sit still for a medical scan - his bones are normal, no weakness, no old breaks. Although the terrifying asshole who raised him did pointlessly replace his leg bones with synthetics after I got mine done, so don't waste your time looking for that tell."

[middlingalong]

"And now we're going to - arrest him ourselves, after proving that you didn't try to assassinate yourself how exactly? Even if you show up as Naismith and say it's your personal opinion he didn't send the assassins..."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Naismith my way through it, obviously. Apply whatever combination of charm and lies they require before they'll let him go. If they are not susceptible to charm and lies, improvise."

[middlingalong]

"Right. Of course. I'll... go tell the ambassador?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"If you must."

[middlingalong]

Ivan must, apparently. Off he scurries.

[thisvorlunatic]

Right. And off scurries Miles, too. Reluctantly, he neatens the beard rather than removing it. Then he assembles Ivan, Quinn, and Galeni, and off they go to the rescue of Mark.



Mark proves to have been pre-rescued. Miles applies his charm only to discover that a man calling himself Captain Galeni - but meeting the description of Ser Galen - walked off with "Lieutenant Vorkosigan" an hour earlier.

Hell.

[alicornucopia]

"I think it is past time to report this entire mess to HQ," Galeni opines.

[thisvorlunatic]

"Are you kidding me, sir?" says Miles. "Never send interim reports. Only final ones. Interim reports tend to elicit orders, which you much then either obey, or spend valuable time and energy evading which you could be using to solve the problem."

[spacetobreathe]

"An interesting command philosophy," says Galeni dryly. "I must bear it in mind. Do you share it, Commander Quinn?"

"Oh, yes," chirps Quinn.

"The Dendarii Mercenaries must be a fascinating outfit to work for," murmurs Galeni.

"I certainly think so."

[thisvorlunatic]

Regardless, they must still return to the embassy - Miles to change back out of his Naismith gear, Galeni to commence an official investigation into the Earth-Tau Ceti military courier, now that Galeni himself is pretty thoroughly ruled out as a suspect in the case of the missing eighteen million marks. The fact that the courier just happened to show up with orders for Lieutenant Vorkosigan to return to Barrayar right when that was exactly what Mark needed to be doing is also a clue. Miles, when prompted, recalls blurrily from his fast-penta interrogation that Galen might have mentioned something about the courier being compromised.

And then... well, then there is the matter of what to do with Galen and Mark.

As Miles sees it, there are three possibilities if Ser Galen is caught. One, turn him over to the local authorities for crimes committed on Earth, plus or minus Mark. Miles is unenthusiastic about this one; it seems too likely to end in the dissolution of Naismith's cover, which would be a loss for both Barrayar and Miles.

Two, secretly kidnap Galen (again plus or minus Mark) and ship him back to Barrayar in violation of Earth's non-extradition status to be tried there for whatever charges apply. Mark would probably come through that just fine, assuming he survived the trip; Galen would almost inevitably be executed, which Miles judges would screw Duv Galeni's emotional stability straight to hell.

And three - skip the trial and go straight to secret assassination. Likely to be a favourite with the higher-ups, if anyone is so foolish as to send an interim report and thereby allow them a vote. Miles, for Mark's sake, is against it; for Galeni's sake, as per point two, he is doubly so. Arranging his father's capture for trial would be bad enough, patricide by proxy given the near-certainty of the outcome; how much worse to actually order him killed?

But the silent fourth option of just letting them go has minimal, indeed negative, appeal. Ser Galen hardly seems the type to give up at this point, and Miles has no desire to go through his life being medically scanned for old bone breaks once a week just to make sure he still isn't his clone-brother.

Alas, time travel is not a viable answer - to go back and arrange for Ser Galen's original supposed death to have been an actual one. That would solve all their problems quite nicely, and Mark, never having been born, would have debatable grounds for complaint.

Lacking the means to apply such an elegant fix, Miles instead convinces Galeni to focus all Barrayaran internal resources on the Barrayaran internal problem of the courier, and hire the Dendarii to locate, track, and monitor Ser Galen. Not pick him up, just watch him. This at least ensures that while they are figuring out what they want to do with Mark and Galen, Galen will not have a chance to prematurely remove the choice from their hands by escaping.

He delivers this new gig to Elli with a reasonably full explanation, observes that it is night-time by this point, and goes the hell to bed.

[middlingalong]

Ivan, having not been held in stressful captivity for several days, is up later than Miles is, and therefore is the one to notify Miles the following morning - for values of "morning" that include "shortly after midnight" that -

"Wake up, coz, Elena's here."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Blrfl?" says Miles.

[middlingalong]

"Elena just blew in from Tau Ceti. I didn't even know you'd sent her. Get up, get dressed."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Hell," says Miles. He crawls out of bed. "Yes. Clothes. Clothes... did she say anything?"

[middlingalong]

"I didn't talk to her much. She brought Commodore Destang with her, though."

[thisvorlunatic]

"What?"

Miles tries to get out of bed faster, and ends up getting tangled in his blanket and falling on the floor, luckily not hard enough to break anything.

[middlingalong]

"I don't think he'll be impressed by the beard," Ivan adds, "more's the pity." He helps Miles up.

[thisvorlunatic]

"Fuck it, it's not like Mark couldn't fake the face fuzz if he tried, and it's ugly as sin."

He bolts into the shortest, coldest shower he has ever taken, depilates, and throws on a set of clean undress greens. Then he demands coffee. His first glance into a mirror tells him that he has no hope of cleaning himself up to any decent standard; his face looks, well, like he has spent the last four days sleeping badly and occasionally getting hit.

[middlingalong]

Ivan supplies the coffee, at least.