Miles Errant (33 page)

But for the outward and visible marker of the damned beard, now would be the perfect time to begin screaming that Vorkosigan had overpowered and changed clothes with him, he was the clone, couldn't they tell the difference and untie me you cretins! A non-opportunity, alas.

The clone straightened, trying to regain some dignity. "Leave us, please. When I want you, I'll call you."

"Or maybe I will," remarked Miles sunnily. The clone glared. The two Komarrans exited with doubtful backward glances.

"It's a stupid idea," Miles began immediately they were alone. "You've got to grasp, the Dendarii are an elite bunch—largely—but by planetary standards they are a small force.
Small,
you understand
small?
Small is for covert operations, hit and run, intelligence gathering. Not all-out slogging matches for a fixed spatial field with a whole developed planet's resources and will backing the enemy. You've got no sense of the economics of war! I swear to God, you're not thinking past that first six months. Not that you need to—you'll be dead before the end of the year, I expect."

The clone's smile was razor-thin. "The Dendarii, like myself, are intended as a sacrifice. Dead mercenaries, after all, don't need to be paid." He paused and looked at Miles curiously. "How far ahead do you think?"

"These days, about twenty years," Miles admitted glumly. And a fat lot of good it did him. Consider Captain Galeni. In his mind Miles already saw him as the best viceroy Komarr was ever likely to get—his death, not the loss of a minor Imperial officer of dubious origins, but of the first link in a chain of thousands of lives striving for a less tormented future. A future when Lieutenant Miles Vorkosigan would surely be subsumed by Count Miles Vorkosigan, and need sane friends in high places. If he could bring Galeni through this mess alive, and sane . . . "I admit," Miles added, "when I was your age I got through about one quarter hour at a time."

The clone snorted. "A century ago, was it?"

"Seems like it. I've always had the sense that I'd better live fast, if I'm to fit it all in."

"Prescient of you. See how much you can fit into the next twenty-four hours. That's when I have my orders to ship out. At which point you will become—redundant."

So soon
. . . . No time left for experiments. No time left for anything but to be right, once.

Miles swallowed. "The prime minister's death must be planned, or the destabilization of the Barrayaran government will not occur, even if Emperor Gregor is assassinated. So tell me," he said carefully, "what fate do you and Galen have planned for our father?"

The clone's head jerked back. "Oh, no you don't. You are not my brother, and the Butcher of Komarr was never a father to me."

"How about your mother?"

"I have none. I came out of a replicator."

"So did I," Miles remarked, "before the medics were done. It never made any difference to her that I could see. Being Betan, she's quite free of anti-birth-technology prejudices. It doesn't matter to her how you got here, but only what you do after you arrive. I'm afraid having a mother is a fate you can't avoid, from the moment she discovers your existence."

The clone waved the phantom Countess Vorkosigan away. "A null factor. She is nothing in Barrayaran politics."

"Is that so?" Miles muttered, then controlled his tongue. No time. "And yet you'd continue, knowing Ser Galen means to betray you to your death?"

"When I am Emperor of Barrayar—then we shall see about Ser Galen."

"If you mean to betray him anyway, why wait?"

The clone cocked his head, eyes narrowing. "Ha?"

"There's another alternative for you." Miles made his voice calm, persuasive. "Let me go now. And come with me. Back to Barrayar. You are my brother—like it or not; it's a biological fact, and it won't ever go away. Nobody gets to choose their relatives anyway, clone or no. I mean, given a choice, would you pick Ivan Vorpatril for your cousin?"

The clone choked slightly, but did not interrupt. He was beginning to look faintly fascinated.

"But there he is. And he's exactly as much your cousin as mine. Did you realize you have a name?" Miles demanded suddenly. "That's another thing you don't get to choose on Barrayar. Second son—that's you, my twin-six-years-delayed—gets the second names of his maternal and paternal grandfathers, just as the first son gets stuck with their first names. That makes you Mark Pierre. Sorry about the Pierre. Grandfather always hated it. You are Lord Mark Pierre Vorkosigan, in your own right, on Barrayar." He spoke faster and faster, inspired by the clone's arrested eyes.

