Mirror Dance b-9

by Lois McMaster Bujold

  “Thank you—” It came out a cracked whisper, and he coughed to unlock his throat. “Thank you, that will be all, get your orders from Captain Thorne, you may all stand down.” They all strained to hear him, compelling him to repeat, “Dismissed!”

  They broke up in disorder, or some order known only to themselves, for the bay was cleared of equipment with astonishing speed.

  The monster sergeant lingered, looming over him. He locked his knees, to keep himself from sprinting from it—her… .

  She lowered her voice. “Thanks for picking the Green Squad, Miles. I take it you’ve got us a real plum.”

  More first names? “Captain Thorne will brief you en route. It’s … a challenging mission.” And this would be the sergeant in charge of it?

  “Captain Quinn have the details, as usual?” She cocked a furry eyebrow at him.

  “Captain Quinn … will not be coming on this mission.”

  He swore her gold eyes widened, the pupil’s dilating. Her lips drew back baring her fangs further in what took him a terrifying moment to realize was a smile. In a weird way, it reminded him of the grin with which Thorne had greeted that same news.

  She glanced up; the bay had emptied of other personnel. “Aah?” Her voice rumbled, like a purr. “Well, I’ll be your bodyguard any time, lover. Just give me the sign.”

  What sign, what the hell—

  She bent, her lips rippling, carmine clawed hand grasping his shoulder—he had a flashing vision of her tearing off his head, peeling, and eating him—then her mouth closed over his. His breath stopped, and his vision darkened, and he almost passed out before she straightened and gave him a puzzled, hurt look. “Miles, what’s the matter?”

  That had been a kiss. Freaking gods. “Nothing,” he gasped. “I’ve … been ill. I probably shouldn’t have gotten up, but I had to inspect.”

  She was looking very alarmed. “I’ll say you shouldn’t have gotten up—you’re shaking all over! You can barely stand up. Here, I’ll carry you to sickbay. Crazy man!”

  “No! I’m all right. That is, I’ve been treated. I’m just supposed to rest, and recover for a while, is all.”

  “Well, you go straight back to bed, then!”

  “Yes.”

  He wheeled. She swatted him on the butt. He bit his tongue. She said, “At least you’ve been eating better. Take care of yourself, huh?”

  He waved over his shoulder, and fled without looking back. Had that been military cameraderie? From a sergeant to an admiral? He didn’t think so. That had been intimacy. Naismith, you bug-fuck crazy bastard, what have you been doing in your spare time? I didn’t think you had any spare time. You’ve got to be a freaking suicidal maniac, if you’ve been screwing that—

  He locked his cabin door behind him, and stood against it, trembling, laughing in hysterical disbelief. Dammit, he’d studied everything about Naismith, everything. This couldn’t be happening. With friends like this, who need enemies?

  He undressed and lay tensely upon his bed, contemplating Naismith/Vorkosigan’s complicated life, and wondering what other booby-traps it held for him. At last a faint change in the susurrations and creaks of the ship around him, a brief tug of shifting grav fields, made him realize the Ariel was breaking free of Escobar orbit. He had actually succeeded in stealing a fully armed and equipped military fast cruiser, and no one even knew it. They were on their way to Jackson’s Whole. To his destiny. His destiny, not Naismith’s. His thoughts spiraled toward sleep at last.

  But if you claim your destiny, his demon voice whispered at the last, before the night’s oblivion, why can’t you claim your name?

  Chapter Two

  They exited the flex tube from the passenger ship in step, arm in arm, Quinn with her duffle swung over her shoulder, Miles with his flight bag gripped in his free hand. In the orbital transfer station’s disembarkation lounge, people’s heads turned. Miles stole a smug sideways glance at his female companion as they strolled on past the men’s half-averted, envious stares. My Quinn.

  Quinn was looking particularly tough this morning—was it morning? he’d have to check Dendarii fleet time—having half-returned to her normal persona. She’d managed to make her pocketed grey uniform trousers masquerade as a fashion statement by tucking them into red suede boots (the steel caps under the pointed toes eluded notice) and topping them with a skimpy scarlet tank top. Her white skin glowed in contrast to the tank top and to her short dark curls. The surface colors distracted the eye from her athleticism, not apparent unless you knew just how much that bloody duffle weighed.

