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Ivan is asleep when it happens, but the captain knocking on his door gets him up quick enough. "What? Where's the fire?" Ivan asks. This was supposed to be a quiet posting. Well, the posting on Earth was supposed to be quiet too, cultural, etcetera, but Xerxes is supposed to be downright boring. Ivan is not supposed to be awakened from his eight hours unexpectedly.
"Murder, not a fire. You're cousin to Lord Mark Vorkosigan, aren't you?" says the captain.
Ivan has to think for a second. "...Yes?"
"Security vid picked him up within radius of a murder. This is the first we knew of him being on the planet, but the locals want us to bring him in so they don't have to it themselves and risk mishandling a Vor lord. Seemed worth consulting you on him - the file on him's really something."
Ivan blinks. "You need to arrest Mark."
"Yes."
"...Sir. Uh, give me a while to try doing it myself. He's... I'm not positive I can succeed but I am pretty sure I can survive trying, and unless he's in a cooperative mood I'm very uncertain anybody else can say the same thing."
"He may have just killed a man."
"I'm aware. He likes me. He doesn't know you from a hole in the ground, or anybody else within fetching distance, sir. Give me his last location and a few hours? Please?"
"By yourself?"
"He wouldn't know anybody you could send with me from a hole in the ground."
The captain chews his lip. "None of your shenanigans, all right?"
"Sir, I'm not the shenanigans one, it's just contagious when m'co- my other cousin's around. I'll see if I can find him, if I find him I'll try to bring him back."
The captain eventually acquiesces. And that is why Ivan is tromping around downtown, debating whether or not to call "Mark? Mark?" like he's looking for a lost dog.
Ivan has to arrest Mark
middlingalong
unmarred
"The part that confuses me," he says after he emerges, "isn't the difference between merely being kidnapped and what came after. That I understand. I just understood it all over again, in fact. The part that confuses me is... why it makes a difference, whatever it is you learned just now that you didn't like - why you didn't already hate me just for having been the person who went and got you and brought you there."
middlingalong
Ivan thinks about this.
"Social pressure?" he suggests. "Eh. I don't usually hate people."
"Social pressure?" he suggests. "Eh. I don't usually hate people."
unmarred
"I wish... I wish it was as easy to help people as it is to hurt them," he says. "Maybe it is, if you're not me. Miles doesn't seem to have this problem. But the things I want to do and the things I can do don't... align."
middlingalong
"Oh, Miles gets me into trouble all the time. I could blame him for the other time I got kidnapped were I so inclined."
unmarred
"Miles improves things. He has a gift for it. The bigger the disaster, the bigger the miracle he pulls from its ashes. But me... the best I can do for anyone is stay the hell out of their way."
middlingalong
"Well, you might've given me enough to let local law enforcement catch a murderer, that's a thing?"
middlingalong
Ivan doesn't actually consider that terribly much of an improvement, but he isn't going to ask Mark what his favorite color is right now.
middlingalong
Ivan shrugs again. He woggles his pen and sends the captain his notes on Mark's testimony regarding the murder. "You want to hang out here or go settle into my room?"
middlingalong
Ivan opens the door and shows Mark to where he's bunked. "That one's yours," he says, pointing at the second bed in the room.
middlingalong
"Right, I'll stop saying the obvious. Have you got stuff in a bolthole somewhere you want me to shepherd you out to fetch?"