"...Uh? Ivan. Why do you look like a tiny version of m'cousin?"

"Nnnnno. I haven't been twelve for a while but I assure you I'm Ivan Vorpatril. Are you a clone? Did somebody clone Miles? Shouldn't you be taller?"

"I'm exactly the right size," he says impatiently. "I wouldn't be much good if I couldn't pass. Ser Galen'd want his money back."

"Are you meant to be his stunt double? What the hell?"

"I don't even know who you are," says the clone. "Can't hurt, I guess." He grins viciously at some private joke. "I'm on Earth. London. They didn't tell me the address, but I know Ser Galen's cover identity is somebody Van der Poole. He wasn't the one who leaked that. He gets me. It's everybody else who keeps underestimating me just cause I'm five."

"Van der Poole as cover identity for a Ser Galen. Okay. I'm on Earth, too, so now the problem is why you think I'm supposed to be twelve."

"The latter, on the nose," says Ivan. "So apparently in addition to replacing embassy hallways and however you got here, this place does time travel."

"I went to sleep and woke up on my feet in the middle of this room," he says. "I'm not dreaming, though. I know when I'm dreaming. This is real."

"Yeah, well, sometimes I can tell when I'm dreaming and sometimes I wake up under the impression that m'mother has let me get a dog only to discover that there is no dog in the house," says Ivan, "but I wasn't asleep, so if you are, this is even stranger still."

"Don't suppose you got any bright ideas about what's going on?"

"I have - references to holos," says Ivan, "that's about it. Not close references, either. We could look around. Have you got a name?"

Snort. "Not unless you count 'Miles'."

"Well, that's just confusing. Don't know aunt Cordelia's father's middle name, though. D'you?"

He cocks his head. "Mark. Miles Mark Naismith. Why?"

"'Cause that would make you Mark Pierre Vorkosigan, if I know Aunt Cordelia. For lack of a better solution to the problem, anyway, if you'd been going by Jean-Phillipe all this time I wouldn't say boo."

"Some kinda naming custom?" he guesses. "I haven't got there yet, they still have me on biographies. Lotta names and dates."

"Miles would've been Piotr Miles, but Piotr pitched a fit. And then for the second son it's middle name, maternal then paternal. If one chooses to do the thing, anyway, I don't have this."

"Yeah. You would've been Dmitry something, I think. Only saw it the once, they don't drill me on your dead ancestors like they do on Miles's."

"Yeah. So here we are in this magic time traveling empty bar, but when I get out I'll let people know that you may exist - well, actually, first, to avoid looking like a moron if this is all some very elaborate misdirection of some kind, I'll see if there's a suspicious fellow by the name you supplied, but if there is I'll let people know. Assuming it doesn't spit me into, I don't know, Time of Isolation Barrayar or something, what with the time traveling."

"Huh?" He looks. "Oh. First escape attempt on the new planet. Didn't work." That nasty grin from earlier makes another appearance. "Better get this rescue right on the first try, cause if they figure out where you got your intel, I'm in for it."

"There is," says Ivan, "no way they will guess that we met in a time-traveling bar, but in any event I assure you Barrayar will be very interested in getting you away from the terrorists."

He snorts again. "Yeah, to kill me, I bet. Like the other kids in the clone crèche. Get the real Miles in a body with bones that don't snap like twigs. I don't mind, much. Still better than Ser Galen."

"Uh, I doubt that - not that it wouldn't be proposed, you understand, but that they'd go through with it. If nothing else Aunt Cordelia would raise a terrific fuss and Uncle Aral'd back her, doubt Miles would like the idea either. So there will be no brain transplant, but if somebody just thought you inconvenient - mmm, I can threaten to tell them all about it in the event you should be tragically lost in action, if you like."

"Sure," shrugs Mark. "Dunno why they'd care, but I don't mind not dying." He laughs. "Of course, it's been years between my now and yours. Maybe by the time you get there they've broken me already and you'll have to kill me."

