Lois McMaster Bujold - 10 Mirror Dance

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Mirror Dance
Lois McMaster Bujold
CHAPTER ONE
The row of comconsole booths lining the passenger concourse of Escobar’s largest commercial orbital transfer station had
mirrored doors, divided into diagonal sections by rainbow-colored lines of lights. Doubtless someone’s idea of decor. The mirror-
sections were deliberately set slightly out of alignment, fragmenting their reflections. The short man in the grey and white military
uniform scowled at his divided self framed therein.
His image scowled back. The insignia-less mercenary officer’s undress kit - pocketed jacket, loose trousers tucked into ankle-
topping boots - was correct in every detail. He studied the body under the uniform. A stretched-out dwarf with a twisted spine,
short-necked, big-headed. Subtly deformed, and robbed by his short stature of any chance of the disturbing near-rightness passing
unnoticed. His dark hair was neatly trimmed. Beneath black brows, the grey eyes’ glower deepened. The body, too, was correct in
every detail. He hated it.
The mirrored door slid up at last, and a woman exited the booth. She wore a soft wrap tunic and flowing trousers. A
fashionable bandolier of expensive electronic equipment hanging decoratively on a jeweled chain across her torso advertised her
status. Her beginning stride was arrested at the sight of him, and she recoiled, buffeted by his black and hollow stare, then went
carefully around him with a mumbled, "Excuse me... I’m sorry. ..."
He belatedly twisted up his mouth on an imitation smile, and muttered something half-inaudible conveying enough allegiance
to the social proprieties for him to pass by. He hit the keypad to lower the door again, sealing himself from sight. Alone at last, for
one last moment, if only in the narrow confines of a commercial comm booth. The woman’s perfume lingered cloyingly in the air,
along with a frisson of station odors; recycled air, food, bodies, stress, plastics and metals and cleaning compounds. He exhaled,
and sat, and laid his hands out flat on the small countertop to still their trembling.
Not quite alone. There was another damned mirror in here, for the convenience of patrons wishing to check their appearance
before transmitting it by holovid. His dark-ringed eyes flashed back at him malevolently, then he ignored the image. He emptied
his pockets out onto the countertop. All his worldly resources fit neatly into a space little larger than his two spread palms. One
last inventory. As if counting it again might change the sum...
A credit chit with about three hundred Betan dollars remaining upon it: one might live well for a week upon this orbital space
station for that much, or for a couple of lean months on the planet turning below, if it were carefully managed. Three false
identification chits, none for the man he was now. None for the man he was. Whoever he was. An ordinary plastic pocket comb.
A data cube. That was all. He returned all but the credit chit to various pockets upon and in the jacket, gravely sorting them
individually. He ran out of objects before he ran out of pockets, and snorted. You might at least have brought your own
toothbrush... too late now.
And getting later. Horrors happened, proceeding unchecked, while he sat struggling for nerve. Come on. You’ve done this
before. You can do it now. He jammed the credit card into the slot, and keyed in the carefully memorized code number.
Compulsively, he glanced one last time into the mirror, and tried to smooth his features into something approaching a neutral
expression. For all his practice, he did not think he could manage the grin just now. He despised that grin anyway.
The vid plate hissed to life, and a woman’s visage formed above it. She wore grey-and-whites like his own, but with proper
rank insignia and name patch. She recited crisply, "Comm Officer Hereld, Triumph, Dendarii Free... Corporation." In Escobaran
space, a mercenary fleet sealed its weapons at the Outside jumppoint station under the watchful eyes of the Escobaran military
inspectors, and submitted proof of its purely commercial intentions, before it was even allowed to pass. The polite fiction was
maintained, apparently, in Escobar orbit.
He moistened his lips, and said evenly, "Connect me with the officer of the watch, please."
"Admiral Naismith, sir! You’re back!" Even over the holovid a blast of pleasure and excitement washed out from her
straightened posture and beaming face. It struck him like a blow. "What’s up? Are we going to be moving out soon?"
"In good time, Lieutenant... Hereld." An apt name for a communications officer. He managed to twitch a smile. Admiral
Naismith would smile, yes. "You’ll learn in good time. In the meanwhile, I want a pick-up at the orbital transfer station."
"Yes, sir. I can get that for you. Is Captain Quinn with you?"
"Uh... no."
"When will she be following?"
"... Later."
"Right, sir. Let me just get clearance for - are we loading any equipment?"
"No. Just myself."
"Clearance from the Escobarans for a personnel pod, then ..." she turned aside for a few moments. "I can have someone at
docking bay E17 in about twenty minutes."
"Very well." It would take him almost that long to get from this concourse to that arm of the station. Ought he to add some
personal word for Lieutenant Hereld? She knew him; how well did she know him? Every sentence that fell from his lips from this
point on packed risk, risk of the unknown, risk of a mistake. Mistakes were punished. Was his Betan accent really right? He hated
this, with a stomach-churning terror. "I want to be transferred directly to the Ariel."
"Right, sir. Do you wish me to notify Captain Thorne?"
Was Admiral Naismith often in the habit of springing surprise inspections? Well, not this time. "Yes, do. Tell them to make
ready to break orbit."
