"Last time I saw her, I noticed she's getting some gray in her hair. You know what that means. I talked recently to old Canaba about it, you remember him. He gives no more than two months between the time she starts to go into serious metabolic failure, and the end. I want you to promise me, you'll let me know in time, time to get out there with the Fleet, or wherever she is, before she goes. I . . . don't want her to be alone, then. It's a promise I made to myself once, that I mean to keep."

She settled back. "All right," she said seriously. After a moment she added, "So . . . did you sleep with her?"

"Um . . ." He swallowed. "She was before your time, Elli." After another minute he was compelled to add, "And after, from time to time. Very rarely."

"Hah. I thought so."

As long as we're being morbid . . . "How . . . about you? Was there ever anyone else, when I was gone?"

"No. I was good. Huh!" She added after a moment, "Now, before your time, that's another Quinn."

That dig, he decided, was within her rights; he let it go by. "It should go without saying, but just in case . . . you do know you are free of any personal obligation to me hereafter?"

"So you can be too? Is that what this is all about?" She touched his face, and smiled. "I don't need you to free me, love. I can free myself, any time I choose."

"That's part, I think, of what I've always loved about you." He hesitated. "But can you choose any time you choose?"

"Well. That's the other question, isn't it," she said softly. They each of them gazed long at the other, as if memorizing the image for some interior cache. After a time she added, with unerring perceptiveness and wry goodwill, "I hope you find your Lady Vorkosigan, Miles. Whoever she is."

"I hope so too, Elli," he sighed. "I dread the search, though."

"Lazy," she murmured.

"That, too. You were a drunkard's dream, Quinn. You've quite spoiled me, you know."

"Shall I apologize?"

"Never."

She came up for breath from the long kiss that followed this to ask, "Till your search prospers, shall we have flings? From time to time?"

"Perhaps . . . I don't know. If we're ever on the same planet at the same time. It's a big universe."

"Then why do I keep running into the same people over and over?"

They fell then to unhurried caresses, without agenda; no future, no past, just a little bubble in time containing Miles and Elli. After that things went much better.

In the afterglow, Elli murmured into his hair, "Do you think you'll like your new job as much as I'll like mine?"