'Me?' He stared in astonishment. 'The culmination of degeneration, maybe. A stunted weed .. .' He paused; her face seemed a mirror of his own astonishment. 'They do add up, it's true. My grandfather carried nine generations on his back. My father carried ten. I carry eleven—and I swear that last one weighs more than all the rest put together. It's a wonder I'm not squashed even shorter. I feel like I'm down to about half a meter right now. Soon I'll disappear altogether.'
He was babbling, knew he was babbling. Some dam had broken in him. He gave himself over to the flood and boiled on down the sluice.
'Elena, I love you, I've always loved you—' She leaped like a startled deer, he gasped and flung his arms around her. 'No, listen! I love you, I don't know what the Sergeant was but I loved him too, and whatever of him is in you I honor with all my heart, I don't know what is truth and I don't give a damn anymore, we'll make our own like he did, he did a bloody good job I think, I can't live without my Bothari, marry me!' He spent the last of his air shouting the last two words, and had to pause for a long inhalation.
'I can't marry you! The genetic risks—'
'I am not a mutant! Look, no gills—' he stuck his fingers into the corners of his mouth and spread it wide, 'no antlers—' he planted his thumbs on either side of his head and wriggled his fingers.
'I wasn't thinking of your genetic risks. Mine. His. Your father must have known what he was—he'll never accept—'
'Look, anybody who can trace a blood relationship with Mad Emperor Yuri through two lines of descent has no room to criticize anybody else's genes.'
'Your father is loyal to his class, Miles, like your grandfather, like Lady Vorpatril—they could never accept me as Lady Vorkosigan.'
'Then I'll present them with an alternative. I'll tell them I'm going to marry Bel Thorne. They'll come around so fast they'll trip over themselves.'
She sat back helplessly and buried her face in his pillow, shoulders shaking. He had a moment of terror that he'd broken her down into tears. Not break down, build up, and up, and up … But, 'Damn you for making me laugh!' she repeated. 'Damn you . . .'
He galloped on, encouraged. 'And I wouldn't be so sure about my father's class loyalties. He married a foreign plebe, after all.' He dropped into seriousness. 'And you cannot doubt my mother. She always longed for a daughter, secretly—never paraded it, so as not to hurt the old man, of course—let her be your mother in truth.'
'Oh,' she said, as if he had stabbed her. 'Oh …'
'You'll see, when we get back to Barrayar—'
'I pray to God,' she interrupted him, voice intense, 'I may never set foot on Barrayar again.'
'Oh,' he said in turn. After a long pause he said, 'We could live somewhere else. Beta Colony. It would have to be pretty quietly, once the exchange rate got done with my income—I could get a job, doing—doing—doing something.'
'And on the day the Emperor calls you to take your place on the Council of Counts, to speak for your district and all the poor sods in it, where will you go then?'
He swallowed, struck silent. 'Ivan Vorpatril is my heir,' he offered at last. 'Let him take the Countship.'
'Ivan Vorpatril is a jerk.'
'Oh, he's not such a bad sort.'
'He used to corner me, when my father wasn't around, and try to feel me up.'
'What! You never said—'
'I didn't want to start a big flap.' She frowned into the past. 'I almost wish I could go back in time, just to boot him in the balls.'
He glanced sideways at her, considerably startled. 'Yes,' he said slowly, 'you've changed.'
'I don't know what I am anymore. Miles, you must believe me—I love you as I love breath—'
His heart rocketed.
'But I can't be your annex.'
And crashed. 'I don't understand.'
'I don't know how to put it plainer. You'd swallow me up the way an ocean swallows a bucket of water. I'd disappear in you. I love you, but I'm terrified of you, and of your future.'
His bafflement sought simplicity. 'Baz. It's Baz, isn't it?'
'If Baz had never existed, my answer would be the same. But as it happens—I have given him my word.'
'You—' the breath went out of him in a 'ha,'—'Break it,' he ordered.
She merely looked at him, silently. In a moment he reddened, and dropped his eyes in shame.
'You own honor by the ocean,' she whispered. 'I have only a little bucketful. Unfair to jostle it—my lord.'
He fell back across his bed, defeated.
She rose. 'Are you coming to the staff meeting?'
'Why bother? It's hopeless.'
She stared down at him, lips thinned, and glanced across to the box in the corner. 'Isn't it time you learned to walk on your own feet—cripple?'
She ducked out the door just in time to avoid the pillow he threw at her, her lips curving just slightly at this spasmodic display of energy.
'You know me too bloody well,' he whispered. 'Ought to keep you just for security reasons.'
He staggered to his feet and went to shave.
He made it to the staff conference, barely, and sagged into his usual seat at the head of the table. It was a full meeting, held therefore in the roomy refinery conference chamber. General Halify and an aide sat in. Tung and Thorne and Auson, Arde and Baz, and the five men and women picked to officer the new recruits ringed the table. The Cetagandan ghem-captain sat opposite the Kshatryan lieutenant, their growing animosity threatening to equal the three-way rivalry among Tung, Auson, and Thorne. The two united only long enough to snarl at the Felicians, the professional assassin from Jackson's Whole, or the retired Tau Cetan major of commandos, who in turn sniped at the ex-Oserans, making the circle complete.
The alleged agenda for this circus was the preparation of the final Dendarii battle-plan for breaking the Oseran blockade, hence General Halify's keen interest. His keenness had been rather blunted this last week by a growing dismay. The doubt in Halify's eyes was an itch to Miles' spirit; he tried to avoid meeting them. Bargain rates, General, Miles thought sulkily to him. You get what you pay for.
The first half hour was spent knocking down, again, three unworkable pet plans that had been advanced by their owners at previous meetings. Bad odds, requirements of personnel and material beyond their resources, impossibilities of timing, were pointed out with relish by one half of Miles's group to the other, with opinions of the advancers' mentalities thrown in gratis. This rapidly degenerated into a classic slanging match. Tung, who normally suppressed such, was one of the principals this time, so it threatened to escalate indefinitely.
'Look, damn it,' shouted the Kshatryan lieutenant, banging his fist on the table for emphasis, 'we can't take the wormhole direct and we all know it. Let's concentrate on something we can do. Merchant shipping—we could attack that, a counter-blockade—'
'Attack neutral galactic shipping?' yelped Auson. 'Do you want to get us all hung?'
'Hanged,' corrected Thorne, earning an ungrateful glare.
'No, see,' Auson bulled on, 'the Pelians have little bases all over this system we could have a go at. Like guerilla warfare, attacking and fading into the sands—'
'What sands?' snapped Tung. 'There's nothing to hide your ass behind out there—the Pelians have our home address. It's a miracle they haven't given up all hope of capturing this refinery and flung a half-c meteor shower through here already. Any plan that doesn't work quickly won't work at all—'
'What about a lightning raid on the Pelian capital?' suggested the Cetagandan captain. 'A suicide squadron to drop a nuclear in there—'
'You volunteering?' sneered the Kshatryan. 'That might almost be worthwhile.'
'The Pelians have a trans-shipping station in orbit around the sixth planet,' said the Tau Cetan. 'A raid on
