It is not a plot spoiler to suggest that the reader might want to recall a passage relating to Mark when coming upon a passage relating to Miles. They are after all brothers. Biological brothers. Clones actually. Well that either spoils or enhances the reading experience of another novel in the Vorkosigan saga cycle.

Spoil proof is the prose. No matter how damaged the thrill of suspense. You could have the whole plot diagramed fully in front of you and still the power of the prose pulls you into the storytelling. You watch the narrator play with the character's fascination with strategy and decision trees. The real hero is of course the narrator. The narrator stokes the desire to see a knotty set of complexities resolved, to experience a game situation where as many loose ends as possible are tied up with the most economic means.

For her, this was metaphor, he reminded himself. Though maybe he was a metaphor too, inside his head with the Black Gang. A metaphor gone metastatic. Metaphors could do that, under enough pressure.

[...]

Yes. That was how it should be. [...] Gardens were meant to be seen, smelled, walked through, grubbed in. A hundred objective measurements didn't sum the work of a garden; only the delight of its users did that. Only the use made it mean something.

Gardens, selves, novels. Whatever the object of contemplation, the ethics of use kick in.

Want to know how we learn about the connections between metaphors and gardens? Read and reread. The plot configures the configuration. A metaphor gone metastatic has been pushed by prose. Emplotted.