Mirror Dance

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.”