"Well - let's hope not, all right? That would be a waste of a time traveling bar."

"It'll still save whoever I'm supposed to assassinate," he says. "Aral Vorkosigan, probably. Ser Galen hates him."

"Yes, but that could have been accomplished with much less overkill than 'time traveling bar'. One assumes."

"Not if you didn't know I was coming. Now you do."

"A note would've gotten me to look up this Galen fellow and maybe notice if he was - ordering outfits in suspicious sizes. A time traveling bar is only called for if I'm supposed to meet you before calling in the cavalry. Maybe I'm giving it too much credit, though."

"Maybe the time traveling bar was all they had. Whoever they are. Maybe it's a big coincidence. Maybe it's a setup and you're supposed to get killed trying to rescue me."

"You have a very morbid turn of mind, Mark. Were you n- no, of course you were not hugged enough as a child -"

"No shit," says Mark. "Who the hell's gonna hug me?"

"Well, I don't know about in your day to day life, but I'm pretty tempted."

"Should I be the first or do you have another occasion in mind?"

Mark responds to this assurance with a tiny sniffle.

Sniff. Cling. Ivan's shoulder is becoming distinctly damp.

Yes, well, he has more uniforms.

"Well, that's pretty convenient, isn't it, seeing as we're related? I like you too."

"Really?" he asks, snifflishly.

"Sure. You're a huggable morbid little kid and I like you fine."

"I don't think anybody's liked me before," he says, drying his eyes on a part of Ivan's shoulder that has not been cried on yet. A little of his earlier carefree tone reasserts itself. "But if it means you rescue me, that's good."

"I'd rescue you anyway, but I'm going to have particularly strong opinions while I do it in this case."

"Well, don't fuck it up," he says firmly.

"I'll try. Word as Vorpatril."

"That's important?"

"Quite."

"Okay." He pauses, then adds, "I believe you."

"Good. Because you've got a hell of a wait ahead and that seems like it might be easier to take if you know to expect me to show up with help, eh?"

"Maybe," he says. "I've never expected help before. I dunno what it's like."

"Beats the alternative."

"I can't see how it'd make a good painkiller, though."

"Well, maybe it'll be better than nothing."

So's little bitty Mark. Ivan doesn't put him down, but he does sit.

Little bitty Mark curls up and leans on him. He is leanable as well as huggable. Ivan Vorpatril has many uses.

"You came in the door; you could take me out it..."

"That does seem like the obvious thing to try. This when I just sat down, oh well." Ivan hauls himself up, still holding Mark.

Ivan tells his men to find the keys, after they've tied up the stunned; he starts trying to finesse the lock in the meanwhile, though he's not really any good at it. "Mark? Can you hear me?"

Silence.

Continuing silence. Maybe the closet is soundproofed.

"Yes, hello. I'm here to rescue you."

"Shit." He's staring at Ivan's shoulder. The same one he cried on, a few hours or a dozen years ago. "The same day. The same fucking day. You actually came."

"Stunned, they're all stunned, th'captain wants them alive but didn't come along so I'm in charge for here. Are you okay? You need me to send the men back to the embassy with the prisoners while I take you to a doctor?"

"I could use a drink of water and something to eat. And I'm going to have a panic attack at some point. Legacy of Galen's idea of discipline. Happens whenever I do something that I know will get him riled. Getting rescued is a big one there, I bet. God only knows what's holding it off." His accent is blurring between London and Jackson's Whole. "No doctors, though."

"Okay, uh, I'm sure there's food and water somewhere in the house, and since we have warning what d'you want me to do when you have your panic attack?"

"I don't actually know. Prevent anyone from killing me while I'm helpless, I guess. You were probably going to do that anyway. You gave your word..." He trails off and shakes his head. "Food and water, please."

"Sure." Ivan calls out instructions for the other men to take away the stunned fellows and then heads back towards where he remembers there being a kitchen, peering over his shoulder to see if Mark is following.

