ornamental flower show

[middlingalong]

Destang isn't too thrilled with Ivan, but since his lack of thrill takes the form of sending Ivan to a flower show to be out of the commodore's hair rather than, say, confining him to quarters like poor Galeni, Ivan isn't going to rock the boat. He leaves the half-commlink with Galeni in case Miles suddenly has an emergency and goes off as directed to meet the lady he's escorting.

He finds her at the University of London's Horticulture Hall, shepherds her around, makes comments of limited sophistication but genuine enthusiasm regarding the pretty flowers, and excuses himself a couple hours into the affair for a bathroom break.

Comments

[middlingalong]

That is indeed the place. Ivan hovers nervously.

[thisvorlunatic]

Destang glowers. He has quite an impressive glower.

Miles attempts to look reasonably innocent without crossing the border into disingenuousness.

"Vorkosigan," says Destang. "To your credit, you appear to have filed a completely truthful report. This does not excuse your failure to obey orders, but it does mitigate it somewhat. Also among your accomplishments: you managed not to get shot or involve the police, and you may have secured your cover as 'Admiral Naismith'. I am reluctantly impressed. However—"

There is a knock on the door.

Destang's eyebrow twitches. He motions for Miles to get it.

It's an ImpSec special courier, who looks mildly surprised to have interrupted whatever he just interrupted, but hands a data packet to Destang and then leaves. Destang sits down at Galeni's comconsole to read the message. He gets increasingly disgruntled as he goes on.

Finally he stands up again.

"You are saved by divine intervention, Vorkosigan. Here are your orders." He hands Miles a data disk marked with the Imperial seal. Miles accepts it solemnly, trying not to bounce up and down or giggle. "In short, you are to take your Dendarii on a two-week journey into Sector IV to deal with a nasty hostage situation. Holding you here on charges of disobeying orders would, alas, interfere with that goal."

"Thank you, sir," says Miles, as modestly as possible.

"Also included: another credit chit for eighteen million marks, for your next six months' operating expenses," says Destang, reluctantly handing over this object.

"Thank you, sir," says Miles.

"And when you're done, you report to Commodore Rivik at Sector IV Headquarters on Orient Station."

"Yes, sir."

"With luck, by the time you and your irregulars next return to Sector II, I will have retired."

Miles chooses another "Yes, sir," out of the many possible responses he could have to that aside.

Destang looks to Ivan and Galeni next, as though trying to decide which to address first. Finally he shakes his head. "I will enclose all of your reports along with my own and send them to Simon Illyan for review. Whatever he decides to do with you then will be out of my hands. I could not be happier about this fact. For my part, you are all dismissed to your duties."

Miles salutes and heads for the door at a decorous pace.

[middlingalong]

"So that's me either saved or dropped into a hotter kettle in a few weeks," sighs Ivan, following Miles out. "When do you ship out?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"I'm going to go with 'immediately'," says Miles. "Saving only the time it takes me to change my clothes, kiss my wife, and read my orders. Nasty hostage situations don't tend to age well."

[middlingalong]

"Right then. Back to the nice non-emergency daily grind for me, I suppose."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Have fun with that."

[middlingalong]

"I will do my best. I'll go find somewhere else to be while you break the news to Linyabel." He takes a turn that does not lead to their quarters.

[thisvorlunatic]

So Miles proceeds back to their quarters alone. And is his wife still there?

[isthisart]

Sitting on his bed, penning something.

"That didn't take too long."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Good news: I'm not going to be arrested. Bad news: Only because I just received urgent orders from Simon Illyan to ship out with the Dendarii and deal with a hostage situation in Sector IV. So this is me changing my uniform for the umpteenth time, reading my orders, and then heading topside to gather my mercenaries and go. If Bel Thorne hasn't already cancelled its contract to transport your neuroscientist, it will soon. And I'll be a minimum of a month getting out and back, even if all we do is show up, knock some pirates' heads together, and turn around again the same day."

[isthisart]

"Will I get a refund on my retainer?" she sighs. She waves her med scanner at him and then, satisfied that he hasn't been replaced in the last fifteen minutes, scoops him up for a quick hug.

[thisvorlunatic]

"Was it in your contract?" he inquires, kissing her on the cheek.

[isthisart]

"The wording was actually a little ambiguous on that point, which I suppose was a mistake. I can spare the money if Captain Thorne opts to make a fuss about it."

[thisvorlunatic]

"If it's all the same to you, I'd rather my Dendarii keep it. Although if we do swing back through Sol system on our way out of Sector IV, I wouldn't object at all to splitting off the Ariel for a nice safe mission to Komarr. I could even ride along. So if you're still convincing him in a month..."

[isthisart]

"I don't expect it to take that long. I caught him packing some things last week."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Ah, well."

He kisses her again and fishes his Dendarii grey-and-whites out of wherever he last stuffed them. Something falls out of a jacket pocket.

Miles stares at the floor in amazement.

"Where did that little shit learn to pick pockets like that?" he exclaims, scooping up his grandfather's knife in its lizardskin sheath.

[isthisart]

Linya giggles.

[thisvorlunatic]

"He took the credit chit I'd planned to give him anyway when we were getting into the aircar, and taunted me about it immediately afterward, and with everything else going on I didn't even remember he hadn't given the knife back, but come to think of it he wasn't wearing it when he got out to get on the tube..." Miles shakes his head. "Hell. I hope we get to see him again someday."

[isthisart]

"Sure, that would be nice under some circumstances... hopefully it won't be via this little thing chirping at me," she says, patting her scanner.

[thisvorlunatic]

"I'm reasonably confident it won't. I mean... what did he say to you in your interrogation, anyway?"

[isthisart]

"A variety of things... He said he was looking for a better way to die than becoming emperor of Barrayar. I wound up suggesting we throw him at the assassins after Naismith. It didn't take, as you probably noticed."

[thisvorlunatic]

Miles starts changing uniforms.

"He was... very, very weird, in mine. All over the place, mentally and conversationally speaking. But one of the things I remember most clearly is that he asked me how I survived touching you."

[isthisart]

"He was still puzzled about that by the time he talked to me. I told him that if I weren't tied to a chair I would hold out a hand in his direction and see what he'd do with it. He wound up untying one to make the experiment, and he looked at me like I'd electrocute him and dithered about how to react, then shook my hand. And then I had one hand untied for most of the rest of it but didn't think of anything clever to do with that."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Yeah. I don't know. He seemed... very aware of his position as Fake Miles, when we were all down in the seawall - do you know what I mean?"

[isthisart]

"I'm not sure if I do."