Memory (53 page)

"This . . . wasn't the reward I'd been planning to ask for, when I came in," Miles admitted, feeling horribly confused. People never followed your scripts, never.

"What reward was that?" asked Gregor patiently.

"I wanted . . . I know this is going to sound idiotic. I wanted to be retired retroactively from the Imperial Service as a captain, not a lieutenant. I know those post-career promotions are sometimes done as a special reward, usually with an eye to boosting some loyal officer's half-pay grade during retirement. I don't want the money. I just want the title." Right, he'd said it. It did sound idiotic. But it was all true. "It's been an itch I couldn't scratch." He'd always wanted his captaincy to come freely offered, and unarguably earned, not something begged as a favor. He'd made a career out of scorning favor. But he didn't want to go through the rest of his life introduced in military reminiscence as
Lieutenant
, either.

Belatedly, it occurred to Miles that Gregor's job offer wasn't another first-refusal courtesy. Gregor and these serious men had been conferring for nearly a week. Not a snap decision this time, but something argued and studied and weighed.
They really want me. All of them do, not just Gregor. How strange.
But it meant that he had a bargaining chip.

"Most other Auditors are p—" his tongue barely cut the accustomed adjective
portly
"—retired senior officers, admirals or generals."

"You
are
a retired admiral, Miles," Gregor pointed out cheerfully. "Admiral Naismith."

"Oh." He hadn't thought of it like that; it stopped him cold for a full beat. "But . . . but not publicly, not on Barrayar. The dignity of an Auditor's office . . . really needs at least a captaincy to support it, don't you think?"

"Persistent," murmured Vorhovis, "isn't he?"

"Relentlessly," Gregor agreed. "Just as advertised. Very well, Miles. Allow me to cure you of this distraction." His magic Imperial finger—index, not middle, thank you Gregor—flipped down to point at Miles. "Congratulations. You're a captain. My secretary will see that your records are updated. Does that satisfy you?"

"Entirely, Sire." Miles suppressed a grin. So, it was a touch anticlimactic, compared to the thousand ways he'd dreamed this promotion over the years. He was not moved to complain. "I want nothing more."

"But
I
do," said Gregor firmly. "My Auditors' tasks are, almost by definition, never routine. I only send them in when routine solutions have fallen short, when the rules are not working or have never been devised. They handle the unanticipated."

"The complex," added Vorthys.

"The disturbing ones that no one else has the nerve to touch," said Vorhovis.

"The really bizarre," sighed Vorgustafson.

"And sometimes," said Gregor, "as with the Auditor who proved General Haroche's strange treason, they solve crises absolutely critical to the future of the Imperium. Will you accept the office of eighth Auditor, my Lord Vorkosigan?"

Later, there would be formal public oaths, and ceremonies, but the moment of truth, and for truth, was now.

Miles took a deep breath. "Yes," he said.

The surgery to install the internal portion of the controlled-seizure device was neither as lengthy nor as frightening as Miles had expected; for one thing, Chenko, who was getting used to his star patient's slightly paranoid world-view, let him stay awake and watch it all on a monitor, carefully positioned above his head-clamp. Chenko allowed him to get up and go home the next morning.

Two afternoons later, they met again in Chenko's ImpMil neurology laboratory for the smoke-test.

"Do you wish to do the honors yourself, my lord?" Dr. Chenko asked Miles.

"Yes, please. I might have to."

"I don't recommend doing this by yourself as your routine. Particularly at first, you ought to have a spotter by you."

Dr. Chenko handed Miles his new mouth guard, and the activation unit; the device fit neatly in the palm of Miles's hand. Miles lay back on the examination table, checked the settings on the activator one last time, pressed it to his right temple, and keyed it on.

Colored confetti.

Darkness.

Miles popped open his eyes. "Pfeg," he said. He wriggled his jaw, and spat out his mouth-guard.

Dr. Chenko, hovering happily, retrieved it, and pressed a hand to Miles's chest to keep him from sitting up. The activation unit now sat on top of a monitor beside him; Miles wondered if he'd caught it on the fly. "Not yet, please, Lord Vorkosigan. We've a few more measurements." Chenko and his techs busied themselves around their equipment. Chenko was humming, off-key. Miles took it for a good sign.

