Memory (21 page)

Miles sat staring at the empty vid plate. Ivan was right. He hadn't done a thing more about pursuing a cure since he'd been fired. Once freed from his constraining need for secrecy from ImpSec, why hadn't he been all over this seizure disorder, attacking it, tearing it apart, or at least riding some hapless medico as hard as he'd ever ridden the Dendarii Mercenaries to successfully complete their missions?

To buy time.

He knew it for the right answer, but it only brought him to a new level of self-bafflement.
Time for what?

Keeping himself on self-inflicted medical leave allowed him to avoid facing certain unpleasant realities square-on. Such as the news that the seizures couldn't be cured, and that the death of hope was permanent and real; no cryo-revival for that corpse, just a warm and rotting burial.

Yeah? Really?

Or . . . was he just as afraid his head
could
be fixed—and then he'd be logically compelled to grab the Dendarii and take off? Back to his real life, the one that soared out far, far away into the glittering galactic night, escaping all the dirtsuckers' petty little concerns. Back to heroing for a living.

More afraid.

Had he lost his nerve, after that hideous episode with the needle grenade? He had a clear flash-vision in his memory of his odd angled view of his own chest blowing outward in a lumpy red spray, and pain beyond measure, and despair beyond words. Waking up afterward hadn't been a picnic, either.
That
pain had dragged on for weeks, without escape. Suiting up again to go out with the squad after Vorberg had been hard, no question, but he'd been doing all right until the seizure.

So . . . was the whole thing, from end to end, from seizure to falsification to discharge, a tricky dance to save himself from ever having to look down the wrong end of a needle-grenade launcher again, without having to say
I quit
out loud?

Hell, of course he was afraid. He'd have to be a frigging idiot not to be. Anyone would, but he'd
done
death. He knew how bad it was. Dying hurt, death was just nothing, both were to be avoided by any sane man. Yet he'd gone back. He'd gone back all the other times, too, after the little deaths, his legs smashed, his arms smashed, all the injuries that had left a map of fine white scars over his body from head to toe. Again and again and again. How many times did you have to die to prove you weren't a coward, how much pain were you required to consume to pass the course?

Ivan was right. He'd always found a way over the wall. He imagined it through, the whole scenario. Suppose he got his head fixed, here or on Komarr or on Escobar, it didn't matter where. And suppose he took off, and ImpSec declined to assassinate their renegade Vor, and they achieved some unspoken agreement to ignore each other forevermore. And he was all and only Naismith.

And then what?

I face fire. Climb that wall.

And then what?

I do it again.

And then what?

Again.

And then what?

It's logically impossible to prove a negative.

I'm tired of playing wall.

No. He needed neither to face nor avoid fire. If fire came his way, he'd deal with it. It wasn't cowardice, dammit, whatever it was.

So why haven't I tried to get my head fixed yet?

He rubbed his face and eyes, and sat up, and attempted once more to compose a coherent account of his new civilian status and how he'd come by it for the Admiral Count and his Lady, the woman whom his father routinely addressed as
Dear Captain.
It came out very stiff and flat, he was afraid, worse even than Mark's birthday message, but he refused to put it off until yet another tomorrow. He recorded and sent it.

Albeit not by tight-beam. He let it go the long way, by ordinary mail, though marked
Personal
. At least it was gone, and he would not be able to call it back again.

Quinn had sent a birthday greeting too, demurely worded so as not to provide too much entertainment for the ImpSec censors. A strong tinge of anxiety leaked through her casual facade nonetheless. A second inquiry was more openly worried.

With enormous reluctance, he repeated a truncated version of his message for Quinn, minus the backfill and cutting straight to the results she had predicted. She deserved better, but it was the best he could do right now. She did not deserve silence and neglect.
I'm sorry, Elli.

Ivan invited himself to dinner the next night. Miles feared he would have to endure more of the campaign to get him to address his medical problems, about which, admittedly, he had still done nothing, but instead Ivan brought flowers to Ma Kosti, and hung around the kitchen during dinner preparations, making her laugh, until she ran him out. At that point Miles began to fear it was the opening of a campaign to hire away his cook, though whether in Ivan's own right or on behalf of Lady Alys he was not yet sure.

