Memory

CHAPTER TWELVE

After their return to the lake house, and a sparing lunch from which Martin excused himself altogether, Miles locked himself into the comconsole chamber and prepared to face the expected spate of messages forwarded from Vorbarr Sultana. The birthday congratulations were each the measure of their senders; grave and straight from Gregor, tinged with cautious mockery from Ivan, and falling into a range in between from the handful of acquaintances who knew he was on-planet.

Mark's tight-beam recording from Beta Colony was . . . Markian. His mockery was an awkward imitation of Ivan's, edgier and more self-conscious. From the stilted would-be flippancy Miles gathered this was not the message's first draft. But it was, Miles realized upon reflection, very probably the first time in his life Mark had ever had to compose a birthday greeting to anyone. Keep trying, Mark, you'll learn how to be a human being yet.

Miles's judicious smugness faded as he realized this compelled him to compose a return message. It was obvious Mark hadn't heard the news about Miles's change of status yet. How the devil was he going to tell Mark about it in a way his clone-brother couldn't construe as blame? He set the problem aside, temporarily.

He saved the one from his parents for last. It had been beamed, not mailed. Therefore it would have left Sergyar in the government data tight-beam, and been express-jumped through the wormhole barriers between receivers, taking little more than a day en route; shipped message disks took as long to travel between the two worlds as a person, almost two weeks. This was, therefore, the latest news, and would contain their reactions to the latest news they'd had. He took a deep breath, and keyed it up.

They'd sat back from the vid receptor, to both fit into the scan, and so appeared as small smiling half-figures over his vid plate. Count Aral Vorkosigan was a thick-bodied, white-haired man in his early seventies, dressed in his brown-and-silver Vorkosigan House uniform; this message must have been recorded sometime during his working day. The Countess wore a Vor lady's afternoon-style jacket and skirt in green, ditto. Red roan hair, like Ninny's even to the having of more gray in it, was held back from her broad forehead by fancy combs in her usual style. She was as tall as her husband, and her gray eyes danced with amusement.

They do not know. No one's told them yet. Miles knew this with sinking certainty before either even opened their mouth.

"Hello, love," the Countess began. "Congratulations for reaching thirty alive."

"Yes," the Count seconded. "We truly wondered if you would make it, many times. But here we all are. Somewhat the worse for wear, but after a deep contemplation of the alternative, happy to be so. I may be far from you here on Sergyar, but I can look in the mirror every morning, and remember you by all these white hairs."

"It's not true, Miles," objected the Countess, grinning. "He was already going gray when I met him, at age forty-odd. I didn't get my gray hairs till after, though."

"We miss you," the Count continued. "Do insist your travel to your next mission assignment be routed through Sergyar, coming or going or both, and plan at least a short layover. There's so much going on here of significance to the future of the Imperium. I know you'd be interested in seeing some of it."

"I'll light up Simon's life if he doesn't send you by," the Countess added. "You can pass that on to him as my personal threat. Alys tells me you've been home for several weeks. Why haven't we heard from you? Partying too hard with Ivan to take ten minutes out to talk to your aged parents?"

Lady Alys too had declined, it appeared, to be the bearer of even the non-classified version of the bad news, and she was ordinarily the Countess's main gossip-pipeline to everything of Vorish interest in Vorbarr Sultana and Gregor's court.

"Speaking of Alys," the Countess went on, "she tells me Gregor has met This Girl—and you can just hear the capital letters in her voice. What do you know about this? Have you met her? Should we be happy, or worried, or what?"

"An Imperial marriage to a Komarran," said Count Vorkosigan—once nicknamed "the Butcher of Komarr" by his political enemies, most of whom he'd survived—"is fraught with potential complications. But at this late date, if Gregor will only do his duty and produce a proper Crown Prince somehow, I'll do whatever I can to support the project. And all of us in my generation who were in the pool of potential heirs will breathe a great sigh of relief. Assure Gregor of my full support. I trust his judgment." The Count's face grew oddly wistful. "Does she seem like a nice girl? Gregor deserves a little personal happiness, to make up for all the nonsense on the other side that he bears for us all."

"Alys said she'll do," said the Countess, "and I trust Alys's judgment. Though I don't know if the young lady quite realizes what she's getting into. Please assure Dr. Toscane of my full support, Miles, whatever she decides to do."

