Of course it wouldn't. Miles glances up at his taller cousin; the envy thereby invoked is much older and tireder, running along grooves worn into his mind by twenty-odd years of unflattering comparisons.
Ivan: six feet tall, quick to show his charming smile, with exactly the impeccable physique for which his standard Barrayaran Imperial Service undress greens were made.
Miles: four foot nine, his face creased with pain-lines, his uniform by necessity hand-tailored to hang as gracefully and unobtrusively as possible on his crooked, inadequate frame. And this after the extensive medical intervention that ensured he has a skeleton at all, even a small and fragile and malformed one, instead of living his life as a floppy pile of meat to be carried around in a bucket.
Hard not to think that his purpose on this diplomatic mission is to stand next to Ivan and make him look good. But at least the old envy comes with a new answer: Miles works for Barrayaran Imperial Security, who pay him to be the genius he is, not the Ivan he isn't. Maybe Ivan was sent along to stand next to Miles and make him sound good. Ha.
Their destination, the Cetagandan orbital transfer station at which they will be received by customs, dawns at last in the viewport. Miles contemplates it, his mind wandering from the sight to the station's purpose as a receiving platform for galactic visitors, and onward to the morbidly entertaining thought that the Cetagandans would consider any attempt by offworlders to land directly on the planet's surface a monstrous breach of etiquette, yes, one likely to be corrected by the nearest orbiting Cetagandan warship - and from there he skips to an entirely different track.
"I wonder if the Dowager Empress's death was entirely natural? It was sudden enough." Do they even use the term 'dowager' on Cetaganda? He can't recall. He should brush up on his diplomatic vocabulary.
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Ivan: six feet tall, quick to show his charming smile, with exactly the impeccable physique for which his standard Barrayaran Imperial Service undress greens were made.
Miles: four foot nine, his face creased with pain-lines, his uniform by necessity hand-tailored to hang as gracefully and unobtrusively as possible on his crooked, inadequate frame. And this after the extensive medical intervention that ensured he has a skeleton at all, even a small and fragile and malformed one, instead of living his life as a floppy pile of meat to be carried around in a bucket.
Hard not to think that his purpose on this diplomatic mission is to stand next to Ivan and make him look good. But at least the old envy comes with a new answer: Miles works for Barrayaran Imperial Security, who pay him to be the genius he is, not the Ivan he isn't. Maybe Ivan was sent along to stand next to Miles and make him sound good. Ha.
Their destination, the Cetagandan orbital transfer station at which they will be received by customs, dawns at last in the viewport. Miles contemplates it, his mind wandering from the sight to the station's purpose as a receiving platform for galactic visitors, and onward to the morbidly entertaining thought that the Cetagandans would consider any attempt by offworlders to land directly on the planet's surface a monstrous breach of etiquette, yes, one likely to be corrected by the nearest orbiting Cetagandan warship - and from there he skips to an entirely different track.
"I wonder if the Dowager Empress's death was entirely natural? It was sudden enough." Do they even use the term 'dowager' on Cetaganda? He can't recall. He should brush up on his diplomatic vocabulary.