She was looking very alarmed. “I’ll say you shouldn’t have gotten up—you’re shaking all over! You can barely stand up. Here, I’ll carry you to sickbay. Crazy man!”

“No! I’m all right. That is, I’ve been treated. I’m just supposed to rest, and recover for a while, is all.”

“Well, you go straight back to bed, then!”

“Yes.”

He wheeled. She swatted him on the butt. He bit his tongue. She said, “At least you’ve been eating better. Take care of yourself, huh?”

He waved over his shoulder, and fled without looking back. Had that been military cameraderie? From a sergeant to an admiral? He didn’t think so. That had been intimacy. Naismith, you bug-fuck crazy bastard, what have you been doing in your spare time? I didn’t think you had any spare time. You’ve got to be a freaking suicidal maniac, if you’ve been screwing that—

He locked his cabin door behind him, and stood against it, trembling, laughing in hysterical disbelief. Dammit, he’d studied everything about Naismith, everything. This couldn’t be happening. With friends like this, who need enemies?

He undressed and lay tensely upon his bed, contemplating Naismith/Vorkosigan’s complicated life, and wondering what other booby-traps it held for him. At last a faint change in the susurrations and creaks of the ship around him, a brief tug of shifting grav fields, made him realize the Ariel was breaking free of Escobar orbit. He had actually succeeded in stealing a fully armed and equipped military fast cruiser, and no one even knew it. They were on their way to Jackson’s Whole. To his destiny. His destiny, not Naismith’s. His thoughts spiraled toward sleep at last.

But if you claim your destiny, his demon voice whispered at the last, before the night’s oblivion, why can’t you claim your name?