Miles in Love - Lois McMaster Bujold [140]
Surely she could not see scars through his gray suit. "Oh," Miles shrugged, "the prenatal damage was just the prologue. The rest I did to myself."
"If you could go back in time and change things, would you?"
"Prevent the soltoxin attack on my pregnant mother? If I could only pick one event to change . . . maybe not."
"What, because you wouldn't want to risk missing an Auditorship at thirty?" Her tone was only faintly mocking, softened by her wry smile. What the devil had Vorthys told her about him, anyway? She was highly aware, though, of the power of an Emperor's Voice.
"I almost arrived at thirty in a coffin, a couple of times. An Auditorship was never an ambition of mine. That appointment was a caprice of Gregor's. I wanted to be an admiral. It's not that." He paused, and drew in breath, and let it out slowly. "I've made a lot of grievous mistakes in my life, getting here, but . . . I wouldn't trade my journey now. I'd be afraid of making myself smaller."
She cocked her head, measuring his dwarfishness, not missing his meaning. "That's as fair a definition of satisfaction as any I've ever heard."
He shrugged. "Or loss of nerve." Dammit, he'd come out here to pick her brain. "So what do you think of the novel device?"
She grimaced, and rubbed her hands slowly, palm to palm. "Unless you want to posit that it was invented for the purpose of giving headaches to physicists, I think . . . it's time to break for lunch."
Miles grinned. "Lunch, we can supply."
Lunch, as threatened, was indeed military-issue ready-meals, though of the highest grade. They all sat around one of the tables in the long room, pushed aside chunks of equipment to make space, and tore off the wrappers from the self-heating trays. The Komarrans eyed their food dubiously; Miles explained how it could have been much worse, getting a giggle from Riva. The conversation became general, touching on husbands and wives and children and tenure and an exchange of scurrilous anecdotes about the fecklessness of former colleagues. D'Emorie had a couple of good ones about early ImpSec cases. Miles was tempted to top them with a few about his cousin Ivan, but nobly refrained, though he did explain how he'd once sunk himself and his personal vehicle in several meters of arctic mud. This led to the subject of the progress of Komarran terraforming, and so by degrees back to work. Riva, Miles noticed, grew quieter and quieter.
She maintained her silence as they all took to the comconsoles again after lunch. She did not resume her pacing. Miles watched her covertly, then less covertly. She reran several simulations, but did not play with further alterations. Miles knew damn well one couldn't hurry insight. This kind of problem-solving was a lot more like fishing than like hunting: waiting patiently and, to a degree, helplessly, for things to rise up out of the depths of the mind.
He thought about the last time he'd been fishing.
He considered Riva's age. She'd been in her teens at the time of the Barrayaran conquest of Komarr. In her twenties at the time of the Revolt. She'd survived, she'd endured, she'd cooperated; her years under Imperial rule had been good, including an obviously successful life of the mind, and a single marriage. She'd compared children with Vorthys, and spoken of an eldest daughter's upcoming wedding. No Komarran terrorist, she.
If you could go back in time and change things . . .
The only moment in time you could change things was the elusive now, which slipped through your fingers as fast as you could think about it. He wondered if she was thinking about that right now, too. Now.
Now, the Professora's ship from Barrayar would be getting ready for its final wormhole jump. Now, Ekaterin's ferry would be approaching the jump-point station. Now, Soudha and his crew of earnest techs would be doing . . . what? Where? Now, he was sitting in a room on Komarr watching a quietly brilliant woman who had stopped thinking.
He rose, and went to touch Major D'Emorie on his green-uniformed shoulder. "Major, can I have a word with you outside."
Surprised,