Mark is following. He is staring at Ivan with what might be an uncomfortable intensity.

"Well, at least it came back to you when I opened the door." Ivan finds a loaf of bread and some jam. "D'you like bread and jam or should I warm up one of these frozen things?"

Bread, meet jam. Bread, jam, meet Mark. "Funny kind of hallucination that comes with a years-old memory when you meet it."

"But as long as your response to hallucinations is accepting bread and jam instead of making me figure out this weird Earth-model warmer, I'm not too insulted."

"Sure, why not."

"I was hoping you'd say that," he says with a flash of a grin—

—that flows seamlessly into a different grin. "Because it occurred to me that Miles Vorkosigan doesn't get panic attacks." He straightens his shirt, jerks his chin up, finishes his bread and jam, and refills his glass. "Damn, the world is a much nicer place all of a sudden. What a depressing little shit that Mark is. So what's the plan from here? Brief me."

"Well, that's very uncanny, but Miles doesn't like me that much. Uh, you and me go back to the embassy, I write one hell of a report, they probably bunk you with me for the time being while they're sorting out the legal issues of having just assailed a houseful of Komarran expats in London."

"I wish 'em all the best. Are they not going to opt for the time-honoured solution of smuggling everybody back to Barrayar for a secret trial, with optional death during attempted escape on the way? Why does 'th'captain'" (Miles can't mimic Ivan that accurately, either) "want 'em alive?"

"I'm pretty sure he's related to Galen. Not so much that I had an absolute order not to kill the guy but he seemed to prefer it, and it makes our legal woes much the lesser too."

"Interesting wrinkle, that." He finishes his latest glass of water. "Okay, I'm good to go."

"How long can you keep this up?" wonders Ivan, heading for the exit.

"Indefinitely. I'm going to keep it up until I'm somewhere I feel reasonably safe returning to the personality that's due a crippling panic attack any minute. I seem to have been right about the insulating effects of this one." He snaps his fingers as something occurs to him. "Right, while I'm enjoying unaccustomed freedom of thought—your courier to Sector HQ on Tau Ceti is in Galen's pocket. Has been for years. One of those snowballing blackmail cases. You probably want to tell your captain and get him nailed to the floor the next time he comes through."

"Will do, any other exciting intel?"

"Nothing so juicy. I can give you my life story, but I have a distant recollection of what your face looked like when you got a couple hints from five-year-old me, so maybe I'd better save it. Assuming you've arrested Galen and his three little minions - you have, right? - you can apply fast-penta at your leisure and get the goods that way."

"Yep, the men've got them in the other car and are trundling them away." Ivan can drive this car. Into the driver's seat he hops. "You will never have to lay eyes on them again."

"I live in hope. Which is a novel and interesting experience." He gets into the passenger seat.

"I was very forgettable, huh?"

"I was five. Do you remember dreams you had when you were five?"

"No, but you seemed very confident you weren't dreaming."

"Must've changed my mind after I woke up."

"That would be the sort of thing that would convince one of having dreamt, yeah. I hope the hug managed to last you anyway. By the way, I apologize if I accidentally patronize you on account of your having been five earlier this afternoon."

"Apology accepted in advance," he says, declining to comment on how well the hug did or did not last him.

"Good, because you were extremely tiny and growly and it was only a few hours ago. Hard to shake the first impression when it's that."

"In retrospect I'm honestly surprised I didn't try to bite you or something. Five was that kind of year."

"...Do you drive like this all the time?" he wonders, distracted from whatever else he was going to say.

"If you don't know what I'm talking about I'm guessing the answer is yes. Clearly Miles does like you or he would've had you assassinated by now. Or maybe he just knows better than to get in a vehicle with you."

