Lois Bujold - Brothers in Arms

And what am I to say to that? Miles wondered. If you really loved me, you'd be delighted to immolate your entire personal history on my behalf? Oh, sure. She's not into immolation. This makes her strong, her strength makes me want her, and so we come full circle. "It's Barrayar that's the problem, then."

"Of course. What female human in her right mind would voluntarily move to that planet? With the exception of your mother, apparently."

"She is exceptional. But. . . when she and Barrayar collide, it's Barrayar that changes. I've seen it. You could be a force of change like that."

Elli was shaking her head. "I know my limits."

"No one knows their limits till they've gone beyond them."

She eyed him. '"You would naturally think so. What's with you and Barrayar, anyway? You let them push you around like . . . I've never understood why you've never just grabbed the Dendarii and taken off. You could make it go, better than Admiral Oser ever did, better than Tung even. You could end up emperor of your own rock by the time you were done."

"With you at my side?" He grinned strangely. "Are you seriously suggesting I embark on a plan of galactic conquest with five thousand guys?"

She chuckled. "At least I wouldn't have to give up fleet command. No, really seriously. If you're so obsessed with being a professional soldier, what do you need Barrayar for? A mercenary fleet sees ten times the action of a planetary one. A dirtball may see war once a generation, if it's lucky—"

"Or unlucky," Miles interpolated.

"A mercenary fleet follows it around."

"That statistical fact has been noted in the Barrayaran high command. It's one of the chief reasons I'm here. I've had more actual combat experience, albeit on a small scale, in the past four years than most other Imperial officers have seen in the last fourteen. Nepotism works in strange ways." He ran a finger along the clean line of her jaw. "I see it now. You are in love with Admiral Naismith."

"Of course."

"Not Lord Vorkosigan."

"I am annoyed with Lord Vorkosigan. He sells you short, love."

He let the double entendre pass. So, the gulf that yawned between them was deeper than he'd truly realized. To her, it was Lord Vorkosigan who wasn't real. His fingers entwined around the back of her neck, and he breathed her breath as she asked, "Why do you let Barrayar screw you over?"

"It's the hand I was dealt."

"By whom? I don't get it."

"It's all right. It just happens to be very important to me to win with the hand I was dealt. So be it."

"Your funeral." Her lips were muffled on his mouth.

"Mmm."

She drew back a moment. "Can I still jump your bones? Carefully, of course. You'll not go away mad, for turning you down? Turning Barrayar down, that is. Not you, never you …"

I'm getting used to it. Almost numb . . . "Am I to sulk?" he inquired lightly. "Because I can't have it all, take none, and go off in a huff? I'd hope you'd bounce me down the corridor on my pointed head if I were so dense."

She laughed. It was all right, if he could still make her laugh. If Naismith was all she wanted, she could surely have him. Half a loaf for half a man. They tilted bedward, hungry-mouthed. It was easy, with Quinn; she made it so.

Pillow talk with Quinn turned out to be shop talk. Miles was unsurprised. Along with a sleepy body-rub that turned him to liquid in danger of pouring over the edge of the bed into a puddle on the deck, he absorbed the rest of her complete report on the activities and discoveries of the London police. He in turn brought her up to date on the events of the embassy, and the mission on which he'd dispatched Elena Bothari-Jesek. And all these years he'd thought he needed a conference room for debriefing. Clearly, he'd stumbled into an unsuspected universe of alternative command style. Sybaritic had it all over cybernetic.

"Ten more days," Miles complained smearily into his mattress, "until Elena can possibly return from Tau Ceti. And there's no guarantee she can bring the missing money with her even then. Particularly if it's already been sent once. While the Dendarii fleet hangs idly in orbit. You know what we need?"

"A contract."

"Damn straight. We've taken interim contracts before, in spite of Barrayaran Imperial Security having us on permanent retainer. They even like it; it gives their budget a break. After all, the less taxes they have to squeeze out of the peasantry, the easier Security gets on the domestic side. It's a wonder they've never tried to make the Dendarii Mercenaries a revenue-generating project. I'd have sent our contract people out hunting weeks ago if we weren't stuck in Earth orbit till this mess at the embassy gets straightened out."

"Too bad we can't put the fleet to work right here on Earth," said Elli. "Peace seems to have broken out all over the planet, unfortunately." Her hands unknotted the muscles in his calves, fiber by fiber. He wondered if he could persuade her to work on his feet next. He'd done hers a while ago, after all, albeit with higher goals in view. Oh, joy, he wasn't even going to have to persuade her … he wriggled his toes in delight. He'd never suspected that his toes were sexy until Elli'd pointed it out. In fact, his satisfaction with his entire pleasure-drenched body was at an all-time high.

"There's a blockage in my thinking," he decided. "I'm looking wrong at something. Let's see. The Dendarii fleet isn't tied to the embassy, though I am. I could send you all off . . ."

Elli whimpered. It was such an unlikely noise, coming from her, that he risked muscle spasm to twist his neck and look over his shoulder at her. "Brainstorming," he apologized.

"Well, don't stop with that one."

"And anyway, because of the mess at the embassy, I'm not anxious to strip myself of my private backup. It's—there's something very wrong going on there. Which means that any more sitting around waiting for the embassy to come through is dumber than rocks. Well. One problem at a time. The Dendarii. Money. Odd jobs . . . hey!"

"Hey?"

"What says I've got to contract out the entire fleet at a time? Work. Odd jobs. Interim cash flow. Divide and conquer! Security guards, computer techs, anything and everything anyone can come up with that will generate a little cash income—"

"Bank robberies?" said Elli in a tone of rising interest.

"And you say the police let you out? Don't get carried away. But I'm sitting on a labor pool of five thousand variously and highly trained people. Surely that's a resource of even greater value than the Triumph. Delegate! Let them spread out and go scare up some bloody cash!"

Elli, sitting cross-legged on the foot of his bed, remarked in aggravation, "I worked for an hour to get you relaxed, and now look! What are you, memory-plastic? Your whole body is coiling back up right before my eyes . . . Where are you going?"

"To put the idea into action, what else?"

"Most people go to sleep at this point. …" Yawning, she helped him sort through the pile of uniform bits on the floor nearby. The black T-shirts proved nearly interchangable. Elli's was distinguishable by the faint scent of her body lingering in it—Miles almost didn't want to give it back, but reflected that keeping his girlfriend's underwear to sniff probably wouldn't score him points in the savoir-faire department. The agreement was unspoken but plain: this phase of their relationship must stop discreetly at the bedroom door, if they were to disprove Admiral Naismith's fatuous dictum.

The initial Dendarii staff conference, at the start of a mission when Miles arrived on fleet station with a new contract in hand, always gave him the sense of seeing double. He was an interface, conscious of both halves, trying to be a one-way mirror between the Dendarii and their true employer the Emperor. This unpleasant sensation usually faded rapidly, as he concentrated his faculties around the mission in question, re-centering his personality; Admiral Naismith came very near to occupying his whole skin then. "Relaxing" wasn't quite the right term for this alpha-state, given Naismith's driving personality; "unconstrained" came closer.