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, s
he 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 wa
s 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?