Young Miles - Lois McMaster Bujold [123]
Miles went on with instructions and advice until he began to sound like a pint-sized Polonius in his own ears. There was no way he could anticipate every contingency. When the time came to leap in faith, whether you had your eyes open or closed or screamed all the way down or not made no practical difference.
* * *
His heart cringed from his next interview even more than from the last, but he forced his feet to carry him to it anyway. He found the comm link technician at work at the electron microscope bench of the Triumph's engineering repairs section. Elena Visconti frowned at his gesture of invitation, but turned the work over to her assistant and came slowly to Miles's side.
"Sir?"
"Trainee Visconti. Ma'am. Can we take a walk?"
"What for?"
"Just to talk."
"If it's what I think, you may as well save your breath. I can't go to her."
"I'm not any more comfortable talking about it than you are, but it's an obligation I cannot honorably evade."
"I've spent eighteen years trying to put what happened at Escobar behind me. Must I be dragged through it again?"
"This is the last time, I promise. I'm leaving tomorrow. The Dendarii fleet will follow soon after. All you short-contract people will be dropped off at Dalton Station, where you can take ship for Tau Ceti or wherever you want. I suppose you'll be going home?"
She fell in reluctantly beside him, and they paced down the corridor. "Yes, my employers will doubtless be astonished at how much backpay they owe me."
"I owe you something myself. Baz says you were outstanding on the mission."
She shrugged. "Straightforward stuff."
"He didn't mean just your technical efforts. Anyway, I didn't want to leave Elena—my Elena—up in the air like this, you see," he began. "She ought to at least have something, to replace what was taken from her. Some little crumb of comfort."
"The only thing she lost was some illusion. And believe me, Admiral Naismith, or whatever you are, the only thing I could give her would be another illusion. Maybe if she didn't look so much like him . . . Anyway, I don't want her following me around, or showing up at my door."
"Whatever Sergeant Bothari was guilty of, she is surely innocent."
Elena Visconti rubbed her forehead wearily with the back of her hand. "I'm not saying you're not right. I'm just saying I can't. For me, she radiates nightmares."
Miles chewed his lip gently. They turned out of the Triumph into a flex tube and walked across the quiet docking bay. Only a few techs were busy at some small tasks.
"An illusion . . ." he mused. "You could live a long time on an illusion," he offered. "Maybe even a lifetime, if you're lucky. Would it be so difficult, to do a few days—even a few minutes—of acting? I'm going to have to dip into some Dendarii funds anyway to pay for a dead ship, and buy a lady a new face. I could make it worth your time."
He regretted his words immediately at the loathing that flashed across her face, but the look she finally gave him was ironically thoughtful.
"You really care about that girl, don't you?"
"Yes."
"I thought she was making time with your chief engineer."
"Suits me."
"Pardon my slowness, but that does not compute."
"Association with me could be lethal, where I'm going next. I'd rather she were travelling in the opposite direction."
The next docking bay was busy and noisy with a Felician freighter being loaded with ingots of refined rare metals, vital to the Felician war industries. They avoided it, and searched out another quiet corridor. Miles found himself fingering the bright scarf in his pocket.
"He dreamed of you for eighteen years too, you know," he said suddenly. It wasn't what he'd meant to say. "He had this fantasy. You were his wife, in all