Armsman?'
Bothari ignored him.
Miles closed his hands tightly around the Sergeant's wrist.
'You don't have the strength to break my grip,' Bothari snarled out of the corner of his mouth.
'I have the strength to break my own fingers trying,' Miles murmured back, and threw all his weight into his pull. His fingernails went white. In a moment, his brittle joints would start to snap …
The Sergeant's eyes squeezed shut, his breath hissing in and out past his stained teeth. Then, with an oath, he sprang off Baz and shook free of Miles. He turned his back, chest heaving, blind eyes lost in infinity.
Baz writhed off the bench and fell to the carpet with a thump. He gulped air in a hoarse liquid choke, and spat up blood. Elena ran to him and cradled his head in her lap, heedless of the mess.
Miles staggered up and stood, catching his breath. 'All right,' he said at last, 'What's going on here?'
Baz tried to speak, but it came out a gurgling bark. Elena was crying, no help there. 'Damn it, Sergeant —'
'Caught her nuzzling that coward,' Bothari growled, still with his back to them.
'He is not a coward!' Elena yelled. 'He's as good a soldier as you. He saved my life today—' she turned to Miles. 'Surely you saw it, my lord, on your monitors. There was an Oseran with a servo-aim locked on me—I thought it was all over—Baz shot him with his plasma arc. Tell him!'
She was talking about the Oseran he had slain with his own medkit, Miles realized. Baz had cooked a corpse, unknowing. I saved you, Miles cried inwardly. It was me, it was me … 'That's right Sergeant,' he heard himself saying. 'You owe her life to your brother Armsman.'
'That one is no brother to me.'
'By my word, I say he is!'
'It's not proper—it's not right—I have to make it right. It has to be perfect—' Bothari swung around, narrow jaw working. In his life, Miles had never seen Bothari more agitated. I've put too much strain on him lately, he thought remorsefully. Too much, too fast, too out-of-control …
Baz croaked out words. 'No … dishonor!' Elena hushed him, and lurched to her feet to face Bothari, fiercely.
'You and your military honor! Well, I've faced fire, and I've killed a man, and it was nothing but butchery. Any robot could have done it. There was nothing to it. It's all a sham, a hoax, a lie, a big put-on. Your uniform doesn't awe me any more, do you hear?'
Bothari's face was dark and rigid. Miles made shushing motions at Elena. He'd no objection to growing independence of spirit, but God in heaven, her timing was terrible. Couldn't she see it? No, she was too tangled up in her own pain and shame, and the new ghost clinging to her shoulder. She had not mentioned that she'd killed a man, earlier; but, Miles knew, there were reasons one might choose not to.
He needed Baz, he needed Bothari, he needed Elena, and he needed them all working together to get them home alive. Not, then, what he ached to cry out of his own anguish and anger, but what they needed to hear.
The first thing Elena and Bothari needed was to be parted until tempers cooled, lest they tear out each other's hearts. As for Baz—'Elena,' said Miles, 'Help Baz to the infirmary. See that the medtech checks him for internal injuries.'
'Yes, my lord,' she replied, emphasizing the official nature of the order with his title, for Bothari's benefit, presumably. She levered Baz to his feet, and pulled his arm across her shoulders, with an awkward venomous glower at her father. Bothari's hands twitched, but he said nothing and made no move.
Miles escorted them down the catwalk. Baz's breathing was growing slightly more regular, he saw with relief. 'I think I'd better stay with the Sergeant,' he murmured to Elena. 'You two going to make it all right?'
'Thanks to you,' said Elena. 'I tried to stop him, but I was afraid. I couldn't do it.' She blinked back last tears.
'Better this way. Everybody's edgy, too tired. Him too, you know.' He almost asked her for a definition of 'nuzzling', but stopped himself. She bore Baz off with tender murmurs that drove Miles wild.
He bit back his frustration and mounted again to the observation deck. Bothari still stood, grievously blank and inward. Miles sighed.
'You still have that scotch, Sergeant?'
Bothari started from his reverie, and felt his hip pocket. He handed the flask silently to Miles, who gestured at the benches. They both sat. The Sergeant's hands dangled between his knees, his head lowered.
Miles took a swallow, and handed the flask over. 'Drink.'
Bothari shook his head, but then took it and did so. After a time he muttered, 'You never called me 'Armsman' before.'
'I was trying to get your attention. My apologies.'
Silence, and another swig. 'It's the right title.'
'Why were you trying to kill him? You know how badly we need techs.'
A long pause. 'He's not a right one. Not for her. Deserter …'
'He wasn't trying to rape her.' It was a statement.
'No,' lowly. 'No, I suppose not. You never know.'
Miles gazed around the crystal chamber, gorgeous in the sparked darkness. Superb spot for a nuzzle, and more. But those long white hands were down at the infirmary, probably laying cold compresses or something on Baz's brow. While he sat here getting drunk with the ugliest man in the system. What a waste.
The flask went back and forth again. 'You never know,' Bothari reiterated. 'And she must have everything right, and proper. You see that, don't you, my lord? Don't you see it?'
'Of course. But please don't murder my engineer. I need him. All right?'
'Damn techs. Always coddled.'
Miles let this pass, as an Old Service reflex complaint. Bothari had always seemed part of his grandfather's generation, somehow, although in fact he was a couple of years younger than Miles's father. Miles relaxed slightly, at this sign of a return to Bothari's normal—well, usual—state of mind. Bothari slipped into a reclining position on the carpet, shoulders against the settee.
'My lord,' he added after a time. 'You'd see to it, if I were killed—that she was taken care of, right. The dowry. And an officer, a fit officer. And a real go-between, a proper baba, to make the arrangements …'
Antique dream, thought Miles hazily. 'I'm her leigelord, by right of your service,' he pointed out gently. 'It would be my duty.' If I could only turn that duty to my own dreams.
'Some don't pay much attention to their duty any more,' Bothari muttered. 'But a Vorkosigan—Vorkosigans never fail.'
'Damn right,' Miles mumbled.
'Mm,' said Bothari, and slid down a little farther.
After a long silence, Bothari spoke again. 'If I were killed, you wouldn't leave me out there, would you, my lord?'
'Huh?' Miles tore his attention from trying to make new constellations. He had just connected the dots into a figure dubbed, mentally, Cavalryman.
'They leave bodies in space sometimes. Cold as hell … God can't find them out there. No one could.'
Miles blinked. He had never known the Sergeant concealed a theological streak. 'Look, what's all this all of a sudden about getting killed? You're not going to—'
'The Count your father promised me,' Bothari raised his voice slightly to override him, 'I'd be buried at your lady mother's feet, at Vorkosigan Surleau. He promised. Didn't he tell you?'
'Er … The subject never came up.'
'His word as Vorkosigan. Your word.'
'Uh, right, then.' Miles stared out the chamber's transparency. Some saw stars, it seemed, and some saw the spaces between them. Cold … 'You planning on heaven, Sergeant?'
'As my lady's dog. Blood washes away sin. She swore it to me …' He trailed off, gaze never leaving the depths. Presently, the flask slipped from his fingers, and he began to snore. Miles sat cross-legged, watching over him, a small figure in his underwear against the black immensity, and very far from home.
Fortunately, Baz recovered quickly, and was back on the job the next day with the aid of a neck brace to ease his lacerated cervicals. His behavior to Elena was painfully circumspect whenever Miles was around, offering
