Young Miles Read Free Page A

the military infirmary were beginning to wear off. He felt unutterably weary. The night had been a sleepless one, sitting up under local anesthetics, talking and joking with the surgeon as he puttered endlessly, piecing the minute shattered fragments of bone back together like an unusually obstreperous jigsaw puzzle. I put on a pretty good show, Miles reassured himself; but he longed to get offstage and collapse. Just a couple more acts to go.
    "What kind of fellow are you planning to shop for?" Miles probed delicately during a pause in his climb.
    "An officer," Bothari said firmly.
    Miles's smile twisted. So that's the pinnacle of your ambition, too, Sergeant? he inquired silently. "Not too soon, I trust."
    Bothari snorted. "Of course not. She's only . . ." He paused, the creases deepening between his narrow eyes. "Time's gone by . . ." his mutter trailed off.
    Miles negotiated the steps successfully, and entered Vorkosigan House, bracing for relatives. The first was to be his mother, it seemed; that was no problem. She appeared at the foot of the great staircase in the front hall as the door was opened for him by a uniformed servant-cum-guard. Lady Vorkosigan was a middle-aged woman, the fiery red of her hair quenched by natural grey, her height neatly disguising a few extra kilos' weight. She was breathing a bit heavily; probably had run downstairs when he was spotted approaching. They exchanged a brief hug. Her eyes were grave and unjudgmental.
    "Father here?" he asked.
    "No. He and Minister Quintillan are down at headquarters, arm-wrestling with the General Staff about their budget this morning. He said to give you his love and tell you he'd try to be here for lunch."
    "He, ah—hasn't told Grandfather about yesterday yet, has he?"
    "No—I really think you should have let him, though. It's been rather awkward this morning."
    "I'll bet." He gazed up at the stairs. It was more than his bad legs that made them seem mountainous. Well, let's get the worst over with first . . . "Upstairs, is he?"
    "In his rooms. Although he actually took a walk in the garden this morning, I'm glad to say."
    "Mm." Miles started working his way upstairs.
    "Lift tube," said Bothari.
    "Oh, hell, it's only one flight."
    "Surgeon said you're to stay off them as much as possible."
    Miles's mother awarded Bothari an approving smile, which he acknowledged blandly with a murmured, "Milady." Miles shrugged grudgingly and headed for the back of the house instead.
    "Miles," said his mother as he passed, "don't, ah . . . He's very old, he's not too well, and he hasn't had to be polite to anybody in years—just take him on his own terms, all right?"
    "You know I do." He grinned ironically, to prove how unaffected he proposed to be. Her lips curved in return, but her eyes remained grave.
    He met Elena Bothari, coming out of his grandfather's chambers. His bodyguard greeted his daughter with a silent nod, and won for himself one of her rather shy smiles.
    For the thousandth time Miles wondered how such an ugly man could have produced such a beautiful daughter. Every one of his features was echoed in her face, but richly transmuted. At eighteen she was tall, like her father, fully six feet to his six-and-a-half; but while he was whipcord lean and tense, she was slim and vibrant. His nose a beak, hers an elegant aquiline profile; his face too narrow, hers with the air of some perfectly-bred aristocratic sight-hound, a borzoi or a greyhound. Perhaps it was the eyes that made the difference; hers were dark and lustrous, alert, but without his constantly shifting, unsmiling watchfulness. Or the hair; his greying, clipped in his habitual military burr, hers long, dark, straight-shining. A gargoyle and a saint, by the same sculptor, facing each other across some ancient cathedral portal.
    Miles shook himself from his trance. Her eyes met his briefly, and her smile faded. He straightened up from his tired slouch and produced a false smile for her,