"Now . . . now you did encode the activation signals, as I asked you, Chenko? I don't want this damned thing being set off by accident when I walk through a security scan, or something."

"Yes, my lord. Nothing can possibly set off your seizure-stimulator but the activator," Chenko promised him, again. "It's required, to complete the circuit."

"If I get my head banged around for some reason, I don't know, a lightflyer crash or something, there's no chance this thing will switch on and not switch off?"

"No, my lord," Chenko said patiently. "If you ever encounter enough trauma to damage the internal unit, you won't have enough brains left to worry about. Or with."

"Oh. Good."

"Hm, hm," sang Chenko, finishing with his monitors. "Yes. Yes. Your convulsive symptoms on this run were barely half the duration of your uncontrolled seizures. Your body movements were also suppressed. The hangoverlike effects you reported should also be reduced; try to observe them over the next day-cycle, and tell me your subjective observations. Yes. This should become a part of your daily routine, like brushing your teeth. Check your neurotransmitter levels on the monitor-readout panel of the activation unit at the same time every day, in the evening before bed, say, and whenever they exceed one-half, but before they exceed three-quarters, discharge them."

"Yes, Doctor. Can I fly yet?"

"Tomorrow," said Chenko.

"Why not today?"

"Tomorrow," repeated Chenko, more firmly. "After I examine you again. Maybe. Behave yourself, please, my lord."

"It looks . . . like I'm going to have to."

"
I
wouldn't bet Betan dollars," Chenko muttered under his breath. Miles pretended not to hear him.

Lady Alys, prodded by Gregor, set the Emperor's formal betrothal ceremony as the first social event of the hectic Winterfair season. Miles wasn't sure if this represented Imperial firmness, bridegroomly eagerness, or a sensible terror that Laisa might wake at any moment from her fond fog to an appreciation of her dangers, and run away as far and as fast as possible. A bit of all three, perhaps.

The day before the ceremony, Vorbarr Sultana and the three surrounding Districts were hit with the worst Winterfair blizzard in four decades, closing all the commercial shuttleports and severely reducing activity at the military one, and stranding the arriving Viceroy of Sergyar in orbit. Wind-whipped snow sang past the windows of Vorkosigan House in a hard horizontal line, and drifts piled up with the speed of sea-foam as high as second-story windows in some blocks in the capital city. It was prudently decided that Viceroy Count Vorkosigan would not land until the following morning, and would go straight to the Imperial Residence when he did.

Miles's intention to take himself off to the Residence in his own lightflyer was scratched in favor of accompanying the Countess and her retinue in their groundcars. His master plan to get them all out the door early met its first check of the day when he opened his closet door to discover that Zap the Cat, having penetrated the security of Vorkosigan House through Miles's quisling cook, had made a nest on the floor among his boots and fallen clothing to have kittens. Six of them.

Zap ignored his threats about the dire consequences of attacking an Imperial Auditor, and purred and growled from the dimness in her usual schizophrenic fashion. Miles gathered his nerve and rescued his best boots and House uniform, at a cost of some high Vor blood, and sent them downstairs for a hasty cleaning by the overworked Armsman Pym. The Countess, delighted as ever to find her biological empire increasing, came in thoughtfully bearing a cat-gourmet tray prepared by Ma Kosti that Miles would have had no hesitation in eating for his own breakfast. In the general chaos of the morning, however, he had to go down to the kitchen and scrounge his meal. The Countess sat on the floor and cooed into his closet for a good half-hour, and not only escaped laceration, but managed to pick up, sex, and name the whole batch of little squirming furballs before tearing herself away to hurry and dress.

The convoy of three groundcars from Vorkosigan House took off at last in billowing clouds of snow flung up from their fans. After a couple of checks from blocked streets, they lumped and bumped over the last snowbanks and wound around through the wrought-iron gates of the Residence, where a squadron of soldiers and Residence servitors were working frantically to keep the paths clear. The wind, though still a nuisance, had fallen from its dangerous velocities of last night, and the sky, Miles fancied hopefully, was lighter.

