Young Miles - Lois McMaster Bujold [118]
Miles's smile died on his lips. Ivan's chuckle drained away like something going down the sink. They stared at each other in stunned silence.
"Oh, shit . . ." said Miles at last. "I forgot about Vorloupulous's law. It never even crossed my mind."
"Surely nobody could interpret this as raising a private army," Ivan reassured him feebly. "Not proper livery and maintenance. I mean, they're not liege-sworn to you or anything—are they?"
"Only Baz and Arde," said Miles. "I don't know how Barrayaran law would interpret a mercenary contract. They're not for life, after all—unless you happen to be killed . . ."
"Who is that Baz fellow, anyway?" asked Ivan. "He seems to be your right-hand man."
"I couldn't have done this without him. He was an Imperial Service engineer, before he—" Miles choked himself off, "quit." Miles tried to guess what the laws might be about harboring deserters. He hadn't, after all, originally intended to be caught doing so. Upon reflection, his nebulous plan for returning home with Baz and begging his father to arrange some sort of pardon began to feel more and more like a man falling from an aircraft making plans to land on that soft fluffy cloud rushing up below him. What looked solid at a distance might well turn to fog at closer range.
Miles glanced at Ivan. Then he gazed at Ivan. Then he stared at Ivan. Ivan blinked back in innocent inquiry. There was something about that cheerful, frank face that made Miles hideously uneasy.
"You know," Miles said at last, "the more I think about your being here, the weirder it seems."
"Don't you believe it," said Ivan. "I had to work for my passage. That old bird was the most insatiable—"
"I don't mean your getting here—I mean your being sent in the first place. Since when do they pull first-year cadets out of class and send them on Security missions?"
"I don't know. I assumed they wanted somebody who could identify the body or something."
"Yes, but they've got almost enough medical data on me to build a new one. That idea only makes sense if you don't think about it too hard."
"Look, when a General Staff admiral calls a cadet in the middle of the night and says go, you go. You don't stop to debate with him. He wouldn't appreciate it."
"Well—what did your recorded orders say?"
"Come to think of it, I never saw my recorded orders. I assumed Admiral Hessman must have given them to Captain Dimir personally."
Miles decided his uneasiness stemmed from the number of times the phrase "I assumed" was turning up in this conversation. There was something else—he almost had it. . . . "Hessman? Hessman gave you your orders?"
"In person," Ivan said proudly.
"Hessman doesn't have anything to do with either Intelligence or Security. He's in charge of Procurement. Ivan, this is getting screwier and screwier."
"An admiral is an admiral."
"This admiral is on my father's shit list, though. For one thing, he's Count Vordrozda's pipeline to Imperial Service Headquarters, and Father hates his officers getting involved in party politics. Father also suspects him of peculating Service funds, some kind of sleight-of-hand in shipbuilding contracts. At the time I left home, he was itchy enough to put Captain Illyan on it personally, and you know he wouldn't waste Illyan's talents on anything minor."
"All that's way over my head. I've got enough problems with navigational math."
"It shouldn't be over your head. Oh, as a cadet, sure—but you're also Lord Vorpatril. If anything happened to me, you'd inherit the Countship of our district from my father."
"God forbid," said Ivan. "I want to be an officer, and travel around, and pick up girls. Not chase around through those mountains trying to collect taxes from homicidal illiterates and keep chicken-stealing cases from turning into minor guerilla wars. No insult intended, but your district is the most intractable on Barrayar. Miles, there are people back behind Dendarii Gorge who live in caves." Ivan shuddered. "And they like it."
"There are some great caves back there," Miles agreed. "Gorgeous colors when you get the