"Only the Ariel?" Her brows rose.
"Yes, Lieutenant." This, in quite a perfect bored Betan drawl. He congratulated himself as she grew palpably prim. The
undertone had suggested just the right hint of criticism of a breach of security, or manners, or both, to suppress further dangerous
questions.
"Will do, Admiral."
"Naismith out." He cut the comm. She vanished in a haze of sparkles, and he let out a long breath. Admiral Naismith. Miles
Naismith. He had to get used to responding to that name again, even in his sleep. Leave the Lord Vorkosigan part completely out
of it, for now; it was difficult enough just being the Naismith half of the man. Drill. What is your name? Miles. Miles. Miles.
Lord Vorkosigan pretended to be Admiral Naismith. And so did he. What, after all, was the difference?
But what is your name really?
His vision darkened in a rush of despair, and rage. He blinked it back, controlling his breathing. My name is what I will. And
right now I will it to be Miles Naismith.
He exited the booth and strode down the concourse, short legs pumping, both riveting and repelling the sideways stares of
startled strangers. See Miles. See Miles run. See Miles get what he deserves. He marched head-down, and no one got in his way.
He ducked into the personnel pod, a tiny four-man shuttle, as soon as the hatch seal sensors blinked green and the door dilated.
He hit the keypad for it to close again behind him immediately. The pod was too little to maintain a grav field. He floated over the
seats and pulled himself carefully down into the one beside the lone pilot, a mail in Dendarii grey tech coveralls.
"All right. Let’s go."
The pilot grinned and sketched him a salute as he strapped in. Otherwise appearing to be a sensible adult male, he had the
same look on his face as the comm officer, Hereld; excited, breathless, watching eagerly, as if his passenger were about to pull
treats from his pockets.
He glanced over his shoulder as the pod obediently broke free of the docking clamps and turned. They swooped away from the
skin of the station into clear space. The traffic control patterns made a maze of colored lights on the navigation console, through
which the pilot swiftly threaded them.
"Good to see you back, Admiral," said the pilot as soon as the tangle grew less thick. "What’s happening?"
The edge of formality in the pilot’s tone was reassuring. Just a comrade in arms, not one of the Dear Old Friends, or worse,
Dear Old Lovers. He essayed an evasion. "When you need to know, you’ll be told." He made his tone affable, but avoided names
or ranks.
The pilot vented an intrigued "Hm," and smirked, apparently contented.
He settled back with a tight smile. The huge transfer station fell away silently behind them, shrinking into a mad child’s toy,
then into a few glints of light. "Excuse me. I’m a little tired." He settled down further into his seat and closed his eyes. "Wake me
up when we dock, if I fall asleep."
"Yes, sir," said the pilot respectfully. "You look like you could use it."
He acknowledged this with a tired wave of his hand, and pretended to doze.
He could always tell, instantly, when someone he met thought they were facing "Naismith." They all had that same stupid
hyper-alert glow in their faces. They weren’t all worshipful; he’d met some of Naismith’s enemies once, but worshipful or
homicidal, they reacted. As if they suddenly switched on, and became ten times more alive than ever before. How the hell did he
do it? Make people light up like that? Granted, Naismith was a goddamn hyperactive, but how did he make it so freaking
contagious?
Strangers who met him as himself did not greet him like that. They were blank and courteous, or blank and rude, or just blank,
closed and indifferent. Covertly uncomfortable with his slight deformities, and his obviously abnormal four-foot-nine-inch height.
Wary.
His resentment boiled up behind his eyes like sinus pain. All this bloody hero-worship, or whatever it was. All for Naismith.
For Naismith, and not for me... never for me....
He stifled a twinge of dread, knowing what he was about to face. Bel Thorne, the Ariel’s captain, would be another one.
Friend, officer, fellow Betan, yes, a tough test, well enough. But Thorne also knew of the existence of the clone, from that chaotic
encounter two years ago on Earth. They had never met face to face. But a mistake that another Dendarii might dismiss in
confusion could trigger in Thorne the suspicion, the wild surmise....
Even that distinction Naismith had stolen from him. The mercenary admiral, publicly and falsely, now claimed to be a clone
himself. A superior cover, concealing his other identity, his other life. You have two lives, he thought to his absent enemy. I have
none. I’m the real clone, damn it. Couldn’t I have even that uniqueness? Did you have to take it all?
No. Keep his thoughts positive. He could handle Thorne. As long as he could avoid the terrifying Quinn, the bodyguard, the
lover, Quinn. He had met Quinn face to face on Earth, and fooled her once, for a whole morning. Not twice, he didn’t think. But
Quinn was with the real Miles Naismith, stuck like glue; he was safe from her. No old lovers this trip.
He’d never had a lover, not yet. It was perhaps not quite fair to blame Naismith for that as well. For the first twenty years of
his life he had been in effect a prisoner, though he hadn’t always realized it. For the last two... the last two years had been one
continuous disaster, he decided bitterly. This was his last chance. He refused to think beyond. No more. This had to be made to
work.