"He usually does avoid it, come to think of it. I don't mean to say he doesn't like me at all, he just doesn't exude Ivan I am so glad you are here the way you appear to. I imagine that will wear off as my heroic rescue fades into the past. D'you need me to slow down lest you have a panic attack or something, I don't know how those work."

"I'm fine, I told you, Miles doesn't get panic attacks. I will continue to be fine until I stop being Miles."

Mark gets out of the groundcar. "That was an adventure."

"And now I get to pitch the summary and write the novelization. You want to meet th'captain or get settled in my room while I debrief?"

"Rather the second thing. I don't think I want to face even a relative of Galen's right now."

"No thanks, I'm fine. I might as well have my panic attack while you're out. If you come back and I'm curled up under a blanket totally dead to the world, feel free to ignore me until I emerge."

"Okay. You have fun with that. Have you outgrown hugs since earlier this afternoon? Feels rather off to leave you to have a panic attack without."

Somewhere in the middle of cracking up and hugging back, he breaks character. It is pretty impossible to remain Miles while being pleased about Ivan scooping him up and hugging him.

Ivan salutes ironically and lets himself out.

"Pretty smoothly. And yourself? You look like hell but maybe this is a necessary step in the otherwise beneficial rescuing process. D'you need more water or jam or anything?"

"Yeah, I'm gonna continue looking like hell," he says. The Jacksonian accent seems ascendant for the moment. "Some kind of food would sure be nice."

"And they apparently weren't giving you much in the way of food or water?" asks Ivan, writing this up gravely on his comconsole to send in with the rest of his full report.

"Usually they kept me adequately nourished," he says. His accent has slid gradually all the way back to London. "It's just this time they had me in the closet for more than a day. I really set Galen off, yesterday or whenever that was; he went all the way past violent outbursts and into cold rage." The Jacksonian accent pops back up all at once when he adds, "Which is fuckin' impressive, let me tell you. Galen can go pretty far on violent outbursts."

"I didn't have a London accent when I was five and fresh from Jackson's Whole; seeing you again dug up the old voice from wherever it was hiding. Now it's just - whatever I'm saying comes out in whichever speech pattern suits it better."

"Right. Anything else suited for the report?"

"I could produce all kinds of horrifying little details, but I think I'd rather spare you. You've got enough to be going on with, I'm pretty sure."

"Wise of you. You wouldn't like 'em."

"Not my delicate ears I'm worried about there."

"Eh. It's gotten so I can laugh about it."

"That was quick."

"Not since I was rescued," he clarifies. "Just in general. Although actually laughing in the moment tended to summon whole new levels of hell."

"Sorry. See why I'm worried about your delicate ears?"

"They will survive."

He shrugs. "Still, you rescued me, seems a poor turn to make you suffer the knowledge of exactly what you rescued me from."

"If you'd rather talk directly to the legal folks should they need more detail that can probably be arranged but they're harder to extract sympathy from."

"Is that what that was."

"...yes?"

"I don't have much experience with the concept. I'm not sure I understand how it works."

"Well, the way it works is I learn that awful things have befallen you, and then, because I have a soul, this is distressing and I feel rather like hugging you again."

"Oh. You can hug me again," he says. "If you want."

So Mark gets another hug.

"That's the way of things, yep."

"Where no doubt Galen eventually escapes and comes after me. That man holds grudges like cherished heirlooms."

"Well, they had the discourtesy not to do this within the Imperium, so we can't string them up, but I'm pretty sure I can nip him in the head with a nerve disruptor if he goes after you here, here having the legal fiction of being Barrayar."

"Well, that's reassuring."

"D'you want me to write Aunt Cordelia and Uncle Aral about you, see if you can just go be completely surrounded by Barrayaran soil all the time and have a bit more space to move around in than you will if you try to stick to embassy grounds? Message'll take a few weeks, but." Shrug. "I'm pretty sure they'll take you."

"Hey, if you want to read all the time, can't scare me. But if you might want the results of that message any time in the next few weeks I should send it out now."

