Memory

The two lines ploinked over the side nearly simultaneously, and the bait and sinkers disappeared into the water, gliding smoothly down. At this distance from the shore, the green view of the rocky bottom was replaced by a depth of black shadow. Miles and Illyan settled back in their padded chairs, and opened their first beers. The brew was smooth and nearly as dark as the lake waters, and doubtless swimming with vitamins. It slid down Miles's throat with a pleasantly bitter fizz, and its earthy aroma filled his nose.

'This would be more like a stakeout,' Illyan remarked after a while, 'if the fish were armed and could fire back. If fish fished for men, what kind of bait would they use?'

Miles pictured a line tossed onto the shore, tipped with a spiced peach tart. ' 'Let's go manning?' I dunno. What kind of bait did you used to use?'

'Ah, the motivations of men. Money, power, revenge, sex . . . they were almost never actually that simple. The screwiest case that I can recall . . . dear God, why can I remember this, when I can't . . . oh, well. In the event, then-Prime Minister Vortala was engaged in heavy negotiations with the Polians over the wormhole access treaty, and was trying anything he could think of to sweeten the deal. The Polian ambassador indicated to Vortala that what he'd really always secretly wanted most in his life was an elephant. To this day I don't know if he really wanted an elephant, or if it was just the most absurd and impossible thing to ask for he could think of on the spur of the moment. So anyway, the word came down. … It was really the Head of Galactic Affair's department, but I gave the assignment to my ImpSec agent personally, just so I could watch. I still can see this glazed look that came over his face, as he choked, 'And . . . and how big does this elephant have to be, Sir?' There aren't many moments like that in my job. I cherish 'em. It was before your time, or you know who would have been the first man I'd have thought of.'

'Oh, thanks. So … did your agent locate an elephant?'

'He was ImpSec to the core; of course he did. A small one. I assigned myself to the detail the day Vortala delivered it to the Polian embassy, too. In that fruity, deadpan voice of his, 'A gift from my Imperial master, Gregor Vorbarra . . .' Gregor must have been about ten, then, and likely would have preferred to keep the beast himself. Your father prudently didn't let him know he'd ever given away an elephant.'

'And did Vortala get his treaty?'

'Of course. I think the ambassador really did want an elephant, because after he got over being stunned and flummoxed, he was clearly delighted. They kept it in back of the embassy compound for about a year, and he used to bathe and groom it himself, till he took it home with him. It expanded my world view, ever after. Money, power, sex . . . and elephants.'

Miles snorted. He wondered about his own motivations, which had driven him so hard, so long, so far. To death, and beyond. He was unexcited by money, he supposed, because he had never felt its lack, except in the astronomical quantities necessary to repair battle cruisers; Mark, by contrast, was in his own quiet way downright greedy. Power? Miles had no hankering for the Imperium, or anything like it. But it itched like fire when others had power over him. That wasn't lust for power; that was fear. Fear of what? Fear of being made victim of their incompetence? Fear of being destroyed for a mutant, if he could not constantly prove his superiority? There was a bit of that, underneath. Well . . . quite a lot, really. His own grandfather had tried to kill him for his deformities, he'd been told; and there had been a few other ugly little incidents during his childhood, usually, though not always, cut short by the timely intervention of Sergeant Bothari. But that was hardly a hidden motivation, not the un-self-aware kind that got you into deep trouble and you didn't know why.

He swallowed another chill and smoky slug of beer. Identity. That's my elephant. The thought came with certainty, without the question mark on the end this time. Not fame, exactly, though recognition was some kind of important cement for it. But what you were was what you did. And I did more, oh yes. If a hunger for identity were translated into, say, a hunger for food, he'd be a more fantastic glutton than Mark had ever dreamed of being. Is it irrational, to want to be so much, to want so hard it hurts? And how much, then, was enough?

Illyan too took another swig of home-brew, and wriggled the carbon-fiber high-strength fishing rod, which like Miles s had come from the boathouses stores. 'You sure there are fish down there?'

