Miles Errant - Lois McMaster Bujold [107]
"Not that I'm asking you to, um, compromise your principles or anything, but I really don't see that it would be any extra skin off my nose if you were to, say, plead for your own life," Miles mentioned diffidently. " 'He who fights and runs away lives to fight another day,' and all that."
Galeni shook his head. "For precisely that logic, I cannot surrender. Not will not—can not. He can't trust me. If I reversed, he would too, and be compelled to argue himself into killing me as hard as he now feigns to be arguing himself out. He's already sacrificed my brother. In a sense, my mother's death came ultimately from that loss, and others he inflicted on her in the name of the cause." He added in a flash of self-consciousness, "I suppose that makes this all seem very oedipal. But—the anguish of making the hard choices has always appealed to the romance in his soul."
Miles shook his head. "I'll allow you know the man better than I do. And yet . . . well, people do get hypnotized by the hard choices. And stop looking for alternatives. The will to be stupid is a very powerful force—"
This surprised a brief laugh from Galeni, and a thoughtful look.
"—but there are always alternatives. Surely it's more important to be loyal to a person than a principle."
Galeni raised his eyebrows. "I suppose that shouldn't surprise me, coming from a Barrayaran. From a society that traditionally organizes itself by internal oaths of fealty instead of an external framework of abstract law—is that your father's politics showing?"
Miles cleared his throat. "My mother's theology, actually. From two completely different starting points they arrive at this odd intersection in their views. Her theory is that principles come and go, but that human souls are immortal, and you should therefore throw in your lot with the greater part. My mother tends to be extremely logical. Betan, y'know."
Galeni sat forward in interest, his hands loosely clasped between his knees. "It surprises me more that your mother had anything to do with your upbringing at all. Barrayaran society tends to be so, er, aggressively patriarchal. And Countess Vorkosigan has the reputation of being the most invisible of political wives."
"Yeah, invisible," Miles agreed cheerfully, "like air. If it disappeared you'd hardly miss it. Till the next time you came to inhale." He suppressed a twinge of homesickness, and a fiercer fear—if I don't make it back this time. . . .
Galeni smiled polite disbelief. "It's hard to imagine that Great Admiral yielding to, ah, uxorial blandishments."
Miles shrugged. "He yields to logic. My mother is one of the few people I know who has almost completely conquered the will to be stupid." Miles frowned introspectively. "Your father's a fairly bright man, is he not? I mean, given his premises. He's eluded Security, he's been able to put together at least temporarily effective courses of action, he's got follow-through, he's certainly persistent. . . ."
"Yes, I suppose so," said Galeni.
"Hm."
"What?"
"Well . . . there's something about this whole plot that bothers me."
"I should think there's a great deal!"
"Not personally. Logically. In the abstract. As a plot, qua plot, there's something that doesn't quite add up even from his point of view. Of course it's a scramble—chances must be taken, it's always like that when you try to convert any plan into action—but over and above the practical problems. Something intrinsically screwy."
"It's daring. But if he succeeds, he'll have it all. If your clone takes the Imperium, he'll stand in the center of Barrayar's power structure. He'll control it all. Absolute power."
"Bullshit," said Miles.
Galeni's brows rose.
"Just because Barrayar's system of checks and balances is unwritten doesn't mean it's not there. You must know the Emperor's power consists of no more than the cooperation he is able to extract, from the military, from the counts, from the ministries, from the people generally. Terrible things happen to emperors who fail to perform their function