MemoryMemory The only two
adjoining cabins left aboard the first Tau Ceti-bound jump-ship
heading out of Zoave Twilight happened to be premier-class luxury
suites. Miles smiled at this misfortune, and made a mental note
to document the security necessity for Illyan's accountants,
preferably while pointing out what obscene profits the mission
just completed had made. He pottered about, taking his time
putting away his sparse luggage, and waiting for Sergeant Taura
to finish her meticulous security sweep. The lighting and decor
were serene, the beds were spacious and soft, the bathrooms
individual and private, and they didn't even have to go out for
food; unlimited room service was included in the stiff fare. Once
the ship was space-borne, they would be in effect inhabiting
their own private universe for the next seven days.
The rest of the
trip home would be much less inviting. At the Tau Ceti transfer
station he would change uniforms and identities, and step aboard
the Barrayaran government vessel in the persona of Lieutenant
Lord Miles Vorkosigan, ImpSec courier, a modest young officer
with the same rank and duties as the unlucky Lieutenant Vorberg.
He shook out his Imperial undress greens, and hung them up in a
lockable cupboard along with the uniform boots, their shine
protected in a sealed bag. Courier officer always made an
excellent cover-identity for Miles's wide-ranging travels to and
from the Dendarii Fleet; a courier never had to explain anything.
On the debit side, the company aboard the next ship would be
all-male, all-military, and, alas, all Barrayaran. No bodyguard
required. Sergeant Taura could split off to return to the
Dendarii, and Miles would be left alone with his fellow subjects
of the Imperium.
From long
experience, he anticipated their reaction to him, to his apparent
undersized unfitness for his military duties. They'd say nothing
overt-it would be obvious to them that he held this cushy
courier's sinecure by virtue of some powerful nepotistic
string-pulling on the part of his father the Viceroy Admiral
Count Vor-etcetera. It was exactly the reaction he desired, to
maintain his deep cover, and Lieutenant Vorkosigan the Dull would
do nothing to correct their assumptions. His own slur-sensitive
antennae would fill in the blanks. Well, maybe the crew would
include men he'd traveled with before, used to him by now.
He locked the
cupboard. Let Lieutenant Vorkosigan and all his troubles stay out
of sight and out of mind, for the next week. He had more engaging
concerns. His belly shivered in anticipation.
Sergeant Taura
returned at last, and ducked her head through the open doorway
between their two rooms. "All clear," she reported.
"No bugs found anywhere. In fact, no new passengers or cargo
added at all since we booked passage. We've just left
orbit."
He smiled up, and
up at her, his most unusual Dendarii trooper, and one of his
best. No surprise that she should be good at her job; she'd been
genetically engineered for the task.
Taura was the
living prototype of a genetic design project of dubious morality
conceived and carried out, where else, on Jackson's Whole. They'd
wanted a super-soldier, and they'd assigned a research committee
to carry out the project. A committee consisting entirely of
biological engineers, and not one experienced soldier. They'd
wanted something spectacular, to impress the client. They had
certainly achieved that.
When Miles had
first encountered her, the sixteen-year-old Taura had reached her
full adult height of eight feet, all of it lean and muscular. Her
fingers and toes were tipped with heavy claws, and her outslung
mouth made fierce with fangs that locked over her lips. Her body
seemed to glow with the radiant heat of a burning metabolism that
lent her unnatural strength and speed. That, and her tawny golden
eyes, gave her a wolfish air; when fully concentrated upon her
work, her ferocious stare could cause armed men to drop their
weapons and throw themselves flat on the floor, a
psychological-warfare effect Miles had actually witnessed, on one
delightful occasion.
Miles had long
thought that she was one of the most beautiful women he had ever
seen, in her own way. You just had to be able to see her
properly. And unlike his blurred-together Dendarii missions,
Miles could enumerate every rare occasion they had ever made
love, from their very first encounter, six, seven years ago now?
From before he and Quinn had ever become a couple, in point of
fact. Taura was some kind of very special first for him, as he
had been for her, and that secret bond had never faded.
