CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Ekaterin sat at her aunt's comconsole, attempting to compose a r?sum? that would conceal her lack of experience from the supervisor of an urban plant nursery that supplied the city's public gardens. She was not, drat it, going to name Lord Auditor Vorkosigan as a reference. Aunt Vorthys had left for her morning class, and Nikki for an outing with Arthur Pym under the aegis of Arthur's elder sister; when the door chime's second ring tore her attention from her task, Ekaterin was abruptly aware that she was alone in the house. Would enemy agents bent on kidnapping come to the front door? Miles would know. She pictured Pym, at Vorkosigan House, frostily informing the intruders that they would have to go round back to the spies' entrance . . . which would be sprinkled with appropriate high-tech caltrops, no doubt. Controlling her new paranoia, she rose and went to the front hall.

To her relief and delight, instead of Cetagandan infiltrators, her brother Hugo Vorvayne stood on the front stoop, along with a pleasant-featured fellow she recognized after an uncertain blink as Vassily Vorsoisson, Tien's closest cousin. She had seen him exactly once before in her life, at Tien's funeral, where they had met long enough for him to officially sign over Nikki's guardianship to her. Lieutenant Vorsoisson held a post in traffic control at the big military shuttleport in Vorbretten's District; when she'd first and last seen him, he'd worn Service dress greens as suited the somber formality of the occasion, but today he'd changed to more casual civvies.

"Hugo, Vassily! This is a surprise—come in, come in!" She gestured them both into the Professora's front parlor. Vassily gave her a polite, acknowledging nod, and refused an offer of tea or coffee, they'd had some at the monorail station, thank you. Hugo gave her hands a brief squeeze, and smiled at her in a worried way before taking a seat. He was in his mid-forties; the combination of his desk work in the Imperial Bureau of Mines and his wife Rosalie's care was broadening him a trifle. On him, it looked wonderfully solid and reassuring. But alarm tightened Ekaterin's throat at the tension in his face. "Is everything all right?"

"We're all fine," he said with peculiar emphasis.

A chill flushed through her. "Da—?"

"Yes, yes, he's fine too." Impatiently, he gestured away her anxiety. "The only member of the family who seems to be a source of concern at the moment is you, Kat."

Ekaterin stared at him, baffled. "Me? I'm all right." She sank down into her uncle's big chair in the corner. Vassily pulled up one of the spindly chairs, and perched a little awkwardly upon it.

Hugo conveyed greetings from the family, Rosalie and Edie and the boys, then looked around vaguely and asked, "Are Uncle and Aunt Vorthys here?"

"No, neither one. Aunt will be back from class in a while, though."

Hugo frowned. "I was hoping we could see Uncle Vorthys, really. When will he be back?"

"Oh, he's gone to Komarr. To clear up some last technical bits about the solar mirror disaster, you know. He doesn't expect to be back till just before Gregor's wedding."

"Whose wedding?" said Vassily.

Gah, now Miles had her doing it. She wasnot on a first-name basis with Grego—with the Emperor, she was not . "Emperor Gregor's wedding. As an Imperial Auditor, Uncle Vorthys will of course attend."

Vassily's lips formed a little O of enlightenment, that Gregor.

"No chance of any of us getting near it, I suppose," Hugo sighed. "Of course, I have no interest in such things, but Rosalie and her lady friends have all gone quite silly over it." After a short hesitation, he added inconsistently, "Is it true that the Horse Guards will parade in squads of all the uniforms they've worn through history, from the Time of Isolation through Ezar's day?"

"Yes," said Ekaterin. "And there will be massive fireworks displays over the river every night." A faintly envious look crept into Hugo's eyes at this news.

Vassily cleared his throat, and asked, "Is Nikki here?"

"No . . . he went out with a friend to see the pole-barge regatta on the river this morning. They have it every year; it commemorates the relief of the city by Vlad Vorbarra's forces during the Ten-Years' War. I understand they're doing a bang-up job of it this summer—new costumes, and a reenactment of the assault on the Old Star Bridge. The boys were very excited." She did not add that they expected to have an especially fine view from the balconies of Vorbretten House, courtesy of a Vorbretten Armsman friend of Pym's.

Vassily stirred uncomfortably. "Perhaps it's just as well. Madame Vorsoisson—Ekaterin—we actually came down here today for a particular reason, a very serious matter. I should like to talk with you frankly."

"That's . . . generally best, when one is going to talk," Ekaterin responded. She glanced in query at Hugo.

"Vassily came to me . . ." Hugo began, and trailed off. "Well, you explain it, Vassily."

Vassily leaned forward with his hands clasped between his knees and said heavily, "You see, it's this. I received a most disturbing communication from an informant here in Vorbarr Sultana about what has been happening—what has recently come to light—some very disturbing information about you, my late cousin, and Lord Auditor Vorkosigan."

"Oh," she said flatly. So, the circuit of the Old Walls, what remained of them, did not limit the slander to the capital; the slime-trail even stretched to provincial District towns. She had somehow thought this vicious game an exclusively High Vor pastime. She sat back and frowned.

"Because it seemed to concern both our families very nearly—and, of course, because something of this peculiar nature must be cross-checked—I brought it to Hugo, for his advice, hoping that he could allay my fears. The corroborations your sister-in-law Rosalie supplied served to increase them instead."

Corroborations of what? She could probably make a few shrewd guesses, but she declined to lead the witnesses. "I don't understand."