They were halfway through dessert—by Ivan's request, a reprise of the spiced peach tart—when they were interrupted by a comconsole call, or rather, by Martin lurching in to announce, "There's some ImpSec stiff-rod on the com for you, Lord Vorkosigan."

Illyan? Why would Illyan call me?
But when, Ivan following in curiosity, he'd trooped to the nearest com on that floor, the one sited in his grandfather's old sitting room overlooking the back garden, the face that formed over the vid plate at his touch was that of Duv Galeni.

"You smarmy goddamn little pimp," said Galeni, in a dead-level voice.

Miles's own bright, innocent, panicked, "Hi, Duv, what's up?" tripped over this and fell very flat, and just lay there, withering under Galeni's glare. Galeni's face was neither red nor pale, but livid, gray with rage.
I should have stayed at Vorkosigan Surleau one more week, I think
.

"You
knew
. You set this up. You set
me
up."

"Um . . . just checking." Miles swallowed. "What are we talking about?"

Galeni didn't even bother to dignify this with an answer, but glared on, his lips curling back on his long teeth in an expression that had nothing to do with a smile.

"Gregor and Laisa, by chance?" Miles hazarded. More thick silence, broken only by Galeni's breathing. "Duv . . . I didn't know it would come out like this. Who would have guessed it, after all these years? I was trying to do you a favor, dammit!"

"The one good thing that's ever come my way. Taken. Stolen. Vor
does
mean thief. And you goddamn Barrayaran thieves stick together, all right. You and your fucking precious Emperor and the whole damned pack of you."

"Uh," put in Ivan from the side, "is this comconsole secured, Miles? Sorry, Duv, but if you're going to express yourself so, um, frankly, wouldn't it be better to do it in person? I mean, I hope this isn't over your ImpSec channel. They have ears in the damnedest places."

"ImpSec can take its ears and the flat head between them and shove them up its collective ass." Galeni's accent, normally elusively urbane, was going not only distinctly Komarran but street-Komarran.

Miles signaled Ivan to shut up. Remembering what had happened to two unlucky Cetagandans the last time Miles had seen Galeni this upset, a personal visit seemed like a singularly bad idea just now. There was Corporal Kosti to protect him, of course, but could Kosti handle one of his own superiors? In a homicidal trance? It seemed rather a lot to ask of the poor fellow.

"Duv, I'm
sorry
. I didn't mean it to come out this way. It was nothing I'd planned. It took everyone by surprise, even Lady Alys. Ask Ivan."

Ivan shrugged, hands out. " 'S true."

Miles cleared his throat, cautiously. "How, um . . . did you find out about this?"

"She called me."

"When?"

"About five minutes ago."

She's just dumped him. Oh great.

"They
both
called me," Galeni groaned. "She said I was her best friend here, and she wanted me to be the first Komarran to hear the news."

Gregor's really gone and done it, then. "And, uh . . . what did you say?"

"Congratulations, of course. What else could I say? With the pair of 'em sitting there grinning at me?"
Miles breathed relief. Good. Galeni
hadn't
lost all control. He'd just called Miles to have a shoulder to gnash his teeth on. Looked at in a certain light, it was a measure of immense trust.
Terrific. Thanks, Duv.

Ivan rubbed his neck. "You've been chasing this woman for five months, and all you got was that she thinks you're her friend? Duv, what the hell were you doing all that time?"

"She's a
Toscane
," said Galeni. "I'm just an impoverished collaborator, by her family's standards. I had to persuade her that I had a future worthy of her, nothing to look at now, no, but later . . . then
he
came along, and just, just swept her up with no trouble at all."

Miles, having watched Gregor practically turning handsprings in an effort to be pleasing to Laisa, said only, "Um."

"Five months is
way
too slow," said Ivan, continuing his tone of earnest critique. "God, Duv, I wish you'd asked me for some advice earlier."

"She's
Komarran
. What can one of you damned Barrayaran sugar-plum-fairy-soldier-bloody-buffoons know about a Komarran woman? Intelligent, educated, sophisticated—"

"Almost thirty . . ." Miles mused.

"I had a timetable," said Galeni. "When she'd known me six months exactly, I was going to ask her."

Ivan winced.

