Ivan's voice was suffused. "I can just see the vid call to Commodore Destang now. 'Uh, sir? We ran into this little problem. Will you come get me … ?* "

"He may prefer to desert," commented Miles. The two converging police squads came within a breath of repeating the mutual annihilation of their fleeing suspects, but managed to get their true identities communicated just in time. Miles was almost disappointed. Still, nothing could go on forever; at some point the corridor would have become impassable due to the piles of bodies, and the havoc trail off according to the typical senescence curve of a biological system choked on its own waste. It was probably too much to ask that the police clear themselves, as well as the nine assassins, out of the path to escape. Miles was clearly in for another wait. Blast it.

Creaking, Miles stood, stretched, and leaned against the wall with folded arms. It had better not be too long a wait. As soon as the police combat squad called the all-clear, the bomb squad and Tidal Authority techs would appear and start going over every centimeter of the place. The discovery of Miles's little company was inevitable. But not lethal, as long as—Miles glanced down at Mark, hunkering at his feet—no one panicked.

Miles followed Mark's gaze to the scanner display, where the police were checking over the stunned bodies and scratching their heads. The captured Barrayaran was being properly surly and uninformative. As a covert ops agent he was conditioned to withstand torture and fast-penta too; there was little the London constables were likely to get out of him with the methods at their disposal, and he obviously knew it.

Mark shook his head, watching the chaos in the corridor. "Whose side are you on, anyway?"

"Haven't you been paying attention?" asked Miles. "This is all for you."

Mark looked up at him sharply, scowling. "Why?"

Why, indeed. Miles eyed the object of his fascination. He could see how a clone could get to be an obsession, and vice versa. He jerked up his chin in the habitual tic; apparently unconsciously, Mark did the same. Miles had heard weird tales of strange relationships between people and their clones. But then, anyone who deliberately went out and had a clone made must be kinky to start with. Far more interesting to have a child, preferably with a woman who was smarter, faster, and better-looking than oneself; then there was at least a chance for a bit of evolution in the clan. Miles scratched his wrist. Mark, after a moment, scratched his arm. Miles refrained from deliberately yawning. Better not start anything he couldn't stop.

So. He knew what Mark was. Maybe it was more important to realize what he was not. Mark was not a duplicate of Miles himself, despite Galen's best efforts. Was not even the brother of an only-child's dreams; Ivan, with whom Miles shared clan, friends, Barrayar, private memories of the ever-receding past, was a hundred times more his brother than Mark could ever be. It was just possible he had under-appreciated Ivan's merits. Botched beginnings could never be replayed, though they could be—Miles glanced down at his legs, seeing in his mind's eye the artificial bones within—repaired. Sometimes.

"Yeah, why?" Ivan put in at Miles's lengthening silence.

"What," piped Miles, "don't you like your new cousin? Where's your family feeling?"

"One of you is more than enough, thanks. Your Evil Twin here," Ivan made a horned-finger gesture, "is more than I can take. Besides, you both keep locking me in closets."

"Ah, but at least I called for volunteers."

"Yeah, I know that one. 'I want three volunteers, you, you, and you.' You used to bully me and your bodyguard's daughter around that way even before you were in the military, back when we were little kids. I remember."

"Born to command." Miles grinned briefly. Mark's brows lowered, as the apparently tried to imagine Miles as playground bully to the very large and healthy Ivan. "It's a mental trick," Miles informed him.

He studied Mark, who squatted uncomfortably, drawing his head down into his shoulders like a turtle against his gaze. Was this evil? Confusion, to be sure. Distortion of spirit as well as body—though Galen could have been only a little more awful as a child's mentor than Miles's own grandfather. But to be properly sociopathic one must be self-centered to an extreme degree, which did not seem to describe Mark; he had hardly been permitted to have a self at all. Maybe he was not self-centered enough. "Are you Evil?" Miles asked lightly.

"I'm a murderer, aren't I?" sneered Mark. "What more d'you want?"

"Was that murder? I thought I sensed some element of confusion."

"He grabbed the nerve disrupter. I didn't want to give it up. It went off." Mark's face was pale in memory, white and deeply shadowed in the sharp sideways illumination cast by Miles's handlight stuck to the wall. "I meant it to go off."

Ivan's brows rose, but Miles ruthlessly did not pause to fill him in. "Unpremeditated, perhaps," suggested Miles.

Mark shrugged.

"If you were free …" began Miles slowly.

Mark's lips rippled. "Free? Me? What chance? The police will have found the body by now."

"No. The tide was up over the rail. The sea has taken it. Might be three, four days before it surfaces again. If it surfaces again." And a repellent object it would be by then. Would Captain Galeni wish to reclaim it, have it properly buried? Where was Galeni? "Suppose you were free. Free of Barrayar and Komarr, free of me too. Free of Galen and the police. Free of obsession. What would you choose? Who are you? Or are you only reaction, never action?"

Mark twitched visibly. "Suck slime."

One corner of Miles's mouth curved up. He scuffed his boot through the gook on the floor, stopped himself before he began doodling with his toe. "I don't suppose you'll ever know as long as I'm standing over you."

Mark spat the dregs of his hatred. "You're the free one!"

"Me?" Miles was almost genuinely startled. "I'll never be as free as you are right now. You were yoked to Galen by fear. His control only equalled his reach, and both were broken together. I'm yoked by—other things. Waking or sleeping, near or for, makes no difference. Yet . . . Barrayar can be an interesting place, seen through other eyes than Galen's. The man's own son saw the possibilities."

Mark smirked sourly, staring at the wall. "You making another play for my body?"

"For what? It's not like you have the height my—our—genes intended or something. And my bones are all on their way to becoming plastic anyway. No advantage there."

"I'd be in reserve, then. A spare in case of accidents."

Miles threw up his hands. "You don't even believe that any more. But my original offer still stands. Come with me back to the Dendarii, and I'll hide you. Smuggle you home. Where you can take your time and figure out how to be real Mark, and not imitation anybody."

"I don't want to meet those people," Mark stated flatly.

By which he meant, his mother and father; Miles caught that without difficulty, though Ivan was clearly losing the thread. "I don't think they would behave inappropriately. After all, they're already in you, on a fundamental level. You, ah, can't run away from yourself." He paused, tried again. "If you could do anything, what would it be?"

Mark's scowl deepened. "Bust up the clone business on Jackson's Whole."

"Hm." Miles considered. "It's pretty entrenched. Still, what d'you expect of the descendants of a colony that started as a hijacker base? Naturally they developed into an aristocracy. I'll have to tell you a couple of stories about your ancestors sometime that aren't in the official histories …" So, Mark had picked up that much good from his association with Galen, a thirst for justice that went beyond his own skin even if including it. "As life-goals go, it would certainly keep you occupied. How would you go about it?"