"Do you consider yourself an innocent
bystander?"
"God knows I try to be," sighed
Ivan.
Memory, LM Bujold.
Trying to be an innocent bystander isn't a very lofty ambition, but once you're within 20 miles of Miles, it seems to become an impossible one. Might as well stand by the Academy fountain in your best uniform on an end-of-term Saturday and expect to stay dry.
I can't remember a time when I wasn't following Miles somewhere I didn't want to be. Of course, as a kid I didn't follow - I just went. I wound up floundering in a radioactive lake, up a cliff with eagles attacking and trapped in Uncle Aral's dress uniform closet. What else could I do? He couldn't even walk.
Now we're older and there's not much he can't do, but somehow he still seems to need me. He needs an alibi or a uniformed escort or a glider flown somewhere no sane person would fly or official information unofficially obtained or 'your wonderfully bovinely reassuring presence, cousin'.
I've told him that I'm having carved on my grave 'This is all Miles' fault', but Aunt Cordelia is the only person who will ever believe that.
Reluctantly, I look up to meet Admiral Vormerrin's furious glare.
"No, sir, I can't explain how the goat got there."