'Oh, yes. Have been for centuries. You can lie on the dock and watch the little ones, nosing around the rocks, or swim with them. This lake was actually first terra-formed long before the end of the Time of Isolation, in the old crude way, which was by dumping every kind of organic waste they could lay hands on into it, followed by stolen weeds and minnows, and hoping an earth-life-form-supporting ecosystem would result. There was a lot of argument over it, back about the time of the first Counts, since the local farmers also wanted the assorted shit for their fields. Since the Count-my-Grandfather's day there's been a string of fellows who work out of the Count's Office in Hassadar, in charge of scientifically terraforming and stocking the District's waters, so it's back to being safe to drink and the fish are genetically improved. Lake trout, bass, freshwater salmon . . . there's some good stuff down there.'

Illyan leaned over and stared a little doubtfully down into the clear water. 'Really.' He wound up his line, and examined his hook. His bait-cube was gone.

'Did I put bait on this thing?'

'Yes. I saw you. Fell off, likely.'

'Light-fingered fish.' But Illyan resisted any impulse to make a more extended mutant-fish joke. He rebaited the hook more firmly and ploinked it into the water again. They opened another beer each. Miles perched on the edge of the boat, and cooled his bare feet in the water for a time.

'This is very inefficient,' Illyan noted, after adjusting the awning to reposition the creeping shade.

'I've wondered about that myself. I don't think it was designed to be efficient. I think it was created to give the appearance of doing something, while actually doing nothing. To repel chore-bearing wives, perhaps.'

'I've been doing nothing for a week.' Illyan hesitated. 'It hasn't seemed to help.'

'Not true. You're doing better at One-Up. I've been tracking you.'

'I thought you and Lady Alys had colluded to let me win, last time.'

'Nope.'

'Ah.' Illyan looked slightly cheered, but only for a moment. 'The ability to play One-Up without losing all the time is not enough to make me fit to return to ImpSec, I'm afraid.'

'Give yourself time. You've scarcely begun rehabilitation.' Miles's feet were getting wrinkled; he returned to his padded seat.

Illyan stared at the farther shore, all green and brown in the westering sun. 'No . . . there is an edge to a performance. When you've balanced on that edge, played at the very top of your form . . . you can't go back to anything less. To invert your mothers old saying, anything that can't be done well is not worth doing. And . . . running ImpSec is about as far from play as anything I know. There are too many other peoples' lives on the line, every day.'

'Mm,' said Miles, covering his lack of useful comment in another swig of beer.

'I've had my twice-twenty-years in the Emperor's service,' Illyan said. 'Started when I was eighteen, in officer's training for old Ezar . . . not the Imperial Service Academy; you needed more points and money and syllables in front of your name to get in back then. I went to one of the regional schools. I never thought to make it to a three-times-twenty-years man. I knew I'd stop sometime before that, I just didn't know when. I've been serving Gregor since he was five years old. He's full-adult now, God knows.'

'That's your achievement, surely,' said Miles.

Illyan nodded. 'Not mine alone. But I can't … be who I am—what I was—and not know that.'

'I never made it to the end of my first twenty years,' said Miles glumly. 'Not even close.'

Illyan cleared his throat, and studied his line. 'Was that a nibble, there?'

'No, I don't think so. The rod would dip more. Just the current, playing with the weight of the line.'

'I wouldn't have picked now to quit, mind you,' said Illyan. 'I would have liked to have seen Gregor through his wedding.'

'And the next crisis after that,' Miles twitted him. 'And the next crisis after that, and …'

Illyan grunted resigned agreement. 'So . . . maybe this isn't so bad.' He added after a time, 'Do you suppose all the fish in your lake have been stolen?'

'They'd have to catch 'em first.'

'Ah. Good point.' Illyan paused to fish up the net bag, and open another beer for himself, and hand one to Miles. He was halfway through the bottle when he said, 'I … know how much the Dendarii meant to you. I'm . . .