On his next trip to his bathroom, sometime after midnight, he picked up his grandfather's dagger, and brought it back with him to set it beside the sealed brandy bottle on the lamp table by his left hand. The dagger tempted him as little as the drink, but toying with it did provide a few moments of interest. He let the light slide over the blade, and pressed it against his wrists, his throat, along the thin scars from his cryonic prep already slashed there. Definitely the throat, if anything. All or nothing, no playing around.
But he'd died once already, and it hadn't helped. Death held neither mystery nor hope. And there lurked the horrible possibility that those who had sacrificed so much to revive him the last time would be inspired to try it again. And botch it. Or rather, botch it even worse. He'd seen half-successful cryo-revivals, vegetable or animal minds whining brokenly in once-human bodies. No. He didn't want to die. At least not where his body could ever be found. He just couldn't bear being alive right now.
The sanctuary in between the two organic states, sleep, refused to come to him. But if he sat here long enough, eventually he must sleep, surely.
Get up. Get up and run, as fast as you can. Back to the Dendarii, before ImpSec or anyone could stop him. Now was his chance, Naismith's chance. Naismith's last chance. Go. Go. Go.
He sat on, muscles knotted, the litany of escape beating in his head.
He discovered that if he drank no water, he didn't need to get up so often. He still didn't sleep, but in the predawn his thoughts began to slow. A thought an hour. That was all right.
Light seeped into the room again through the window, making the lamplight grow pale and wan. A quadrangle of sun crept slowly across the worn patterned rug, as slowly as his thoughts, left to center to right, then gone.
The sounds of the city outside softened with the oncoming twilight. But his little bubble of personal darkness remained as insulated from the world as any cryo-chamber.
Distant voices were calling his name. It's Ivan. Blech. I don't want to talk to Ivan. He did not respond. If he said and did nothing, maybe they wouldn't find him.
Maybe they'd go away again. Dry-eyed, he stared at a crack in the aging plastered wall, which had been in his line of sight for hours.
But his ploy didn't work. Booted footsteps sounded in the corridor outside the little chamber. Then Ivan's voice, shouting much too loud, hurting his ears: "In here, Duv! I found him!"
More footsteps, a quick, heavy stride. Ivan's face wove into his field of vision, blocking the wall. Ivan grimaced. "Miles? You in there, boy?"
Galeni's voice. "My God."
"Don't panic," said Ivan. "He's just gone and got himself sensibly drunk." He picked up the sealed bottle. "Well . . . maybe not." He prodded the unsheathed knife beside it. "Hm."
"Illyan was right," muttered Galeni.
"Not . . . necessarily," said Ivan. "After about the twenty-fifth time you see this, you stop getting excited about it. It's just. . . something he does. If he were going to kill himself, he'd have done it years ago."
"You've seen him like this before?"
"Well . . . maybe not quite like this . . ." Ivan's strained face occluded the plaster again. He waved a hand in front of Miles's eyes.
"He didn't blink," Galeni noted nervously. "Perhaps … we ought not to touch him. Don't you think we should call for medical help?"
"You mean psychiatric? Absolutely not.Real bad idea. If the psych boys ever got hold of him, they'd never let him go. No. This is a family matter." Ivan straightened decisively. "I know what to do. Come on."
"Is it all right to leave him alone?"
"Sure. If he hasn't moved for a day and a half, he isn't going far." Ivan paused. "Bring the knife along, though. Just in case."
They clattered out again. Miles's slow thoughts worked through it, one thought per quarter hour.
They're gone.
Good.
Maybe they won't come back.
But then, alas, they reappeared.
"I'll take his shoulders," Ivan directed, "you take his feet. No, better pull his boots off first."
Galeni did so. "At least he's not rigid."
No, quite limp. Rigidity would require effort. The boots thumped to the floor. Ivan took off his own uniform tunic, rolled up the sleeves of the round-collared shirt under it, slipped his hands under Miles's armpits, and lifted. Galeni took his feet as instructed.
"He's lighter than I thought," said Galeni.
"Yeah, but you should see Mark, now," said Ivan.
The two men carried him down the narrow servant's stairs between the fourth floor and the third. Maybe they were going to put him to bed. That would save him a bit of trouble. Maybe he would go to sleep there. Maybe, if he were very lucky, he wouldn't wake up again until the next century, when there would be nothing left of his name and his world but a distorted legend in men's minds.
But they continued on past Miles's bedroom door, and bumped him through into an old bathroom down the hall, one that had never been remodeled. It contained an antique iron tub large enough for small boys to swim in, at least a century old.
They plan to drown me. Even better. I shall let them.
"One two three, on three?" said Ivan to Galeni.
"Just three," said Galeni.
"All right."
They swung him over the edge; for the first time, Miles glimpsed what waited for him below. His body tried to spasm, but his unused locked muscles foiled him, and his dry throat blocked his cry of outrage.
About a hundred liters of water. With about fifty kilos of ice cubes floating in it.
He plunged downward into the crashing cold. Ivan's long arms thrust him under all the way.
He came up yelling "Ice wat—" Ivan shoved him back in again.
On his next breath, "Ivan, you goddamn fri—"
On the third emergence his voice found expression in a wordless howl.
"Ah, ha!" Ivan chortled happily. "I thought that would get a rise out of you!" He added aside to Galeni, who had ducked away out of range of the wild splashing, "Ever since that time he spent at Camp Permafrost as a weather officer, there's nothing he hates worse than cold. Back you go, boy."
Miles fought his way out of Ivan's grip, spat freezing water, clambered up, and fell out over the side of the tub. Ice cubes stuck here and there to the outside of his sodden uniform tunic, and slithered down his neck. His hand drew back in a fist, and shot upward at his cousin's grinning face.
It connected with Ivan's chin with a satisfying meaty thunk; the pain was delicious. It was the first time in his life he'd ever successfully slugged Ivan.
"Hey!" Ivan yelped, ducking backwards. Miles's second swing missed, as Ivan now prudently held him at arm's length, out of Miles's range. "I thought that sort of thing broke your arm!"
"Not anymore," Miles panted. He stopped swinging, and stood shivering.