Mark gives a short shrug. "Or I could just let you handle him," he responds. "It's not like you don't have experience. And I don't have any great desire to get to know him." Not that there isn't a faint prickle of curiosity, of course, but it's more academic than anything else - Piotr is the source of Mark's middle name, of course, so there's that connection, and the great General shaped the personalities of both Miles and of his father in palpable, if largely invisible, ways. On the other end of that scale is potential death - or at best deeply hurtful comments. No thanks.

"So what story are we going with, then? Are you pretending to be Barrayaran or galactic?"