Young Miles - Lois McMaster Bujold [117]
Baz's hand closed anxiously on her arm, stemming the breakers crashing across Miles. "Elena—maybe this isn't the best time to bring it up. Maybe later would be better." He glanced at Miles's stony face, and winced, confusion in his eyes.
"Baz, you're not going to take this seriously—"
"Come away. We'll talk about it."
She forced her voice back to its normal timbre. "I'll meet you at the bottom of the catwalk. In a minute."
Miles nodded a dismissal to Baz for emphasis.
"Well . . ." The engineer left, walking slowly, and looking back over his shoulder in worry.
They waited, by unspoken agreement, until the soft sound of his steps had gone. When she turned, the anger in her eyes had been displaced by pleading.
"Don't you see, Miles? This is my chance to walk away from it all. Start new, fresh and clean, somewhere else. As far away as possible."
He shook his head. He'd have fallen to his knees if he'd thought it would do any good. "How can I give you up? You're the mountains and the lake, the memories—you have them all. When you're with me, I'm at home, wherever I am."
"If Barrayar were my right arm, I'd take a plasma arc and burn it off. Your father and mother knew what he was all the time, and yet they sheltered him. What are they, then?"
"The Sergeant was doing all right—doing well, even, until . . . You were to be his expiation, don't you see it—"
"What, a sacrifice for his sins? Am I to form myself into the pattern of a perfect Barrayaran maiden like trying to work a magic spell for absolution? I could spend my whole life working out that ritual and not come to the end of it, damn it!"
"Not the sacrifice," he tried to tell her. "The altar, perhaps."
"Bah!" She began to pace, leopardess on a short chain. Her emotional wounds seemed to work themselves open and bleed before his eyes. He ached to stanch them.
"Don't you see," he launched himself again, passionate with conviction, "you'd do better with me. Acting or reacting, we carry him in us. You can't walk away from him any more than I can. Whether you travel toward or away, he'll be the compass. He'll be the glass, full of subtle colors and astigmatisms, through which all new things will be viewed. I too have a father who haunts me, and I know."
She was shaken, and shaking. "You make me," she stated, "feel quite ill."
* * *
As she stalked away, Ivan Vorpatril emerged from the catwalk. "Ah, there you are, Miles."
Ivan circled warily around Elena as they passed, his hands moving in an unconscious protective gesture toward his crotch. One corner of Elena's mouth turned venomously upward, and she tilted her head in a polite nod. He acknowledged the greeting with a fixed and nervous smile. So much, thought Miles sadly, for his chivalrous plans to protect Elena from Ivan's unwanted attentions.
Ivan settled himself beside Miles with a sigh. "Have you heard anything from Captain Dimir yet?"
"Not a thing. Are you sure they were coming to Tau Verde, and not suddenly ordered somewhere else? I don't see how a fast courier could be two weeks late."
"Oh, God," said Ivan, "do you think that's possible? I'm going to be in so much trouble—"
"I don't know." Miles tried to assuage his alarm. "Your original orders were to find me, and so far you're the only one who seems to have succeeded in carrying them out. Mention that, when you ask Father to get you off the hook."
"Ha," muttered his cousin. "What's the use of living with a system of inherited power if you can't have a little nepotism now and then? Miles, your father doesn't do favors for anybody." He gazed out at the Dendarii fleet, and added elliptically, "That's impressive, y'know?"
Miles was insensibly cheered. "Do you really think so?" He added facetiously, "Do you want to join? It seems to be the hot new fashion around here."
Ivan chuckled. "No, thanks. I have no desire to diet for the Emperor. Vorloupulous's law,