Young Miles - Lois McMaster Bujold [181]
"Will I really meet the Emperor?" Lubachik asked. He turned nervous eyes on Miles and Ivan.
"You'll probably get to watch him eat breakfast every day," said Ivan. "Poor sod." Did he mean Lubachik, or Gregor? Gregor, definitely.
"You Vorish types know him—what's he like?"
Miles cut in before the glint in Ivan's eye could materialize into some practical joke. "He's very straightforward. You'll get along fine."
Lubachik moved off, looking faintly reassured, rereading his flimsy.
"Ensign Vorpatril," intoned the sergeant. "Ensign Vorkosigan."
Tall Ivan collected his packet and Miles his, and they moved out of the way with their two comrades.
Ivan unzipped his envelope. "Ha. Imperial HQ in Vorbarr Sultana for me. I am to be, I'll have you know, aide-de-camp to Commodore Jollif, Operations." He bowed and turned the flimsy over. "Starting tomorrow, in fact."
"Ooh," said the ensign who'd drawn ship duty, still bouncing slightly. "Ivan gets to be a secretary. Just watch out if General Lamitz asks you to sit on his lap, I hear he—"
Ivan flipped him an amiable rude gesture. "Envy, sheer envy. I'll get to live like a civilian. Work seven to five, have my own apartment in town—no girls on that ship of yours up there, I might point out." Ivan's voice was even and cheerful, only his eyes failing to totally conceal his disappointment. Ivan had wanted ship duty too. They all did.
Miles did. Ship duty. Eventually, command, like my father, his father, his, his . . . A wish, a prayer, a dream . . . He hesitated for self-discipline, for fear, for a last lingering moment of high hope. He thumbed the lock-pad and unzipped the envelope with deliberate precision. A single plastic flimsy, a handful of travel passes. . . . His deliberation lasted only for the brief moment it took him to absorb the short paragraph before his eyes. He stood frozen in disbelief, began reading again from the top.
"So what's up, coz?" Ivan glanced down over Miles's shoulder.
"Ivan," said Miles in a choked voice, "have I got a touch of amnesia, or did we indeed never have a meteorology course on our sciences track?"
"Five-space math, yes. Xenobotany, yes." Ivan absently scratched a remembered itch. "Geology and terrain evaluation, yes. Well, there was aviation weather, back in our first year."
"Yes, but . . ."
"So what have they done to you this time?" asked Plause, clearly prepared to offer congratulations or sympathy as indicated.
"I'm assigned as Chief Meteorology Officer, Lazkowski Base. Where the hell is Lazkowski Base? I've never even heard of it!"
The sergeant at the desk looked up with a sudden evil grin. "I have, sir," he offered. "It's on a place called Kyril Island, up near the arctic circle. Winter training base for infantry. The grubs call it Camp Permafrost."
"Infantry?" said Miles.
Ivan's brows rose, and he frowned down at Miles. "Infantry? You? That doesn't seem right."
"No, it doesn't," said Miles faintly. Cold consciousness of his physical handicaps washed over him.
Years of arcane medical tortures had almost managed to correct the severe deformities from which Miles had nearly died at birth. Almost. Curled like a frog in infancy, he now stood almost straight. Chalk-stick bones, friable as talc, now were almost strong. Wizened as an infant homunculus, he now stood almost four-foot-nine. It had been a trade-off, toward the end, between the length of his bones and their strength, and his doctor still opined that the last six inches of height had been a mistake. Miles had finally broken his legs enough times to agree with him, but by then it was too late. But not a mutant, not . . . it scarcely mattered any more. If only they would let him place his strengths in the Emperor's service, he would make them forget his weaknesses. The deal was understood.
There had to be a thousand jobs in the Service to which his strange appearance and hidden fragility would make not one whit of difference. Like aide-de-camp, or Intelligence translator. Or even a ship's weaponry officer, monitoring his computers. It had been understood,