"I was told," Vassily stopped to lick his lips nervously, "it's become common knowledge among his high Vor set that Lord Auditor Vorkosigan was responsible for sabotaging Tien's breath mask, the night he died on Komarr."

She could demolish this quickly enough. "You are told lies. That story was made up by a nasty little cabal of Lord Vorkosigan's political enemies, who wished to embarrass him during some District inheritance in-fighting presently going on here in the Council of Counts. Tien sabotaged himself; he was always careless about cleaning and checking his equipment. It's just whispering. No such actual charge has been made."

"Well, how could it be?" said Vassily reasonably. But her confidence that she'd brought him swiftly to his senses died as he went on, "As it was explained to me, any charge would have to be laid in the Council, before and by his peers. His father may be retired to Sergyar, but you may be sure his Centrist coalition remains powerful enough to suppress any such move."

"I would hope so." It might be suppressed, oh yes, but not for the reason Vassily thought. Lips thinning, she stared coldly at him.

Hugo put in anxiously, "But you see, Ekaterin, the same person informed Vassily that Lord Vorkosigan attempted to force you to accept a proposal of marriage from him."

She sighed in exasperation. "Force? No, certainly not."

"Ah." Hugo brightened.

"He did ask me to marry him. Very . . . awkwardly."

"My God, that was really true ?" Hugo looked momentarily stunned. He sounded a deal more appalled at this than at the murder charge—doubly unflattering, Ekaterin decided. "You refused, of course!"

She touched the left side of her bolero, tracing the now not-so-stiff shape of the paper she kept folded there. Miles's letter was not the sort of thing she cared to leave lying around for anyone to pick up and read, and besides . . . she wanted to reread it herself now and then. From time to time. Six or twelve times a day . . . "Not exactly."

Hugo's brow wrinkled. "What do you mean bynot exactly ? I thought that was a yes-or-no sort of question."

"It's . . . difficult to explain." She hesitated. Detailing in front of Tien's closest cousin how a decade of Tien's private chaos had worn out her soul was just not on her list, she decided. "And rather personal."

Vassily offered helpfully, "The letter said that you seemed confused and distraught."

Ekaterin's eyes narrowed. "Just what busybody did you have this—communication —from, anyway?"

Vassily replied, "A friend of yours—he claimed—who is gravely concerned for your safety."

A friend? The Professora was her friend. Kareen, Mark . . . Miles, but he would hardly traduce himself, now . . . Enrique? Tsipis ? "I cannot imagine any friend of mine doing or saying any such thing."

Hugo's frown of worry deepened. "The letter also said Lord Vorkosigan has been putting all sorts of pressure on you. That he has some strange hold on your mind."

No. Only on my heart, I think . Her mind was perfectly clear. It was the rest of her that seemed to be in rebellion. "He's a very attractive man," she admitted.

Hugo exchanged a baffled look with Vassily. Both men had met Miles at Tien's funeral; of course, Miles had been very closed and formal there, and still grayly fatigued from his case. They'd had no opportunity to see what he was like when he opened up—the elusive smile, the bright, particular eyes, the wit and the words and the passion . . . the confounded look on his face when confronted by Vorkosigan liveried butter bugs . . . she smiled helplessly in memory.

"Kat," said Hugo in a disconcerted tone, "the man's a mutie. He barely comes up to your shoulder. He's distinctly hunched—I don't know why that wasn't surgically corrected. He's just odd ."

"Oh, he's had dozens of surgeries. His original damage was far, far more severe. You can still see these faint old scars running all over his body from the corrections."

Hugo stared at her. "All over his body?"

"Um. I assume so. As much of it as I've seen, anyway." She stopped her tongue barely short of adding, The top half . A perfectly unnecessary vision of Miles entirely naked, gift-wrapped in sheets and blankets in bed, and her with him, slowly exploring his intricacies all the way down, distracted her imagination momentarily. She blinked it away, hoping her eyes weren't crossing. "You have to concede, he has a good face. His eyes are . . . very alive."

"His head's too big."

"No, his body's just a little undersized for it." How had she ended up arguing Miles's anatomy with Hugo, anyway? He wasn't some spavined horse she was considering purchasing against veterinary advice, drat it. "Anyway, this is none of it our business."

"It is if he—if you—" Hugo sucked his lip. "Kat . . . if you're under some kind of threat, or blackmail or some strange thing, you don't stand alone. I know we can get help. You may have abandoned your family, but we haven't abandoned you."

More's the pity . "Thank you for that estimate of my character," she said tartly. "And do you imagine our Uncle Lord Auditor Vorthys is incapable of protecting me, if it should come to that? And Aunt Vorthys, too?"

Vassily said uneasily, "I'm sure your uncle and aunt are very kind—after all, they took you and Nikki in—but I'm given to understand they are both rather unworldly intellectuals. Possibly they do not understand the dangers. My informant says they haven't been guarding you at all. They've permitted you to go where you will, when you will, in a completely unregulated fashion, and come in contact with all sorts of dubious persons."

Their unworldly aunt was one of Barrayar's foremost experts on every gory detail of the political history of the Time of Isolation, spoke and read four languages flawlessly, could sift through documentation with an eye worthy of an ImpSec analyst—a line of work several of her former graduate students were now in—and had thirty years of experience dealing with young people and their self-inflicted troubles. And as for Uncle Vorthys—"Engineering failure analysis does not strike me as an especially unworldly discipline. Not when it includes expertise on sabotage." She inhaled, preparing to enlarge on this.