Oh, they'd tried
to be good. Dendarii regs against cross-rank fraternization were
for the benefit of all, to protect the rankers from exploitation
and the officers from losing control of discipline, or worse. And
Miles had been quite determined, as the young and earnest Admiral
Naismith, to set a good example for his troops, a virtuous
resolve that had slipped away . . . somewhere. After the
umpteenth we've-lost-count-again time he had been almost killed,
perhaps.
Well, if you
couldn't be good, at least you could be discreet.
"Very good,
Sergeant." He held out a hand to her. "You may as well
take a break-for the next seven days, eh?"
Her face lit; her
lips drew back in a smile that fully exposed her fangs.
"Really?" she said, her resonant voice thrilling.
"Really."
She trod over to
him, her muscled mass making the deck creak slightly beneath her
Dendarii combat boots, and bent to exchange a promissory kiss.
Her mouth, as always, was hot and exhilarating. The fangs might
be a subliminal trigger to that adrenaline rush, but mostly it
was just the sheer wonderful . . . Taura-ness of her. She
was life-relishing, experience-devouring, living in an eternal
Now, and for very good reasons. . . . He forced his mind away
from a descending swoop on that future, or any other, and curled
his hand around the back of her head to loosen the neatly
pinned-up braid of her mahogany hair.
"I'll
freshen up," she grinned, breaking away after a time. She
twitched at her loosened gray uniform jacket.
"Enjoy the
hell out of the bathing facilities," he advised cordially.
"It's the most sybaritic setup I've seen since Dyne
Station's Ambassadorial Baths."
He retreated to
his own facility, to ditch uniform and rank insignia and to
engage in a pleasant ritual of leisurely preparation, involving
depilation, cleanliness, and cologne. Taura deserved the best.
She also deserved all the time she wanted. Seldom could she shed
the stern Sergeant, and reveal that feminine self shyly hidden on
the inside. Seldom indeed could she trust anyone to guard that
vulnerability. The Fairy Princess, he thought of her. We all
have our secret identities, it seems.
He dressed
himself sarong-fashion in a prewarmed fluffy towel, and went to
perch on his bed, waiting alertly. Had she anticipated this
private space together, and if so, what little garment would she
bring out of her valise this time? She would insist on
trying out these would-be sexy numbers on him, not seeming to
realize how like a goddess she was already when dressed in
nothing but her streaming hair. Well, all right, not streaming
hair; left to its own devices it tended to go stiff and
uncooperative and frizzy, tickling his nose, but it looked good
on her. He hoped she had managed to lose the horrifying pink
thing with the red feathers. It had taken all his tact, last
time, to get across the idea that perhaps the color and design
choice did not compliment her best features, without ever once
intimating any fault in her taste or personal appearance. She
might be able to break him with one hand, but he could kill her
with a word. Never.
His own face lit
with unabashed delight at her return. She was wearing something
cream-colored and sleek and shimmery-silky, meters of fabric so
fine one might with little effort draw it through a ring. The
goddess-effect was nicely enhanced, her immense intrinsic dignity
unimpaired. "Oh, splendid!" he caroled, with unfeigned
enthusiasm.
"Do you
really think so?" She spun for him; the silk floated
outward, along with a spicy-musky scent that seemed to go
straight up his nostrils to his back-brain with no intervening
stops. Her bare toes did not click on the floor-prudently, she
had trimmed and blunted all her nails, before painting them with
gold enamel. He'd have no hard-to-explain need for stitches or
surgical glue this time.
She lay down
beside him, their ludicrous height-difference obviated. Here at
last they might fill their hunger for human, or almost-human,
touch until sated, without interruption, without comment. . . .
He bristled defensively inside, at the thought of anyone watching
this, of some abrupt surprised bark of laughter or sarcastic
witticism. Was his edginess because he was breaking his own
rules? He didn't expect any outsider to understand this
relationship.
Did he understand
it himself? Once, he might have mumbled something about the
thrill, an obsession with mountain climbing, the ultimate sex
fantasy for a short guy. Later, maybe something about a blow for
life against death. Maybe it was simpler than that.
Maybe it was just
love.