The pilot stirred, beside him, and he slitted open his eyes as the deceleration pressed him against his seat straps. They were
coming up on the Ariel. It grew from a dot to a model to a ship. The Illyrican-built light cruiser carried a crew of twenty, plus
room for supercargo and a commando squad. Heavily powered for its size, an energy profile typical of warships. It looked swift,
almost rakish. A good courier ship; a good ship to run like hell in. Perfect. Despite his black mood, his lips curled up, as he
studied that ship. Now I take, and you give, Naismith.
The pilot, clearly quite conscious that he was conveying his admiral, brought the personnel pod into its docking clamps with a
bare click, eat and smooth as humanly possible. "Shall I wait, sir?"
"No. I shouldn’t be needing you again."
The pilot hurried to adjust the tube seals while his passenger was till unbuckling, and saluted him out with another idiot broad
proud mile. He twitched a returning smile and salute, then grasped the handlebars above the hatch and swung himself into the
Ariel’s gravity ield.
He dropped neatly to his feet in a small loading bay. Behind him, he pod pilot was already re-sealing the hatch to return
himself and iis pod to its vessel of origin, probably the flagship Triumph. He looked up - always, up - into the face of the waiting
Dendarii officer, a face he had studied before this only in a holovid.
Captain Bel Thorne was a Betan hermaphrodite, a race that was remnant of an early experiment in human genetic and social
engineering that had succeeded only in creating another minority. Thorne’s beardless face was framed by soft brown hair in a
short, ambiguous cut that either a man or a woman might sport. Its officer’s jacket hung open, revealing the black tee shirt
underneath curving over modest but distinctly feminine breasts. The gray Dendarii uniform trousers were loose enough to
disguise the reciprocal bulge in the crotch. Some people found hermaphrodites enormously disturbing. He was relieved to realize
he found that aspect of Thorne only slightly disconcerting. Clones who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw... what? It was the
radiant I-love-Naismith look on the hermaphrodite’s face that really bothered him. His gut knotted, as he returned the Ariel’s
captain’s salute.
"Welcome aboard, sir!" The alto voice was vibrant with enthusiasm.
He was just managing a stiff smile, when the hermaphrodite stepped up and embraced him. His heart lurched, and he barely
choked off a cry and a violent, defensive lashing-out. He endured he embrace without going rigid, grasping mentally after
shattered composure and his carefully rehearsed speeches. It’s not going to kiss me, is it?!
The hermaphrodite set him at arm’s length, hands familiarly upon his shoulders, without doing so, however. He breathed
relief. Thorne cocked its head, its lips twisting in puzzlement. "What’s wrong, Miles?"
First names? "Sorry, Bel. I’m just a little tired. Can we get right to the briefing?"
"You look a lot tired. Right. Do you want me to assemble the whole crew?"
"No... you can re-brief them as needed." That was the plan, as little direct contact with as few Dendarii as possible.
"Come to my cabin, then, and you can put your feet up and drink tea while we talk."
The hermaphrodite followed him into the corridor. Not knowing which direction to turn, he wheeled and waited as if politely
for Thorne to lead on. He trailed the Dendarii officer through a couple of twists and turns and up a level. The ship’s internal
architecture was not as cramped as he’d expected. He noted directions carefully. Naismith knew this ship well.
The Ariel’s captain’s cabin was a neat little chamber, soldierly, not revealing much on this side of the latched cupboard doors
about the personality of its owner. But Thorne unlatched one to display an antique ceramic tea set and a couple of dozen small
canisters of varietal teas of Earth and other planetary origins, all protected from breakage by custom-made foam packing. "What
kind?" Thorne called, its hand hovering over the canisters.
"The usual," he replied, easing into a station chair clamped to the floor beside a small table.
"Might have guessed. I swear I’ll train you to be more venturesome one of these days." Thorne shot a peculiar grin over its
shoulder at him - was that intended to be some sort of double entendre? After a bit more rattling about, Thorne placed a delicately
hand-painted porcelain cup and saucer upon the table at his elbow. He picked it up and sipped cautiously as Thorne hooked
another chair into its clamps a quarter turn around the table, produced a cup for itself, and sat with a small grunt of satisfaction.
He was relieved to find the hot amber liquid pleasant, if astringent. Sugar? He dared not ask. Thorne hadn’t put any out. The
Dendarii surely would have, if it expected Naismith to use sugar. Thorne couldn’t be making some subtle test already, could it?
No sugar, then.
Tea-drinking mercenaries. The beverage didn’t seem nearly poisonous enough, somehow, to go with the display, no, working
arsenal, of weapons clamped to the wall: a couple of stunners, a needler, a plasma arc, a gleaming metal crossbow with an
assortment of grenade-bolts in a bandolier hung with it. Thorne was supposed to be good at its job. If that was true, he didn’t care
what the creature drank.
"You’re in a black study. I take it you’ve brought us a lovely one this time, eh?" Thorne prodded after another moment’s
silence.
"The mission assignment, yes." He certainly hoped that was what Thorne meant. The hermaphrodite nodded, and raised its
brows in encouraging inquiry. "It’s a pick-up. Not the biggest one we’ve ever attempted, by any means - "
Thorne laughed.
"But with its own complications."
