Miles Errant by Lois McMaster Bujold Page B

disrupted. Miles cursed under his breath.
    "You, you, you, and—you," Miles tapped shoulders, "grab that guy. Get him out of here—back to the dome wall—"
    Miles's draftees were not terribly pleased with their assignment, but by this time Tris and Beatrice had run up and led the attack with rather more science. Pitt was seized and pulled away, behind the lines. Miles made sure the rat bar distribution pile was running again before turning his attention to the savage, foul-mouthed Pitt. Oliver and Suegar had joined him by this time.
    "I'm gonna rip the bastard's balls off," Tris was saying. "I command—"
    "A military command," Miles interrupted. "If this one is accused of disorderly conduct, you should court martial him."
    "He is a rapist and a murderer," she replied icily. "Execution's too good for him. He's got to die slowly."  
    Miles pulled Suegar aside. "It's tempting, but I feel real uneasy about handing him over to her just now. And yet . . . real uneasy. Why is that?"
    Suegar eyed him respectfully. "I think you're right. You see, there's—there's too many guilty."
    Pitt, now in a foaming fury, spotted Miles. "You! You little cunt-licking wimp—you think they can protect you?" He jerked his head toward Tris and Beatrice. "They ain't got the muscle. We've run 'em over before and we'll run 'em over again. We wouldn'ta lost the damn war if we'd had real soldiers—like the Barrayarans. They didn't fill their army with cunts and cunt-lickers. And they ran the Cetagandans right off their planet—"
    "Somehow," Miles growled, drawn in, "I doubt you're an expert in the Barrayarans' defense of their homeworld in the First Cetagandan War. Or you might have learned something—"
    "Did Tris make you an honorary girl, mutant?" jeered Pitt in return. "It wouldn't take much—"
    Why am I standing here bandying words with this low-life crazy? Miles asked himself as Pitt raved on. No time. Let's finish it. 
    Miles stepped back and folded his arms. "Has it occurred to any of you yet that this man is clearly a Cetagandan agent?"
    Even Pitt was shocked to silence.
    "The evidence is plain," Miles went on forcefully, raising his voice so all bystanders could hear. "He is a ringleader in your disruption. By example and guile he has corrupted the honest soldiers around him, set them one against another. You were Marilac's best. The Cetagandans could not count on your fall. So they planted a seed of evil among you. Just to make sure. And it worked—wonderfully well. You never suspected—"
    Oliver grabbed Miles's ear and muttered, "Brother Miles—I know this guy. He's no Cetagandan agent. He's just one of a whole lot of—"
    "Oliver," Miles hissed back through clenched teeth, "shut up." And continued in his clearest parade-ground bellow, "Of course he's a Cetagandan spy. A mole. And all this time you thought this was something you were doing to yourselves."  
    And where the devil does not exist, Miles thought to himself, it may become expedient to invent him. His stomach churned, but he kept his face set in righteous rage. He glanced at the faces around him. Not a few were as white as his must be, though for a different reason. A low mutter rose among them, partly bewildered, partly ominous.
    "Pull off his shirt," Miles ordered, "and lay him down on his face. Suegar, give me your cup."
    Suegar's plastic cup had a jagged point along its broken edge. Miles sat on Pitt's buttocks, and using the point as a stylus scratched the words
    CETA
SPY
    across Pitt's back in large print. He dug deep and ruthlessly, and the blood welled. Pitt screamed and swore and bucked.
    Miles scrambled to his feet, shaking and breathless from more than just the physical exertion.
    "Now," he ordered, "give him his rat bar and escort him to the exit."
    Tris's teeth opened in objection, clicked back down. Her eyes burned into Pitt's back as he was hustled off. Her gaze turned rather more doubtfully to Miles, as she stood on one side of him and Oliver on the