He woke much,
much later, and watched her as she slept. It was a measure of her
trust, that his slight stirring did not bring her hyperawake, as
her genetically programmed drives usually rendered her. Of all
her many and fascinating responses, the fact that she slept
for him was the most telling, if one knew her inside story.
He studied the
play of light and shadow over her long, long ivory body,
half-draped with their well-stirred sheets. He let his hand flow
along the curves, a few centimeters from the surface, buoyed by
the feverish heat rising from her golden skin. The gentle
movement of her breathing made the shadows dance. Her breathing
was, as always, a little too deep, a little too fast. He wanted
to slow it down. As if not her days, but her inhalations and
exhalations were numbered, and when she'd used them all up . . .
She was the last
survivor of her fellow prototypes. They had all been genetically
programmed for short lives, in part, perhaps, as a sort of
fail-safe mechanism, in part, perhaps, in an effort to inculcate
soldierly courage, out of some dim theory that a short life would
be more readily sacrificed in battle than a long one. Miles did
not think the researchers had quite understood courage, or life.
The supersoldiers had died fast, when they died, with no
lingering years of arthritic old age to gradually wean them from
their mortality. They suffered only weeks, months at most, of a
deterioration as fierce as their lives had been. It was as if
they were designed to go up in flame, not down in shame. He
studied the tiny silver glints in Taura's mahogany hair. They had
not been there last year.
She's only
twenty-two, for God's sake.
The Dendarii
fleet surgeon had studied her carefully, and given her drugs to
slow her ferocious metabolism. She only ate as much as two men
now, not four. Year by year, like pulling hot gold wire through a
screen, they had extended Taura's life. Yet sometime, that wire
must snap.
How much more
time? A year? Two? When he returned to the Dendarii next time,
would she still be there to greet him, with a proper, Hello,
Admiral Naismith in public, and a most improper, not to
mention rude and raucous, Howdy, Lover! in private . . . ?
It's a good
thing she loves Admiral Naismith. Lord Vorkosigan couldn't handle
this.
He thought a bit
guiltily of Admiral Naismith's other lover, the public and
acknowledged Quinn. Nobody had to explain or excuse being in love
with the beautiful Quinn. She was self-evidently his match.
He was not,
exactly, being unfaithful to Elli Quinn. Technically, Taura
predated her. And he and Quinn had exchanged no vows, no oaths,
no promises. Not for lack of asking; he'd asked her a painful
number of times. But she too was in love with Admiral Naismith.
Not Lord Vorkosigan. The thought of becoming Lady Vorkosigan,
grounded downside forever on a planet she herself had stigmatized
as a "backwater dirtball," had been enough to send
space-bred Quinn screaming in the opposite direction, or at
least, excusing herself uneasily.
Admiral
Naismith's love-life was some sort of adolescent's dream:
unlimited and sometimes astonishing sex, no responsibilities. Why
didn't it seem to be working anymore?
He loved Quinn,
loved the energy and intelligence and drive of her, their shared
passion for the military life. She was one of the most wonderful
friends he'd ever had. But in the end, she offered him only . . .
sterility. They had no more future together than did he and
Elena, bound to Baz, or he and Taura. Who is dying.
God, I hurt.
It would be almost a relief, to escape Admiral Naismith, and
return to Lord Vorkosigan. Lord Vorkosigan had no sex life.
He paused. So . .
. when had that happened, that . . . lack in his life? Rather
a long time ago, actually. Odd. He hadn't noticed it before.
Taura's eyes
half-opened, honey-colored glints. She favored him with a sleepy,
fanged smile.
"Hungry?"
he asked her, confident of the answer.
"Uh
huh."
They spent a
pleasant few minutes studying the lengthy menu provided by the
ship's galley, then punched in a massive order. With Taura along,
Miles realized cheerfully, he might get to try a bite of nearly
everything, with no embarrassing wasteful leftovers.
While waiting for
their feast to arrive, Taura piled pillows and sat up in bed, and
regarded him with a reminiscent gleam in her gold eyes. "Do
you remember the first time you fed me?"