"It can’t possibly be any more complicated than Dagoola Four. Say on, oh do."
He rubbed his lips, a patented Naismith gesture. "We’re going to knock over House Bharaputra’s clone creche, on Jackson’s
Whole. Clean it out."
Thorne was just crossing its legs; both feet now hit the floor with a thump. "Kill them?" it said in a startled voice.
"The clones? No, rescue them! Rescue them all."
"Oh. Whew." Thorne looked distinctively relieved. "I had this horrible vision for a second - they are children, after all. Even if
they are clones."
"Just exactly so." A real smile tugged up the corners of his mouth, surprising him. "I’m... glad you see it that way."
"How else?" Thorne shrugged. "The clone brain-transplant business is the most monstrous, obscene practice in Bharaputra’s
whole catalog of slime services. Unless there’s something even worse I haven’t heard about yet."
"I think so too." He settled back, concealing his startlement at this instant endorsement of his scheme. Was Thorne sincere? He
knew intimately, none better, the hidden horrors behind the clone business on Jackson’s Whole. He’d lived through them. He had
not expected someone who had not shared his experiences to share his judgment, though.
House Bharaputra’s specialty was not, strictly speaking, cloning. It was the immortality business, or at any rate, the life
extension business. And a very lucrative business it was, for what price could one put on life itself? All the market would bear.
The procedure Bharaputra sold was medically risky, not ideal... wagered only against a certainty of imminent death by customers
who were wealthy, ruthless, and, he had to admit, possessed of unusual cool foresight.
The arrangement was simple, though the surgical procedure upon which it was based was fiendishly complex. A clone was
grown from a customer’s somatic cell, gestated in a uterine replicator and then raised to physical maturity in Bharaputra’s creche,
a sort of astonishingly-appointed orphanage. The clones were valuable, after all, their physical conditioning and health of supreme
importance. Then, when the time was right, they were cannibalized. In an operation that claimed a total success rate of rather less
than one hundred percent, the clone’s progenitor’s brain was transplanted from its aged or damaged body into a duplicate still in
the first bloom of youth. The clone’s brain was classified as medical waste.
The procedure was illegal on every planet in the wormhole nexus except Jackson’s Whole. That was fine with the criminal
Houses that ran the place. It gave them a nice monopoly, a steady business with lots of practice upon the stream of wealthy off-
worlders to keep their surgical teams at the top of their forms. As far as he had ever been able to tell, the attitude of the rest of the
worlds toward it all was "out of sight, out of mind." The spark of sympathetic, righteous anger in Thorne’s eyes touched him on a
level of pain so numb with use he was scarcely conscious of it any more, and he was appalled to realize he was a heartbeat away
from bursting into tears. It’s probably a trick. He blew out his breath, another Naismith-ism.
Thorne’s brows drew down in intense thought. "Are you sure we should be taking the Ariel? Last I heard,Baron Ryoval was
still alive. It’s bound to get his attention."
House Ryoval was one of Bharaputra’s minor rivals in the illegal medical end of things. Its specialty was manufacturing
genetically-engineered or surgically sculptured humans for any purpose, including sexual, in effect slaves made-to-order; evil, he
supposed, but not the killing evil that obsessed him. But what had the Ariel to do with Baron Ryoval? He hadn’t a clue. Let
Thorne worry about it. Perhaps the hermaphrodite would drop more information later. He reminded himself to seize the first
opportunity to review the ship’s mission logs.
"This mission has nothing to do with House Ryoval. We shall avoid them."
"So I hope," agreed Thorne fervently. It paused, thoughtfully sipping tea. "Now, despite the fact that Jackson’s Whole is long
overdue for a housecleaning, preferably with atomics, I presume we are not doing this just out of the goodness of our hearts.
What’s, ah, the mission behind the mission this time?"
He had a rehearsed answer for that one. "In fact, only one of the clones, or rather, one of its progenitors, is of interest to our
employer. The rest are to be camouflage. Among them, Bharaputra’s customers have a lot of enemies. They won’t know which
one is attacking who. It makes our employer’s identity, which they very much desire to keep secret, all the more secure."
Thorne grinned smugly. "That little refinement was your idea, I take it."
He shrugged. "In a sense."
"Hadn’t we better know which clone we’re after, to prevent accidents, or in case we have to cut and run? If our employer
wants it alive - or does it matter to them if the clone is alive or dead? If the real target is the old bugger who had it grown."
"They care. Alive. But... for practical purposes, let us assume that all the clones are the one we’re after."
Thorne spread its hands in acquiescence. "It’s all right by me." The hermaphrodite’s eyes glinted with enthusiasm, and it
suddenly smacked its fist into its palm with a crack that made him jump. "It’s about time someone took those Jacksonian bastards
on! Oh, this is going to be fun!" It bared its teeth in a most alarming grin. "How much help do we have lined up on Jackson’s
Whole? Safety nets?"
"Don’t count on any."
"Hm. How much hindrance? Besides Bharaputra, Ryoval, and Fell, of course."
House Fell dealt mainly in weapons. What had Fell to do with any of this? "Your guess is as good as mine."
Thorne frowned; that was not the usual sort of Naismith answer, apparently.
