isthisart | dissonance

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...

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

middlingalong

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

From:

thisvorlunatic

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

From:

middlingalong

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

From:

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.

From:

middlingalong

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

From:

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.

From:

middlingalong

Ivan supplies the coffee, at least.

From:

thisvorlunatic

It's certainly better than Ivan not supplying coffee and Miles having to seek it out himself, or worse, go without.

Right. First order of business: find Commodore Destang and find out what he's doing. If necessary, prevent him from shooting Galeni.

It does not prove necessary to prevent him from shooting Galeni, at least not immediately. Miles finds Destang in Galeni's office, sitting at Galeni's comconsole, with Galeni standing nearby looking haunted. Elena is there too. Miles makes anxious inquiries, and learns that while the courier has not yet been arrested, evidence indicates he's been on the Komarrans' leash for at least three years. Also, Illyan has apparently been asking after him with increasing frequency. Bugger.

Miles applies himself fully to the task of talking up Galeni, making sure to mention that he refused to give in to the Komarrans even at the cost of his own life, making sure not to mention that at the time it sure looked like it was also going to cost Miles and Linya's. Galeni doesn't deserve to go down for that.

Then he asks after his money. Destang gets a bit sardonic about the number of times Miles's missive brought up said money, but he produces a credit chit, so Miles can forgive him.

His attitude towards the cleanup operation is... less forgivable.

All right, fine, he wants to nail Ser Galen to the floor with a large and permanent spike. Miles can understand this impulse, especially from someone who served during the Komarr Revolt and saw the nastiest parts firsthand. At least Galeni won't have to personally be involved in the assassination-or-illegal-extradition of his own father. But Mark? What the hell has Mark done to anybody, besides impersonate Miles a little, for which Miles is definitely willing to forgive him, and stun Linya, for which she seems inclined likewise?

Miles does not actually offer this argument. It seems likely to fail. He takes a slightly different tack.

"On what grounds would you kidnap my," don't say brother, he won't be receptive to brother, "clone, sir? He's never committed a crime on Barrayar. He's never even been to Barrayar."

From:

middlingalong

Ivan does not actually say "shut up, Miles, you don't argue with a commodore", but he stares it pretty clearly.

From:

thisvorlunatic

Hell, Miles argues with commodores all the damn time. Of course, he's usually an admiral when he does it.

"The fate of my clone... concerns me closely," he goes on tentatively.

"I can imagine," says Destang. "I hope we can eliminate the danger of further confusion between you soon."

That doesn't sound good. That sounds... assassinatory.

"There's no serious danger of confusion, sir," he says. "A simple medical scan will show his bones healthy and unbroken, mine fragile and riddled with old damage. What, then, is our interest? On what charge do we seek him?"

"Well, treason, of course. Conspiracy against the Imperium."

All right, fine, Mark did technically conspire against the Imperium a little bit. Miles zeroes in on the more arguable thing. "Treason? Only Imperial subjects can commit treason. And my clone was manufactured on Jackson's Whole, which rules out conquest and place of birth - to stick him with a charge of treason, you'd have to allow that he's an Imperial subject by blood. Making him thereby also Vor, and deserving of the right to a trial by the Council of Counts in full session."

Destang looks mildly startled. "Would he think to attempt such a defense?"

"It seems obvious enough to me." And therefore he's fairly sure Mark would think of it. Call the boy what you like, 'thorough' had better make the list.

"Thank you, Lieutenant," says Destang. He is making a very assassinatory face. Crap, crap, crap. Now Miles has to ask.

"Do... you see assassination as an option, sir?"

"An increasingly compelling one."

Crap. Miles takes a breath. "There could be a legal problem here, sir. Either he's not an Imperial subject, and we have no claim on him in the first place, or he is, and we owe him the full protection of Imperial law. In either case, his murder would be a criminal order. Sir."

"I had not planned to give you the order," says Destang.

