Young Miles - Lois McMaster Bujold [111]
Another time, Elena. How had she come to sickbay? He'd left her in the shuttle. Nothing stayed where you put it . . .
"Damn it," he mumbled apologetically, "things like this never happened to Vorthalia the Bold."
She raised a thoughtful eyebrow. "How do you know? The histories of those times were all written by minstrels and poets. You try and think of a word that rhymes with 'bleeding ulcer.'"
He was still dutifully trying when the greyness swallowed him again.
Once, he woke alone and called over and over for Sergeant Bothari, but the Sergeant didn't come. It's just like the man, he thought petulantly, underfoot all the time and then gone on long leave just when he needed him. The medtech's sedative ended that bout with consciousness, not in Miles's favor.
It was an allergic reaction to the sedative, the surgeon told him later. His grandfather came, and smothered him with a pillow, and tried to hide him under the bed. Bothari, bloody-chested, and the mercenary pilot officer, his implant wires somehow turned inside out and waving about his head like some strange brachiated coral, watched. His mother came at last and shooed away the deadly ghosts like a farm wife clucking to her chickens. "Quick," she advised Miles, "calculate the value of e to the last decimal place, and the spell will be broken. You can do it in your head if you're Betan enough."
Miles waited eagerly all day for his father, in this parade of hallucinatory figures; he had done something extremely clever, although he could not quite remember what, and he ached for a chance at last to impress the Count. But his father never came. Miles wept with disappointment.
Other shadows came and went, the medtech, the surgeon, Elena and Tung, Auson and Thorne, Arde Mayhew, but they were distant, figures reflected on lead glass. After he had cried for a long time, he slept.
When he woke again, the little private room off the sickbay of the Triumph was clear and unwavering in outline, but Ivan Vorpatril sat beside his bed.
"Other people," Miles groaned, "get to hallucinate orgies and giant cicadas and things. What do I get? Relatives. I can see relatives when I'm conscious. It's not fair . . ."
Ivan turned worriedly to Elena, who was perched on the end of the bed. "I thought the surgeon said the antidote would have cleared him out by now."
Elena rose, and bent over Miles in concern, long white fingers across his brow. "Miles? Can you hear me?"
"Of course I can hear you." He suddenly realized the absence of another sensation. "Hey! My stomach doesn't hurt."
"Yes, the surgeon blocked off some nerves during the repair operation. You should be completely healed up inside within a couple of weeks."
"Operation?" He attempted a surreptitious peek down the shapeless garment he seemed to be occupying, looking for he knew not what. His torso seemed to be as smooth, or lumpy, as ever, no important body parts accidently snipped off—"I don't see any dotted lines."
"He didn't cut. It was all shoving things down your gullet, and hand-tractor work, except for installing the biochip on your vagus nerve. A bit grotesque, but very ingenious."
"How long was I out?"
"Three days. You were—"
"Three days! The payroll raid—Baz—" He lunged convulsively upward; Elena pushed him back down firmly.
"We took the payroll. Baz is back, with his whole group. Everything's fine, except for you almost bleeding to death."
"Nobody dies of ulcers. Baz back? Where are we, anyway?"
"Docked at the refinery. I didn't think you could die of ulcers either, but the surgeon says holes in your body with blood pouring out are the same whether they're on the inside or the outside, so I guess you can. You'll get a full report—" she pushed him back down again, looking exasperated, "but I thought you'd better see Ivan privately first, without all the Dendarii standing around."
"Uh, right." He stared in bewilderment at his big cousin. Ivan was dressed in civilian gear, Barrayaran-style trousers, a Betan shirt,