An Indisputable Logic

The black glass of the comconsole is empty, smooth and cold like ice; there is a pile of colored charts above it. The charts follow one after another, flashing by so quickly that they are almost at the breaking point of sensation. Never mind; in any case he'll memorize them effortlessly. Now if he could give free reign to his imagination, they would compose a whole picture, resembling, for example, the fireworks over the nightly mirror of a pond in the Residence's garden. A lovely picture. From what nook of his memory - ha! - did the Residence Garden appear now? There are famous ponds here, with granite facings, fountains, filigreed metal pavilions, odd gibbous ponds, street lamps like opal spheres ... and a great number of secret directional microphones. Of course. His memory habitually gets his attention, and now reports that this image came from the operative vid records of an advanced Security course. The description of the Garden's importance was completed by the prosaic, cynical, professional ImpSec note that this was 'the favored place for dates, mainly of youth'. So he knows the planning of the Garden only from vids, not personally; even if he could forget about the microphones, it would be silly to visit a place for dates by himself. Ignorant provincials might imagine that the Residence is crowded with beautiful young Vor girls, romantic, free and certainly dressed for a party. That's the provincials' nature, to cherish myths and ingenuous hopes; they force their way to the Capital at all costs, to make themselves a career, to prove, to achieve! The reality is the opposite of these dreams." Undress greens are a more common sight in the Residence than the girls susceptible to them. And a lieutenant's rank is too modest and unusual for the Palace; the red rectangles on his collar couldn't compete for anybody's favorable attention. And, his rank tabs are bright and glaringly new. He could seek consolation in them, in his loneliness.

Of course, he could get a leave warrant and go off to the Old Town, to the relatively decent corner of the caravanserai. Here he would find plenty of girls who are mad for officers' undress greens (or for a green note of twenty marks). However the wiser reasoning of security comes to mind immediately: the personal, whether the Capital's seedy hangouts are safe for a recently-arrived backcountry fellow, and the Service's, whether he has a right to jeopardize the unique gear in his brain, when it has the nominal value of a small space courier. These two reasons are enough to dismiss subconsciously the third argument: his dislike of the idea of soiling in a brothel the thing that doesn't belong to him anymore. His own memory. It's funny. After all, ImpSec officers are allowed, reluctantly, to have their private lives. What did this peculiarity come from, his stupid shyness or his stupid wish to be good, proper, and worthy? "Who cares how you have sex?" the spiteful mental voice retorts. He has to quickly shout down this unsummoned thought. "What rubbish! You are thinking about sex constantly as if you are seventeen years old, not twenty-seven." Nevertheless, it would be great... sex is a kind of surf-riding on life's waves, where first you fly on the crest, closing your eyes tightly and holding your breath, then fall down with it when the swell breaks, yelling in the air. Afterwards, you fall asleep, stretching yourself sweetly, and your whole body is utterly grateful for the pleasure. To continue the comparison, sex, like surf-riding, requires one to begin with only a bit of courage and a well-trained body. What's holding things up, boy?

The lieutenant rests his chin in his clasped palms and stares absently towards the carved wooden door to the antechamber of the Emperor's apartments. The silly idea sticks in his head like a crumb in a bad tooth. This isn't a proper place and time to think about his intimate life. Anyway... his excuses are unconvincing. 'I'm married to the Service'? This is a slogan for the propaganda booklets, not for real life; it sounds especially stupid in his silent solitude, and tempts him to wink and add, "... and often do my matrimonial duty here at night." The potential desecration makes the young officer shrink uncomfortably. He shouldn't joke about the Emperor, even more so when his sovereign is right on the other side of the wall. The Emperor's presence electrifies the air. The lieutenant imagines the parade portrait with all regalia staring from the shadows on the opposite wall pierces him with the Emperor's own eyes. Of course, nobody is here, neither the Emperor nor his image. The viscous silence fills the room; it can be broken only by the Emperor's call... or his snore? There is a task for the junior analyst. Use the clues available. The problem is: there isn't any light flaring at the bottom of the door onto the smooth inlaid parquetry. The door's engraved knobs don't move. Not one of the calls in the last hour was from the Emperor. It's between two and three o'clock in the morning. The question is: has His Majesty Ezar Vorbarra fallen asleep already, and so is the lieutenant's post duty completed for today?