That is not the direction Miles was going with this, not at all. But he doesn't see it ending well if he keeps pushing in the direction he intended. Maybe he could get Destang to back down; maybe he could get himself in deep trouble to no good result for Mark. Maybe he could push it all the way to a court-martial, likely to be messy at minimum and downright explosive at worst. And Destang would have every reason to confine Miles to quarters if he pushed any harder, which would deprive Miles of the opportunity to do... anything else.

Fuck.

"Thank you, sir," he says as mildly as possible.

"See my aide for your credit chit on your way out," says Destang, as clear a dismissal as Miles has ever heard. But what of the Dendarii? How can he possibly have failed to order Miles to take the Dendarii off the case, given that he brought his own team all the way from Tau Ceti to take care of things - unless he never learned they were on it?

Miles's heart leaps.

From:

alicornucopia

"Yes, Lieutenant, run along," says Galeni, mild, attracting no notice from the commodore whatever. "I never finished writing my report. I'll give you one Mark, against the commodore's eighteen million, if you take the Dendarii off with you now."

From:

thisvorlunatic

Yes.

So Galeni's report - never write interim reports, Captain, never ever, even if you don't send them your commanding officer might show up and read them anyway - contains no reference to the Dendarii being commissioned to search for Galen. Miles is in the clear to do... whatever the hell he's going to do.

"That's a bargain, Captain," he says, betraying no hint of how his heart sings. "You'd be amazed how far I can get with one Mark."

And he's off, back to his and Ivan's room to change into his Dendarii greys, before anything further can go wrong.

From:

middlingalong

Ivan goes with him rather than supervise Destang giving Galeni a hard time for what promises to be hours. "I bet Destang keeps Galeni on his feet all night seeing if he'll crack," he mutters.

From:

thisvorlunatic

"Damn Destang," growls Miles. "Galeni deserves a medal, not a hostile interrogation. He's had enough of that this week already. And if I hadn't—! But dammit, he sure looked like he might have fucked off with my money."

From:

middlingalong

"And that will be an immense comfort to me while Destang audits the entire embassy and shakes me down for obscure misdeeds, too..."

From:

thisvorlunatic

Miles pauses between shirts and eyes Ivan speculatively. "Yes, you are going to be pretty well in the thick of it, aren't you?"

From:

middlingalong

"Lathered, rinsed, wrung out, and stuck on a flagpole to dry off on the wind. No use even going to sleep, they'll have me up about something soon enough."

From:

thisvorlunatic

"Hmm," he says. "So - let's say I hand you my end of Elli's secure comlink on my way out, meaning for you to turn it in. And let's say you stick it in your pocket and forget about it, it being rather useless for its intended purpose while both Elli and I are in orbit."

Miles gives his Barrayaran uniform trousers a vigorous shake, dispensing the comlink onto his bed, where he picks it up and chucks it at Ivan before starting to pull on his Dendarii greys.

From:

middlingalong

Ivan catches it by reflex, then looks at it suspiciously. "You know the last time I pulled sleight-of-hand to help you is in my record now? Suppose you put this someplace less incriminating. Perhaps I could actually turn it in, what a concept."

From:

thisvorlunatic

"Up to you," says Miles. "Technically you're not doing anything wrong, arguably not even if I use it, which I'm not sure I'm going to. I just want something in reserve, in case I need a secure line into the embassy in an emergency."

From:

middlingalong

"And what kind of emergency are you planning to have, coz?"

From:

thisvorlunatic

Miles pauses again, contemplating his Dendarii combat boots.

"Did you ever suspect?" he asks. "When my clone was running around being me."

From:

middlingalong

"Well. In retrospect, he seemed to like me a suspicious amount."

From:

thisvorlunatic

...Miles grins.

But then he shakes his head, smile fading. "He's... he talked to me, you know. While I was kidnapped. Most bizarre interrogation I've ever had. He's - unsettling, possibly crazy. Probably crazy. Almost certainly crazy. But... I'm going to go home and see Mother again, and she's going to ask," he switches to a Betan accent in imitation, "'What have you done with your baby brother, Miles?'" He shakes his head and resumes his own voice. "And I want to give her a better answer than 'stood by and let him be assassinated by a booted paranoid'."