"Mm." He shakes his head. "No thank you. Not yet. I'll keep the option in mind, though."

"Sure, just say when."

Mark essays a hesitant smile.

"Guess. It'll be hilarious."

He throws up his hands. "A pony. A model jumpship. The baby brother I've always wanted. I am not in the mood, Ivan."

"That's... that's just great," Miles mutters, rubbing his face with both hands. "God. Is he - how did you find this out, anyway - is he okay? How long has he been here?"

"Little of this, little of that - he's, uh. His mood responds well to hugs."

"'Little of'—whatever. I can't deal with this right now." He turns back to Galeni. "Captain, I am sincerely sorry to have dropped in on you like this. I can be out of your hair as soon as I deliver my Dendarii their payment."

"Eighteen million marks, sir."

"Lieutenant Vorkosigan, that's well beyond the budget of this embassy," says Galeni. "Let alone this department!"

"...I have spreadsheets?" he says weakly. "I'm going to have to produce it from somewhere, sir, we've been running the last six months on nerves and prayer. I don't know what I'm going to do if I have to pack up the fleet and limp the rest of the way to Tau Ceti. Besides in all likelihood get nailed by a Cetagandan assassination team on the way."

"...Congratulations to Mark," says Miles. "I'm going to have the rest of this story out of you, Ivan, you realize." He sighs and refocuses on Galeni. "Thank you, sir. Under the circumstances I certainly don't have any good reasons to leave the embassy - just as long as I have some line of communication to my Dendarii, in case they need their admiral for something. What's the turnaround on a fast courier to Tau Ceti - ten days? We can make it ten days."

"All right. Thank you. Elli, stick around for the commlink and then go deliver the news to the fleet, all right? And my next order of business is... to get out of this hard-to-explain uniform and go meet my brother, I guess. God." He rubs his face again. "Where do I go around here to get clothes, Ivan? I've run dry of civvies; things keep getting blown up or abandoned in storage."

"Stores has one of those machines that measures you and makes whatever you like, within extremely conservative tastes, on the spot. I'll show you and then warn Mark you're incoming."

Miles nods tiredly.

"Where the fuck did he come from?"

"Didn't ask. He'll be here for a bit and then vanish again, is my understanding, I suppose they'll have to give him his own room since you're in this one."

"'Vanish again'... yeah, he does have that habit," says Mark. "Excessively so even for an ImpSec courier. And he hasn't been heard from at all in something like six months, and now he is inexplicably and unexpectedly on Earth. What does my big brother do for a living?"

"Oh, dear," sighs Ivan.

"Top secret?" he guesses. "I'm going to find out anyway, bet you anything you like."

"I will bet you one of those raspberry cookies, but I will not tell you."

"Sure. I may redeem the knowledge of what Miles has been up to for one of Carolyn's delicious raspberry cookies. Well, if I wasn't going to find out before, I sure am now."

"Whoops, wrong incentives."

"It's Miles, Ivan. There is no force nor law in this mortal universe capable of preventing me from finding something out about Miles. The effect of the extra incentive is negligible."

"Well, that's kind of a dramatic way to put it."

"It's a true way."

"Sure. Well, he should be along to say hello any minute now."

Ivan opens up. "Miles, Mark. Mark, Miles."

"...Hi," says Miles. "God, that's uncanny."

"Nice to meet you too," says Mark. "You look like shit. And that uniform's fresh out of Stores - what happened to the clothes you arrived in? Not so filthy that they had to be stuffed down a waste chute on the spot, or it'd show, you're not freshly washed. I doubt the good captain demanded you appear in uniform so forcefully that you went and had one made up on the spot. No, I'm going to go with 'discarded as incriminating in some way'. And you didn't have a Service uniform with you to change into when you got here. All together, this rather spells 'undercover agent', and one whose clothes would make him if he appeared in them before unauthorized persons. That suggests a military uniform to me. Some mercenary outfit, probably. With your insubordination problems I can't imagine you working for one very long without getting summarily shot, so you probably command them. Well, that was easy. Pay up, Ivan."