At night the Emperor usually suffers from insomnia. No, the term 'suffers' is unacceptably vague; rather, he uses his lack of sleep to complete the day's business. Once he condescended to explain that an old man feels less need for sleep, and he had to hurry up anyway. This explication was needless, of course. A peculiar trait that would be a burden for an ordinary man becomes a unique feature of commanding for the great sovereign. The irregular schedule of the work, a kind of wait-and-run style, is habitual for ImpSec men. The last idea that would occur to the Emperor's personal secretary is complaining of overtime work.

Half a year ago, he had taken not only the new post but also the key to the door of a small room on the ground, janitorial floor of the Palace. It is a ten minute walk from his workstation, at any time of the day or night. This room is small like a closet but quite comfortable for his modest style; there is a fitted wardrobe, a sonic laundry for clothes, a tiny kitchen niche, one straight chair, a comconsole and a sofa. What a pity that he has to sleep on the sofa alone... Stop. Enough with touching the bad tooth. It is a nice room provided at government expense. He made inquiries and knows that the rent of a room in Vorbarr Sultana is equal to all his lieutenant's pay. A junior officer needs the prefix 'Vor' before his name and the matching maintenance from his noble family to afford to serve in the capital, especially for a post this high.

Speaking frankly, he can't understand a thing about his service; his work looks like a Russian 'babushka' doll that is nice outside and empty inside... or conceals inside some surprise that nobody knows beforehand. On the one hand, a mere lieutenant has a job attached personally to the most exalted person on Barrayar; this would be a honor for any brilliant Vor lord, even one used to the highest society due to his father's title. And he is just a prole and only a graduate of the District military school. On the other hand, the duties of H.I.M.'s personal secretary, contrary to his previous expectations, are the simplest clerical work, requiring neither great intellect nor good memory. The latter is the most strange because it was the eidetic chip that lifted him up the scale of ranks. Yet now he does not use it to do any typical secretary's work, not to make synopses, register documents, or draft letters. For the most part, he has two duties. The first one is to visit one high secret conference after another, where he plays a bit part of a silent presence. The second one is to be a mute witness in Ezar's presence. Almost mute. The Emperor seldom addresses his secretary, only when he has to obtain some trivial detail. One could consider that the great man is perplexed, as if he doesn't totally know where this junior officer came from, what this boy is doing among the men of the Emperor's inner circle, and how he has to treat this chrysalis that hasn't transformed yet to the proper butterfly complete with a General's insignia. The lieutenant's enthusiastic eagerness doesn't improve matters, by any means.

The problem is that the lieutenant isn't able to bridle his own eagerness, and this isn't his fault. What's a twist of fate. He isn't yet an expert at understanding of others' hidden motives, but his unique memory helps him, so he can make out the ImpSec psychologists' task. This process looks like untangling of a clue. He has found after the fact how they so confidently led him to this implicit reverence for the Emperor, as morbid and strong as love. Why didn't their collective mind wake up at the proper moment to come to the simple conclusion that it was senseless to use psycho-emotional conditioning to further strengthen the loyalty of a man who had already agreed to risk himself for the sake of the Imperium? Now the work is done, and he is left to be indignant, or to joke, or to practice logic, or to just guess. He could be an optimist and believe in the good sense of the special services; then he would be able to think out the various reasons, from the interests of science to the complexity of hypnotically tuning him to the Emperor's voice. But he could also admit frankly that the ImpSec is a real hotbed of jackbooted paranoids; then all the reasons become as clear as an "about turn!" command. There is no such thing as superfluous security, and it is better to be over-watchful than under-watchful, ergo, the absolute loyalty of the 'recorder on legs' must be assured with all possible hooks. The result of this strategy makes the Emperor frown. The lieutenant only hopes that Ezar's discontent concerns the secretary's learning, not his own young folly.