Vassily's lips tightened. "The capital has a reputation as an unsavory milieu. Too many wealthy, powerful men—and their women—with too few restraints on their appetites and vices. That's a dangerous world for a young boy to be exposed to, especially through his mother's . . . love affairs." Ekaterin was still mentally sputtering over this one when Vassily's voice dropped to a tone of hushed horror, and he added, "I've even heard—they say—that there's a high Vor lord here in Vorbarr Sultana who used to be a woman , who had her brain transplanted to a man'sbody ."

Ekaterin blinked. "Oh. Yes, that would be Lord Dono Vorrutyer. I've met him. It wasn't a brain transplant—ick! what a horrid misrepresentation—it was just a perfectly ordinary Betan body mod."

Both men boggled at her. "You encountered this creature?" said Hugo. "Where?"

"Um . . . Vorkosigan House. Actually. Dono seemed a very bright fellow. I think he'll do very well for Vorrutyer's District, if the Council grants him his late brother's Countship." She added after a moment of bitter consideration, "All things considered, I quite hope he gets it. That would give Richars and his slandering cronies one in the eye!"

Hugo, who had absorbed this exchange with growing dismay, put in, "I have to agree with Vassily, I'm a little uneasy myself about having you down here in the capital. The family so wishes to see you safe , Kat. I grant you're no girl anymore. You should have your own household, watched over by a steady husband who can be trusted to guard your welfare and Nikki's."

You could get your wish. Yet . . . she had stood up to armed terrorists, and survived. And won . Her definition of safe was . . . not so very narrow as that, anymore.

"A man of your own class," Hugo went on persuasively. "Someone who's right for you."

I think I've found him. He comes with a house where I don't hit the walls each time I stretch, either. Not even if I stretched out forever. She cocked her head. "Just what do you think my class is, Hugo?"

He looked nonplused. "Our class. Solid, honest, loyal Vor. On the women's side, modest, proper, upright. . . ."

She was suddenly on fire with a desire to be immodest, improper, and above all . . . not upright. Quite gloriously horizontal, in fact. It occurred to her that a certain disparity of height would be immaterial, when one—or two—were lying down . . . "You think I should have a house?"

"Yes, certainly."

"Not a planet?"

Hugo looked taken aback. "What? Of course not!"

"You know, Hugo, I never realized it before, but your vision lacks . . . scope." Miles thought she should have a planet. She paused, and a slow smile stole over her lips. After all, his mother had one. It was all in what you were used to, she supposed. No point in saying this aloud; they wouldn't get the joke.

And how had her big brother, admired and generous if more than a little distant due to their disparity of age, grown so small-minded of late? No . . . Hugo hadn't changed. The logical conclusion shook her.

Hugo said, "Damn, Kat. I thought that part of the letter was twaddle at first, but this mutie lord has turned your head around in some strange way."

"And if it's true . . . he has frightening allies," said Vassily. "The letter claimed that Vorkosigan had Simon Illyan himself riding point for him, herding you into his trap." His lips twisted dubiously. "That was the part that most made me wonder if I was being made a game of, to tell you the truth."

"I've met Simon," Ekaterin conceded. "I found him rather . . . sweet."

A dazed silence greeted this declaration.

She added a little awkwardly, "Of course, I understand he's relaxed quite a lot since his medical retirement from ImpSec. One can see that would be a great burden off his mind." Belatedly, the internal evidence slotted into place. "Wait a minute—who did you say sent you this hash of hearsay and lies?"

"It was in the strictest confidence," said Vassily warily.

"It was that blithering idiot Alexi Vormoncrief, wasn't it? Ah!" The light dawned, furiously, like the glare from an atomic fireball. But screaming, swearing, and throwing things would be counterproductive. She gripped the chair arms, so that the men could not see her hands shake. "Vassily, Hugo should have told you—I turned down a proposal of marriage from Alexi. It seems he's found a way to revenge his outraged vanity." Vile twit!

"Kat," said Hugo slowly, "I did consider that interpretation. I grant you the fellow's a trifle, um, idealistic, and if you've taken against him I won't try to argue his suit—though he seemed perfectly unobjectionable to me—but I saw his letter. I judged it quite sincerely concerned for you. A little over the top, yes, but what do you expect from a man in love?"

"Alexi Vormoncrief is not in love with me. He can't see far enough past the end of his own Vor nose to even know who or what I am. If you stuffed my clothes with straw and put a wig on top, he'd scarcely notice the change. He's just going through the motions supplied by his cultural programming." Well, all right, and his more fundamental biological programming, and he wasn't the only one suffering from that, now was he? She would concede Alexi a ration of sincere sex drive, but she was certain its object was arbitrary. Her hand strayed to her bolero, over her heart, and Miles's memorized words echoed, cutting through the uproar between her ears: I wanted to possess the power of your eyes . . .

Vassily waved an impatient hand. "All this is beside the point, for me if not for your brother. You're not a dowered maiden anymore, for your father to hoard up with his other treasures. I, however, have a clear family duty to see to Nikki's safety, if I have reason to believe it is threatened."

Ekaterin froze.

Vassily had granted her custody of Nikki with his word. He could take it back again as easily. It was she who'd have to take suit to court—his District court—not only to prove herself worthy, but also to prove him unworthy and unfit to have charge of the child. Vassily was no convicted criminal, nor habitual drunkard, nor spendthrift nor berserker; he was just a bachelor officer, a conscientious, duty-minded orbital traffic controller, an ordinary honest man. She hadn't a prayer of winning against him. If only Nikki had been her daughter, those rights would be reversed. . . .

