Miles in Love - Lois McMaster Bujold [117]
"I thought my center was to be Vor, like the women before me." She glanced across at him, feeling inarticulate and urgent. "When I chose Tien . . . you have to understand, it was my choice. My marriage was arranged, offered, but it wasn't forced. I wanted it, wanted to have children, form a family, carry on the pattern. Make my place in this, I don't know, generational pageant."
"I am the eleventh of my name. I know about the Vor pageant."
"Yes," she said gratefully. "It wasn't that I didn't chose what I wanted, or gave away my center, or any of those things. But somehow, I didn't end up with the beautiful Vor pattern-weave I was trying to make. I ended up with this . . . tangle of strings." Her fingers wriggled in air, miming chaos.
His lips quirked, introspective and ironic. "I know tangles, too."
"But do you know—well, of course you would, but . . . The business with the brick wall. Failure, failure was grown familiar to me. Comfortable, almost, when I stopped struggling against it. I did not know achievement was so devastating."
"Huh." He was leaning back, now, his reader forgotten on his lap, regarding her with his entire attention. "Yes . . . vertigo at apogee, eh? And the reward for a job well done is another job, and what have you done for us lately, and is that all, Lieutenant Vorkosigan, and . . . yes. Achievement is devastating, or at least disorienting, and they don't warn you in advance. It's the sudden change of momentum and direction, I think."
She blinked. "How very strange. I expected you to tell me I was being foolish."
"Deny your perfectly correct perception? Why should you expect that?"
"Habit . . . I suppose."
"Mm. You can learn to enjoy the sensation of winning, you know, once you get over the initial queasiness. It's an acquired taste."
"How long did it take you to acquire it?"
He smiled slowly. "Once."
"That's not a taste, that's an addiction."
"It's one that would look well on you."
His eyes were uncomfortably bright. Challenging? She smiled in confusion, and stared out the port at the darkening Komarran sky as the shuttle began its descent. He rubbed his lips, not quite erasing their odd quirk, and returned his attention to his reports.
Uncle Vorthys met them at the apartment door, data disks in his hand and a vague distracted smile on his face. He gave Ekaterin's hand a warm grasp, and fended off Nikki's immediate attempt to appropriate him and carry him off to hear about the wonders of the ImpSec shuttle.
"Just a moment, Nikki. We shall go to the kitchen for dessert, and you can tell me all about it. Ekaterin. I've heard from the Professora. She's taken ship on Barrayar, and will be here in three days time. I didn't like to tell you till she was sure she could get away."
"Oh!" Ekaterin almost jumped with delight, mitigated immediately by concern. "Oh, no, sir, do you meant to say you are dragging that poor woman through five wormhole jumps from Barrayar to Komarr for me? She gets so jumpsick!"
"It was Lord Vorkosigan's idea, actually," said Uncle Vorthys.
Vorkosigan put on a bright, trapped smile at this, and shrugged warily.
"Although I had fully intended to drag her here for my own sake," Uncle Vorthys continued, "at the end of the term. This just advanced the timetable. She does like Komarr, once she gets here and has a day to recover from the jump-lag. I thought you would like it."
"You shouldn't have—but oh, I do like it, very much."
Vorkosigan straightened at these words, and his smile relaxed into a self-satisfaction that amused her vastly. Ekaterin wasn't sure if she was reading the subtleties of his expression better now, or if he was concealing them less.
"If I get you a ticket, would you go out to meet her at the jump-point station?" Uncle Vorthys added. "I'm afraid I won't have time, and she hates traveling alone. You could see her a day earlier, and have some time together on the last leg downside."
"Certainly, sir!" Ekaterin almost shivered with the realization of how much she longed to