Thanks to all gods, real or made-up, that the Emperor's anger passes by, because the lieutenant's reaction to Ezar's person is not only as supersensitive as the most sensitive scanner search, but utterly illogical. On the one hand, Ezar is his liege lord, his commanding officer, the personification of the Imperium, the political genius, surpassing him in every aspect, even in height. On the other hand, the lieutenant can't throw off the stubborn and opinionated thought, 'I'm an officer of his Security. I'm his protection. Or its tiniest part, at least.' However, from what troubles can he protect the Emperor, who commands -- and receives -- absolute obedience from all the state? From diseases that make him debate with doctors, and then wince as he washes down a handful of pills with cold tea? From the everlasting quarrels with his son, bilious and bitter? From the job that takes up - eats - or embodies - his life? From the death that looms up on the horizon like a thunderstorm and is mentioned from time to time like an old, habitual enemy? One thought gives no rest to the young officer... No, he doesn't dream of covering His Majesty from fire using his own body; this isn't appropriate even for a twenty year old, new man. His dream is worse. He wants to make his Emperor a little happier, and that is fully impossible for an aide-de-camp and secretary. Moreover, it's criminally sentimental, because sentimentality in an ImpSec man equals disqualification.

The lieutenant tenses his shoulders in vexation and replays his thoughts, methodically, like another person would replay a tape recording. He counts two by two again, and the result is distressing. When his thoughts are skipping from 'get laid by somebody' to 'I love my Emperor', they are too dirty. He can't ever cover himself with the statement that telepathy doesn't exist, because his brain doesn't really belong to him. Formerly he would have started a fight over a mere hint about his homosexuality. Now his job has fully exterminated both his hot temper and sanctimony. He is no longer a country fellow who considers inclination to one's own sex a complete degradation; Vorkosigan's case from fifteen years ago refutes this completely. But the recent recollection disquiets him like a splinter as soon as he begins to think about this subject. He was sitting in the corner of the Emperor's office with a stack of flimsies in his hand, while Ezar rebuked his son via com. The lieutenant tried not to redden, to stay motionless so as to blend with the walls. The Emperor's voice became an angry hiss when he talked about the Crown Prince's improper friend and unsteady moral standard... The Emperor's biting words about his son's relations with Vorrutyer were far more blunt and scathing, so now the lieutenant feels he needs to consciously edit them, and he is sure that if he heard these words concerning himself, he would burn to ash with shame.

The young officer's face, colored by the com's reflection, looks like Cetagandan face paint, and his expression slowly turns puzzled. His face is undistinguished; his appearance will be youthful in his middle age but now is only boyish. A lean, pug-nosed, ordinary fellow. When he smiles, his face looks improperly young, he thinks; when he keeps it serious, he looks like a sulky fool, as the Emperor once said to him while in a talkative mood. At this moment, with his mouth opened and his brows furrowed, he doesn't look too clever, but the thoughts in his head gallop on, constructing an interesting picture.

So, even in this subtle matter of his intimate life, the most important thing is Ezar's opinion? 'ImpSec's ethics means the absence of any moral values unless you wish to do your duty', as they were told during the trainings. So the answer to this question is 'yes'; it's overwhelming to realize and impossible not to realize. One of the lieutenant's advantages is the ability to forget nothing, including lessons. This lesson says that now, his appraisal of what is "worthy and proper" also depends on every move of the crossly furrowed or ironically raised Emperor's brows. He has been caught, yes. But this conclusion only encourages him; he feels the calm, contented confidence. Yes, Ezar is old, stern, caustic, and often gives him less attention than he does to the antique oaken coffee table in the corner of the room. Does the lieutenant really have a choice? There aren't a dozen Ezars whom he could look over and be persnickety: 'the first one is too busy with his job, the second is too old, the next looks gloomy...' He is aimed at one single person as a compass needle is aimed at the north. It's enough to reason. He has already managed to lay the blame for his own emotions on the Service psychologists; now the moral dilemma is simplified to the clearness of the Regulations: 'Soldier, don't ask'.

Then the comconsole chimes, summoning him to the Emperor's office, and Simon Illyan steps across the threshold.