"You would find a nine-year-old boy an awkward burden on a military base, I should think," she said neutrally at last.

Vassily looked startled. "Well, I hope it won't come to that . In the worst scenario, I'd planned to leave him with his Grandmother Vorsoisson, until things were straightened out."

Ekaterin held her teeth together for a moment, then said, "Nikki is of course welcome to visit Tien's mother any time she invites him. At the funeral she gave me to understand she was too unwell to receive visitors this summer." She moistened her lips. "Please define the term worst scenario for me. And just what exactly do you mean by straightened out ?"

"Well," Vassily shrugged apologetically, "coming down here and finding you actually betrothed to the man who murdered Nikki's father would have been pretty bad, don't you agree?"

Had he been prepared to take Nikki away this very day, in that case? "I told you. Tien's death was accidental, and that accusation is pure slander." His disregard of her words reminded her horribly of Tien, for a moment; was obliviousness a Vorsoisson family trait? Despite the danger of offending him, she glowered. "Do you think I'm lying, or do you think I'm just stupid?" She fought for control of her breathing. She had faced far more frightening men than the earnest, misguided, Vassily Vorsoisson. But never one who could cost me Nikki with a word . She stood on the edge of a deep, dark pit. If she fell now, the struggle to get out again would be as filthy and painful as anything she could imagine. Vassily must not be pushed into taking Nikki. Trying to take Nikki . And she could stop him—how? She was legally overmatched before she even began. So don't begin .

She chose her words with utmost caution. "So what do you mean by straightened out?"

Hugo and Vassily looked at each other uncertainly. Vassily ventured, "I beg your pardon?"

"I cannot know if I have toed your line unless you show me where you've drawn it."

Hugo protested, "That's not very kindly put, Kat. We have your interests at heart."

"You don't even know what my interests are." Not true, Vassily had his thumb right down on the most mortal one. Nikki.Eat rage, woman. She had used to be expert at swallowing herself, during her marriage. Somehow she'd lost the taste for it.

Vassily groped, "Well . . . I'd certainly wish to be assured Nikki was not being exposed to persons of undesirable character."

She granted him a thin smile. "No problem. I shall be more than happy to entirely avoid Alexi Vormoncrief in the future."

He gave her a pained look. "I was referring to Lord Vorkosigan. And his political and personal set. At least—at least until this very dark cloud is cleared from his reputation. After all, the man is accused of murdering my cousin ."

Vassily's outrage was dutiful clan loyalty, not personal grief, Ekaterin reminded herself. If he and Tien had met more than three times in their lives it was news to her. "Excuse me," she said steadily. "If Miles is not to be charged—and I can't think he will be, on this—how may he be cleared, in your view? What has to happen?"

Vassily appeared momentarily baffled.

Hugo put in tentatively, "I don't want you exposed to corruption, either, Kat."

"You know, Hugo, it's the strangest thing," Ekaterin said genially to him, "but somehow Lord Vorkosigan has overlooked sending me invitations to any of his orgies. I'm quite put out. Do you suppose it's not the orgy season in Vorbarr Sultana yet?" She bit back further words. Sarcasm was not a luxury she—or Nikki—could afford.

Hugo rewarded this sally with a flat-lipped frown. He and Vassily gave one another a long look, each so obviously trying to divest the dirty work onto his companion that Ekaterin would have laughed, if it hadn't been so painful. Vassily finally muttered weakly, "She's your sister . . ."

Hugo took a breath. He was a Vorvayne; he knew his duty, by God. All us Vorvaynes know our duty. And we'll keep on doing it till we die. No matter how stupid or painful or counterproductive it is, yes! After all, look at me. I kept oath for eleven years to Tien. . . .

"Ekaterin, I think the burden falls on me to say this. Till this murder rumor business is settled, I'm flat requesting you not to encourage or, or see this Miles Vorkosigan fellow again. Or I will have to agree Vassily is completely justified in removing Nikki from the situation."

Removing Nikki from his mother and her paramour, you mean. Nikki had lost one parent this year, and lost all his friends in the move back to Barrayar. He was just starting to find the city he'd been dropped into less strange, to begin to unfold in tentative new friendships, to lose that wooden caution that had marred his smile for a while. She imagined him ripped away again, denied the chance to see her—for it would come down to that, wouldn't it? it was she, not the capital, Vassily suspected of corruption—plopped down in the third strange place in a year among unknown adults who regarded him not as a child to be delighted in, but as a duty to be discharged . . . no. No.

"Excuse me. I am willing to cooperate. I just haven't been able to compel either of you to say what I'm supposed to be cooperating with. I perfectly see what you are worried about, but how is it to be settled ? Define settled . If it's till Miles's enemies stop saying nasty things about him, it could be a long wait. His line of work routinely pits him against the powerful. And he's not the sort to back down from any counterattack."

Hugo said, a bit more feebly, "Avoid him for a time, anyway."

"A time. Good. Now we're getting somewhere. How long exactly?"

"I . . . can hardly say."

"A week?"

Vassily, sounding a bit offended, put in, "Certainly more than that!"

"A month?"

Hugo rolled his hands in a frustrated gesture. "I don't know, Kat! Till you forget these odd notions you have about him, I suppose."

"Ah. Till the end of time. Hm. I can't quite decide if that's specific enough, or not. I think not." She took a breath, and said reluctantly, because it was such a long time and yet likely to sound so plausible to them, "To the end of my mourning year?"

