It must be, Miles thought, akin to the same drive that used to propel men to climb sheer rock faces without an antigrav belt, or jump out of ancient aircraft with nothing to stop them going splat but a wad of silk cloth. He felt the fascination rising in him, the death-defying laugh. "Slowly?" he said in a strangled voice. "Do it right this time? Have a little conversation, drink a little wine, play a little music? Without Ryoval's guard squad lurking overhead, or ice cold rock under my . . ."
Her eyes were huge and gold and molten. "You did say you liked to practice what you were great at."
Miles had never realized how susceptible he was to flattery from tall women. A weakness he must guard against. Sometime.
They retired to his cabin and practiced assiduously till halfway to Escobar.
THREE
THREE
“Whatever happened to the wolf girl?” inquired Illyan after a long, fascinated silence.
“Ah. She’s doing well, I’m glad to say. She made sergeant not long ago. My Dendarii fleet surgeon has her on some meds to slow her metabolism down a bit. Somewhat experimental.”
“Will they increase her life-span, then?”
Miles shrugged. “I wish we knew. Maybe. We’re hoping.”
“Well.” Illyan shifted. “That leaves Dagoola, about which, I might remind you, the only report I had from you before the other operatives took over was that, er, excessively succinct one you filed from Mahata Solaris.”
“That was only meant to be preliminary. I thought I’d be reporting home sooner than this.”
“That’s not a problem—or at any rate, not a problem for Count Vorvolk. Dagoola, Miles. Cough it up, and then you can get some sleep.”
Miles frowned wearily. “It started out so simply. Almost as simple as the Jackson’s Whole job. Then things went wrong. Then things went very wrong. . . .”
“So begin at the beginning.”
“The beginning. God. Well . . .”
The Borders of Infinity
The Borders of Infinity
How could I have died and gone to hell without noticing the transition?
The opalescent force dome capped a surreal and alien landscape, frozen for a moment by Miles's disorientation and dismay. The dome defined a perfect circle, half a kilometer in diameter. Miles stood just inside its edge, where the glowing concave surface dove into the hard-packed dirt and disappeared. His imagination followed the arc buried beneath his feet to the far side, where it erupted again to complete the sphere. It was like being trapped inside an eggshell. An unbreakable eggshell.
Within was a scene from an ancient limbo. Dispirited men and women sat, or stood, or mostly lay down, singly or in scattered irregular groups, across the breadth of the arena. Miles's eye searched anxiously for some remnant of order or military grouping, but the inhabitants seemed splashed randomly as a liquid across the ground.