Young Miles - Lois McMaster Bujold [213]
Miles's words had hooked him; Miles could see it, in the red glow fading from the narrowed eyes, in the slight bending of that stiff, stiff neck. Miles had only to let the line out, refrain from jerking on it and renewing Metzov's fighting frenzy, wait. . . .
Metzov stepped nearer, bulking in the half-light, haloed by his freezing breath. His voice dropped, pitched to Miles's ear alone. "A typical soft Vorkosigan answer. Your father was soft on Komarran scum. Cost us lives. A court-martial for the admiral's little boy—that might bring down that holier-than-thou buggerer, eh?"
Miles swallowed icy spit. Those who do not know their history, his thought careened, are doomed to keep stepping in it. Alas, so were those who did, it seemed. "Thermo the damned fetaine spill," he whispered hoarsely, "and see."
"You're all under arrest," Metzov bellowed out suddenly, his shoulders hunching. "Get dressed."
The others looked stunned with relief then. After a last uncertain glance at the nerve disrupters they dove for their clothes, donning them with frantic cold-clumsy hands. But Miles had seen it complete in Metzov's eyes sixty seconds earlier. It reminded him of that definition of his father's. A weapon is a device for making your enemy change his mind. The mind was the first and final battleground, the stuff in between was just noise.
Lieutenant Yaski had taken the opportunity afforded by Miles's attention-arresting nude arrival on center stage to quietly disappear into the Admin building and make several frantic calls. As a result the trainee's commander, the base surgeon, and Metzov's second-in-command arrived, primed to persuade or perhaps sedate and confine Metzov. But by that time Miles, Bonn, and the techs were already dressed and being marched, stumbling, toward the stockade bunker under the argus-eyes of the nerve disrupters.
"Am I s-supposed to th-thank you for this?" Bonn asked Miles through chattering teeth. Their hands and feet swung like paralyzed lumps; he leaned on Miles, Miles hung on him, hobbling down the road together.
"We got what we wanted, eh? He's going to plasma the fetaine on-site before the wind shifts in the morning. Nobody dies. Nobody gets their nuts curdled. We win. I think." Miles emitted a deathly cackle through numb lips.
"I never thought," wheezed Bonn, "that I'd ever meet anybody crazier than Metzov."
"I didn't do anything you didn't," protested Miles. "Except I made it work. Sort of. It'll all look different in the morning, anyway."
"Yeah. Worse," Bonn predicted glumly.
Miles jerked up out of an uneasy doze on his cell cot when the door hissed open. They were bringing Bonn back.
Miles rubbed his unshaven face. "What time is it out there, Lieutenant?"
"Dawn." Bonn looked as pale, stubbled, and criminally low as Miles felt. He eased himself down on his cot with a pained grunt.
"What's happening?"
"Service Security's all over the place. They flew in a captain from the mainland, just arrived, who seems to be in charge. Metzov's been filling his ear, I think. They're just taking depositions, so far."
"They get the fetaine taken care of?"
"Yep." Bonn vented a grim snicker. "They just had me out to check it, and sign the job off. The bunker made a neat little oven, all right."
"Ensign Vorkosigan, you're wanted," said the security guard who'd delivered Bonn. "Come with me now."
Miles creaked to his feet and limped toward the cell door. "See you later, Lieutenant."
"Right. If you spot anybody out there with breakfast, why don't you use your political influence to send 'em my way, eh?"
Miles grinned bleakly. "I'll try."
Miles followed the guard up the stockade's short corridor. Lazkowski Base's stockade was not exactly what one would call a high-security facility, being scarcely more than a living quarters bunker with