After the wild events of Mile's first space mercenary adventure, any military posting would probably feel anti-climactic. But especially the posting Miles does receive: weather officer at "Camp Permafrost", a tiny Barrayaran island which no strategic importance whatsoever. Yet in less than three months there Miles encounters a near-fatal practical joke, an very-dead body in a drain, a warehouse of degrading toxins, a mutiny and hypothermia. And all of this takes place in the first 1/3 of the book. Never a dull moment for the empire's shortest (and possibly smartest) Ensign.