"Surely she'll accept, if Gregor asks her," said the Count.

"Only if she's so head-over-heels in love as to have lost all sense of self-preservation," said the Countess. "Believe me, you have to have lost your mind to marry a Barrayaran Vor. Let's hope she has." Miles's parents exchanged peculiar smiles.

"So let's see," the Count went on. "What were we doing at age thirty? Can you remember back that far, Cordelia?"

"Barely. I was in the Betan Astronomical Survey, screwing up my first chance at being promoted to captain. It came around again the next year, though, and you bet I grabbed it then. Without which I would never have met Aral when and where I did and you wouldn't exist, Miles, so I don't wish to change a bit of it now."

"I was a captain by twenty-eight," the Count reminisced smugly. The Countess made a face at him. "Ship duty suited me. I didn't get stuck at a desk for another four or five years, when Ezar and the Headquarters hotshots began planning the annexation of Komarr." His face grew serious again. "Good luck to Gregor on this thing of his. I hope he can succeed where … I did not succeed so well as I'd hoped to. Thank God for a new generation and clean starts." He and the Countess glanced at each other and he finished, "So long, boy. Communicate, dammit."

The Countess added, "Take good care of yourself, kiddo, please? Communicate, dammit." Their forms twinkled into thin air.

Miles sighed. I can't put this off much longer, I really can't.

He did manage to put it off one more day, by having Martin fly him back to Vorbarr Sultana the following morning. Ma Kosti served Miles lunch in splendid isolation in the Yellow Parlor; she'd obviously worked hard to make it as proper as possible, perhaps studying up on her new job from etiquette manuals, or getting tips from other Vors' servants in the area. He ate dutifully, despite an urge to gather up his plates and go join Martin and his mother in the kitchen. Certain aspects of the Vor lord role seemed remarkably stupid, at times.

Afterwards, he went to his room to finally face the task of composing a message to his parents. He'd recorded and erased three different tries—one too glum, one too flippant, one way too full of ugly sarcasms—when an incoming call interrupted his endeavors. He welcomed it despite the fact that it was Ivan. Ivan was in uniform, calling on his lunch break, perhaps.

"Ah, you're back in town. Good," Ivan began. That Good seemed quite heartfelt, apparently on more than one level. "Feeling better for the little vacation in the hills, I trust?"

"Somewhat," Miles said cautiously. How had Ivan found out so soon that he was back?

"Good," Ivan repeated. "Now. I've been wondering. Have you done anything toward getting your head looked at yet? Seen a doctor?"

"Not yet."

"Made an appointment anywhere?"

"No."

"Hm. Mother asked me. Gregor'd asked her, it seems. Guess who's at the bottom of that chain of command, and gets delegated to actually do something about it. I said I didn't think you'd done anything yet, but I'd ask. Why haven't you?"

"I . . ." Miles shrugged. "There didn't seem to be any rush. I wasn't bounced out of ImpSec for having seizures, I was bounced out of ImpSec for falsifying a report. And not one on a minor matter, either. Even if the medicos could do something to get me back into guaranteed perfect working order tomorrow, which if they could my Dendarii surgeon would have already done it, it wouldn't . . . change anything." Illyan won't take me back. He can't. It's a matter of frigging principle, and Illyan is one of the most principled men I know.

"I'd wondered … if it was because you didn't want to go to ImpMil," said Ivan. "Didn't want to deal with the military docs. If that's the case, I understand, I suppose—I think you're being silly, mind you, but I can understand. So I've looked up three different civilian clinics that specialize in cryo-revival cases, that seem to have good reputations. One's here in Vorbarr Sultana, one's over in Weienovya in Vordarians District, and one's on Komarr, if you think closer proximity to galactic medicine is an advantage that would offset any lingering animosity toward your name there. You want me to make you an appointment at one of them?"

Miles thought he could guess the names of all three, from his prior search. "No. Thanks."

Ivan sat back, his lips twisting in puzzlement. "You know … I'd figured that would be the first thing you'd do, once the little ice-water bath brought you up out of the fog. You'd get your legs under yourself and be off and running, just like always. I never saw you face a wall that, if you couldn't go over it, you'd not try to find some way around, through, or under, or blow it up with sapper's charges. Or just bang your head against it till it fell down. And then they'd stick me with chasing you. Again."