"I have a great deal of inside information about the creche, that I can brief you on once we’re en route. Look, Bel, you hardly
need me to tell you how to do your job at this late date. I trust you. Take over the logistics and planning, and I’ll check the finals."
Thorne’s spine straightened. "Right. How many kids are we talking about?"
"Bharaputra does about one of these transplants a week, on average. Fifty a year, say, that they have coming along. The last
year of the clones’ lives they move them to a special facility near House headquarters, for final conditioning. I want to take the
whole year’s supply from that facility. Fifty or sixty kids."
"All packed aboard the Ariel? It’ll be tight."
"Speed, Bel, speed."
"Yeah. I think you’re right. Timetable?"
"As soon as possible. Every week’s delay costs another innocent life." He’d measured out the last two years by that clock. I
have wasted a hundred lives so far. The journey from Earth to Escobar alone had cost him a thousand Betan dollars and four dead
clones.
"I get it," said Thorne grimly, and rose and put away its tea cup. It switched its chair to the clamps in front of its comconsole.
"That kid’s slated for surgery, isn’t it."
"Yes. And if not that one, a creche-mate."
Thorne began tapping keypads. "What about funds? That is your department."
"This mission is cash on delivery. Draw your estimated needs from Fleet funds."
"Right. Put your palm over here and authorize my withdrawal, then." Thorne held out a sensor pad.
Without hesitation, he laid his palm flat upon it. To his horror, the red no-recognition code glinted in the readout. No! It has to
be right, it has to - !
"Damn machine." Thorne tapped the sensor pad’s corner sharply on the table. "Behave. Try again."
This time, he laid his palm down with a very slight twist; the computer digested the new data, and this time pronounced him
cleared, accepted, blessed. Funded. His pounding heart slowed in relief.
Thorne keyed in more data, and said over its shoulder, "No question which commando squad you want to requisition for this
one, eh?"
"No question," he echoed hollowly. "Go ahead." He had to get out of here, before the strain of the masquerade made him blow
away his good start.
"You want your usual cabin?" Thorne inquired.
"Sure." He stood.
"Soon, I gather..." The hermaphrodite checked a readout in the glowing complexity of logistics displays above the comconsole
vid plate. "The palm lock is still keyed for you. Get off your feet, you look beat. It’s under control."
"Good."
"When will Elli Quinn be along?"
"She won’t be coming on this mission."
Thorne’s eyes widened in surprise. "Really." Its smile broadened, quite inexplicably. "That’s too bad." Its voice conveyed not
the least disappointment. Some rivalry, there? Over what?
"Have the Triumph send over my kit," he ordered. Yes, delegate that thievery too. Delegate it all. "And... when you get the
chance, have a meal sent to my cabin."
"Will do," promised Thorne with a firm nod. "I’m glad to see you’ve been eating better, by the way, even if you haven’t been
sleeping. Good. Keep it up. We worry about you, you know."
Eating better, hell. With his stature, keeping his weight down had become a constant battle. He’d starved for three months just
to get back into Naismith’s uniform, that he’d stolen two years ago and now wore. Another wave of weary hatred for his
progenitor washed over him. He let himself out with a casual salute that he trusted would encourage Thorne to keep working, and
managed to keep from snarling under his breath till the cabin door hissed shut behind him.
There was nothing for it but to try every palm lock in the corridor till one opened. He hoped no Dendarii would come along
while he was rattling doors. He found his cabin at last, directly across from the hermaphrodite captain’s. The door slid open at his
touch on the sensor pad without any heart-stopping glitches this time.
The cabin was a little chamber almost identical to Thorne’s, only blanker. He checked cupboards. Most were bare, but in one
he found a set of gray fatigues and a stained tech coverall just his size. A residue of half-used toiletries in the cabin’s tiny
washroom included a toothbrush, and his lips twisted in an ironical sneer. The neatly made bed which folded out of the wall
looked extremely attractive, and he nearly swooned into it.
I’m on my way. I’ve done it. The Dendarii had accepted him, accepted his orders with the same stupid blind trust with which
they followed Naismith’s. Like sheep. All he had to do now was not screw it up. The hardest part was over.
He’d grabbed a quick shower and was just pulling on Naismith’s trousers when his meal arrived. His undress state gave him
an excuse to wave the attentive tray-bearing Dendarii out again quickly. The dinner under the covers turned out to be real food,
not rations. Grilled vat steak, fresh-appearing vegetables, non-synthetic coffee, the hot food hot and the cold food cold, beautifully
laid out in little portions finely calculated to Naismith’s appetite. Even ice cream. He recognized his progenitor’s tastes, and was
daunted anew by this rush by unknown people to try to give him exactly what he wanted, even in these tiny details. Rank had its
privileges, but this was insane.
Depressed, he ate it all, and was just wondering if the fuzzy green stuff arranged to fill up all the empty space on the plate was
edible too, when the cabin buzzer blatted again.
This time, it was a Dendarii non-com and a float pallet with three big crates on it.
"Ah," he blinked. "My kit. Just set it there in the middle of the floor, for now."
