Mirror Dance

“Have you considered another possible solution to the problem?” said Qui

Miles sighed. “I have considered it.” He traced a formless pattern on the polished tabletop with his fingertip.

“You asked for a cross-check, Miles,” Elena pointed out. “What’s wrong with that idea?”

“It might work. But if Mark has really convinced Bel he’s me, they might resist arrest. Maybe fatally. Mark is paranoid about Jackson’s Whole. Mark is paranoid, period. I don’t know what he’d do in a panic.”

“You are awfully tender of Mark’s sensibilities,” said Elena.

“I’m trying to get him to trust me. I can hardly start the process by betraying him.”

“Have you considered how much this little side-jaunt is going to cost, once the bill for it arrives on Simon Illyan’s desk?” Qui

“ImpSec will pay. Without question.”

Qui

Miles replied carefully, “It is ImpSec’s explicit task to guard the Barrayaran Imperium. That includes not only protecting Gregor’s person, and ru

“Justifiable,” Qui

“Whatever.”

“If Barrayar—as you have often claimed—would not accept you as Emperor because of suspicion of mutation, I should think it’d go into spasms at the thought of your clone installed in the Imperial Residence,” said Baz. “Twin brother,” he amended hastily as Miles opened his mouth.

“It doesn’t require the probability of success at gaining the Imperium to make the possibility of an attempt to do so into an ImpSec problem.” Miles snorted. “It’s fu

On the way out the door, Elena lowered her voice to ask him, “Miles—did your mother see those horrific investigation-reports of Illyan’s about Mark, too?”

He smiled bleakly. “Who d’you think ordered them done?”

Chapter Five

He began do

Over the net-suit went a flexible torso-armor that would stop any projectile up to small hand-missiles and down to deadly needier spines. Fortunately for his ability to breathe, its catches were adjustable. He let them out to their fullest extension, rendering the valuable protection merely comfortably and correctly snug. Over it went blessedly loose camouflage-grey fatigues, made of a combat-rated fabric that would neither melt nor burn. Then came belts and bandoliers with stu

Over the nerve-disruptor net covering his feet he pulled thick socks, then Naismith’s combat boots. At least the boots fit without any embarrassing adjustments. A mere week of inactivity, and his body fought him, thickening … Naismith was a damned anorectic, that was it. A hyperactive anorectic. He straightened. Properly distributed, the formidible array of equipment was surprisingly light.

On the countertop next to his cabin comconsole, the command helmet sat waiting. The empty shadow beneath its forehead flange made him think, for whatever morbid reason, of an empty skull. He raised the helmet in his hands, and turned it in the light, and stared hungrily at its elegant curves. His hands could control one weapon, two at most. This, through the people it commanded, controlled dozens; potentially, hundreds or even thousands. This was Naismith’s real power.

The cabin buzzer blatted; he jumped, nearly dropping the helmet. He could have pitched it against the wall and not harmed it, but still he set it down carefully.

“Miles?” came Captain Thorne’s voice on the intercom. “You about ready?”

“Yes, come in.” He touched the keypad to release the door lock.

Thorne entered, attired identically to himself, but with hood temporarily pushed back. The formless fatigues rendered Thorne not bi-sexed, but neuter, a genderless thing, a soldier. Thorne too bore a command helmet under its arm, of a slightly older and different make.

Thorne walked around him, eyes flicking over every weapon and belt-hook, and checking the readouts of his plasma-shield pack. “Good.” Did Captain Thorne normally inspect its Admiral before combat? Was Naismith in the habit of wandering into battle with his boots unfastened, or something? Thorne nodded to the command helmet sitting on the countertop. “That’s quite a machine. Sure you can handle it?”

The helmet appeared new, but not that new. He doubted Naismith supplied himself with used military surplus for his personal use, regardless of what economies he practiced in the fleet at large. “Why not?” he shrugged. “I have before.”

“These things,” Thorne lifted his own, “can be pretty overwhelming at first. It’s not a data flow, it’s a damn data flood. You have to learn to ignore everything you don’t need, otherwise it can be almost better to switch the thing off. You, now …” Thorne hesitated, “have that same unca