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 pates 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?