"Yes, sir. Don’t you want to assign a batman?" The non-com’s inviting expression left no doubt about who was first in line to
volunteer.
"Not... this mission. We’re going to be cramped for space, later. Just leave it."
"I’d be happy to unpack it for you, sir. I packed it all up."
"Quite all right."
"If I’ve missed anything, just let me know, and I’ll run it right over."
"Thank you, corporal." His exasperation leaked into his voice; fortunately, it acted as a brake upon the corporal’s enthusiasm.
The Dendarii heaved the crates from the float pallet and exited with a sheepish grin, as if to say, Hey, you can’t blame me for
trying.
He smiled back through set teeth, and turned his attention to the crates as soon as the door sealed. He flipped up the latches
and hesitated, bemused at his own eagerness. It must be rather like getting a birthday present. He’d never had a birthday present in
his life. So, let’s make up for some lost time.
The first lid folded back to reveal clothes, more clothes than he’d ever owned before. Tech coveralls, undress kit, a dress
uniform - he held up the grey velvet tunic, and raised his brows at the shimmer and the silver buttons - boots, shoes, slippers,
pajamas, all regulation, all cut down to perfect fit. And civilian clothes, eight or ten sets, in various planetary and galactic styles
and social levels. An Escobaran business suit in red silk, a Barrayaran quasi-military tunic and piped trousers, ship knits, a Betan
sarong and sandals, a ragged jacket and shirt and pants suitable for a down-on-his-luck dockworker anywhere. Abundant
underwear. Three kinds of chronos with build-in comm units, one Dendarii regulation, one very expensive commercial model, one
appearing cheap and battered, which turned out to be finest military surplus underneath. And more.
He moved to the second crate, flipped up the lid, and gaped. Space armor. Full-bore attack unit space armor, power and life
support packs fully charged, weapons loaded and locked. Just his size. It seemed to gleam with its own dark and wicked glow,
nested in its packing. The smell of it hit him, incredibly military, metal and plastic, energy and chemicals... old sweat. He drew the
helmet out and stared with wonder into the darkened mirror of its visor. He had never worn space armor, though he’d studied it in
holovids till his eyes crossed. A sinister, deadly carapace...
He unloaded it all, and laid the pieces out in order upon the floor. Strange splashes, scars, and patches deckled the gleaming
surfaces here and there. What weapons, what strikes, had been powerful enough to mar that metalloy surface? What enemies had
fired them? Every scar, he realized, fingering them, had been intended death. This was not pretend.
It was very disturbing. No. He pushed away the cold shiver of doubt. If he can do it, I can do it. He tried to ignore the repairs
and mysterious stains on the pressure suit and its soft, absorbent under-liner as he packed it all away again and stowed the crate.
Blood? Shit? Burns? Oil? It was all cleaned and odorless now, anyway.
The third crate, smaller than the second, proved to contain a set of half-armor, lacking built-in weapons and not meant for
space, but rather for dirtside combat under normal or near-normal pressure, temperature, and atmospheric conditions. Its most
arresting feature was a command headset, a smooth duralloy helmet with built-in telemetry and a vid projector in a flange above
the forehead that placed any data on the net right before the commander’s eyes. Data flow was controlled by certain facial
movements and voice commands. He left it out on the counter to examine more thoroughly later, and repacked the rest.
By the time he finished arranging all the clothing in the cabin’s cupboards and drawers, he’d begun to regret sending the
batman away so precipitously. He fell onto the bed, and dimmed the lights. When he next woke, he should be on his way to
Jackson’s Whole....
He’d just begun to doze when the cabin comm buzzed. He lurched up to answer it, mustering a reasonably coherent "Naismith
here," in a sleep-blurred voice.
"Miles?" said Thorne’s voice. "The commando squad’s here."
"Uh... good. Break orbit as soon as you’re ready, then."
"Don’t you want to see them?" Thorne said, sounding surprised.
Inspection. He inhaled. "Right. I’ll... be along. Naismith out." He hurried back into his uniform trousers, taking a jacket with
proper insignia this time, and quickly called up a schematic of the ship’s interior layout on the cabin’s comconsole. There were
two locks for combat drop shuttles, port and starboard. Which one? He traced a route to both.
The operative shuttle hatch was the first one he tried. He paused a moment in shadow and silence at the curve of the corridor,
before he was spotted, to take in the scene.
The loading bay was crowded with a dozen men and women in grey camouflage flight suits, along with piles of equipment and
supplies. Hand and heavy weapons were stacked in symmetrical arrays. The mercenaries sat or stood, talking noisily, loud and
crude, punctuated with barks of laughter. They were all so big, generating too much energy, knocking into each other in half-
horseplay, as if seeking an excuse to shout louder. They bore knives and other personal weapons on belts or in holsters or on
bandoliers, an ostentatious display. Their faces were a blur, animal-like. He swallowed, straightened, and stepped among them.
The effect was instantaneous. "Heads up!" someone shouted, and without further orders they arranged themselves at rigid
attention in two neat, dead silent rows, each with his or her bundle of equipment at their feet. It was almost more frightening than
the previous chaos.
