Young Miles - Lois McMaster Bujold [105]
"Coming from you, I think that's the most hypocritical thing I've ever heard."
"Huh?"
"What are you but the culmination of your generations? The flower of the Vor—"
"Me?" He stared in astonishment. "The culmination of degeneration, maybe. A stunted weed . . ." He paused; her face seemed a mirror of his own astonishment. "They do add up, it's true. My grandfather carried nine generations on his back. My father carried ten. I carry eleven—and I swear that last one weighs more than all the rest put together. It's a wonder I'm not squashed even shorter. I feel like I'm down to about half a meter right now. Soon I'll disappear altogether."
He was babbling, knew he was babbling. Some dam had broken in him. He gave himself over to the flood and boiled on down the sluice.
"Elena, I love you, I've always loved you—" She leaped like a startled deer; he gasped and flung his arms around her. "No, listen! I love you, I don't know what the Sergeant was but I loved him too, and whatever of him is in you I honor with all my heart, I don't know what is truth and I don't give a damn anymore, we'll make our own like he did, he did a bloody good job I think, I can't live without my Bothari, marry me!" He spent the last of his air shouting the last two words, and had to pause for a long inhalation.
"I can't marry you! The genetic risks—"
"I am not a mutant! Look, no gills—" he stuck his fingers into the corners of his mouth and spread it wide, "no antlers—" He planted his thumbs on either side of his head and wriggled his fingers.
"I wasn't thinking of your genetic risks. Mine. His. Your father must have known what he was—he'll never accept—"
"Look, anybody who can trace a blood relationship with Mad Emperor Yuri through two lines of descent has no room to criticize anybody else's genes."
"Your father is loyal to his class, Miles, like your grandfather, like Lady Vorpatril—they could never accept me as Lady Vorkosigan."
"Then I'll present them with an alternative. I'll tell them I'm going to marry Bel Thorne. They'll come around so fast they'll trip over themselves."
She sat back helplessly and buried her face in his pillow, shoulders shaking. He had a moment of terror that he'd broken her down into tears. Not break down, build up, and up, and up . . . But, "Damn you for making me laugh!" she repeated. "Damn you . . ."
He galloped on, encouraged. "And I wouldn't be so sure about my father's class loyalties. He married a foreign plebe, after all." He dropped into seriousness. "And you cannot doubt my mother. She always longed for a daughter, secretly—never paraded it, so as not to hurt the old man, of course—let her be your mother in truth."
"Oh," she said, as if he had stabbed her. "Oh . . ."
"You'll see, when we get back to Barrayar—"
"I pray to God," she interrupted him, voice intense, "I may never set foot on Barrayar again."
"Oh," he said in turn. After a long pause he said, "We could live somewhere else. Beta Colony. It would have to be pretty quietly, once the exchange rate got done with my income—I could get a job, doing—doing—doing something."
"And on the day the Emperor calls you to take your place on the Council of Counts, to speak for your district and all the poor sods in it, where will you go then?"
He swallowed, struck silent. "Ivan Vorpatril is my heir," he offered at last. "Let him take the Countship."
"Ivan Vorpatril is a jerk."
"Oh, he's not such a bad sort."
"He used to corner me, when my father wasn't around, and try to feel me up."
"What! You never said—"
"I didn't want to start a big flap." She frowned into the past. "I almost wish I could go back in time, just to boot him in the balls."
He glanced sideways at her, considerably startled. "Yes," he said slowly, "you've changed."
"I don't know what I am anymore. Miles, you must believe me—I love you as I love breath—"
His heart rocketed.
"But I can't be your annex."
And crashed. "I don't understand."
"I don't know how to put it plainer. You'd