Vassily said, "At the very minimum!"

"Very well." Her eyes narrowed, and she smiled, because smiling would do more good than howling. "I shall take you at your name's word, Vassily Vorsoisson."

"I, I, uh . . ." said Vassily, unexpectedly cornered. "Well . . . something should be settled by then. Surely."

I gave up too much, too soon. I should have tried for Winterfair. She added in sudden afterthought, "I reserve the right to tell him—and tell him why—myself, however. In person."

"Is that wise, Kat?" asked Hugo. "Better to call him on the comconsole."

"Anything less would be cowardly."

"Can't you send him a note?"

"Absolutely not. Not with this . . . news." What a vile return that would be, for Miles's own declaration sealed in his heart's blood.

At her defiant stare, Hugo weakened. "One visit, then. A brief one."

Vassily shrugged reluctant acquiescence.

An uncomfortable silence fell, after this. Ekaterin realized she ought to invite the pair of them to lunch, except that she didn't feel like inviting them to continue breathing. Yes, and she should exert herself to charm and soothe Vassily. She rubbed her temples, which were throbbing. When Vassily made a feeble motion toward escape from the Professora's parlor by mumbling about things to do , she did not impede them.

She locked the front door on their retreating forms, and returned to curl up in her uncle's chair, unable to decide whether to go lie down, or pace, or weed. Anyway, the garden was still stripped of weeds from her last upset about Miles. It would be an hour yet before Aunt Vorthys returned from her class, and Ekaterin could pour out her fury and panic into her ear. Or her lap.

To Hugo's credit, she reflected, he hadn't seemed enticed by the promise of a Countess's place for his little sister at any price, nor had he suggested that was the prize that motivated her. Vorvaynes were above that sort of material ambition.

Once, she had bought Nikki a rather expensive robopet, which he'd played with for a few days and then neglected. It had been forgotten on a shelf until, attempting to clean, she'd tried to give it away. Nikki's sudden frantic protests and heartbroken carryings-on had shaken the roof.

The parallel was embarrassing. Was Miles a toy she hadn't wanted till they'd tried to take him from her? Deep down in her chest, someone was screaming and sobbing. You're not in charge here. I'm the adult, dammit. Yet Nikki had kept his robopet . . .

She would deliver the bad news about Vassily's interdict to Miles's face. But not yet, oh, not quite yet. Because unless this smear upon his reputation was suddenly and spectacularly settled , that might be her last look at him for a very long time.

* * *

Kareen watched her father sink into the soft upholstery of the groundcar that Tante Cordelia had sent for them, and hitch around restlessly, placing his swordstick first on his lap and then at his side. Somehow, she didn't think his discomfort was all from his old war wounds.

"We're going to regret this, I know we are," he said querulously to Mama, for about the sixth time, as she settled in beside him. The rear canopy closed over the three of them, blocking the bright afternoon sun, and the groundcar started up smoothly and quietly. "Once that woman gets her hands on us, you know she'll have our heads turned inside out in ten minutes, and we'll be sitting there nodding away like fools, agreeing with every insane thing she says."

Oh, I hope so, I hope so! Kareen clamped her lips shut, and sat very still. She wasn't safe yet. The Commodore could still order Tante Cordelia's driver to turn the car around and take them back home.

"Now, Kou," said Mama, "we can't go on like this. Cordelia's right. It's time things were arranged more sensibly."

"Ah! There's that word—sensible . One of her favorites. I feel like I already have a plasma arc targeter spot right there ." He pointed to the middle of his chest, as though a red dot wavered across his green uniform.

"It's been very uncomfortable," said Mama, "and I for one am getting tired of it. I want to see our old friends, and hear all about Sergyar. We can't stop all our lives over this."

Yeah, just mine. Kareen's teeth clenched a little harder.

"Well, I do not want that fat little weird clone—" he hesitated, judging by the ripple of his lips editing his word choice at least twice "—making up to my daughter. Explain to me why he needs two years of Betan therapy if he isn't half mad, eh? Eh?"

Don't say it, girl, don't say it. She gnawed on her knuckles instead. Fortunately, the drive was very short.

Armsman Pym met them at the door to Vorkosigan House. He favored her father with one of those formal nods that evoked a salute. "Good afternoon Commodore, Madame Koudelka. Welcome, Miss Kareen. Milady will receive you in the library. This way, please . . ." Kareen could almost swear, as he turned to escort them, that his eyelid shivered at her in a wink, but he was playing the Bland Servitor to the hilt today, and he gave her no more clues.

Pym ushered them through the double doors, and announced them with formality. He withdrew discreetly but with a—knowing Pym—deliberate air of abandoning them to a deserved fate.

In the library, part of the furniture had been rearranged. Tante Cordelia waited in a large wing chair perhaps accidentally reminiscent of a throne. At her right and left hands, two smaller armchairs faced one another. Mark sat in one of them, wearing his best black suit, shaved and slick as he'd been for Miles's ill-fated party. He popped to his feet and stood at a sort of awkward attention as the Koudelkas entered, clearly unable to decide whether it would be worse to nod cordially or do nothing. He compromised by standing there looking stuffed.

Across from Tante Cordelia, an entirely new piece of furniture had been placed. Well, new was a misnomer; it was an elderly, shabby couch which had lived for at least the past fifteen years up in one of Vorkosigan House's attics. Kareen remembered it dimly from the old hide-and-seek days. Last she'd seen it, it had been piled high with dusty boxes.

