Memory Read Online Free PDF Page A

the middle of things. I'm glad to know he takes personnel retrieval so seriously. It might be me needing this kind of attention, someday."

    "It was you, last year, and yes he does," agreed Quinn. "You have to give ImpSec that much credit, at least, they do take care of their own. A very old-Barrayaran quality, for an organization that tries to be so up-to-date."

    "And what's this, hm?" He fished the second item out of the case. Ciphered instructions, for his eyes only.

    Quinn politely moved out of the line of sight, and he ran it through his comconsole, though her native curiosity couldn't help prompting a, "So? Orders from home? Congratulations? Complaints?"

    "Well . . . huh." He sat back, puzzled. "Short and uninformative. Why'd they bother to deep-code it? I am ordered to report home, in person, to ImpSec HQ, immediately. There's a scheduled government courier ship passing through Tau Ceti, which will lay over and wait for me—I'm to rendezvous with it by the swiftest possible means, including commercial carrier if necessary. Didn't they learn anything from Vorberg's little adventure? It doesn't even say, Conclude mission and . . .  , it just says, Come . I'm to drop everything, apparently. If it's that urgent, it has to be a new mission assignment, in which case why are they requiring me to spend weeks traveling home, when I'll just have to spend more weeks traveling right back out to the Fleet?" A sudden icy fear gripped his chest. Unless it's something personal. My father—my mother . . .  no. If anything had happened to Count Vorkosigan, presently serving the Imperium as Viceroy and colonial governor of Sergyar, the galactic news services would have picked it up even as far away as Zoave Twilight.

    "What happens"—Quinn, leaning against the far side of the comconsole desk, found something interesting to study on her fingernails—"if you collapse again while you're traveling?"

    "Not much," he shrugged.

    "How do you know?"

    "Er . . ."

    She glanced up sharply. "I didn't know psychological denial could drop so many IQ points over the side. Dammit, you've got to do something about those seizures. You can't just . . . ignore them out of existence, though apparently that's exactly what you've been attempting."

    "I was trying to do something. I thought the Dendarii surgeon could get a handle on it. I was frantic to get back out to the fleet, to a doctor I could trust. Well, I can trust her all right, but she says she can't help me. Now I have to think of something else."

    "You trusted her. Why not me ?"

    Miles managed a somewhat pathetic shrug. The palpable inadequacy of this response drove him to add placatingly, "She follows orders. I was afraid you might try to do things for my own good, whether they were the things I wanted or not."

    After a moment spent digesting this, Quinn went on a shade less patiently, "How about your own people? The Imperial Military Hospital at Vorbarr Sultana is nearly up to galactic medical standards, these days."

    He fell silent, then said, "I should have done that last winter. I'm . . . committed to finding another solution, now."

    "In other words, you lied to your superiors. And now you're caught."

    I'm not caught yet. "You know what I have to lose." He rose and circled the desk to take her hand, before she started biting her nails; they fell into an embrace. He tilted his face back, slipped an arm up around her neck, and pressed her down to his level for a kiss. He could feel the fear, as suppressed in her as it was in him, in her quick breathing and somber eyes.

    "Oh, Miles . Tell them—tell them your brains were still thawing out back then. You weren't responsible for your judgments. Throw yourself on Illyan's mercy, quick, before it gets any worse."

    He shook his head. "Any time up to last week, that might have worked, maybe, but after what I did to Vorberg? I don't think it can get any worse. I wouldn't have any mercy on a subordinate who pulled