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  The surgeon, still dressed in her sterile garb, entered at last. She put her hands on her hips, stared at Miles, and sighed. She looked tired.

  "How's the Barrayaran?" Miles ventured. "Will, um . . . he recover?"

  "He's not too bad. The cuts were very clean, and luckily just below the knee joints, which saved a world of complications. He'll be about three centimeters shorter after this."

  Miles winced.

  "But he'll be on his feet by the time he gets home," she added, "assuming that takes about six weeks."

  "Ah. Good." But suppose the random blare of the plasma arc had taken Vorberg through the knees. Or about a meter higher, cutting him in half. There were limits to the miracles even his Dendarii surgical expert could perform. It would not have been a career high point, after Miles had airily assured his ImpSec chief that he could rescue Vorberg with scarcely a ripple in his routine, to return him packed in a body bag. Two body bags. Miles felt faint with a weird mixture of relief and horror. Oh, God, I'm going to hate explaining this to Illyan.

  The surgeon studied Miles's scans, muttering medical incantations. "We're still on baseline, here. No obvious abnormalities show up. The only way I can get any leverage into this is to have you monitored while you undergo an attack."

  "Hell, I thought we did every kind of stress and electroshock and stimulus known to science, to try to trigger something in the lab. I thought the pills you gave me had brought it under control."

  "The standard anticonvulsant? Were you taking it properly?" She eyed him suspiciously.

  "Yes." He bit back more profane protestations. "Have you thought of something else to try?"

  "No, which is why I gave you that monitor to wear around." Her glance around the examining room did not disclose the device. "Where is it?"

  "In my cabin."

  Her lips thinned in exasperation. "Let me guess. You weren't wearing it at the time."

  "It didn't fit under my combat armor."

  Her teeth clenched. "Couldn't you have at least thought to—to disable your weapons?"

  "I could hardly be of use to my squad in an emergency, disarmed. I might as well have stayed aboard the Peregrine."

  "You were the emergency. And you certainly should have stayed aboard the Peregrine."

  Or back on Barrayar. But securing Vorberg's person had been the most critical part of the operation, and Miles was the only Dendarii officer ImpSec entrusted with the Barrayaran Imperial recognition codes. "I—" He bit his tongue on futile defenses, and started over. "You are quite correct. It won't happen again, until . . . we get this straightened out. What do we do next?"

  She opened her hands. "I've run every test I know. Obviously, the anticonvulsant isn't the answer. This is some kind of idiosyncratic cryonic damage on a cellular or subcellular level. You need to get your head to the highest-powered cryo-neurology specialist you can find."

  He sighed, and shrugged into his black tee shirt and gray uniform jacket. "Are we done for now? I urgently need to supervise prisoner interrogation."

  "I suppose." She grimaced. "But do us all a favor. Don't go armed."

  "Yes, ma'am," he said humbly, and fled.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Miles sat before the secured comconsole in his cabin aboard the flagship Peregrine, composing what seemed like his thousandth classified field report to the Chief of Barrayaran Imperial Security, Simon Illyan. Well, it wasn't the thousandth, that was absurd. He couldn't have averaged more than three or four missions a year, and he'd been at it less than a decade, really, since the Vervain invasion adventure had made it all official. Less than forty assignments. But he could no longer name the actual number offhand without stopping to think, and add them all up, and it wasn't an effect of lingering cryo-amnesia, either.

  Keep organizing, boy. His personal synopsis needed to be no more than a brief guide to the appendices of raw data, drawn from the Dendarii Fleet's own files. Illyan's intelligence analysts liked having lots of raw data to chew upon. It kept them occupied, down in their little cubicles in the bowels of ImpSec headquarters at Vorbarr Sultana. And entertained too, Miles sometimes feared.

  The Peregrine, the Ariel, and the rest of "Admiral Naismith's" select battle group now orbited the planet of Zoave Twilight. His fleet accountant had turned in a busy couple of days, settling up with the insurance company who finally had their freighter and crew back, applying for salvage fees for the hijacker's captured ships, and filing the official claims for bounty to the Vega Station Embassy. Miles entered the costs/returns spreadsheets in full into his report, as Appendix A.

  The prisoners had been dumped downside, for the Vegan and Zoavan governments to divide between them—preferably in the same sense as poor Vorberg had been. The ex-hijackers were a vile crew. Miles was almost sorry the pinnace had surrendered. Appendix B was copies of the Dendarii recordings of the prisoner interrogations. The downside governments would get an edited version of these, with most of the Barrayar-specific queries and answers deleted. Lots of criminal testimony, of little direct interest to ImpSec, though the Vegans ought to be pretty excited about it.

  The important thing from Illyan's point of view was that no evidence had been extracted which would indicate that the kidnapping of the Barrayaran courier was anything but an accidental side effect of the hijacking. Unless—Miles made sure to note this in his synopsis—that information had been known only to those hijackers who had been killed. Since that number included both their so-called captain and two of the higher-ranking officers, there were enough possibilities in this direction to keep Illyan's analysts earning their pay. But that lead must now be traced from the other end, through the House Hargraves representatives who had been trying to handle the sale or ransom of the courier for the hijackers. Miles hoped cordially that ImpSec would focus its best negative attentions upon the Jacksonian semicriminal Great House. Though House Hargraves's agents had been extremely, if unwittingly, useful in helping the Dendarii set up their raid.

