Miles in Love - Lois McMaster Bujold [158]
Even Foscol looked away at these words.
Good. Go on. The more time he burned, the better, and they were tracking his arguments; as long as he could keep Soudha from cutting the com, he was making some twisty sort of progress. "You bitch endlessly about Barrayaran tyranny, but somehow I don't think you folks took a vote of all Komarran planetary shareholders, before you attempted to seal—or steal—their future. And if you could have, I don't think you would have dared. Twenty years ago, even fifteen years ago, maybe you could have counted on majority support. By ten years ago, it was already too late. Would your fellows really want to close off their nearest market now, and lose all that trade? Lose all their relatives who've moved to Barrayar, and their half-Barrayaran grandchildren? Your trade fleets have found their Barrayaran military escorts bloody useful often enough. Who are the true tyrants here—the blundering Barrayarans who seek, however awkwardly, to include Komarr in their future, or the Komarran intellectual elitists who seek to exclude all but themselves from it?" He took a deep breath to control the unexpected anger which had boiled up with his words, aware he was teetering on the edge with these people. Watch it, watch it. "So all that remains for us is to try and salvage as many lives as possible from the wreckage."
After a little time, Madame Radovas asked, "How would you guarantee our lives?" They were the first words she had spoken, though she had listened intently throughout.
"By my order, as an Imperial Auditor. Only Emperor Gregor himself could gainsay it."
"So . . . why won't Emperor Gregor gainsay it?" asked Cappell skeptically.
"He's not going to be happy about any of this," Miles answered frankly. And I'm going to have to give him the report, God help me. "But . . . if I lay my word on the line, I don't think he'll deny me." He hesitated. "Or else I will have to resign."
Foscol snorted. "How nice for us, to know that after we are dead, you will resign. What a consolation."
Soudha rubbed his lips, watching Miles . . . watching his truncated image, Miles reminded himself. He was not the only one missing body cues. The engineer was silent, thinking . . . what?
"Your word?" Cappell grimaced. "Do you know what a Vorkosigan's word means to us?"
"Yes," said Miles levelly. "Do you know what it means to me?"
Madame Radovas tilted her head, and her quiet stare became, if possible, more focused.
Miles leaned forward into the vid pickup. "My word is all that stands between you and ImpSec's aspiring heroes coming through your walls. They don't need the corridors, you know. My word went down on my Auditor's oath, which holds me at this moment unblinking to a duty I find more horrific than you can know. I only have one name's oath. It cannot be true to Gregor if it is false to you. But if there's one thing my father's heartbreaking experience at Solstice taught, it's that I'd better not put my word down on events I do not control. If you surrender quietly, I can control what happens. If ImpSec has to detain you by force, it will be up to chance, chaos, and the reflexes of some overexcited young men with guns and gallant visions of thwarting mad Komarran terrorists."
"We are not terrorists," said Foscol hotly.
"No? You've succeeded in terrifying me," Miles said bleakly.
Her lips thinned, but Soudha looked less certain.
"If you unleash ImpSec, the consequences will be your doing," said Cappell.
"Almost correct," Miles agreed. "If I unleash ImpSec, the consequences will be my responsibility. It's that devil's distinction between being in charge and being in control. I'm in charge; you're in control. You can imagine how