Ivan hands Mark one of the raspberry cookies. (He then also waves one at Miles as an attempt at consolation.) "I did not help, I swear."

"What, were you expecting him to take after me? And he hasn't had your scope of adventure as an outlet. He does this sort of thing all the time, although that one was particularly impressive."

"Oh my God. You didn't think to warn me that he was some kind of psychic?"

"He's not psychic! He laid out his non-psychic reasoning for you right then and there."

"His reasoning was pretty fucking psychic!" exclaims Miles.

"Remind me to recommend you some books while you're here, Miles."

"...What?"

"Probably wants you to read Sherlock Holmes."

"Is this related to that museum I saw advertised on the way here...?"

"Yes. Yes it is."

"Mark is a big fan. Th'title character does the 'psychic' thing."

"I grew up practicing the skill on, well, you," Mark explains to Miles. "And sort of incidentally on everything else in sight. But like I told Ivan earlier, it's going to be impossible to hide things about you from me. I know you too well."

"He can mimic you damn well. Absolutely uncanny. I can tell, though, pretty sure I could even do it without context, he likes me more than you do."

"He has reason, it seems like. And how did you end up rescuing him, exactly?"

"Okay, now this is the interesting part, and I'm not completely sure you'll believe it."

"Spit it out, Ivan."

"It involves time travel and I am really not sure how to start!"

"...At the beginning?" suggests Miles. "Before the, um, time travel happened?"

"Right, before that I had a completely ordinary work day, this was a few months ago, I opened the door to the office to leave and there was not a hallway there. Instead: time traveling bar - Mark, help, you are the only other witness."

"I was five years old at the time," says Mark. "I went to sleep just after arriving on Earth and woke up standing in the middle of an empty bar. Ivan walked in soon after, and I went up and was very rude and belligerent at him, and for reasons that elude me he was very patient and kind in return. When it came out that I was your clone, he promised to rescue me. Then I woke up back where I started and forgot it had ever happened, until he made good on his promise - later that same day, from his perspective, a dozen years from mine."

"You were five, what was I going to do, yell at you? Anyway, yes, that, that was a better summary than I could've produced, thank you. Nobody else knows this part, I came up with other excuses to give to Galeni and I think he was very distracted by the involvement of his father and didn't nitpick too closely."

"And you are serious about the time travel and this is not some kind of elaborate joke," says Miles.

"I am not making an elaborate joke. Someone may have played an elaborate joke on me, but it came with an actual adult Mark who remembered the same events at the other end of it, and I don't know how in the world they'd go about pulling it off."

"Well, 'adult'. You're what, seventeen, eighteen?"

"In number of years lived, yes. Other questions may yield other answers."

"You're cryptic and weird. Ivan, have you told him he's cryptic and weird?"

"Not in those exact words."

"'You confuse me.' 'Well that's bizarre.' 'Ooookay then.' 'Say that again more intelligibly?' 'Does time travel at a young age cause that sort of thing?'," recites Mark in flawless imitation.

"...My brother, the impressionist," snorts Miles.

"Obviously it's less effective when he's doing me, but yes."

"Thank God for that. Imagine if he could do it to anybody. Now there's a substitution plot."

Mark cracks up.

"He could just sort of wander around, switching identities when no one was looking."

"Sounds like fun."

"Somebody get this kid a hobby."

"Mostly he reads. And cons my raspberry cookies out of me. He isn't technically confined to the embassy but it's more convenient for everybody that way at least for the time being."

"Hm," says Miles, looking at Mark.

...Mark grins and bounces excitedly.

"...What?" says Miles, alarmed at this evidence of possible actual telepathy. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Why are you looking at him like that?"

"Because he is confined to the embassy for some reason, probably Captain Galeni's understandable overprotective streak, and it's occurred to him to use me to get around that and I think that sounds like tremendous fun."

