She did not take up her thread until the hostel's human servitor finished arranging the meal on their table, and bustled out again.
It was three bites before she spoke; Miles wondered if she was tasting her soup as little as he was tasting his. When she did, she began obliquely, in a carefully neutral tone. "Imperial Auditor . . . sounds like some kind of an accountant. It's not you, Miles."
"It is now. I took my oath. It's one of those Barrayaran terms that doesn't mean what you think it does. I don't know. . . . Imperial Agent? Special Prosecutor? Special Envoy? Inspector General? It's all of those things, and none of them. It's whatever . . . whatever Gregor needs it to be. It's extraordinarily open-ended. I can't begin to tell you how much it suits me."
"You never once mentioned it before, as your ambition."
"I never imagined the possibility. But it's not the sort of job that should ever be given to a man who is too ambitious for it. Willing, yes, but not ambitious. It … calls for dispassion, not passion, even with respect to itself."
She sat frowning over this for a full minute. At last, visibly gathering her courage, she took a more direct cut. "So where does it leave me, leave us? Does it mean you're never coming back to the Dendarii? Miles, I might never see you again." Only the smallest quaver edged her controlled voice.
"That's . . . one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you tonight, personally, before tomorrows business overwhelms everything else." Now it was his turn to pause for courage, to keep his voice in an even register. "You see, if you were . . . if you stayed here . . . if you were Lady Vorkosigan, you could be with me all the time."
"No . . ." Her soup would have cooled, forgotten, if not for the stay-warm circuit in the bottom of die bowl. "I'd be with Lord Vorkosigan all the time. Not with you, Miles, not with Admiral Naismith."
"Admiral Naismith was something I made up, Elli," he said gently. "He was my own invention. I'm an egotistical enough artist, I suppose, I'm glad you liked my creation. I made him up out of me, after all. But not all of me."
She shook her head, tried another tack. "You said the last time, you wouldn't ask me that Lady Vorkosigan thing anymore. You said it the last three times you asked me to marry Lord Vorkosigan, in fact."
"One more last chance, Elli. Except this time it really is. I … in all honesty, I have to tell you the other half, or rather, the other side, the counteroffer. What's coming up tomorrow, along with the Dendariis new contract."
"Contract, hell. You're changing the subject, Miles. What about us?"
"I can't get to us, except this way. Full disclosure. Tomorrow, we, that is, Allegre and ImpSec and I, Barrayar if you will, we're offering you the admiralcy. Admiral Quinn of the Dendarii Free Mercenary Fleet. You'll go on working for Allegre in exactly the same capacity that I worked for Illyan."
Quinn's eyes widened, lit, fell. "Miles … I can't do your job. I'm not nearly ready."
"You have been doing my job. You're half-past ready, Quinn. I say so."
She smiled at the familiar forward-momentum passion in his voice, that had so often driven them all to results beyond reason. "I admit … I wanted a share of command. But not so soon, not like this."
"The time is now. Your time. My time. This is it."
She stared intently at him, baffled by his tone of voice. "Miles … I don't want to be stuck on just one planet for the rest of my life."
"A planet's a damned big place, Elli, when you get down to the details. And anyway, there are three planets in the Barrayaran Imperium."
"Three times worse, then." She leaned across the table, and grasped his hand in both hers, hard. "Suppose I make you a counterproposal. Screw the Barrayaran Imperium. The Dendarii Fleet does not require its Imperial contracts to survive, though I admit, thanks to you, they have been very fine and favorable. The Fleet existed before Barrayar ever came over our event horizon, it can go on existing after they sink back into their damned gravity well. We spacers, we don't need planets sucking us down. You—come with me, instead. Be Admiral Naismith, shake the dirt off your boots. I'd marry Admiral Naismith in a heartbeat, if that's what you want. We can be such a team, the two of us, we'll make legends. You and me, Miles, out there!" She waved one arm in a random circle, though the other did not release her grip.
"I tried, Elli. I tried for weeks. You don't know how hard I tried to go. I was never a mercenary, not ever. Not for one single minute."
A flash of anger sparked briefly in her brown eyes. "Do you figure that makes you morally superior to the rest of us?"
"No," he sighed. "But it makes me Miles Vorkosigan. Not Miles Naismith."
She shook her head. Ah, denial. He recognized the hollow reverberation of it. "There always was a part of you I could never touch." Her voice was edged with pain.
"I know. I worked for years to extinguish Lord Vorkosigan. I couldn't do it, not even for you. You can't select from me, Elli, take the parts you favor and leave the rest on the table." He gestured in frustration to their drying dinner. "I don't come a la carte. I'm all or nothing "
"You could be anything you chose, Miles, anywhere! Why insist on this place?"
He smiled, grimly. "No. I have discovered I am constrained on other levels." This time, his hands enclosed hers. "But maybe you can choose. Come to Barrayar, Elli, and be … and be desperately unhappy with me?"
Her breath puffed on a laugh. "What is this, more full disclosure?"
"There is no other way, for the long haul. And I'm talking about a very long haul."
"Miles, I can't. I mean, your home is very pretty, for a planet, but it's dreadful down there."
"You could make it less dreadful."
"I can't … I can't be what you want, can't be your Lady Vorkosigan."
He looked away, looked back, opened his hands to her. "I can give you everything I have. I can't give you less."
"But you want everything I am in return. Admiral Quinn annihilated, Lady Vorkosigan . . . rising from the ashes. I'm not good at resurrection, Miles. That's your department." She shook her head, helplessly. "Come away with me."
"Stay here with me."
Love does not conquer all. Watching the struggle in her face, he began to feel horribly like Admiral Haroche. Perhaps Haroche had not enjoyed his moment of moral torture either. The one thing you can't trade for your heart's desire . . . He gripped her hand harder, willing then not love but truth, and with all his heart. "Then choose Elli. Whoever Elli is."
"Elli is … Admiral Quinn."
"I rather thought she was."
"Then why do you do this to me?"
"Because you have to decide now, Elli, once and for all."
"You're forcing this choice, not me!"
"Yes. That's just exactly right. I can go on with you. I can go on without you, if I have to. But I can't freeze, Elli, not even for you. Perfect preservation isn't life, it's death. I know."
She nodded, slowly. "I understand that part, anyway." She began spooning her soup, watching him watching her watching him. . . .
They made love one last time, for old times' sake, for good-bye, and, Miles realized halfway through, each in a desperate last-ditch effort to please and pleasure the other so much, they would change their mind. We'd have to change more than our minds. We'd have to change our whole selves.
With a sigh, he sat up in the suite's vast bed, disentangling their limbs. "This isn't working, Elli."