With a thin smile, he walked forward, and pretended to look at each one. A last heavy duffle arced out of the shuttle hatch to
land with a thump on the deck, and the thirteenth commando squeezed through, stood up, and saluted him.
He stood paralyzed with panic. Whatinhell was it? He stared at a flashing belt buckle, then tilted his head back, straining his
neck. The freaking thing was eight feet tall. The enormous body radiated power that he could feel almost like a wave of heat, and
the face - the face was a nightmare. Tawny yellow eyes, like a wolf’s, a distorted, outslung mouth with fangs, dammit, long white
canines locked over the edges of the carmine lips. The huge hands had claws, thick, powerful, razor-edged - enamelled with
carmine polish.... What? His gaze traveled back up to the monster’s face. The eyes were outlined with shadow and gold tint,
echoed by a little gold spangle glued decoratively to one high cheekbone. The mahogany-colored hair was drawn back in an
elaborate braid. The belt was cinched in tightly, emphasizing a figure of sorts despite the loose-fitting multi-grey flight suit. The
thing was female - ?
"Sergeant Taura and the Green Squad, reporting as ordered, sir!" The baritone voice reverberated in the bay.
"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,
cryogenically 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."
Aragones never called them corpsicles, or any of the other nervous nicknames coined by the soldiers. Always my patients.
That was another thing Miles liked about the Escobaran physician.
"In general - unfortunately - our casualties don’t arrive on a scheduled, orderly, one-by-one basis," Miles half-apologized in
turn. "In this case we had twenty-eight people hit sickbay, with every degree and sort of injury - extreme trauma, burns, chemical
contamination - all at once. Triage got brutal, for a little while, till things sorted out. My people did their best." He hesitated. "Do
you think it would be worth our while to re-certify a few of our medtechs in your latest techniques, and if so, would you be
willing to lead the seminar?"
Aragones spread his hands, and looked thoughtful. "Something might be worked out... talk with Administrator Margara,
before you go."
Quinn caught Miles’s nod, and made a note on her report panel.
Aragones called up charts on his comconsole. "The worst first. We could do nothing for your Mr. Kee or Ms. Zelaski."
"I... saw Kee’s head injury. I’m not surprised." Smashed like a melon. "But we had the cryo-chamber available, so we tried."
Aragones nodded understanding. "Ms. Zelaski had a similar problem, though less externally obvious. So much of her internal
cranial circulation was broken during the trauma, her blood could not be properly drained from her brain, nor the cryo-fluids
properly perfused. Between the crystalline freezing and the hematomas, the neural destruction was complete. I’m sorry. Their
bodies are presently stored in our morgue, waiting your instructions."
"Kee wished his body to be returned for burial to his family on his homeworld. Have your mortuary department prepare and
ship him through the usual channels. We’ll give you the address." He jerked his chin at Quinn, who made another note. "Zelaski
listed no family or next of kin - some Dendarii just don’t, or won’t, and we don’t insist. But she did once tell some of her squad
mates how she wanted her ashes disposed of. Please have her remains cremated and returned to the Triumph in care of our
medical department."
"Very well." Aragones signed off the charts on his vid display; they disappeared like vanishing spirits. He called up others in
their place.
"Your Mr. Durham and Ms. Vifian are both presently only partially healed from their original injuries. Both are suffering from
what I would call normal neural-traumatic and cryo-amnesia. Mr. Durham’s memory loss is the more profound, partly because of
complications due to his pilot’s neural implants, which we alas had to remove."
"Will he ever be able to have another headset installed?"
"It’s too early to tell. I would call both their long-term prognoses good, but neither will be fit to return to their military duties
for at least a year. And then they will need extensive re-training. In both cases I highly recommend they each be returned to their
home and family environments, if that is possible. Familiar surroundings will help facilitate and trigger re-establishment of their
access to their own surviving memories, over time."
"Lieutenant Durham has family on Earth. We’ll see he gets there. Tech Vifian is from Kline Station. We’ll see what we can
do."
Quinn nodded vigorously, and made more notes.
"I can release them to you today, then. We’ve done all we can, here, and ordinary convalescent facilities will do for the rest.
Now... that leaves your Mr. Aziz."
"My trooper Aziz," Miles agreed to the claim. Aziz was three years in the Dendarii, had applied and been accepted for
officer’s training. Twenty-one years old.
"Mr. Aziz is... alive again. That is, his body sustains itself without artificial aids, except for a slight on-going problem with
internal temperature regulation that seems to be improving on its own."
"But Aziz didn’t have a head wound. What went wrong?" asked Miles. "Are you telling me he’s going to be a vegetable?"
"I’m afraid Mr. Aziz was the victim of a bad prep. His blood was apparently drained hastily, and not sufficiently completely.
Small freezing hemocysts riddled his brain tissue with necrotic patches. We removed them, and started new growth, which has
taken hold successfully. But his personality is permanently lost."
"Everything?"
"He may perhaps retain a few frustrating fragments of memories. Dreams. But he cannot re-access his neural pathways
through new routes or sub-routines, because the tissue itself is gone. The new man will start over as a near-infant. He’s lost
language, among other things."
"Will he recover his intelligence? In time?"
