Brothers in Arms by Lois McMaster Bujold

and began to withdraw. Her lips parted for him, and her arm clamped around the back of his neck. She was an athletic woman; the grip was a non-regulation but effective immobilization. Surely the first time his being pinned to the mat had meant he'd won. He devoured her lips ravenously, kissed her cheeks, eyelids, brow, nose, chin—where was the sweet well of her mouth? there, yes. . . .
    The bulky package containing the live fur began to drift, bumping down the lift tube. They were jostled by a descending woman who frowned at them, a teenage boy shooting down the center of the tube hooted and made rude, explicit gestures, and the beeper in Elli's pocket went off.
    Awkwardly, they recaptured the fur and scrambled off the first exit they came to, fleeing the tube's field through an archway onto a bubble-car platform. They staggered into the open and stared at each other, shaken. In one lunatic moment, Miles realized, he'd upended their carefully-balanced working relationship, and what were they now? Officer and subordinate? Man and woman? Friend and friend, lover and lover? It could be a fatal error.
    It could also be fatal without the error; Dagoola had thrust that lesson home. The person inside the uniform was larger than the soldier, the man more complex than his role. Death could take not just him but her tomorrow, and a universe of possibilities, not just a military officer, would be extinguished. He would kiss her again—damn, he could only reach her ivory throat now—
    The ivory throat emitted a dismayed growl, and she keyed open the channel on the secure comm link, saying, "What the hell . . . ? It can't be you, you're here. Quinn here!"
    "Commander Quinn?" Ivan Vorpatril's voice came small but clear. "Is Miles with you?"
    Miles's lips rippled in a snarl of frustration. Ivan's timing was supernatural, as ever.
    "Yes, why?" said Quinn to the comm link.
    "Well, tell him to get his ass back here. I'm holding a hole in the security net for him, but I can't hold it much longer. Hell, I can't stay awake much longer." A long gasp that Miles interpreted as a yawn wheezed from the comm link.
    "My God, I didn't think he could really do it," Miles muttered. He grabbed the comm link. "Ivan? Can you really get me back in without being seen?"
    "For about fifteen more minutes. And I had to bend regs all to hell and gone to do it, too. I'm holding down the guard post on the third sub-level, where the municipal power and sewer connections come through. I can loop the vid record and cut out the shot of your entry, but only if you get back here before Corporal Veli does. I don't mind putting my tail on the line for you, but I object to putting my tail on the line for nothing, you copy?"
    Elli was studying the colorful holovid display mapping the tubeway system. "You can just make it, I think."
    "It won't do any good—"
    She grabbed his elbow and marched him toward the bubble cars, the firm gleam of duty crowding out the softer light in her eyes. "We'll have ten more minutes together on the way."
    Miles massaged his face, as she went to credit their tokens, trying to rub his escaping rationality back through his skin by force. He looked up to see his own dim reflection staring back at him from the mirrored wall, shadowed by a pillar, face suffused with frustration and terror. He squeezed his eyes shut and looked again, moving in front of the pillar and staring. Most unpleasant—for a second, he had seen himself wearing his green Barrayaran uniform. Damn the pain pills. Was his subconscious trying to tell him something? Well, he didn't suppose he was in real trouble until a brain scan taken of him in his two different uniforms produced two different patterns.
    Upon reflection, the idea was suddenly not funny.
    He embraced Quinn upon her return with more complicated feelings than sexual desire alone. They stole kisses in the bubble car—more pain than pleasure; by the time they reached their destination Miles was in the most physically