  Illyan ought to like the accountant's report. The Dendarii had not only succeeded in keeping their costs under budget this time—for a change—they had made a truly amazing profit. Illyan, who had been willing to spend Imperial marks like water on the principle of the thing, had got his courier officer retrieved effectively for free. Are we good, yes?

  So—when was the so-efficient ImpSec Lieutenant Lord Miles Vorkosigan finally going to get that longed-for promotion to captain? Odd, how Miles's Barrayaran rank still seemed more real to him than his Dendarii one. True, he had proclaimed himself an admiral first and then earned it later, instead of the more normal other way around, but at this late date no one could say he had not really become what he had once pretended to be. From the galactic point of view, Admiral Naismith was solid all the way through. Everything he advertised himself as being, he really was, now. His Barrayaran identity was simply an extra dimension. An appendix?

  There's no place like home.

  I didn't say there was nothing better. I just said there was nothing like it.

  This brought him to Appendix C, which was the Dendarii combat armor recordings of the actual penetration and hostage retrieval sequences, Sergeant Taura's Green Squad and its rescue of the freighter's crew, and his own Blue Squad and that whole . . . chain of events. In full sound and color, with all their suits' medical and communications telemetry. Morbidly, Miles ran through all the real-time records of his seizure and its unfortunate consequences. Suit #060's vid recording had some really great close-ups of Lieutenant Vorberg, shocked from his doped stupor, screaming in agony and toppling unconscious in one direction while his severed legs fell in the other. Miles found himself bent over, clutching his chest in sympathy.

  This was not going to be a good time to pester Illyan for a promotion.

  The convalescent Vorberg had been handed over yesterday to the Barrayaran Counsel's office on Zoave Twilight, for shipment home through normal channels. Miles was secretly grateful that his covert status had let him off the hook fo
r going into sick bay and personally apologizing to the man. Before the plasma arc accident Vorberg had not seen Miles's face, concealed as it had been by the combat armor's helmet, and afterwards, of course . . . The Dendarii surgeon reported Vorberg had only the haziest and most confused memory of his rescue.

  Miles wished he could delete the entire Blue Squad record from his report. Impractical, alas. Having the most interesting sequence missing would draw Illyan's attention as surely as a signal fire on a mountaintop.

  Of course, if he deleted the entire appendix, all the squad records, it would be camouflaged in the general absence. . . .

  Miles considered what could replace Appendix C. He had written plenty of brief or vague mission synopses in the past, in the press of events or exhaustion. Due to a malfunction, the right-arm plasma arc in Suit #032 locked into the "on" position. In the several minutes of confusion surrounding correcting the malfunction, the subject was unfortunately hit by the plasma beam. . . . Not his fault, if the reader construed this as a malfunction in the suit and not its wearer.

  No. He could not lie to Illyan. Not even in the passive voice.

  I wouldn't be lying. I'd just be editing my report for length.

  It couldn't be done. He'd be sure to miss some tiny corroborative detail in one of the other files, and Illyan's analysts would pick it up, and then he'd be in ten times the trouble.

  Not that there was that much in the other sections pertinent to this brief incident. It wouldn't be that hard to run over the whole report.

  This is a bad idea.

  Still . . . it would be interesting practice. He might have the job of reading field reports someday, God forbid. It would be educational to test how much fudging was possible. For his curiosity's sake, he recorded the full report, made a copy, and began playing around with the copy. What minimum alterations and deletions were required to erase a field agent's embarrassment?

  It only took about twenty minutes.

  He stared at the finished product. It was downright artistic. He felt a little sick to his stomach. This could get me cashiered.

  Only if I got caught. His whole life felt as if it had been based on that principle; he'd outrun assassins, medics, the regulations of the Service, the constraints of his Vor rank . . . he'd outrun death itself, demonstrably. I can even move faster than you, Illyan.

  He considered the present disposition of Illyan's independent observers in the Dendarii fleet. One was detached back with the fleet's main body; the second posed as a comm officer on the Ariel. Neither had been aboard the Peregrine or out with the squads; neither could contradict him.

  I think I'd better think about this for a while. He classified the doctored version top secret and filed it beside the original. He stretched to ease the ache in his back. Desk work did that to one.

  His cabin door chimed. "Yes?"

  "Baz and Elena," a woman's voice floated through the intercom.

  Miles cleared his comconsole, slipped his uniform jacket back on, and released the door lock. "Enter." He turned in his station chair, smiling a little, to watch them come in.