"Can you actually read my mind, or what the hell?"

"I've been studying you literally my entire life. I can't hear what you're thinking, but I can guess it very accurately."

"This could get very hairy very fast. You know, I was thinking, when I had successfully rescued Mark, 'isn't it nice how simple a mission can be when Miles is not around', and now Miles is around, and things are going to cease to be simple."

"Oh, come on. Locate and retrieve your sense of fun," says Mark. "My two main skills are killing people and pretending to be Miles, I'm the perfect replacement mercenary commander."

"I didn't say I was going to do it," Miles protests. "I didn't even think very hard about doing it, it just occurred to me that the option existed. Stop bouncing. I'm not letting you touch my mercenaries under any circumstances until I'm satisfied you'd take good care of them."

Ivan sighs and eats a raspberry cookie.

"I'll tell Carolyn you like 'em. He was the orchestrator of the plot. No reason to believe th'captain himself's not squeaky clean, though."

"If you say so..."

"He replaced the Tau Ceti courier, he expressed his desire that Galen not die in my little raid as a preference not an order, and Mark has been bunking unharmed a yard away from my head since that time, I don't think they're connected beyond the technical relation."

"Yeah, it'd take a real paranoid to suspect him," Mark contributes. "Suspect me first, I'm the one who was specifically raised to hate you and your entire family. It didn't work, mind, but you don't have a good way to know that."

"Just what was in fact the plan?" he asks, morbidly fascinated.

"Replace and kill you, kill your father, kill Gregor Vorbarra, become Emperor of Barrayar. As told to me. As actually planned, of course the next step was for me to go the way of Mad Yuri, preferably in as violent and lengthy a civil war as possible, while Ser Galen organized a revolt on Komarr. I'm sure he had no idea I'd figured him out. Seemed to think that as long as he didn't tell me outright, I'd never come to it on my own, as though my brain was only capable of generating pre-approved thoughts."

"The plan also totally failed to factor in the involvement of time-traveling bars."

"Those are harder to predict, though."

"Sure blindsided the hell out of me. Especially the way you literally vanished while I was making for the door and there was, like, a lingering echo for a second."

"An echo of what?"

"You giggled. You disappeared before the giggle did. I didn't mention that? I guess it didn't come up."

(Miles is busy blinking away visions of what would have happened to Barrayar if this plot had proceeded as planned. God, what a horror.)

"Sorry," says Mark, glancing at him. "I didn't want to. As soon as I was on Barrayar I probably would've just - stopped. Spilled it all to your parents and let them decide what to do with me. Well, that or killed myself."

"Our parents," Miles corrects. "And - thank you, sort of. I like that plan better than the plan that ends in civil war. But I think the best outcome is the one where we're both still alive, eh?"

"Thank Ivan, then. He's the one who rescued me."

"You're welcome," Ivan says magnanimously.

"Yes. Thank you, Ivan, for saving Mark from having to murder me."

"I exist to save Vorkosigans inconvenience."

"Oh, is that what you're for."

"That and hugs. Don't forget hugs. Hugs are important."

"I suspect you'd find not being hugged on a routine basis kind of inconvenient, correct me if I'm wrong."

"I don't know if 'inconvenient' is exactly the word..."

"Eh." Ivan shrugs. "Hugs may be included as an addendum if you like."

He beams.

Okay, that's sort of cute.

—Miles splutters.

Mark giggles uproariously.

"Apparently I like him more."

"Apparently you do!"

"Suspect he likes hugs more."

"I suspect the same."

Ivan snorts.

"So, what the hell am I going to do in here for the next ten days?"

"There's not a ton to do. Catch up on your reading? There's a gym?"

"Oh. Joy."

"You could talk to me," Mark suggests.

"...Unlikely to be boring," Miles acknowledges.

"They'll probably put you next door. Unless they've got a reason to prefer moving Mark."