They were not the only late arrivals; government ministers and their wives, high-ranking military officers and
their
wives, and counts and countesses continued to straggle in. The fortunate were escorted by spiffy-shiny Armsmen in their many-colored House uniforms; the less so by Armsmen harried, bedraggled, and half-frozen after freeing their groundcars from ice-choked air intakes or predatory snowdrifts, but triumphant upon learning they were not the last to arrive. Since some of the Armsmen were as old or older than the counts they served, Miles felt conscience-stirred to watch them closely for fear of incipient coronary collapse, but only one had to be sent to the Residence's infirmary with chest pains. Happily most of the important Komarrans, including Laisa's parents, had arrived safely downside earlier in the week and been put up in the Residence's extensive guest quarters.

Lady Alys had either passed beyond panic to some sort of smiling whiteout overload, or was so experienced with arranging Gregor's social affairs that nothing could disturb her equanimity, or possibly some odd combination of both. She moved without haste, but without stopping, greeting and sorting guests. Her tension grew less edged when she saw the Countess and Miles arrive, last-but-one of her missing principals for the coming ceremony. Her face lit with open relief a few minutes later when they were followed through the door from the east portico by Viceroy Count Aral Vorkosigan himself, shaking off snow and solicitous Armsmen. Judging from the neat and glittering appearance of his retainers, they'd managed to avoid close personal acquaintance with any drifted ditches between the shuttleport and the Residence.

The Count exchanged a hard hug with the Countess, half-dislodging the flowers from her hair, as if it had been a year instead of weeks since they'd parted on Sergyar. A little "Ah," of pleasure rumbled in his chest, like a man eased of some burden. "I trust," he said to his wife, holding her at arm's length and devouring her with his eyes, "Gregor's weatherman has been sent to Kyril Island for a time, to practice his trade until he can get it right."

"He did say snow would fall." Miles grinned, looking on. "He just missed the part about it falling sideways. I gather he felt under some pressure to produce an optimistic forecast for the date."

"Hello, boy!" In this public arena, they exchanged only a hand-grip, but the Count managed to make it an eloquent one. "You look well. We
must
talk."

"I believe Lady Alys has first claim on you, sir. . . ."

Lady Alys was stepping down the stairs, her heavy blue afternoon-skirt floating about her legs with the speed of her passage. "Oh, Aral, good, you're here at last. Gregor's waiting in the Glass Hall. Come, come. . . ."

As distracted as any other artist in the throes of creation, she swept up the three Vorkosigans and herded them before her to their appointment with tradition, a mere hour late off the mark.

Due to the huge mob of witnesses—the betrothal was the foremost, as well as the first, social event of Winterfair—the ceremony took place in the largest ballroom. The bride-to-be and her party were arranged in a line opposite the groom-to-be and his party, like two small armies facing off. Laisa was elegant in Komarran jacket and trousers, though in a fine shade of Barrayaran Winterfair red, a compromise nicely calculated by Lady Alys.

Spearheading the two groups, Laisa was flanked by her parents, and a Komarran woman-friend as her Second; Gregor had his foster parents the Count and Countess Vorkosigan, and Miles as his Second. Laisa clearly had inherited her body-type from her father, a small, round man with an expression of cautious courtesy plastered on his face, and her milk-white skin from her mother, an alert-eyed woman with a worried smile. Lady Alys was of course the go-between. The days were long past when the duties of a Second legally included an obligation to marry the surviving fiancée if some unfortunate fatal accident occurred between the betrothal and the wedding. Nowadays the Seconds were limited to marching a collection of ceremonial gifts back and forth between the two sides.

Some of the gifts were obvious in their symbolism—money in fancy wrappers from the bride's parents, rather a lot of different food items from the groom's, including a bag of colored groats tied up with silver tinsel, and bottles of maple mead and wine. The silver-gilt mounted bridle was a little baffling, since it did not come with a horse. The gift of a small scalpel-like knife with a blunted edge from the bride's mother as pledge of her daughter's genetic cleanliness had been quietly eliminated, Miles was glad to see.

Next came the traditional reading of the Admonishments to the Bride, a task that fell to Miles as Gregor's Second. There were no reciprocal Admonishments to the Groom, a gap that Elli Quinn would have been swift to point out. Rising to the occasion, Miles stepped forward and unrolled the parchment, and read in a good clear voice and with a poker-straight face, as if he were giving a briefing to the Dendarii.