Aragones hesitated for too long before answering. "In a few years, he may be able to do enough simple tasks to be self-
supporting."
"I see," Miles sighed.
"What do you want to do with him?"
"He’s another one with no next of kin listed." Miles blew out his breath. "Transfer him to a long-term care facility here on
Escobar. One with a good therapy department. I’ll ask you to recommend one. I’ll set up a small trust fund to cover the costs till
he’s out on his own. However long that takes."
Aragones nodded, and both he and Quinn made notes.
After settling further administrative and financial details, the conference broke up. Miles insisted on stopping to see Aziz,
before picking up the other two convalescents.
"He cannot recognize you," Dr. Aragones warned as they entered the hospital room.
"That’s all right."
At first glance, Aziz did not look as much like death warmed over as Miles had expected, despite the unflattering hospital
gown. There was color and warmth in his face, and his natural melanin level saved him from being hospital-pale. But he lay
listlessly, gaunt, twisted in his covers. The bed’s sides were up, unpleasantly suggesting a crib or a coffin. Quinn stood against the
wall and folded her arms. She had visceral associations about hospitals and clinics too.
"Azzie," Miles called softly bending over him. "Azzie, can you hear me?"
Aziz’s eyes tracked momentarily, but then wandered again.
"I know you don’t know me, but you might remember this, later. You were a good soldier, smart and strong. You stood by
your mates in the crash. You had the sort of self-discipline that saves lives." Others, not your own. "Tomorrow, you’ll go to
another sort of hospital, where they’ll help you keep on getting better." Among strangers. More strangers. "Don’t worry about the
money. I’m setting it up so it’ll be there as long as you need it." He doesn’t know what money is. "I’ll check back on you from
time to time, as I get the opportunity," Miles promised. Promised who? Aziz? Aziz was no more. Himself? His voice softened to
inaudibility as he ran down.
The aural stimulation made Aziz thrash around, and emit some loud and formless moans; he had no volume control yet,
apparently. Even through a filter of desperate hope, Miles could not recognize it as an attempt at communication. Animal reflexes
only.
"Take care," he whispered, and withdrew, to stand a moment trembling in the hallway.
"Why do you do that to yourself?" Quinn inquired tartly. Her crossed arms, hugging herself, added silently, And to me?
"First, he died for me, literally, and second," he attempted to force his voice to lightness, "don’t you find a certain obsessive
fascination in looking in the face of what you most fear?"
"Is death what you most fear?" she asked curiously.
"No. Not death." He rubbed his forehead, hesitated. "Loss of mind. My game plan all my life has been to demand acceptance
of this," a vague wave down the length, or shortness, of his body, "because I was a smart-ass little bastard who could think rings
around the opposition, and prove it time after time. Without the brains ..." Without the brains I’m nothing. He straightened against
the aching tension in his belly, shrugged, and twitched a smile at her. "March on, Quinn."
After Aziz, Durham and Vifian were not so hard to deal with. They could walk and talk, if haltingly, and Vifian even
recognized Quinn. They took them back to the shuttleport in the rented groundcar, and Quinn tempered her usual go-to-hell style
of driving in consideration of their half-healed wounds. Upon reaching the shuttle Miles sent them forward to sit with the pilot, a
comrade, and by the time reached the Triumph Durham had recalled not only the man’s name, but some shuttle piloting
procedures. Miles turned both convalescents over to the medtech who met them at the shuttle hatch door, who escorted them off
to sickbay to bed down again after the exhaustion of their short journey. Miles watched them exit, and felt a little better.
"Costly," Quinn observed reflectively.
"Yes," Miles sighed. "Rehabilitation is starting to take an awfully big bite out of the medical department’s budget. I may have
Fleet accounting split it off, so Medical doesn’t find itself dangerously short-changed. But what would you have? My troops were
loyal beyond measure; I cannot betray them. Besides," he grinned briefly, "the Barrayaran Imperium is paying."
"Your ImpSec boss was on about your bills, I thought, at your mission briefing."
"Illyan has to explain why enough cash to fund a private army keeps disappearing in his department budget every year,
without ever admitting to the private army’s existence. Certain Imperial accountants tend to accuse him of departmental
inefficiency, which gives him great anguish."
The Dendarii shuttle pilot, having shut down his ship, ducked into the corridor and sealed the hatch. He nodded to Miles.
"While I was waiting for you at Port Beauchene, sir, I picked up another story on the local news net, that you might be interested
in. Local news here on Escobar, that is." The man was bouncing lightly his toes.
"Say on, Sergeant Lajoie." Miles cocked an eyebrow up at him.
"The Cetagandans have just announced their withdrawal from Marilac. They’re calling it - what was that, now - ‘Due to great
progress in the cultural alliance, we are turning police matters over to local control.’ "
摘要：

MirrorDanceLoisMcMasterBujoldCHAPTERONETherowofcomconsoleboothsliningthepassengerconcourseofEscobar’slargestcommercialorbitaltransferstationhadmirroreddoors,dividedintodiagonalsectionsbyrainbow-coloredlinesoflights.Doubtlesssomeone’sideaofdecor.Themirror-sectionsweredeliberatelysetslightlyoutofalign...

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