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an object, a symbol representing the enemy will he murder me for the sake of
sheer allegory?
"So," Ser Galen spoke. "This is the real thing at last. Not very impressive,
to have seduced my son s loyalty. What can he see in you? Still, you represent
Barrayar very well. The monster son of a monster father, Aral
Vorkosigan s secret moral genotype made flesh for all to see. Perhaps there is
some justice in the universe after all."
"Very poetic," choked Miles, "but biologically inaccurate, as you must know,
having cloned me."
Galen smiled sourly. "I won t insist on it." He completed his circuit and
faced Miles. "I suppose you couldn t help being born. But why have you never
revolted from the monster? He made you what you are " an expansive gesture of
Galen s open hand summed up Miles s stunted and twisted frame. "What
dictator s charisma does the man possess, that he s able to hypnotize not only
his own son but everyone else s too?" The prone figure in the vid console
seemed to pluck at Galen s eye.
"Why do you follow him? Why does David? What corrupt kick can my son get out
of crawling into a
Barrayaran goon-uniform and marching behind Vorkosigan?" Galen s voice feigned
light banter very badly; the undertones
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rothers%20In%20Arms.txt twisted with anguish.
Miles, glowering, clipped out, "For one thing, my father has never abandoned
me in the presence of an enemy."
Galen s head jerked back, all pretense of banter extinguished. He turned
abruptly away, and went to take up the hypospray from the bench.
Miles silently cursed his own tongue. But for that stupid impulse to grab the
last word, to return the cut, he might have kept the man talking, and learned
something. Now the talking, and the learning, would all be going the other
way.
The two guards took him by the elbows. The one on the left pushed up his shirt
sleeve. Here it came. Galen pressed the hypospray against the vein on the
inside of Miles s elbow, a hiss, a prickling bite. "What is it?"
Miles had just time to ask. His voice sounded unfortunately weak and nervous
in his own ears.
"Fast-penta, of course," replied Galen easily.
Miles was not surprised, though he cringed inwardly, knowing what was to come.
He had studied fast-
penta s pharmacology, effects, and proper use in the Security course at the
Barrayaran Imperial Academy.
It was the drug of choice for interrogation, not only for the Imperial Service
but galaxy-wide. The near-perfect truth serum, irresistible, harmless to the
subject even with repeated doses. Irresistible and harmless, that is, except
to the unfortunate few who had either a natural or artificially-induced
allergic reaction to it. Miles had never even been considered as a candidate
for this last conditioning, his person being judged more valuable than any
secret information he might contain.
Other espionage agents were less lucky. Anaphylactic shock was an even less
heroic death than the disintegration chamber usually reserved for convicted
spies.
Despairing, Miles waited to go ga-ga. Admiral Naismith had sat in on more than
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one real fast-penta interrogation. The
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rothers%20In%20Arms.txt drug washed all reason out to sea on a flood of benign
good feeling and charitable cheer. Like a cat on catnip, it was highly amusing
to watch in somebody else. In moments he would be mellow to the point of
drooling idiocy.
Ugly, to think of the resolute Captain Galeni having been so shamefully
reduced. Four times running, he d said. No wonder he was twitchy.
Miles could feel his heart racing, as though he d overdosed on caffeine. His
vision seemed to sharpen to an almost painful focus. The edge lines of every
object in the room glowed, the masses they enclosed palpable to his
exacerbated senses. Galen, standing back by the pulsing window, was a
live-wiring diagram, electric and dangerous, loaded with deadly voltage
awaiting some triggering discharge.
Mellow, this wasn t.
He had to be slipping into natural shock. Miles took his last breath. Would
his interrogator ever be surprised. . . .
Rather to Miles s own surprise, he kept on panting. Not anaphylactic shock,
then. Just another damned idiosyncratic drug reaction. He hoped the stuff
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