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the smooth lines of his brand-new cadet's uniform jacket.
Miles nodded toward the bulge, and whispered in astonishment,
"Are they letting you carry a weapon already?"
"Hell, no." Ivan flicked the jacket open after a conspiratorial glance around, probably for Lady Vorpatril. "It's a bottle of your father's wine. Got it from one of the servants before he'd poured it into those itty-bitty glasses. Say—any chance of you being my native guide to some out-of-the-way corner of this mausoleum? The duty
guards don't let you wander around by yourself, upstairs. The wine is good, the food is good, except for those purple things, but my God, the company at this party . . . !"
Miles nodded agreement in principle, even though he was inclined
to include Ivan himself in the category of my God the company. "All right. You pick up another bottle of wine," that should be enough to anesthetize him to tolerance, "and I'll let you hide out in my bedroom.
That's where I was going anyway. Meet you by the lift tube."
* * *
Miles stretched out his legs on his bed with a sigh as Ivan pooled
their picnic and opened the first bottle of wine. Ivan emptied a
generous third of the bottle into each of the two bathroom tumblers, and handed one to his crippled cousin.
"I saw old Bothari carrying you off the other day." Ivan nodded toward the injured legs, and took a refreshing gulp. Grandfather,
Miles thought, would have had a fit to see that particular vintage
treated so cavalierly. He took a more respectful sip himself, by way of libation to the old man's ghost, even though Grandfather's tart
assertion that Miles couldn't tell a good vintage from last Tuesday's washwater was not far off the mark. "Too bad," Ivan went on cheerfully. "You're really the lucky one, though."
"Oh?" muttered Miles, closing his teeth on a canape.
"Hell yes. Training starts tomorrow, y'know—"
"So I've heard."
"—I've got to report to my dormitory by midnight at the latest.
Thought I was going to spend my last night as a free man partying, but instead I got stuck here. Mother, y'know. But tomorrow we take our
preliminary oaths to the Emperor, and by God! if I'll let her treat me like a boy after that!" He paused to consume a small stuffed sandwich.
"Think of me, out running around in the rain at dawn tomorrow, while you're tucked away all cozy in here . . ."
"Oh, I will." Miles took another sip, and another.
"Only two breaks in three years," Ivan rambled on between bites.
"I might as well be a condemned prisoner. No wonder they call it service. Servitude is more like it." Another gulp, to wash down a meat-stuffed pastry. "But your time is all your own—you can do