Memory

They descended by lightflyer unannounced upon Lem's sister, who rose to the challenge smoothly. The lunch she provided was, thank God, light. Miles dutifully met and admired Csurik children, nieces, and nephews. He was hijacked by them and taken on a stroll through the woods, and viewed a favorite swimming hole. He waded gravely along with them on the smooth stones with his boots off, till his feet were numb with the chill, and in a voice of Vorish authority pronounced it a most excellent swimming hole, perhaps the finest in his District. He was obviously an anomaly of some fascination, an adult almost their own size.

What with one thing and another, it was late afternoon before they arrived back at the school. Miles took one look at the mob of people streaming into the wide yard, bearing dishes and baskets and flowers, musical instruments and pitchers and jugs, chairs and benches and trestles and boards, firewood and tablecloths, and his heart sank. Despite all his efforts to avoid such things today, it seemed he was in for a surprise party after all.

Phrases like, We should go before dark, Martin's not used to flying in the mountains, died on his lips. They'd be lucky if they got out of here before tomorrow morning. Or—he noted the stone pitchers of Dendarii Mountain maple mead, the deadliest alcoholic beverage ever invented by man—tomorrow afternoon.

It took him a meal, sunset, a bonfire, and rather a lot of carefully rationed sips of maple mead, but eventually, he actually relaxed and began to enjoy it. Then the music began, and enjoyment became no effort at all. Off to the side Martin, at first inclined to turn up his nose a bit at the rustic homemade quality of it all, found himself teaching city dances to a group of eager teens. Miles bit back inflicting any prudent warnings on the boy, such as Maple mead may go down smooth and sweet, but it destroys cell membranes coming back up. Some things you had to learn for yourself, at certain ages. Miles danced traditional steps with Harra, and other women until he lost count. A couple of older folk, who'd been there at his judgment of a decade ago, nodded respectfully at him despite his capering. It was not, after all, a party for him, despite the bombardment of birthday congratulations and jokes. It was a party for Silvy Vale. If he was the excuse for it, well, it was the most use he'd been to anybody for weeks.

But as the party died down with the bonfires embers, his sense of incompletion grew. He'd come up here to . . . what? To try to bring his dragging depression to some kind of head, perhaps, like lancing a boil, painful but relieving. Disgusting metaphor, but he was thoroughly sick of himself. He wanted to take a jug of mead, and finish his talk with Raina. Bad idea, probably. He might end up weeping drunkenly by the reservoir, and drowning himself as well as his sorrows, poor repayment to Silvy Vale for the nice party, and betrayal of his word to Ivan. Did he seek healing, or destruction? Either. It was this formless state in between that was unbearable.

In the end, somehow, after midnight, he fetched up by the waterside after all. But not alone. Lem and Harra came with him, and sat on logs too. The moons were both high, and made faint silky patterns on the wavelets, and turned the rising mist in the ravines to silver smoke. Lem had charge of the jug of mead, and distributed it judiciously, otherwise keeping a mellow silence.

It was not the dead Miles needed to talk to, in the dark, he realized. It was the living. Useless to confess to the dead; absolution was not in their power. But I'll trust your Speaking, Harra, as you once trusted mine.

'I have to tell you something,' Miles said to Harra.

'Knew there was something wrong,' she said. 'I hope you're not dying or something.'

'No.'

'I was worried it might be something like that. A lot of muties don't live very long lives, even without someone to cut their throats.'

'Vorkosigan does it backwards. I had my throat cut all right, but it was for life, not for death. It's a long story and the details are classified, but I ended up in a cryo-chamber out in the galactic backbeyond last year. When they thawed me out, I had some medical problems. Then I did something stupid. Then I did something really stupid, which was to lie about the first thing. And then I got caught. And then I got discharged. Whatever it was about my achievements you admired, that inspired you, it's all gone now. Thirteen years of career effort down the waste- disposer in one flush. Hand me that jug.' He swallowed sweet fire, and handed it back to Lem, who passed it to Harra and back to himself. 'Of all the things I thought I might be by age thirty, civilian was never on the list.'

The moonlight rippled on the water. 'And you told me to stand up straight and speak the truth,' said Harra, after a long pause. 'Does this mean you'll be spending more time in the District?'

'Maybe.'

'Good.'

'You're ruthless, Harra,' Miles groaned.

The bugs sang their soft chorus in the woods, a tiny organic moonlight sonata. 'Little man'—Harra's voice in the dark was as sweet and deadly as maple mead—'my mother killed my daughter. And was judged for it in front of all of Silvy Vale. You think I don't know what public shame is? Or waste?'

'Why d'you think I'm telling all this to you?'

Harra was silent for long enough for Lem to pass around the stone jug one last time, in the dim moonlight and shadows. Then she said, 'You go on. You just go on. There's nothing more to it, and there's no trick to make it easier. You just go on.'

'What do you find on the other side? When you go on?'

She shrugged. 'Your life again. What else?'

'Is that a promise?'

She picked up a pebble, fingered it, and tossed it into the water. The moon-lines bloomed and danced. 'It's an inevitability. No trick. No choice. You just go on.'

Miles got Martin and the lightflyer in the air again by noon the next day. Martin's eyes were red and puffy, and his face had a pale greenish cast worthy of a speed run through the Dendarii Gorge. He flew very gently and carefully, which suited Miles exactly. He was not very conversational, but he did manage a, 'Did you ever find what you were looking for, m'lord?'

'The light is clearer up here in these mountains than anywhere else on Barrayar, but. . . no. It was here once, but it's not here now.' Miles twisted in his seat straps, and stared back over his shoulder at the rugged receding hills. These people need a thousand things. But they don't need a hero. At least, not a hero like Admiral Naismith. Heroes like Lem and Harra, yes.

Martin squinted, perhaps not appreciating that light just at present.

After a time, Miles asked, 'How old is middle-age, Martin?'

'Oh . . .' Martin shrugged. 'Thirty, I guess.'

'That's what I'd always thought, too.' Though he'd once heard the Countess define it as ten years older than whatever you were, a moveable feast.

'I had a professor at the Imperial Service Academy once,' Miles went on, as the hills grew more gentle beneath them, 'who taught the introduction to tactical engineering course. He said he never bothered changing his tests from term to term to prevent cheating, because while the questions were always the same, the answers changed. I'd thought he was joking.'

'Unh?' said Martin dutifully.

'Never mind, Martin,' Miles sighed. 'Just go on.'

CHAPTER TWELVE

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

Mark's tight-beam recording from Beta Colony was . . . Markian. His mockery was an awkward imitation of Ivan's, edgier and more self-conscious. From the stilted would-be flippancy Miles gathered this was not the