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Cam is dipping a grilled cheese sandwich into a bowl of tomato soup when he feels the summons. He goes ahead and grabs it. Doesn't even drop the sandwich.
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unmarred
"Yeah." He shrugs. "Anyway. Time passed. Barrayar discovered Sergyar, and the connection to Escobar through it, and decided to try this conquering thing again. I strongly suspect Aral wanted no part of that, although I don't have direct confirmation; what I do know is that he met his future wife on Sergyar, when she was part of a Betan Astronomical Survey expedition that happened to find the planet while the Barrayarans were setting up there. He took her prisoner. No one's quite sure how they ended up engaged. I'll ask, if I ever meet them. The invasion plans proceeded, Barrayar poured a fleet through Sergyar, and the Escobarans wiped the floor with them thanks to a timely delivery of cutting-edge Betan shielding technology that reflects plasma blasts instead of absorbing them. Sergyar got its name from the Barrayaran Crown Prince who died in that battle."
unmarred
"My favourite part of that whole episode is the Betan newsvid I dug up where Cordelia - my brother's mother - comes home from the war, looking like utter hell, and it's very, very obvious that nobody told her she'd be making a speech with the President of Beta Colony the second she stepped off the shuttle, and she has a minor breakdown and rips off the medal they give her and flings it into the gathered crowd, and when the President's bodyguards try to restrain her she ends up accidentally kicking him somewhere one is normally discouraged from kicking one's President."
from_scratch
"A very dramatic failure on the part of whoever was supposed to be handling her."
unmarred
"No kidding. Not long afterward, she left the planet pursued by unexplained criminal charges; reading between the lines a little, I think they tried to lock her up - well, put her in therapy, that's what Beta Colony does - and she took exception, made a moderately violent escape, and fled to Barrayar. The 'fled to Barrayar' part at least is established fact; she married Aral, settled in, and then the dying Emperor made Aral regent to his five-year-old grandson and promptly died. Aral held things together pretty amazingly well, considering what he had to work with." He smiles, then shakes his head.
"While Cordelia was pregnant with their first child, somebody lobbed a nasty gas grenade in their bedroom window, and as a result she had to transfer the kid to a uterine replicator and apply medical experts to the problem of his dissolving skeleton. That would be my brother Miles. His gestation was imperiled again when an attempted usurper kidnapped his replicator as part of a general drive for hostages. Cordelia took exception, mounted a rescue with a few loyal retainers, and came back with not only the replicator but also the pretender's head in a bag. Thus ended that short-lived civil war. They lead exciting lives, my family."
"While Cordelia was pregnant with their first child, somebody lobbed a nasty gas grenade in their bedroom window, and as a result she had to transfer the kid to a uterine replicator and apply medical experts to the problem of his dissolving skeleton. That would be my brother Miles. His gestation was imperiled again when an attempted usurper kidnapped his replicator as part of a general drive for hostages. Cordelia took exception, mounted a rescue with a few loyal retainers, and came back with not only the replicator but also the pretender's head in a bag. Thus ended that short-lived civil war. They lead exciting lives, my family."
unmarred
"Yeah, that's a pattern. The stories I could tell you about Miles... anyway. Time went on. Aral remained Regent, and little Gregor remained Emperor. There was a revolt on Komarr in the late 2970s, when Miles was about six. One of the major revolutionaries was a man named David Galen, who'd lost a sister in the Solstice Massacre. The revolt was unsuccessful. Galen faked his own death - I'm not sure whether that part was planned in advance, or he just took advantage of a misperception - stole a tissue sample of Miles, available in abundance because of how often the kid was in the hospital for this or that problem related to his fucked-up bones, and took it to Jackson's Whole to create a clone."
Here Mark gives a little bow in his seat.
"I was aimed ultimately at a substitution plot; Galen made me study Miles's life, his correspondence, his mannerisms, everything. Even called me by his name. And put me through extensive surgery to correct my lack of Miles's fetal damage. The plan worked as far as that went; I'm a near-flawless physical copy of Miles, except I have normal bone density and not nearly so many old fractures, and I do a near-flawless impression of him. I even got as far as setting up the switch and impersonating him for a few days, when he showed up unexpectedly on Earth and Galen decided to activate me. But I liked Miles, I didn't want to steal his life and assassinate his family, and—"
He pauses momentarily.
"—mm, sorry, I need to backtrack a little. During the Time of Isolation, Barrayar had a serious problem with harmful mutations, and wasn't equipped to apply a more sophisticated solution than widespread infanticide. They haven't nearly had time to shake off the superstitions and social attitudes established in those days. Being visibly deformed or disabled or weird-looking on Barrayar is a good way to get spit on and beaten up in alleys. Even in the nicer and more forward-thinking parts of society, you get some friction. So I knew, when Galen told me he planned for me to become the next Emperor of Barrayar, he was setting me up. There's an argument to be made that Miles has a claim by blood, but if he actually tried to claim it, there would be riots and assassination attempts until somebody got him. Which is exactly what Galen was hoping for, of course. Throwing me to the wolves to keep them occupied ripping my carcass to bloody shreds while he organized another revolt on Komarr. That isn't nearly as figurative as it sounds, by the way; the last notable case of Barrayar getting rid of an emperor it objected to was the descriptively titled Dismemberment of Mad Emperor Yuri, within living memory. Aral was about eleven."
Here Mark gives a little bow in his seat.
"I was aimed ultimately at a substitution plot; Galen made me study Miles's life, his correspondence, his mannerisms, everything. Even called me by his name. And put me through extensive surgery to correct my lack of Miles's fetal damage. The plan worked as far as that went; I'm a near-flawless physical copy of Miles, except I have normal bone density and not nearly so many old fractures, and I do a near-flawless impression of him. I even got as far as setting up the switch and impersonating him for a few days, when he showed up unexpectedly on Earth and Galen decided to activate me. But I liked Miles, I didn't want to steal his life and assassinate his family, and—"
He pauses momentarily.
