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

[thisvorlunatic]

"Did he succeed?" inquires Miles.

[alicornucopia]

Galeni looks at Miles in utter confusion.

[thisvorlunatic]

"Making this entire conversation a play for my benefit," Miles elaborates.

[alicornucopia]

Galeni grimaces. "I told him," he says loudly in the general direction of the light fixture, "to get stuffed. But should have realized that he'd told me too much to dare let me go. But we exchanged guarantees and I turned my back on him and... let sentiment cloud my judgment. Which he did not. So here I am, until he gets over the surge of sentiment, eventually."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Hell of an old acquaintance."

[alicornucopia]

"Yes," says Galeni shortly, running his fingers tiredly through his hair.

[thisvorlunatic]

Miles eyes the haggard Galeni. "What have they been doing to you? Primitive interrogation?"

[alicornucopia]

"They have fast-penta. They know Embassy security backwards and forwards, now, I've been through it three, four times. The bruises are from trying to escape - yesterday or something like it. But the fellows I tried to go through look worse."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Happy to hear it," Miles says unhappily. "Couldn't you have pretended to cooperate? At least long enough to get away?"

[alicornucopia]

Galeni shakes his head emphatically. Then he amends that with, "I suppose I should have. Too late."

[thisvorlunatic]

"And I can hardly try it."

[alicornucopia]

Galeni makes an agreeable gesture.

[thisvorlunatic]

"If he is a clone... I can't imagine what horrors they must have put him through, to get him to turn out like this." Miles gestures at himself. "My genes by themselves would've made him six feet tall, healthy, with good bones. I can't imagine the resources it would take for them to poison a lot of fetuses and raise them all until they got one that looked just right... it must have been surgical alterations. God." He shudders. "No wonder he seemed to hate me so much. I would too..."

[alicornucopia]

Galeni winces, sympathetic but without much to contribute.

[thisvorlunatic]

Silence falls. Time passes.



"How long have you known your father wasn't blown up with that bomb?"

[alicornucopia]

Galeni fixes Miles with a look, but then says, "Five days." And: "How did you know?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"I had a look at your personnel files. Only close relative without a morgue record."

[alicornucopia]

"We believed he was dead. My brother certainly was... My mother and I had to identify what was left, but there wasn't much. It was easy to believe there was even less of my father, supposedly much closer to the center of the explosion. He was always very big on sacrifices... He talked about Komarr's freedom constantly, and all the sacrifices we had to make for it. Human or otherwise. But he never seemed beyond all the talking to care about the freedom of anyone on Komarr. Until the revolt died and him with it I wasn't free. To make my own judgments, my own choices. Or so I thought. Life's full of surprises."

[thisvorlunatic]

Miles glances up at the light fixture. And sighs, and hauls himself off his bench to inspect the room.

It is awfully devoid of escape possibilities. Two benches, neither of which he can detach from its mooring. One light fixture, which he can't reach, and which is sealed tightly behind its panel in any case. The locked door to the outside; the doorless door to the little room containing a toilet and a sink. Miles supposes he could block the toilet and flush repeatedly, or block the sink and run the water. Perhaps if he floods the room sufficiently, the floor will give out and they can tunnel back home. Fuck. He sits back down.

"They feed you, I assume?"

[alicornucopia]

"Two or three times a day I get a share of whatever they're fixing upstairs."

[thisvorlunatic]

"That must be when you made your break..." and probably not much of an opportunity anymore, since the first attempt failed.

[alicornucopia]

"Yes." Galeni shrugs. "It's almost entertaining. The door opens and it might be dinner or death."

[thisvorlunatic]

Miles chooses to keep his opinions of Galeni's taste in entertainment to himself.

Hell. So now there's a fake Miles running around... maybe Ivan will notice something's up. Or Elli will. Or - God, if Linya visits him again - Miles clenches his fists until his bones creak, then forces himself to relax. Surely she would notice, before the clone could - he unclenches his fists again. Think about something else. His Dendarii, in the hands of that impostor, probably being neglected, ignored, misused - fuck. Miles resolves firmly not to consider any personal implications, lest he break all his own fingers in impotent rage.

What about the impersonal implications? Imperial implications, even? The purpose of this clone is not to drive Miles crazy - that's just a fringe benefit. The clone is... a weapon, directed at... who? Well. Aral Vorkosigan, of course. Fuck. Aral Vorkosigan and, through him, Barrayar. And what is his objective? Assassination? Intrigue? Miles isn't going to find out from inside this cell, he doesn't think.

He flops down on the hard bench, puts his arm over his eyes to block out the glare of the light, and tries to sleep. Success is mixed at best.

[alicornucopia]

Galeni tries to sleep, too.

In the morning they are delivered breakfast. Galeni eats it without apparent fear of poison, either from experience or a deathwish. There is more or less idle conversation; Galeni yields the tidbit that Miles's clone was cooked up on Jackson's Whole and confirms Miles's suspicion that Aral-Vorkosigan-and-through-him-Barrayar is the target. Galeni thinks the idea is to assassinate Gregor and make the clone the Emperor.

[thisvorlunatic]

"You're fucking kidding me," says Miles. "They'd - they'd have to kill my father and Gregor—" which would hardly prove a deterrent, but it would be difficult as hell.

Not to mention the fact that a little demi-mutant would make an extremely controversial Emperor for the approximately thirty seconds he'd last before someone assassinated him in disgust.