Ivan sat back, his lips twisting in puzzlement. "You know . . . I'd figured that would be the first thing you'd do, once the little ice-water bath brought you up out of the fog. You'd get your legs under yourself and be off and running, just like always. I never saw you face a wall that, if you couldn't go over it, you'd not try to find some way around, through, or under, or blow it up with sapper's charges. Or just bang your head against it till it fell down. And then they'd stick me with chasing you. Again."

"Running where, Ivan?"

Ivan grimaced. "Back to the Dendarii, of course."

"You know I can't do that. Without my official position in ImpSec, under due Imperial authority, my command of the Dendarii becomes a Vor lord, a Count's heir for God's sake, running a private army. Treason, Ivan, lethal treason. We've been all through that before. If I went, I could never come back. I gave my word to Gregor I wouldn't do it."

"Yeah?" said Ivan. "If you're not coming back, what does your word as Vorkosigan have to do with anything ever again?"

Miles sat silent. So. That business with having Ivan underfoot in Vorkosigan House hadn't been only a deathwatch after all. It had been an escape-watch as well.

"I'd have bet money you'd bolt," Ivan went on, "if there'd been anybody who had a high enough security classification to bet with. Besides Galeni, of course, and he's not the wagering sort. 'S why I've been dragging my feet despite Gregor and Mother about harassing you to get your head fixed. Why borrow trouble? It's a bet I'm glad to lose, by the way. So when are you going to get an appointment?"

" . . . Soon."

"Too vague," Ivan rejected this. "I want a straight answer. Something like, Today. Or maybe, Tomorrow before noon."

Ivan wouldn't go away till he extracted a response that satisfied him. "By . . . the end of the week," Miles managed.

"Good." Ivan nodded shortly. "I'll check back at the end of the week and expect to hear all about it. 'Bye—for now." He cut the com.

Miles sat staring at the empty vid plate. Ivan was right. He hadn't done a thing more about pursuing a cure since he'd been fired. Once freed from his constraining need for secrecy from ImpSec, why hadn't he been all over this seizure disorder, attacking it, tearing it apart, or at least riding some hapless medico as hard as he'd ever ridden the Dendarii Mercenaries to successfully complete their missions?

To buy time.

He knew it for the right answer, but it only brought him to a new level of self-bafflement. Time for what?

Keeping himself on self-inflicted medical leave allowed him to avoid facing certain unpleasant realities square-on. Such as the news that the seizures couldn't be cured, and that the death of hope was permanent and real; no cryo-revival for that corpse, just a warm and rotting burial.