"Ah, and there you all are," said Tante Cordelia cheerfully. She waved at the second armchair. "Kareen, why don't you sit right here." Kareen scooted in as directed, clutching the arms. Mark seated himself again on the edge of his own chair, and watched her anxiously. Tante Cordelia's index finger rose like a target seeker, and pointed first to Kareen's parents, then to the old sofa. "Kou and Drou, you sit down—there ."

Both of them stared with inexplicable dismay at the harmless piece of old furniture.

"Oh," breathed the Commodore. "Oh, Cordelia, this is fighting dirty . . ." He started to swing around and head for the exit, but was brought up short by his wife's hand closing like a vise on his arm.

The Countess's gaze sharpened. In a voice Kareen had rarely heard her use before, she repeated, "Sit. Down ." It wasn't even her Countess Vorkosigan voice; it was something older, firmer, even more appallingly confident. It was her old Ship Captain's voice, Kareen realized; and her parents had both lived under military authority for decades.

Her parents sank as though folded.

"There." The Countess sat back with a satisfied smile on her lips.

A long silence followed. Kareen could hear the old-fashioned mechanical clock ticking on the wall in the antechamber next door. Mark gave her a beseeching stare, Do you know what the hell is going on here? She returned it in kind, No, don't you?

Her father rearranged the position of his swordstick three times, dropped it on the carpet, and finally scooted it back toward himself with the heel of his boot and left it there. She could see the muscle jump in his jaw as he gritted his teeth. Her mother crossed and uncrossed her legs, frowned, stared down the room out the glass doors, and then back at her hands twisting in her lap. They looked like nothing so much as two guilty teenagers caught . . . hm. Like two guilty teenagers caught screwing on the living room couch, actually. Clues seemed to float soundlessly down like feathers, in Kareen's mind, falling all around. You don't suppose . . .

"But Cordelia," Mama burst out suddenly, for all the world as though continuing aloud a conversation just now going on telepathically, "we want our children to do better than we did. To not make the same mistakes!"

Ooh. Ooh. Oooh! Check, and did she ever want the story behind this one . . . ! Her father had underestimated the Countess, Kareen realized. That hadn't taken any more than three minutes.

"Well, Drou," said Tante Cordelia reasonably, "it seems to me that you have your wish. Kareen has most certainly done better. Her choices and actions have been considered and rational in every way. And as far as I can tell, she hasn't made any mistakes at all."

Her father shook a finger at Mark, and sputtered, "That . . . that is a mistake."

Mark hunched, and wrapped his arms protectively around his belly. The Countess frowned faintly; the Commodore's jaw tightened.

The Countess said coolly, "We'll discuss Mark presently. Right now, allow me to draw your attention to how intelligent and informed your daughter is. Granted, she had not your disadvantage of trying to construct her life in the emotional isolation and chaos of a civil war. You both bought her a better, brighter chance than that, and I doubt you're sorry for it."

The Commodore shrugged grudging agreement. Mama sighed in something like negative nostalgia, not longing for the remembered past but relief at having escaped it.

"Just to pick one example not at random," the Countess went on, "Kareen, didn't you obtain your contraceptive implant before you began physical experimentation?"

Tante Cordelia was so bloody Betan . . . she just belted out things like that in casual conversation. Kareen and her chin rose to the challenge. "Of course," she said steadily. "And I had my hymen cut and did the programmed learning course the clinic gave on related anatomy and physiology issues, and Gran-tante Naismith bought me my first pair of earrings, and we went out for dessert."

Da rubbed his reddening face. Mama looked . . . envious.

"And I daresay," Tante Cordelia went on, "you wouldn't describe your first steps into claiming your adult sexuality as a mad secret scramble in the dark, full of confusion, fear and pain, either?"

Mama's negative-nostalgia look deepened. So did Mark's.

"Of course not!" Kareen drew the line at discussing those details with Mama and Da, although she was dying for a comfortable gossip with Tante Cordelia about it all. She'd been too shy to start with an actual man , so she'd hired a hermaphrodite Licensed Practical Sexuality Therapist whom Mark's counselor had recommended. The L.P.S.T. had explained to her kindly that hermaphrodites were extremely popular with young persons taking the introductory practical course for just that reason. It had all worked out really really well. Mark, anxiously hovering by his comconsole for her post-coital report, had been so pleased for her. Of course, his introduction to his own sexuality had included such ghastly trauma and tortures, it was only natural he be worried sick. She smiled reassuringly at him now. "If that's Barrayar, I'll take Beta!"

Tante Cordelia said thoughtfully, "It's not entirely that simple. Both societies seek to solve the same fundamental problem—to assure that all children arriving will be cared for. Betans make the choice to do it directly, technologically, by mandating a biochemical padlock on everyone's gonads. Sexual behavior seems open at the price of absolute social control on its reproductive consequences. Has it never crossed your mind to wonder how that is enforced? It should. Now, Beta can control one's ovaries; Barrayar, especially during the Time of Isolation, was forced to try to control the entire woman attached to them. Throw in Barrayar's need to increase its population to survive, at least as pressing as Beta's to limit its to the same end, and your peculiar gender-biased inheritance laws, and, well, here we all are."

"Scrambling in the dark," growled Kareen. "No thank you."

"We should never have sent her there. Withhim ," Da grumbled.