  Liquid brown eyes informed her face with wit. But it was the perfect, sculptured curves and planes of the face itself that stopped men’s voices in midsentence. An obviously expensive face, the work of a surgeon-artist of extraordinary genius. The casual observer might guess her face had been paid for by the little ugly man whose arm she linked with her own, and judge the woman, too, to be a purchase. The casual observer never guessed the price she’d really paid: her old face, burned away in combat off Tau Verde. Very nearly the first battle loss in Admiral Naismith’s service—ten years ago, now? God. The casual observer was a twit, Miles decided.

  The latest representative of the species was a wealthy executive who reminded Miles of a blond, civilian version of his cousin Ivan, and who had spent much of the two-week journey from Sergyar to Escobar under such misapprehensions about Quinn, trying to seduce her. Miles glimpsed him now, loading his luggage onto a float pallet and venting a last frustrated sigh of defeat before sloping off. Except for reminding Miles of Ivan, Miles bore him no ill-will. In fact, Miles felt almost sorry for him, as Quinn’s sense of humor was as vile as her reflexes were deadly.

  Miles jerked his head toward the retreating Escobaran and murmured, “So what did you finally say to get rid of him, love?”

  Quinn’s eyes shifted to identify the man, and crinkled, laughing. “If I told you, you’d be embarrassed.”

  “No, I won’t. Tell me.”

  “I told him you could do push-ups with your tongue. He must have decided he couldn’t compete.”

  Miles reddened.

  “I wouldn’t have led him on so far, except that I wasn’t totally sure at first that he wasn’t some kind of agent,” she added apologetically.

  “You sure now?”

  “Yeah. Too bad. It might have been more entertaining.”

  “Not to me. I was ready for a little vacation.”

  “Yes, and you look the better for it. Rested.”

  “I really like this married-couple cover, for travel,” he remarked. “It suits me.” He took a slightly deeper breath. “So we’ve had the honeymoon, why don’t we have the wedding to go with it?”

  “You never give up, do you?” She kept her tone light. Only the slight flinch of her arm, under his, told him his words had given pain, and he silently cursed himself.

  “I’m sorry. I promised I’d keep off that subject.”

  She shrugged her unburdened shoulder, incidentally unlinking elbows, and let her arm swing aggressively as she walked. “Trouble is, you don’t want me to be Madame Naismith, Dread of the Dendarii. You want me to be Lady Vorkosigan of Barrayar. That’s a downside post. I’m spacer-born. Even if I did marry a dirtsucker, go down into some gravity well and never come up again … Barrayar is not the pit I’d pick. Not to insult your home.”

  Why not? Everyone else does. “My mother likes you,” he offered.

  “And I admire her. I’ve met her, what, four times now, and every time I’m more impressed. And yet … the more impressed, the more outraged I am at the criminal waste Barrayar makes of her talents. She’d be Surveyor-General of the Betan Astronomical Survey by now, if she’d stayed on Beta Colony. Or any other thing she pleased.”

  “She pleased to be Countess Vorkosigan.”

  “She pleased to be stunned by your Da, whom I admit is pretty stunning. She doesn’t give squat for the rest of the Vor caste.” Quinn paused, before they came into the hearing of
the Escobaran customs inspectors, and Miles stood with her. They both gazed down the chamber, and not at each other. “For all her flair, she’s a tired woman underneath. Barrayar has sucked so much out of her. Barrayar is her cancer. Killing her slowly.”

  Mutely, Miles shook his head.

  “Yours too. Lord Vorkosigan,” Quinn added somberly. This time it was his turn to flinch.

  She sensed it, and tossed her head. “Anyway, Admiral Naismith is my kind of maniac. Lord Vorkosigan is a dull and dutiful stick by contrast. I’ve seen you at home on Barrayar, Miles. You’re like half yourself there. Damped down, muted somehow. Even your voice is lower. It’s extremely weird.”

  “I can’t … I have to fit in, there. Scarcely a generation ago, someone with a body as strange as mine would have been killed outright as a suspected mutant. I can’t push things too far, too fast. I’m too easy to target.”

  “Is that why Barrayaran Imperial Security sends you on so many off-planet missions?”

  “For my development as an officer. To widen my background, deepen my experience.”