"What have you ever dreamed of being? Any education you want, Mother will see that you get. Betans are very big on education. Have you dreamed of escape—how about Licensed Star Pilot Mark Vorkosigan? Commerce? Farming? We have a family wine business, from grape vines to export crates—does science interest you? You could go live with your Grandmother Naismith on Beta Colony, study at the best research academies. You have an aunt and uncle there too, do you realize? Two cousins and a second cousin. If backward benighted Barrayar doesn't appeal to you, there's a whole 'nother life waiting on Beta Colony, to which Barrayar and all its troubles is scarcely a wrinkle on the event horizon. Your cloned origin wouldn't be novel enough to be worth mentioning, there. Any life you want. The galaxy at your fingertips. Choice—freedom—ask, and it's yours." He had to stop for breath.

The clone's face was white. "You lie," he hissed. "Barrayaran Security would never let me live."

Not, alas, a fear without force. "But imagine for one minute it is, it could be real. It could be yours. My word as Vorkosigan. My protection as Lord Vorkosigan, against all comers up to and including Imperial Security." Miles gulped a little as he made this promise. "Galen offers you death on a silver platter. I can get you life. I can get it for you wholesale, for God's sake."

Was this informational sabotage? He'd meant to set the clone up for a fall, if he could . . . 
what have you done with your baby brother?
 

The clone threw back his head and laughed, a sharp hysterical bark. "My God, look at yourself! A prisoner, tied to a chair, hours from death—" He swept Miles a huge, ironic bow. "Oh noble lord, I am overwhelmed by your generosity. But somehow, I don't think your protection is worth spit, just now." He strode up to Miles, the closest he had yet ventured. "Flaming megalomaniac. You can't even protect yourself—" impulsively, he slapped Miles across the face, across yesterday's bruises,
"can
you?" He stepped back, startled by the force of his own experiment, and unconsciously held his stinging hand to his mouth a moment. Miles's bleeding lips peeled back in a grin, and the clone dropped his hand hastily.

So. This one has never struck a man for real before. Nor killed either, I wager. Oh, little virgin, are you ever in for a bloody deflowering. 
 

"Can you?" the clone finished.

Gah! He takes my truth for lies, when I meant to have him take my lies for truth—some saboteur I am. Why am I compelled to speak the truth to him? 
 

Because he is my brother, and we have failed him. Failed to discover him earlier—failed to mount a rescue—
"Did you ever dream of rescue?" Miles asked suddenly. "After you knew who you were—or even before? What kind of childhood did you have, anyway? Orphans are supposed to dream of golden parents, riding to their rescue—for you, it could have been true."

The clone snorted bitter contempt. "Hardly. I always knew the score. I knew what I was from the beginning. The clones of Jackson's Whole are farmed out, y'see, to paid foster parents, to raise them to maturity. Vat-raised clones tend to have unpleasant health problems—susceptibility to infection, bad cardio-vascular conditioning—the people who are paying to have their brains transplanted expect to wake up in a healthy body.

"I had a kind of foster-brother once—a little older than me—" the clone paused, took a deep breath, "raised with me. But not educated with me. I taught him to read, a little. . . . Shortly before the Komarrans came and got me, the laboratory people took him away. It was sheer chance that I saw him again afterwards. I'd been sent on an errand to pick up a package at the shuttleport, though I wasn't supposed to go into town. I saw him across the concourse, entering the first-class passenger lounge. Ran up to him. Only it wasn't him any more. There was some horrible rich old man, sitting in his head. His bodyguard shoved me back. . . ."

The clone wheeled, and snarled at Miles. "Oh, I knew the score. But once, once, just this once, a Jackson's Whole clone is turning it around. Instead of you cannibalizing my life, I shall have yours."

"Then where will your life be?" asked Miles desperately. "Buried in an imitation of Miles, where will Mark be then? Are you sure it will be only me, lying in my grave?"

The clone flinched. "When I am emperor of Barrayar," he said through his teeth, "no one will be able to get at me. Power is safety."

"Let me give you a hint," said Miles. "There is no safety. Only varying states of risk. And failure." And was he letting his old only-child loneliness betray him, at this late date? Was there anybody home, behind those too-familiar gray eyes staring back at him so fiercely? What snare would hook him? Beginnings, the clone clearly understood beginnings; it was endings he lacked experience of. . . .

