Miles Errant - Lois McMaster Bujold [104]
"But what do I do about it?" asked the clone.
"You wanted to be me," said Miles in a surly voice, "you figure it out." His mental processes clicked on anyway. "Slap her with a countersuit for medical damages. I think I threw my back out, lifting her. It still hurts."
Galen overrode this. "Ignore it," he instructed. "You'll be out of there before anything can come of it."
"All right," said the Miles-clone doubtfully.
"And leave the Dendarii holding the bag?" said Miles angrily. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying desperately to think in the wavering room. "But of course, you don't care anything about the Dendarii, do you? You must care! They put their lives on the line for you—me—it's wrong—you'll betray them, casually, without even thinking about it, you scarcely know what they are—"
"Quite," sighed the clone, "and speaking of what they are, just what is his relationship with this Commander Quinn, anyway? Did you finally decide he was screwing her, or not?"
"We're just good friends," caroled Miles, and laughed hysterically. He lunged for the comconsole—the guards grabbed for him and missed—and climbing across the desk snarled into the vid, "Stay away from her, you little shit! She's mine, you hear, mine, mine, all mine—Quinn, Quinn, beautiful Quinn, Quinn of the evening, beautiful Quinn," he sang off-key as the guards dragged him back. Blows ran him down into silence.
"I thought you had him on fast-penta," said the clone to Galen.
"We do."
"It doesn't sound like fast-penta!"
"Yes. There's something wrong. Yet he's not supposed to have been conditioned. . . . I'm beginning to seriously doubt the utility of keeping him alive any longer as a data bank if we can't trust his answers."
"That's just great." The clone scowled. He glanced over his shoulder. "I've got to go. I'll report again tonight. If I'm still alive by then." He vanished with an irritated bleep.
Galen turned back to Miles with a list of questions, about Barrayaran Imperial Headquarters, about Emperor Gregor, about Miles's usual activities when quartered in Barrayar's capital city of Vorbarr Sultana, and question after question about the Dendarii Mercenaries. Miles, writhing, answered and answered and answered, unable to stop his own rapid gabble. But partway through he hit on a line of poetry, and ended by reciting the whole sonnet. Galen's slaps could not derail him; the strings of association were too strong to break into. After that he managed to jump off the interrogation repeatedly. Works with strong meter and rhyme worked best, bad narrative verse, obscene Dendarii drinking songs, anything a chance word or phrase from his interrogators could trigger. His memory seemed phenomenal. Galen's face was darkening with frustration.
"At this rate we'll be here till next winter," said one of the guards in disgust.
Miles's bleeding lips peeled back in a maniacal grin. " 'Now is the winter of our discontent,' " he cried, " 'made glorious summer by this sun of York—' "
It had been years since he'd memorized the ancient play, but the vivid iambic pentameter carried him along relentlessly. Short of beating him into unconsciousness, there seemed nothing Galen could do to turn him off. Miles was not even to the end of Act I when the two guards dragged him back down the lift tube and threw him roughly back into his prison room.
Once there, his rapid-firing neurons drove him from wall to wall, pacing and reciting, jumping up and down off the bench at appropriate moments, doing all the women's parts in a high falsetto. He got all the way through to the last Amen! before he collapsed on the floor and lay gasping.
Captain Galeni, who had been scrunched into the corner on his bench with his arms wrapped protectively around his ears for the last hour, lifted his head cautiously from their circle. "Are you quite finished?" he said mildly.
Miles rolled over on his back and stared blankly up at the light. "Three cheers for literacy . . .