  Baz was Dendarii Commodore Baz Jesek, chief engineer of the Fleet and Miles's nominal second-in-command. Elena was Captain Elena Bothari-Jesek, Baz's wife, and current commander of the Peregrine. Both were among the few fellow Barrayarans the Dendarii employed, and both were fully apprised of Miles's dual identity as Admiral Naismith, slightly renegade Betan mercenary, and Lieutenant Lord Miles Vorkosigan, dutiful Barrayaran ImpSec covert ops agent, for both predated the creation of the Dendarii Fleet itself. The lanky, balding Baz had been in on the beginning of it, a deserter on the run whom Miles had picked up and (in his private opinion) re-created. Elena . . . was another matter altogether.

  She'd been Miles's Barrayaran bodyguard's daughter, raised in Count Vorkosigan's household, and practically Miles's foster sister. Barred from Barrayaran military service by her gender, she had longed for the status of a soldier on her army-mad homeworld. Miles had found a way to get it for her. She looked all soldier now, slim and as tall as her husband in her crisp Dendarii undress grays. Her dark hair, clipped in wisps around her ears, framed pale hawk features and alert dark eyes.

  So how might their lives have been different, if she had only said "Yes" to Miles's passionate, confused proposal of marriage when they were both eighteen? Where would they be now? Living the comfortable lives of Vor aristocrats in the capital? Would they be happy? Or growing bored with each other, and regretting their lost chances? No, they wouldn't even know what chances they had lost. Maybe there would have been children. . . . Miles cut off this line of thought. Unproductive.

  Yet somewhere, suppressed deep in Miles's heart, something still waited. Elena seemed happy enough with her choice of husband. But a mercenary's life—as he had recent reason to know—was chancy indeed. A little difference in some enemy's aim, somewhere along the line, might have turned her into a grieving widow, awaiting consolation . . . except that Elena saw more line combat than Baz did. As an evil plot, brooded upon in the recesses of Miles's mind in the secrecy of the night-cycle, this one had a serious flaw. Well, one couldn't help one's thoughts. One could help opening one's mouth and saying something really stupid, though.

  "Hi, folks. Pull up a seat. What can I do for you?" Miles said cheerfully.

  Elena smiled back, and the two officers arranged station chairs on the other side of Miles's comconsole desk. There was something unusually formal in the way they seated themselves. Baz opened his hand to Elena, to cede her the first word, sure sign of a tricky bit coming up. Miles pulled himself into focus.

  She began with the obvious. "Are you feeling all right now, Miles?"

  "Oh, I'm fine."

  "Good." She took a deep breath. "My lord—"

  Another sure sign of something unusual, when she addressed him in terms of their Barrayaran liege relationship.

  "—we wish to resign." Her smile, confusingly, crept wider, as if she'd just said something delightful.

  Miles almost fell off his chair. "What? Why?"

  Elena glanced at Baz, and he took up the thread. "I've received a job offer for an engineering position from an orbital shipyard at Escobar. It would pay enough for us both to retire."

  "I, I . . . didn't realize you were dissatisfied with your pay grades. If this is about money, something can be arranged."

  "It has nothing to do with money," said Baz.

  He'd been afraid of that. No, that would be too easy—

  "We want to retire to start a family," Elena finished.

  What was it about that simple, rational statement that put Miles so forcibly in mind of the moment when the sniper's needle grenade had blown his chest out all over the pavement? "Uh . . ."

  "As Dendarii officers," Elena went on, "we can simply give appropriate notice and resign, of course. But as your liege-sworn vassals, we must petition you for release as an Extraordinary Favor."

  "Um . . . I'm . . . not sure the Fleet's prepared to lose my two top officers at one blow. Especially Baz. I rely on him, when I'm away, as I have to be about half the time, not just for engineering and logistics, but to keep things under control. To make sure the private contracts don't step on the toes of any of Barrayar's interests. To know . . . all the secrets. I don't see how I can replace him."

  "We thought you could divide Baz's current job in half," said Elena helpfully.

  "Yes. My engineering second's quite ready to move up," Baz assured him. "Technically, he's better than I am. Younger, you know."

  "And everyone knows you've been grooming Elli Quinn for years for command position," Elena went on. "She's itching for promotion. And ready, too. I think she more than proved that last year."

  "She's not . . . Barrayaran. Illyan might get twitchy about that," Miles temporized. "In such a critical position."

  "He never has so far. He knows her well enough by now, surely. And ImpSec employs plenty of non-Barrayaran agents," said Elena.

  "Are you sure you want to fo
rmally retire? I mean, is that really necessary? Wouldn't an extended leave or a sabbatical be enough?"

  Elena shook her head. "Becoming parents . . . changes people. I don't know that I'd want to come back."

  "I thought you wanted to become a soldier. With all your heart, more than anything. Like me." Do you have any idea how much of all this was for you, just for you?

  "I did. I have. I'm . . . done. I know enough is not a concept you particularly relate to. I don't know if the wildest successes would ever be enough to fill you up."

  That's because I am so very empty. . . .

  "But . . . all my childhood, all my youth, Barrayar pounded into me that being a soldier was the only job that counted. The most important thing there was, or ever could be. And that I could never be important, because I could never be a soldier. Well, I've proved Barrayar wrong. I've been a soldier, and a damned good one."