Tante Cordelia observed, "Kareen was committed to her student year on Beta before she ever met Mark. Who knows? If Mark hadn't been there to, ah, insulate her, she might have met a nice Betan and stayed with him."

"Or it," Kareen murmured. "Or her."

Da's lips tightened.

"These trips can be more one-way than you expect. I haven't seen my own mother face-to-face more than three times in the last thirty years. At least if she sticks with Mark, you may be certain Kareen will return to Barrayar frequently."

Mama appeared very struck by this. She eyed Mark in new speculation. He essayed a hopeful, helpful smile.

Da said, "I want Kareen to be safe. Well. Happy. Financially secure. Is that so wrong?"

Tante Cordelia's lips twisted up with sympathy. "Safe? Well? That's what I wanted for my boys, too. Didn't always get it, but here we are anyway. As for happiness . . . I don't think you can give that to anyone, if they don't have it in them. However, it's certainly possible to give un –happiness—as you are finding."

Da's frown deepened in a somewhat surly manner, quelling Kareen's impulse to loudly cheer on this line of reasoning. Better let the Baba handle this . . .

The Countess continued, "As for that last . . . hm. Has anyone discussed Mark's financial status with you? Kareen, or Mark . . . or Aral?"

Da shook his head. "I thought he was broke. I assumed the family made him an allowance, like any other Vor scion. And that he ran through it—like any other Vor scion."

"I'm not broke ," Mark objected strenuously. "It's a temporary cash-flow problem. When I budgeted for this period, I wasn't expecting to be starting up a new business in the middle of it."

"In other words, you're broke," said Da.

"Actually," Tante Cordelia said, "Mark is completely self-supporting. He made his first million on Jackson's Whole."

Da opened his mouth, but then shut it again. He gave his hostess a disbelieving stare. Kareen hoped it would not occur to him to inquire closely into Mark's method for winning this fortune.

"Mark has invested it in an interesting variety of more and less speculative enterprises," Tante Cordelia went on kindly. "The family backs him—I've just bought some shares in his butter bug scheme myself—and we'll always be here for emergencies, but Mark doesn't need an allowance."

Mark looked both grateful and awed to be so maternally defended, as if . . . well . . . just so. As if no one had ever done so before.

"If he's so rich, why is he paying my daughter in IOUs?" demanded Da. "Why can't he just draw something out?"

"Before the end of the period?" said Mark, in a voice of real abhorrence. "And lose all that interest ?"

"And they're not IOUs," said Kareen. "They're shares!"

"Mark doesn't need money," said Tante Cordelia. "He needs what he knows money can't buy. Happiness, for example."

Mark, puzzled but pliable, offered, "So . . . do they want me to pay for Kareen? Like a dowry? How much? I will —"

"No, you twit!" cried Kareen in horror. "This isn't Jackson's Whole—you can't buy and sell people . Anyway, dowries were what the girl's family gave the fellow, not the other way around."

"That seems very wrong," said Mark, lowering his brows and pinching his chin. "Backwards. Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"I don't care if the boy has a million marks," Da began, sturdily and, Kareen suspected, not quite truthfully.

"Betan dollars," Tante Cordelia corrected absently. "Jacksonians do insist on hard currencies."

"The galactic exchange rates on the Barrayaran Imperial mark have been improving steadily since the War of the Hegen Hub," Mark started to explain. He'd written a paper on the subject last term; Kareen had helped proofread it. He could probably talk for a couple of hours about it. Fortunately, Tante Cordelia's raised finger staunched this threatened flow of nervous erudition.

Da and Mama appeared lost in a brief calculation of their own.

"All right," Da began again, a little less sturdily. "I don't care if the boy has four million marks. I care about Kareen."

Tante Cordelia tented her fingers thoughtfully. "So what is it that you want from Mark, Kou? Do you wish him to offer to marry Kareen?"

"Er," said Da, caught out. What he wanted , near as Kareen could tell, was for Mark to be carried off by predators, possibly even along with his four million marks in nonliquid investments, but he could hardly say so to Mark's mother.

"Yes, of course I'll offer, if she wants," Mark said. "I just didn't think she wanted to, yet. Did you?"

"No," said Kareen firmly. "Not . . . not yet, anyway. It's like I've just started to find myself, to figure out who I really am, to grow. I don't want to stop ."

Tante Cordelia's brows rose. "Is that how you see marriage? As the end and abolition of yourself?"

Kareen realized belatedly that her remark might be construed as a slur on certain parties here present. "It is for some people. Why else do all the stories end when the Count's daughter gets married? Hasn't that ever struck you as a bit sinister? I mean, have you ever read a folk tale where the Princess's mother gets to do anything but die young? I've never been able to figure out if that's supposed to be a warning, or an instruction."

Tante Cordelia pressed her finger to her lips to hide a smile, but Mama looked rather worried.

"You grow in different ways, afterward," Mama said tentatively. "Not like a fairy tale. Happily ever after doesn't cover it."

Da's brows drew down; he said, in an odd, suddenly uncertain voice, "I thought we were doing all right . . ."

Mama patted his hand reassuringly. "Of course, love."

Mark said valiantly, "If Kareen wants me to marry her, I will. If she doesn't, I won't. If she wants me to go away, I'll go—" This last was accompanied by a covertly terrified glance her way.

"No!" cried Kareen.

"If she wants me to walk downtown backwards on my hands, I'll try. Whatever she wants," Mark finished up.

The thoughtful expression on Mama's face suggested that at least she liked his attitude. . . . "Is it that you wish to just be betrothed?" she asked Kareen.