"—mm, sorry, I need to backtrack a little. During the Time of Isolation, Barrayar had a serious problem with harmful mutations, and wasn't equipped to apply a more sophisticated solution than widespread infanticide. They haven't nearly had time to shake off the superstitions and social attitudes established in those days. Being visibly deformed or disabled or weird-looking on Barrayar is a good way to get spit on and beaten up in alleys. Even in the nicer and more forward-thinking parts of society, you get some friction. So I knew, when Galen told me he planned for me to become the next Emperor of Barrayar, he was setting me up. There's an argument to be made that Miles has a claim by blood, but if he actually tried to claim it, there would be riots and assassination attempts until somebody got him. Which is exactly what Galen was hoping for, of course. Throwing me to the wolves to keep them occupied ripping my carcass to bloody shreds while he organized another revolt on Komarr. That isn't nearly as figurative as it sounds, by the way; the last notable case of Barrayar getting rid of an emperor it objected to was the descriptively titled Dismemberment of Mad Emperor Yuri, within living memory. Aral was about eleven."
unmarred
"You can say that again. Anyway. I was... constrained, by factors outside my control, but at the first available opportunity I shot Galen and left Miles in possession of his own life again. Miles is the one who named me Mark, when I took him aside for a personal conversation after capturing him. He was very insistent on calling me his brother. It's the legal default on Beta Colony to consider clones siblings; Barrayar has no precedent, because as far as I know I'm the first clone of a Barrayaran. And Barrayaran Imperial Security is watching me because I am technically a threat to the Imperium on multiple levels. Miles actually had to save me from Barrayaran assassination teams shortly after I killed Galen, although I gather he's gone to the top and pled my case since, because I haven't had to dodge any more assassins."
from_scratch
"And now you are wandering around evading and trolling your supervision."
from_scratch
"Okay. I hope that works out for you, but I would like to start thinking about what I'm going to do with my time unbound in a mortal world, even if it's not the mortal world I'm accustomed to, and it probably doesn't look like wandering around aimlessly, periodically trolling people. I'd appreciate a native guide who knows I'm a demon and demonstrably doesn't care to go to the media about it, but can probably do without, if native-guiding me is incompatible with your wandering-troll plans."
unmarred
"I'm not married to the life of a wandering troll. Being your native guide seems likely to be interesting. Depends what sort of shit you plan on getting up to, I guess."
from_scratch
"Oh, I don't know yet... I've always wanted to terraform a planet, there a market for that?"
unmarred
"Plenty. Komarr, Barrayar, and Sergyar could all use help in that area, but of course you'd have to visit the Imperium to do that, and having me as your native guide would be a little complic—ooh." He breaks off mid-word and sits still for a few seconds, eyes lit with speculation.
unmarred
Mark grins.
"We could bust the clone-transplant business. We could completely bust the clone-transplant business. Oh, I like it, I like it so much." He rubs his hands together. "I mentioned I'm a Jacksonian-made clone, right? Well, substitution plots are a niche market there; by far the most prevalent and lucrative use for a clone produced outside any legal jurisdiction is to receive brain transplants from people with a lot of money, not many scruples, and something wrong with their original body that a fresh one could fix - old age is a favourite. Lead time of about ten years, with accelerated growth. All my creche-mates from my first few years on Jackson's Whole are now dead, their brains discarded to make room for the customer's. You can see why I might take a personal interest."
"We could bust the clone-transplant business. We could completely bust the clone-transplant business. Oh, I like it, I like it so much." He rubs his hands together. "I mentioned I'm a Jacksonian-made clone, right? Well, substitution plots are a niche market there; by far the most prevalent and lucrative use for a clone produced outside any legal jurisdiction is to receive brain transplants from people with a lot of money, not many scruples, and something wrong with their original body that a fresh one could fix - old age is a favourite. Lead time of about ten years, with accelerated growth. All my creche-mates from my first few years on Jackson's Whole are now dead, their brains discarded to make room for the customer's. You can see why I might take a personal interest."
from_scratch
"Okay, what's the fastest way to go there, and does the general anarchy on Jackson's Whole mean that I can saunter in and start issuing mindless adult clones wholesale without any business paperwork?"
unmarred
"Commercial jumpship, probably, unless we can find a fast courier to charter. I'm just going to go ahead and assume that if I spend a lot of money on this you will pay me back with the obscene profits generated by your insta-cloning business. You'd need connections, but I can arrange connections. And we'd need to avoid pissing anyone off too badly. Some of those people hold serious grudges. It's doable, though."
from_scratch
"I'm indestructible, but you aren't, and if you die, if normal rules apply despite the alternate universe thing, I get sent home. Also, if the normal rules apply despite the alternate universe thing, when you die you become a daeva. Probably we should have some human somewhere who knows how to resummon me and try to summon you in the event of an emergency."
unmarred
"I nominate Miles. If you don't mind the rest of his family, the Emperor of Barrayar, and the Chief of ImpSec also finding out how to resummon you. I assume that's something that can be done safely?"
from_scratch
"Teaching somebody how to summon daeva in general requires a fairly prolonged safety lecture. Teaching somebody how to summon specific individual daeva who do not require bindings in order to conduct themselves harmlessly is much simpler. One circle for me, three potential circles for you."
unmarred
"Get 'em drawn out and I'll send a message to Miles, then. An advantage of making it Miles is that I can send him coded messages that I know only he will be able to unlock."