Galeni seemed to be calming down, or at least beginning a downward slide from his immediate reaction of rage and pain into a less energy-intensive despair. Perhaps his violent words were going to be safety-vent enough for his boiling emotions, without violent actions this time. "Miles . . ."—at least he didn't preface the name with a string of pejoratives now—"you're nearly Gregor's foster brother."

No
nearly
about it. "Um?"

"Do you think . . . could you possibly persuade him to relinquish . . . no." Galeni ran down altogether.

No.
"I owe Gregor . . . from too far back. On a personal as well as a political level. This heir business is essential to my future health and safety, and Gregor's been dragging his feet on it forever. Till now. I can't do anything but support him. And anyway"—he remembered his Aunt Alys's words—"it's Laisa's decision, not yours or mine
or
Gregor's. I can't help it if you forgot to tell
her
about your timetable. I'm sorry."

"Shit." Galeni cut the com.

"Well," said Ivan thinly into the silence that followed. "At least that's over with."

"Have you been avoiding him too?"

"Yes."

"Coward."

"
Who
was it spent the last two weeks hiding out in the mountains?"

"It was a strategic withdrawal."

"Well. I believe our dessert is drying out back in the dining room."

"I'm not hungry. Besides . . . if this is Gregor and Laisa's night to start informing selected personal friends, prior to the official announcement . . . I may as well stay here for a few more minutes."

"Ah." Ivan nodded, and pulled up a chair, and seated himself.

Three minutes later, the comconsole chimed. Miles keyed it on.

Gregor was trimly dressed in dark and distinctly civilian gear; Laisa was lovely as usual in bluntly Komarran style. Both were smiling, eyes alight with the glow of their mutual infatuation.

"Hello, Miles," Gregor began, to which Laisa added a, "Hello again, Lord Vorkosigan."

Miles cleared his throat. "Hi, folks. What can I do for you?"

"I wanted you to be among the first to know," said Gregor. "I've asked Laisa to marry me. And she said yes." Gregor was looking quite blitzed, as if this prompt assent had come as a surprise to him. Laisa's smile, to her credit, was at least equally blitzed.

"Congratulations," Miles managed.

Ivan leaned over his shoulder into the vid pickup to add a second to the motion, and Gregor said, "Oh, good, you're here. You were next." Going down his list of profoundly relieved heirs in official order of rank? Well . . . it was the Barrayaran thing to do. Laisa murmured greetings to Ivan too.

"Am I the first to know?" Miles trolled.

"Not quite," said Gregor. "We've been taking turns. Lady Alys was first, of course; she's been in on this from the start, or nearly so."

"I sent the message to my parents yesterday. And I've told Captain Galeni," added Laisa. "I owe him so much. He and you both."

"And, ah, what did he say?"

"He agreed it might be good for planetary accord," said Gregor, "which, considering his background, I find most heartening."

In other words, you asked him point-blank, and he said, Yes, Sire. Poor, excellent Duv. No wonder he called me. It was that or explode. "Galeni . . . is a complex man."

"Yes, I know you like him," said Gregor. "And I sent a message to your parents that should arrive tonight. I expect to hear back from them by tomorrow."

"Oh," Miles said, reminded. "Aunt Alys was ahead of you, I think. My father asked me to send on his personal assurance of support. And my mother asked me to tell you the same particularly, Dr. Toscane."

"I'm looking forward to meeting the legendary Cordelia Vorkosigan," Laisa said, with evident sincerity. "I think I could learn a lot from her."

"I think you could too," admitted Miles. "Good God. They'll be coming home for this, won't they."

"I can think of no one I want more to stand on my wedding circle than them, except you," said Gregor. "I trust you will be my Second?"

Just like a duel. "Certainly. Uh . . . what's the timetable on the public-circus part of this?"

Gregor sagged slightly. "Lady Alys seems to have some very definite ideas on that score. I wanted the betrothal ceremony immediately, but she's insisting it not even be announced till after her return from Komarr. I'm dispatching her to be my Voice to Laisa's parents, all the proper forms, you know. And the formal betrothal not for two months. And the wedding not for nearly a year! We compromised on one month after her return to the betrothal, and are still arguing about the other. She says if we don't give the Vor ladies time to dress properly, they'll never forgive me. I didn't see why it should take them two months to get dressed."