  “And someday, they’re going to hook you out of here permanently, and take you home, and squeeze all that experience back out of you in their service. Like a sponge.”

  “I’m in their service now, Elli,” he reminded her softly, in a grave and level voice that she had to bend her head to hear. “Now, then, and always.”

  Her eyes slid away. “Right-oh … so when they do nail your boots to the floor back on Barrayar, I want your job. I want to be Admiral Quinn someday.”

  “Fine by me,” he said affably. The job, yes. Time for Lord Vorkosigan and his personal wants to go back into the bag. He had to stop masochistically rerunning this stupid marriage conversation with Quinn, anyway. Quinn was Quinn; he did not want her to be not-Quinn, not even for … Lord Vorkosigan.

  Despite this self-inflicted moment of depression, anticipation of his return to the Dendarii quickened his step as they made their way through customs and into the monster transfer station. Quinn was right. He could feel Naismith refilling his skin, generated from somewhere deep in his psyche right out to his fingertips. Goodbye, dull Lieutenant Miles Vorkosigan, deep cover operative for Barrayaran Imperial Security (and overdue for a promotion); hello, dashing Admiral Naismith, space mercenary and all-around soldier of fortune.

  Or misfortune. He slowed as they came to a row of commercial comconsole booths lining the passenger concourse, and nodded toward their mirrored doors. “Let’s see how Red Squad is cooking, first. If they’re recovered sufficiently for release, I’d like to go downside personally and spring them.”

  “Right-oh.” Quinn dumped her duffle dangerously close to Miles’s sandaled feet, swung into the nearest empty booth, jammed her card into the slot, and tapped out a code on the keypad.

  Miles set down his flight bag, sat on the duffle, and watched her from outside the booth. He caught a sliced reflection of himself on the mosaic of mirror on the next booth’s lowered door. The dark trousers and loose white shirt that he wore were ambiguously styled as to planetary origin, but, as fit his travel-cover, very civilian. Relaxed, casual. Not bad.

  Time was he had worn uniforms like a turtle-shell of high-grade social protection over the vulnerable peculiarities of his body. An armor of belonging that said, Don’t mess with me. I have friends. When had he stopped needing that so desperately? He was not sure.

  For that matter, when had he stopped hating his body? It had been two years since his last serious injury, on the hostage rescue mission that had come right after that incredible mess with his brother on Earth. He’d been fully recovered for quite some time. He flexed his hands, full of plastic replacement bones, and found them as easily his own as before they were last crunched. As before they were ever crunched. He hadn’t had an osteo-inflammatory attack in months. I’m feeling no pain, he realized with a dark grin. And it wasn’t just Quinn’s doing, though Quinn had been … very therapeutic. Am I going sane in my old age?

  Enjoy it while you can. He was twenty-eight years old, and surely at some sort of physical peak. He could feel that peak, the exhilarating float of apogee. The descending arc was a fate for some future day.

  Voices from the comm booth brought him back to the present moment. Quinn had Sandy Hereld on the other end, and was saying, “Hi, I’m back.”

  “Hi, Quinnie, I was expecting you. What can I do for you?” Sandy had been doing strange things to her hair, again, Miles noted even from his offsides vantage.

  “I just got off the jumpship, here at the transfer station. Planning a little detour. I want transport downside to pick up the Red Squad survivors, then back to the Triumph. What’s their current status?”

  “Hold tight, I’ll have it in a second …” Lieutenant Hereld punched up data on a display to her left.

  In the crowded concourse a man in Dendarii greys walked past. He saw Miles, and gave him a hesitant, cautious nod, perhaps uncertain if the Admiral’s civilian gear indicated some sort of cover. Miles returned a reassuring wave, and the man smiled and strode on. Miles’s brain kicked up unwanted data. The man’s name was Travis Gray, he was a field tech currently assigned to the Peregrine, a six-year-man so far, expert in communications equipment, he collected classic pre-Jump music of Earth origin … how many such personnel files did Miles carry in his head, now? Hundreds? Thousands?

  And here came more. Hereld turned back, and rattled off, “Ives was released to downside leave, and Boyd has been returned to the Triumph for further therapy. The Beauchene Life Center reports that Durham, Vifian, and Aziz are available for release, but they want to talk to someone in charge, first.”

  “Right-oh.”