"I always knew," said Miles softly—the clone leaned closer—"why my parents never had another child. Besides the tissue damage from the soltoxin gas. But they could have had another child, with the technologies then available on Beta Colony. My father always pretended it was because he didn't dare leave Barrayar, but my mother could have taken his genetic sample and gone alone.

"The reason was me. These deformities. If a whole son had existed, there would have been horrendous social pressure put on them to disinherit me and put him in my place as heir. You think I'm exaggerating, the horror Barrayar has of mutation? My own grandfather tried to force the issue by smothering me in my cradle, when I was an infant, after he lost the abortion argument. Sergeant Bothari—I had a bodyguard from birth—who stood about two meters tall, didn't dare draw a weapon on the Great General. So the sergeant just picked him up, and held him over his head, quite apologetically—on a third-story balcony— until General Piotr asked, equally politely, to be let down. After that, they had an understanding. I had this story from my grandfather, much later; the sergeant didn't talk much.

"Later, my grandfather taught me to ride. And gave me that dagger you have stuck in your shirt. And willed me half his lands, most of which still glow in the dark from Cetagandan nuclears. And stood behind me in a hundred excruciating, peculiarly Barrayaran social situations, and wouldn't let me run away, till I was forced to learn to handle them or die. I did consider death.

"My
parents, on the other hand, were so
kind,
and
careful—
their
absolute lack of suggestion spoke louder than shouting. Overprotected me even as they let me risk my bones in every sport, in the military career—because they let me stifle my siblings before they could even be born. Lest I think, for one moment, that I wasn't good enough to please them. . . ." Miles ran down abruptly, then added, "Perhaps you're lucky not to have a family. They only drive you crazy after all."

And how am I to rescue this brother I never knew I had? Not to mention survive, escape, foil the Komarran plot, rescue Captain Galeni from his father, save the emperor and my father from assassination, and prevent the Dendarii Mercenaries from being put through a meat grinder? 
 

No. If only I can save my brother, all the rest must follow. I'm right. Here, now, is the place to push, to fight, before the first weapon is ever drawn. Snap the first link, and the whole chain comes loose. 
 

"I know exactly what I am," said the clone. "You won't make a dead fool of me."

"You are what you do. Choose again, and change."

The clone hesitated, meeting Miles's eyes directly for almost the first time. "What guarantee could you possibly give me, that I could trust?"

"My
word as Vorkosigan?"

"Bah!"

Miles considered this problem seriously, from the clone's— Mark's—point of view. "Your entire life to date has been centered on betrayal, on one level or another. Since you've had zero experience with unbroken trust, naturally you cannot judge with confidence. Suppose you tell
me
what guarantee you would believe?"

The clone opened his mouth, closed it, and stood silent, reddening slightly.

Miles almost smiled. "You see the little fork, eh?" he said softly. "The logical flaw? The man who assumes everything is a lie is at least as mistaken as the one who assumes everything is true. If no guarantee can suit you, perhaps the flaw is not in the guarantee, but in you. And you're the only one who can do anything about that."

"What can I do?" muttered the clone. For a moment, anguished doubt flickered in his eyes.

"Test it," breathed Miles.

The clone stood locked. Miles's nostrils flared. He was so close—so close—he almost had him—

The door burst open. Galen, dusky with fury, stormed in, flanked by the startled Komarran guards.

"Damn, the time . . . !" the clone hissed. He straightened guiltily, his chin jerking up.

Damn the timing!
Miles screamed silently in his head. If he had had just a few more minutes—

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" demanded Galen. His voice blurred with rage, like a sled over gravel.

"Improving my chances of survival past the first five minutes I set foot on Barrayar, I trust," said the clone coolly. "You do need me to survive a little while, even to serve your purposes, no?"

"I told you, it was too damn dangerous!" Galen was almost, but not quite, shouting. "I've had a lifetime of experience fighting the Vorkosigans. They are the most insidious propagandists ever to cloak self-serving greed with pseudo-patriotism. And this one is stamped from the same mold. His lies will trip you, trap you—he's a subtle little bastard, and he never takes his eye off the main chance."