"Vormurtos leaned on the frame with his arms crossed, and failed to move aside.
At Miles's polite, "Excuse us, please," Vormurtos pursed his lips in… - Lois McMaster Bujold
"Vormurtos leaned on the frame with his arms crossed, and failed to move aside.
At Miles's polite, "Excuse us, please," Vormurtos pursed his lips in exaggerated irony.
"Why not? Everyone else has. It seems if you are Vorkosigan enough, you can even get away with murder."
Ekaterin stiffened unhappily. Miles hesitated a fractional moment, considering responses: explanation, outrage, protest? Argument in a hallway with a half-potted fool? No. I am Aral Vorkosigan's son, after all. Instead, he stared up unblinkingly, and breathed, "So if you truly believe that, why are you standing in my way?"
Vormurtos's inebriated sneer drained away, to be replaced by a belated wariness. With an effort at insouciance that he did not quite bring off, he unfolded himself, and opened his hand to wave the couple past. When Miles bared his teeth in an edged smile, he backed up an extra and involuntary step. Miles shifted Ekaterin to his other side and strode past without looking back.
Ekaterin glanced over her shoulder once, as they made their way down the corridor. In a tone of dispassionate observation, she murmured, "He's melted. You know, your sense of humor is going to get you into deep trouble someday."
Lois McMaster Bujold (born 2 November 1949, Columbus, Ohio) is an American author of science fiction and fantasy works, most noted for the works in her Vorkosigan Saga.
She probably felt about matrimony the way Miles felt about needle-grenade launchers.
Shooting people was such a stupid activity, why should everybody—anybody!—be so impressed? Silver wondered irritably. You would think she had done something truly great, like discover a new treatment for black stem-rot.
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People have some very odd illusions about power. Mostly it consists of finding a parade and nipping over to place yourself at the head of the band. Just as eloquence consists of persuading people of things they desperately want to believe. Demagoguery, I suppose, is eloquence sliding to some least moral energy level.
