Miles Errant - Lois McMaster Bujold [41]
"And then spent a month wandering around like a cryo-corpse who'd been warmed up in the microwave. When you walked into a room it was like a visit from the Undead."
"I ran the Dagoola rig on pure hysteria. You can't be up that long and not pay for it after with a little down. At least, I can't."
"My impression was there was more to it than that."
He whirled the chair around to face her with a snarl. "Will you back off! Yes, we lost some good people. I don't like losing good people. I cry real tears—in private, if you don't mind!"
She recoiled, her face falling. He softened his voice, deeply ashamed of his outburst. "Sorry, Elli. I know I've been edgy. The death of that poor POW who fell from the shuttle shook me more than . . . more than I should have let it. I can't seem to . . ."
"I was out of line, sir."
The "sir" was like a needle through some voodoo doll she held of him. Miles winced. "Not at all."
Why, why, why, of all the idiotic things he'd done as Admiral Naismith, had he ever established as explicit policy not to seek physical intimacy with anyone in his own organization? It had seemed like a good idea at the time. Tung had approved. Tung was a grandfather, for God's sake; his gonads had probably withered years ago. Miles remembered how he had deflected the first pass Elli had ever made at him. "A good officer doesn't go shopping in the company store," he'd explained gently. Why hadn't she belted him in the jaw for that fatuousness? She had absorbed the unintended insult without comment, and never tried again. Had she ever realized he'd meant that to apply to himself, not her?
When he was with the fleet for extended periods, he usually tried to send her on detached duties, from which she invariably returned with superb results. She had headed the advance team to Earth, and had Kaymer and most of their other suppliers all lined up by the time the Dendarii fleet made orbit. A good officer; after Tung, probably his best. What would he not give to dive into that lithe body and lose himself now? Too late. He'd lost his option.
Her velvet mouth crimped quizzically. She gave him a—sisterly, perhaps—shrug. "I won't hassle you about it any more. But at least think about it. I don't think I've ever seen a human being who needed to get laid worse than you do now."
Oh, God, what a straight line—what did those words really mean? His chest tightened. Comradely comment, or invitation? If mere comment, and he mistook it for invitation, would she think he was leaning on her for sexual favors? If the reverse, would she be insulted again and not breathe on him for years to come? He grinned in panic. "Paid," he blurted. "What I need right now is paid, not laid. After that—after that, um . . . maybe we could go see some of the sights. It seems practically criminal to come all this way and not see any of Old Earth, even if it was by accident. I'm supposed to have a bodyguard at all times downside anyway; we could double up."
She was sighing, straightening up. "Yes, duty first, of course."
Yes, duty first. And his next duty was to report in to Admiral Naismith's employers. After that, all his troubles would be vastly simplified.
* * *
Miles wished he could have changed to civilian clothes before embarking on this expedition. His crisp gray-and-white Dendarii admiral's uniform was as conspicuous as hell in this shopping arcade. Or at least made Elli change—they could have pretended to be a soldier on leave and his girlfriend. But his civilian gear had been stashed in a crate several planets back—would he ever retrieve it? The clothes had been tailor-made and expensive, not so much as a mark of status as pure necessity.
Usually he could forget the peculiarities of his body—oversized head exaggerated by a short neck set on a twisted spine, all squashed down to a height of four-foot-nine, the legacy of a congenital accident—but nothing highlighted