  “Kee and Zelaski … they also want to talk about.”

  Quinn’s lips tightened. “Right,” she agreed flatly. Miles’s belly knotted, just a little. That was not going to be a happy conversation, he suspected. “Let them know we’re on our way, then,” Quinn said.

  “Yes, Cap’n.” Hereld shuffled files on her vid display. “Will do. Which shuttle do you want?”

  “The Triumph’s smaller personnel shuttle will do, unless you have some cargo to load on at the same time from the Beauchene shuttleport.”

  “None from there, no.”

  “All right.”

  Hereld checked her vid. “According to Escobaran flight control, I can put Shuttle Two into docking bay J-26 in thirty minutes. You’ll be cleared for immediate downside departure.”

  “Thanks. Pass the word—there’ll be a captain and captain-owner’s briefing when we get back. What time is it at Beauchene?”

  Hereld glanced aside. “0906, out of a 2607 hour day.”

  “Morning. Great. What’s the weather down there?”

  “Lovely. Shirtsleeves.”

  “Good, I won’t have to change. We’ll advise when we’re ready to depart Port Beauchene. Quinn out.”

  Miles sat on the duffle, staring down at his sandals, awash in unpleasant memories. It had been one of the Dendarii Mercenaries’ sweatier smuggling adventures, putting military advisors and material down on Marilac in support of its continuing resistance to a Cetagandan invasion. Combat Drop Shuttle A-4 from the Triumph had been hit by enemy fire on the last trip up-and-out, with all of Red Squad and several important Marilacans aboard. The pilot, Lieutenant Durham, though mortally injured and in shock himself, had brought his crippled and burning shuttle into a sufficiently low-velocity crunch with the Triumph’s docking clamps that the rescue team was able to seal on an emergency flex tube, slice through, and retrieve everyone aboard. They’d managed to jettison the damaged shuttle just before it exploded, and the Triumph itself broke orbit barely ahead of serious Cetagandan vengeance. And so a mission that had started out simple, smooth, and covert ended yet again in the sort of heroic chaos that Miles had come to despise. The chaos, not the heroism.

  The score, after heartbreaking triage: twelve seriously injured; seven, beyond the Triumph’s resources for resuscitation, cryogeni
cally frozen in hope of later help; three permanently and finally dead. Now Miles would find out how many of the second category he must move to the third. The faces, names, hundreds of unwanted facts about them, cascaded through his mind. He had originally planned to be aboard that last shuttle, but instead had gone up on an earlier flight to deal with some other forest fire… .

  “Maybe they won’t be so bad,” Quinn said, reading his face. She stuck out her hand, and he pulled himself up off the duffle and gathered up his flight bag.

  “I’ve spent so much time in hospitals myself, I can’t help identifying with them,” he excused his dark abstraction. One perfect mission. What he wouldn’t give for just one perfect mission, where absolutely nothing went wrong. Maybe the one upcoming would finally be it.

  The hospital smell hit Miles immediately when he and Quinn walked through the front doors of the Beauchene Life Center, the cryotherapy specialty clinic the Dendarii dealt with on Escobar. It wasn’t a bad smell, not a stench by any means, just an odd edge to the air-conditioned atmosphere. But it was an odor so deeply associated with pain in his experience, he found his heart beating faster. Fight or flight. Not appropriate. He breathed deeply, stroking down the visceral throb, and looked around. The lobby was much in the current style of techno-palaces anywhere on Escobar, clean but cheaply furnished. The real money was all invested upstairs, in the cryo-equipment, regeneration laboratories, and operating theaters.

  One of the clinic’s senior partners, Dr. Aragones, came down to greet them and escort them upstairs to his office. Miles liked Aragones’ office, crammed with the sort of clutter of info disks, charts, and journal-flimsie offprints that indicated a technocrat who thought deeply and continuously about what he was doing. He liked Aragones himself, too, a big bluff fellow with bronze skin, a noble nose, and graying hair, friendly and blunt.

  Dr. Aragones was unhappy not to be reporting better results. It hurt his pride, Miles judged.

  “You bring us such messes, and want miracles,” he complained gently, shifting in his station chair after Miles and Quinn settled themselves. “If you want to assure miracles, you have to start at the very beginning, when my poor patients are first prepared for treatment.”