Reasonably enough, the few mementos that had been retained tended heavily to reminders of successes. Miles's diploma from the Imperial Service Academy, and his officer's commission, were normal enough, though Mark wondered why a battered old Service issue weather manual was also framed and placed exactly between them. A box of old gymkhana awards going back to youth looked as if they might be heading for an attic very soon. Half a wall was devoted to a massive book-disk and vid collection, thousands of titles. How many had Miles actually read? Curious, he took the hand-viewer off its hook on the wall nearby and tried three disks at random. All had at least a few notes or glosses entered in the margin-boxes, tracks of Miles's thought. Mark gave up the survey, and passed on.

One object he knew personally; a cloissoné-hilted dagger, which Miles had inherited from old General Piotr. He dared to take it down and test its heft and edge. So when in the past two years had Miles stopped carting it around, and sensibly begun leaving it safely at home? He replaced it carefully on the shelf in its sheath.

One wall-hanging was ironic, personal, and obvious: an old metal leg-brace, crossed, military-museum fashion, with a Vor sword. Half joke, half defiance. Both obsolete. A cheap photonic reproduction of a page from an ancient book was matted and mounted in a wildly expensive silver frame. The text was all out of context, but appeared to be some sort of pre-jump religious gibberish, all about pilgrims, and a hill, and a city in the clouds. Mark wasn't sure what that was all about; nobody had ever accused Miles of being the religious type. Yet it was clearly important to him.

Some of these things aren't prizes, Mark realized. They are lessons.

A holovid portfolio box rested on the bedside table. Mark sat down and activated it. He expected Elli Quinn's face, but the first videoportrait to come up was of a tall, glowering, extraordinarily ugly man in Vorkosigan armsmen's livery. Sergeant Bothari, Elena's father. He keyed through the contents. Quinn was next, then Bothari-Jesek. His parents, of course. Miles's horse, Ivan, Gregor: after that, a parade of faces and forms. He keyed through faster and faster, not recognizing even a third of the people. After the fiftieth face, he stopped clicking.

He rubbed his eyes wearily. He's not a man, he's a mob. Right. He sat bent and aching, face in his hands, elbows on his knees. No. I am not Miles.

Miles's comconsole was the secured type, in no way junior to the one in the Count's library. Mark walked over and examined it only by eye; his hands he shoved back deep into his trouser pockets. His fingertips encountered Kareen Koudelka's crumpled flowerlets.