"Yes. In
Ryoval's dungeons. That repellent dry ration bar."
"Better rat
bars than raw rats, let me tell you."
"I can do
better now."
"And
how."
When people were
rescued, they ought to stay rescued. Wasn't that the deal? And
then we all live happily ever after, right? Till we die. But
with this medical discharge threat hanging over his head, was he
so sure that it was Taura who would go first? Maybe it would be
Admiral Naismith after all. . . . "That was one of my first
personnel retrievals. Still one of the best, in a sort of
cockeyed way."
"Was it love
at first sight, for you?"
"Mm . . .
no, truthfully. More like terror at first sight. Falling in love
took, oh, an hour or so."
"Me, too. I
didn't really start to fall seriously in love with you till you
came back for me."
"You do know
. . . that didn't exactly start out as a rescue mission." An
understatement: he'd been hired to "terminate the
experiment."
"But you
turned it into one. It's your favorite kind, I think. You always
seem to be especially cheerful whenever you're running a rescue,
no matter how hairy things are getting."
"Not all the
rewards of my job are financial. I don't deny, it's an emotional
kick to pull some desperate somebody out of a deep, deep hole.
Especially when nobody else thinks it can be done. I adore
showing off, and the audience is always so appreciative."
Well, maybe not Vorberg.
"I've
sometimes wondered if you're like that Barrayaran fellow you told
me about, who went around giving everybody liver patés for
Winterfair 'cause he loved them himself. And was always
frustrated that no one ever gave him any."
"I don't
need to be rescued. Usually." Last year's sojourn on
Jackson's Whole having been a memorable exception. Except that
his memory of it had a big three-month blank in it.
"Mm, not rescue,
exactly. Rescue's consequence. Freedom. You give freedom away
whenever you can. Is it because it's something you want
yourself?"
And can't
have? "Naw. It's the adrenaline high I crave."
Their dinner
arrived, on two carts. Miles sent away the human steward at the
door, and he and Taura busied themselves in a brief domestic
bustle, getting it all nicely arranged. The cabin was so
spacious, the table wasn't even fold-down, but permanently bolted
to the deck. Miles nibbled, and watched Taura eat. Feeding Taura
always made him feel strangely happy inside. It was an impressive
sight in its own right. "Don't overlook those little fried
cheese things with the spicy sauce," he pointed out
helpfully. "Lots of calories in them, I'm sure."
"Thanks."
A companionable silence fell, broken only by steady munching.
"Contented?"
he inquired.
She swallowed a
bite of something meltingly delicious formed into a dense cake in
the shape of a star. "Oh, yes."
He smiled. She
had a talent for happiness, he decided, living in the present as
she so carefully did. Did the foreknowledge of her death ever
ride upon her shoulder like a carrion crow . . . ? Yes, of
course it does. But let us not break the mood.
"Did you
mind, when you found out last year that I was Lord Vorkosigan?
That Admiral Naismith wasn't real?"
She shrugged.
"It seemed right to me. I always thought you ought to be
some sort of prince in disguise."
"Hardly
that!" he laughed. God save me from the Imperium, amen.
Or maybe he was lying now, instead of then. Maybe Admiral
Naismith was the real one, Lord Vorkosigan put on like a mask.
Naismith's flat Betan accent fell so trippingly from his tongue.
Vorkosigan's Barrayaran gutturals seemed to require an
increasingly conscious effort, anymore. Naismith was so easy to
slip into, Vorkosigan so . . . painful.
"Actually"-he
picked up the thread of their previous conversation, confident
that she would follow-"freedom is exactly what I don't want.
Not in the sense of being aimless, or, or . . . unemployed." Especially
not unemployed. "It's not free time that I
want-the present moment excepted," he added hastily. She
nodded encouragement. "I want . . . my destiny, I guess. To
be, or become, as fully me as I possibly can." Hence
the invention of Admiral Naismith, to hold all those parts of
himself for which there was no room on Barrayar.