"That's almost the same as marriage, here," said Kareen. "You give these oaths."

"You take those oaths seriously, I gather?" said Tante Cordelia, with a flick of her eyebrow toward the occupants of the mystery couch.

"Of course ."

"I think it's down to you, Kareen," said Tante Cordelia with a small smile. "What do you want?"

Mark's hands clenched on his knees. Mama sat breathless. Da looked as if he was still worrying about the implications of that happily-ever-after remark.

This was Tante Cordelia. That wasn't a rhetorical question. Kareen sat silent, struggling for truth in confusion. Nothing less or else than truth would do. Yet where were the words for it? What she wanted was simply not a traditional Barrayaran option . . . ah. Yes. She sat up, and looked Tante Cordelia, and then Mama and Da, and then Mark in the eye.

"Not a betrothal. What I want . . . what I want—is an option on Mark."

Mark sat up, brightening. Now she was speaking a language they both understood.

"That's not Betan," said Mama, sounding confused.

"This isn't some weird Jacksonian practice, is it?" Da demanded suspiciously.

"No. It's a new Kareen custom. I just now made it up. But it fits." Her chin lifted.

Tante Cordelia's lips twitched up in amusement. "Hm. Interesting. Well. Speaking as Mark's, ah, agent in the matter, I would point out that a good option is not infinitely open-ended, nor all one-way. They have time limits. Renewal clauses. Compensation."

"Mutual," Mark broke in breathlessly. "Mutual option!"

"That would appear to cover the problem of compensation, yes. What about time limits?"

"I want a year," said Kareen. "To next Midsummer. I want at least a year, to see what we can do. I don't want anything from anybody," she glared at her parents, "but to back off !"

Mark nodded eagerly. "Agreed, agreed!"

Da jerked his thumb at Mark. "He'd agree to anything!"

"No," said Tante Cordelia judiciously. "I think you'll find he won't agree to anything that would make Kareen unhappy. Or smaller. Or unsafe."

Da's frown took on a serious edge. "Is that so? And what about her safety from him? All that Betan therapy wasn't for no reason!"

"Indeed not," agreed Tante Cordelia. Her nod acknowledged that seriousness. "But I believe it has been effective—Mark?"

"Yes, ma'am!" He sat there trying desperately to look Cured. He couldn't quite bring it off, but the effort was clearly sincere.

The Countess added quietly, "Mark is as much a veteran of our wars as any Barrayaran I know, Kou. He was conscripted earlier, is all. In his own strange and lonely way, he fought as hard, and risked as much. And lost as much. Surely you can grant him as much time to heal as you needed?"

The Commodore looked away, his face grown still.

"Kou, I wouldn't have encouraged this relationship if I thought it was unsafe for either of our children."

He looked back. "You? I know you! You trust beyond reason."

She met his eyes steadily. "Yes. It's how I get results beyond hope. As you may recall."

He pursed his lips, unhappily, and toed his swordstick a little. He had no reply for this one. But a funny little smile turned Mama's mouth, as she watched him.

"Well," said Tante Cordelia cheerfully into the lengthening silence, "I do believe we've achieved a meeting of the minds. Kareen to have an option upon Mark, and vice versa, until next Midsummer, when perhaps we should all meet again and evaluate the results, and consider negotiating an extension."

"What, are we supposed to just stand back while those two just—carry on?" cried Da, in a last fading attempt at indignation.

"Yes. Both to have the same freedom of action that, ah, you two," she nodded at Kareen's parents, "had at the same phase of your lives. I admit, carrying on was made easier for you, Kou, by the fact that all your fianc?e's relatives lived in other towns."

"I remember you were terrified of my brothers," Mama recalled, the funny little smile spreading a bit. Mark's eyes widened thoughtfully.

Kareen marveled at this inexplicable bit of history; her Droushnakovi uncles all had hearts of butter, in her experience. Da set his teeth, except that when he looked at Mama his eyes softened.

"Agreed," said Kareen firmly.

"Agreed," echoed Mark at once.

"Agreed," said Tante Cordelia, and raised her brows at the couple on the couch.

Mama said, "Agreed." That quizzical, quirky smile in her eyes, she waited for Da.

He gave her a long, appalled, You, too?! stare. "You've gone over to their side!"

"Yes, I believe so. Won't you join us?" Her smile broadened further. "I know we don't have Sergeant Bothari to knock you on the jaw and help kidnap you along against your better judgment this time. But it would've been dreadfully unlucky for us to have tried to go collect the Pretender's head without you." Her grip on his hand tightened.

After a long moment, Da turned from her and frowned fiercely at Mark. "You understand, if you hurt her, I'll hunt you down myself!"

Mark nodded anxiously.

"Your codicil is accepted," murmured Tante Cordelia, her eyes alight.

"Agreed, then!" Da snapped. He sat back grumpily, with a See-what-I-do-for-you-people look on his face. But he didn't let go of Mama's hand.

Mark was staring at Kareen with a smothered elation. She could almost picture the entire Black Gang, jumping up and down in the back of his head, cheering, and Lord Mark hushing them lest they draw attention to themselves.

Kareen took a breath, for courage, dipped her hand into her bolero pocket, and drew out her Betan earrings, the pair that declaimed her implant and her adult status. With a little push, she slipped one into each earlobe. It was not, she thought, a declaration of independence, for she still lived in a web of dependencies. It was more of a declaration of Kareen. I am who I am. Now, let's see how much I can do.