CHAPTER NINETEEN

Reluctantly but firmly, Miles seated himself at his comconsole the next day and rang up the Imperial Military Hospital's veterans treatment division, and scheduled a preliminary examination for the diagnosis of his seizures. ImpMil was the most logical place to go; they had as much experience with cryo-revival cases as anybody else on Barrayar, and they had immediate and privileged access to all his medical records, classified or not. His Dendarii Fleet surgeon's notes alone should save weeks of repetitive horsing around. Sooner or later, Ivan would remember his threats to drag Miles bodily to the clinic of his choice, or worse, rat about Miles's foot-dragging to Gregor. This spiked Ivan's guns.

Mission accomplished, Miles sighed, pushed back from his comconsole, and rose for an aimless ramble around the echoing corridors and chambers of Vorkosigan House. It wasn't that he missed Ivan's company, exactly, it was just that . . . he missed company, even Ivan's. Vorkosigan House wasn't meant to be this quiet. It had been designed to host a full-time roaring circus, with its complement of guardsmen and staff, maids and grooms and gardeners, hurrying couriers and languid courtiers, Vor visitors trailing their retinues, children . . . with the successive Counts Vorkosigan as ringmasters, the hubs around which the whole great gaudy wheel turned. Counts and Countesses Vorkosigan. The party had been at its height in his great-grandparents' day, Miles supposed, just before the end of the Time of Isolation. He paused before a window overlooking the curving drive, and pictured horses and carriages pulling up below, officers and ladies disembarking with a glitter of swords and swirl of fabrics.

Running the Dendarii Mercenaries had been something like that, at least the roaring-circus aspect. Miles wondered if the Dendarii Fleet would outlast its founder by as long as Vorkosigan House had outlasted the first Count, eleven generations ago. And if it would be knocked down and completely rebuilt as often. Strange to think he might have created something so organic and alive that it would continue in his absence, without him to prop and push. . . . the way children went on living, without any further act of will on the parents' part.

Quinn was surely his worthy successor. He ought to give up any pretense of his return to the Dendarii and just promote her to Admiral, period. Or would personnel assignments now be Haroche's job? Miles would have trusted Illyan to handle Quinn. But did Haroche have the insight, the imagination required? He sighed unease.