He'd thought
about it, God knew, a hundred times. Thought of abandoning
Vorkosigan forever, and becoming just Naismith. Kick free of the
financial and patriotic shackles of ImpSec, go renegade, make a
galactic living with the Dendarii Free Mercenary Fleet. But that
was a one-way trip. For a Vor lord to possess a private military
force was high treason, illegal as hell, a capital crime. He
could never go home again, once he went down that road.
Above all, he
could not do that to his father. The-Count-my-Father, a
name spoken all in one breath. Not while the old man lived, and
hoped all his old-Barrayaran hopes for his son. He wasn't sure
how his mother would react, Betan to the bone as she was even
after all these years of living on Barrayar. She'd have no
objection to the principle of the thing, but she didn't exactly
approve of the military. She didn't exactly disapprove, either;
she just made it plain that she thought there were better things
for intelligent human beings to do with their lives. And once his
father died . . . Miles would be Count Vorkosigan, with a
District, and an important vote in the Council of Counts, and
duties all day long. . . . Live, Father. Live long.
There were parts
of himself for which Admiral Naismith held no place, either.
"Speaking of
memorable rescues"-Taura's lovely baritone brought him back
to the present-"how's your poor clone-twin Mark getting
along now? Has he found his destiny yet?"
At least Taura
didn't refer to his one and only sibling as the fat little
creep. He smiled at her, gratefully. "Quite well, I
think. He left Barrayar with my parents when they departed for
Sergyar, stayed with them a bit, then went on to Beta Colony. My
Betan grandmother is keeping an eye on him for Mother. He's
signed in at the University of Silica, same town as she lives
in-studying accounting, of all things. He seems to like it. Sort
of incomprehensible. I can't help feeling one's twin ought to
share more of one's tastes than an ordinary sib."
"Maybe later
in life, you'll grow more alike."
"I don't
think Mark will ever involve himself with the military
again."
"No, but
maybe you'll get interested in accounting."
He glanced up
suspiciously-oh, good. She was joking. He could tell by
the crinkle at the corners of her eyes. But when they uncrinkled,
faint crow's feet still tracked there. "As long as I never
acquire his girth."
He sipped his
wine. Mention of Mark recalled Jackson's Whole, and his
cryo-revival, and all his secret problems that were presently
spinning out in unwelcome consequence. It also recalled Dr.
Durona, his cryo-revival surgeon. Had the refugee Durona sisters
actually succeeded in setting up their new clinic on Escobar, far
from their unbeloved ex-home? Mark ought to know; he was still
channeling money to them, according to his last communication.
And if so, were they ready to take on a new, or rather, old
patient yet? Very, very quietly?
He could take a
long leave, ostensibly to visit his parents on Sergyar. From
Sergyar it was only a short hop to Escobar. Once there he could
see Rowan Durona. . . . He might even be able to slip it past
Illyan even more openly, feigning it was a trip to see a lover.
Or at least slip it past the Count. Even ImpSec agents were
allowed, grudgingly, to have private lives, though if Illyan
himself had one it was news to Miles. Miles's brief love affair
with Rowan had been sort of a mistake, an accident that had
happened while he was still suffering from cryo-amnesia. But they
had parted, he thought, on good terms. Might he persuade her to
treat him, yet make no records of it for ImpSec to find?
It could
be done . . . get his head fixed, whatever the hell was wrong
with it, and go quietly on, with no one the wiser. Right?
Part of him was
already beginning to regret not decanting both versions of his
mission report to ImpSec onto cipher-cards, and saving the final
decision for later, when he'd had a bit more time to think it
through. Turn in the one, eat the other. But he was committed
now, and if he was committed, he needed a better plan than
trusting to luck.
Escobar it was.
As soon as his schedule allowed. Extremely annoying, that he
wasn't being routed through Escobar on this run home.
He sat back, and
regarded the triumphant litter of plates, cups, glasses, and
bowls crowding the table, looking rather like a battle scene
after . . . well, after Taura had been through. No more mopping
up required. He glanced past her silk-draped shoulder to their
bed. "Well, milady. A nap? Or something?"
She followed his
glance. "Something. Then a nap," she decided.
"At your
command." He bowed vorishly, sitting, and rose to take her
hand. "Seize the night."
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