"Running where, Ivan?"

Ivan grimaced. "Back to the Dendarii, of course."

"You know I can't do that. Without my official position in ImpSec, under due Imperial authority, my command of the Dendarii becomes a Vor lord, a Count's heir for God's sake, running a private army. Treason, Ivan, lethal treason. We've been all through that before. If I went, I could never come back. I gave my word to Gregor I wouldn't do it."

"Yeah?" said Ivan. "If you're not coming back, what does your word as Vorkosigan have to do with anything ever again?"

Miles sat silent. So. That business with having Ivan underfoot in Vorkosigan House hadn't been only a deathwatch after all. It had been an escape-watch as well.

"I'd have bet money you'd bolt," Ivan went on, "if there'd been anybody who had a high enough security classification to bet with. Besides Galeni, of course, and he's not the wagering sort. 'S why I've been dragging my feet despite Gregor and Mother about harassing you to get your head fixed. Why borrow trouble? It's a bet I'm glad to lose, by the way. So when are you going to get an appointment?"

"… Soon."

"Too vague," Ivan rejected this. "I want a straight answer. Something like, Today. Or maybe, Tomorrow before noon."

Ivan wouldn't go away till he extracted a response that satisfied him. "By . . . the end of the week," Miles managed.

"Good." Ivan nodded shortly. "I'll check back at the end of the week and expect to hear all about it. 'Bye—for now." He cut the com.

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 Marks 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, 1 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."

"Mm. I'd give her a free rein in this, if I were you. She could have the conservative Old Vor faction eating out of her hand for you without them ever knowing what hit them. Which is half your problem solved. I can't speak for the radical Komarran half, I'm afraid."

"Alys thinks we should have two weddings, one here, one on Komarr," said Gregor. "A double ordeal." He glanced aside, and squeezed Laisa's hand. "But worth it."

Staring down the social gauntlet opening with increasing complexity before them, they both looked like they were thinking of eloping. "You'll get through it all right," Miles assured them heartily. "We'll all help, won't we, Ivan?"

"My mother's already volunteered me," Ivan admitted glumly.

"Have you, ah, told Illyan?" Miles asked.

"I sent Lady Alys to break the news to him before anyone else," said Gregor. "He called on me in person to assure me of his personal and professional support—that phrase about support keeps cropping up. Do I look like I'm about to faint? I couldn't tell if he was pleased or horrified, but then, Illyan can be hard to read sometimes."

"Not that hard. I'd guess he was personally pleased, and professionally horrified."

"He did suggest I do all I could to expedite the return of your lady mother before the betrothal, to, as he put it, lend her clout to Lady Alys. I wondered if you'd add your voice to that plea for us, Miles. She's so hard to detach from your father."

"I'll try. Actually, it would probably take a wormhole blockade to keep her away."

Gregor grinned. "Congratulations to you too, Miles. Your father before you needed a whole army to do it, but you've changed Barrayaran history just with a dinner invitation."

Miles shrugged helplessly. God, is everybody going to blame me for this? And for everything that follows? "Let's try to avoid making history on this one, eh? I think we should push for unalleviated domestic dullness."

"With all my heart," Gregor agreed. With a cheery salute, he cut the com.

Miles laid his head down on the table, and moaned. "It's not my fault!"

"Yes, it is," said Ivan. "It was all your idea. I was there when you came up with it."

"No, it wasn't. It was yours. You're the one who dragooned me into attending the damned State dinner in the first place."

"I only invited you. You invited Galeni. And anyway, my mother dragooned me."

"Oh. So it's all her fault. Good. I can live with that."

Ivan shrugged agreement. "Well, should we drink to the happy couple? There are things in your cellars with more dust on them than an old Vor."

Miles thought it over. "Yeah. Let's go exploring."

Over the racks downstairs, just after violently rejecting Miles's diffident suggestion of maple mead as the after-dinner poison of choice, Ivan added reluctantly, "D'you think Galeni will try to do anything he'd regret? Or that we'd regret?"

Miles hesitated a long time before saying, "No."