"Next door would suit me just fine."

"Less hassle that way. ...You should probably tell th'captain that Mark saw through your cover."

"To what end? The Dendarii are my problem."

...Mark seems deeply puzzled by this statement.

"Well, they're enough your problem that I'm not planning to tell him, but, I don't know, seems - polite."

"Yeah, well. What's your read on him, am I going to be in trouble for having a psychic brother?"

"Not more than 'confined to the embassy' amounts of trouble, I wouldn't expect. Possibly also a lecture?"

"I," says Mark, "am still very stuck on how your secret mercenaries came to be named after the bloody Dendarii Mountains. Isn't that just a touch obvious?"

"I didn't mean them to be my secret mercenaries when I named them. I didn't actually mean them to exist when I named them. It all just sort of... happened," says Miles.

"I entered the picture a bit too late to have a clear idea of how a mercenary company just happens, but if anyone were going to do it..."

"It would be Miles. Of course. I'd wondered where it all went," says Mark. "So what's your cover identity? You do have a cover identity."

"I'm sure it would take you less than fifteen seconds on a public comconsole to find out, but let me just clutch the tattered shreds of proper security for a little while longer, all right?"

"Your cover identity is even more embarrassingly named than the mercenaries he commands," Mark concludes. "...Naismith. Miles Naismith. Because it's the Vorkosigan part you would've been trying to hide."

"Is it too late to have you assassinated?" he mutters petulantly.

Mark cackles.

"I have only ever performed one daring rescue, please don't muck it up by assassinating my rescuee."

"It was such a good daring rescue, too! Well worth preserving."

"Fine, fine," says Miles. "No assassinating my brother even when he is being an irritating little shit. Got it."

"I appreciate that, really I do."

"You're welcome."

Mark is inappropriately heartwarmed by this exchange.

"Hi, Ivan," says Miles in unintended unison, less brightly.

"Hello to the both of you too. Aren't you picturesque like that."

"Do shut up."

Mark giggles.

Ivan obligingly shuts up. Although he does hum idly.

They resume their interrupted conversation about pre-industrial military tactics and the Holmes books' scientific inaccuracies. It's pretty much impossible to follow from the outside; Mark almost never lets Miles finish a sentence, preferring to interrupt with his response as soon as he knows what the rest is going to be.

Miles has totally adjusted to this style of discourse and is fully absorbed in the topics at hand.

Ivan finds that vaguely interesting for about five minutes, but eventually wanders off to go out for the evening.

Ivan, slightly tipsy and very worn out from his night on the town, says, "You bookworm twins are going to have to move to Miles's room unless you want to switch to unadulterated telepathy, 'm going to bed."

"One, yes you do, two, scientific consensus has changed in the last thousand years, three, you've seen me do it, you clearly know that it works," says Mark. "Hi, Ivan."

"Your arguing about books has a time limit," says Ivan, "Miles, th'captain wants you at the little shindig the ambassador's hosting for the new Zoave Twilightan - Twilightian? Zoavian? Whatever the word. The new ambassador from Zoave Twilight."

"Hey, Mark," says Miles—

"No," says Mark.

"Huh?"

"Miles wants me to be his substitute because he thinks it's going to be boring. I don't want to be his substitute, because I know it's going to be boring."

"Oh, these things aren't that bad, you make small talk, the food's always nice."

"I'm sure they don't bore you."

"I'm very sociably inclined. Anyway, Miles, dress greens, look sharp, it's in an hour."

"Come on, Mark, you didn't even give me a chance to make my pitch!"

"Go tell it to a mirror, convince yourself to go," Mark suggests.

Ivan bursts out laughing. "I want to see that."

"For fuck's sake," grumbles Miles.

"Suck it up," snorts Ivan. "I'm going to go change. But call me in if you decide to argue with a mirror."

"I bloody well will not."

"Won't call me or won't argue with a mirror?"