"Why would any couple not choose to use a replicator?" he asked, his head spinning with this sudden new tack in conversation.
"To, like, prove her love for him."
"Good God, how barbaric! Of course not. I'd think it would prove just the opposite, that he didn't love her." He paused. "That was a strictly theoretical question, wasn't it?"
"Sort of."
"I mean, you don't know anyone who's seriously having this debate—not your sisters or anything?" he asked in worry. Not you, surely? Some barbarian needed his head stuck in a bucket of ice water, if so. And held under for a good long time, like till he stopped wriggling.
"Oh, none of my sisters are married yet. Though it's not for lack of offers. But Mama and Da are holding out. It's a strategy," she confided.
"Oh?"
"Lady Cordelia encouraged them, after the second of us girls came along. There was a period soon after she immigrated here, when galactic medicine was really spreading out, and there was this pill you could take to choose the sex of your child. Everyone went crazy for boys, for a while. The ratio's evened up again lately. But my sisters and I are right in the middle of the girl-drought. Any man who won't agree in the marriage contract to let his wife use a uterine replicator is having a real hard time getting married, right now. The go-betweens won't even bother dealing for him." She giggled. "Lady Cordelia's told Mama if she plays the game well, every one of her grandchildren could be born with a Vor in front of their names."
"I see." Mark blinked. "Is that an ambition of your parents?"
"Not necessarily." Kareen shrugged. "But all else being equal, that prefix does give a fellow an edge."
"That's . . . good to know. I guess." He considered his wine, and did not drink.
Ivan came out of one of the ballroom doors, saw them both, and gave them a friendly wave, but kept on going. He had not a glass but an entire bottle swinging from his hand, and he cast a slightly hunted look back over his shoulder before disappearing down the walkway. Glancing over the balustrade a few minutes later, Mark saw the top of his head pass by on a descending path.
Mark took a gulp of his drink then. "Kareen . . . am I possible?"
"Possible for what?" She tilted her head and smiled.
"For—for women. I mean, look at me. Square on. I really do look like a toad. All twisted up, and if I don't do something about it soon, I'm going to end up as wide as I am . . . short. And on top of it all, I'm a clone." Not to mention the little breathing problem. Summed up that way, hurling himself head-first over the balustrade seemed a completely logical act. It would save so much pain in the long run.
"Well, that's all true," she allowed judiciously.
Dammit, woman, you're supposed to deny it all, to be polite.
"But you're Miles's clone. You have to have his intelligence, too."
"Do brains make up for all the rest? In the female view?"
"Not to every woman, I suppose. Just to the smart ones."
"You're smart."
"Yes, but it would be rude of me to say so." She raked her curls and grinned.
How the hell was he to construe that? "Maybe I don't have Miles's brains," he said gloomily. "Maybe the Jacksonian body-sculptors stupified me, when they were doing all the rest, to keep me under control. That would explain a lot about my life." Now there was a morbid new thought to wallow in.
Kareen giggled. "I don't think so, Mark."
He smiled wryly back at her. "No excuses. No quarter."
"Now you sound like Miles."
A young woman emerged from the ballroom. Dressed in some pale blue silky stuff, she was athletically trim, glowingly blonde, and nearly as tall as Ivan. "Kareen!" She waved. "Mama wants us all."
"Now, Delia?" said Kareen, sounding quite put-out.
"Yes." She eyed Mark with alarmingly keen interest, but drawn by whatever daughterly duty, swung back inside.
Kareen sighed, pushed away from the stonework upon which she had been leaning, dusted futilely at a snag in her raspberry gauze, and smiled farewell. "It was nice meeting you, Lord Mark."
"It was nice talking with you too. And dancing with you." It was true. He waved, more casually than he felt, as she vanished into the warm light of the Residence. When he was sure she was out of sight, he knelt and surreptitiously collected the last of the tiny flowers she had shed and stuffed them into his pocket with the rest.
She smiled at me. Not at Miles. Not at Admiral Naismith. Me, myself, Mark. This was how it could have been, if he hadn't bankrupted himself at Bharaputra's.
Now that he was alone in the dark as he had wished, he discovered he didn't much care for it. He decided to go find Ivan, and struck off down the garden walkways. Unfortunately, the paths divided and re-divided, presumably to more than one destination. He passed couples who had taken to the sheltered benches despite the chill, and a few other men and women who'd just wandered down here for private talks, or to cool off. Which way had Ivan gone? Not this way, obviously; a little round balcony made a dead-end. He turned back.
Someone was following him, a tall man in red-and-blues. His face was in shadow. "Ivan?" said Mark uncertainly. He didn't think it was Ivan.
"So you're Vorkosigan's clowne." Not Ivan's voice. But his skewed pronunciation made the intended insult very clear.
Mark stood square. "You've got that straight, all right," he growled. "So who in this circus are you, the dancing bear?"
"A Vor."
"I can tell that by the low, sloping forehead. Which Vor?" The hairs were rising on the back of his neck. The last time he'd felt such exhilaration combined with intense sickness to his stomach had been in the alley in the caravanserai. His heart began to pound. But he's made no threat yet, and he's alone. Wait.
"Offworlder. You have no concept of the honor of the Vor," the man grated.
"None whatsoever," Mark agreed cheerfully. "I think you're all insane."
"You are no soldier."
"Right again. My, we are quick tonight. I was trained strictly as a lone assassin. Death in the shadows is a sort of speciality of mine." He began counting seconds in his head.
The man, who had started to move forward, sagged back again. "So it seems," he hissed. "You've wasted no time, promoting yourself to a countship. Not very subtle, for a trained assassin."
"I'm not a subtle man." He centered his balance, but did not move. No sudden moves. Keep bluffing.
"I can tell you this, little clowne." He gave it the same insulting slur as before. "If Aral Vorkosigan dies, it won't be you who steps into his place."
"Well, that's just exactly right," purred Mark. "So what are you all hot about, Vor bore?" Shit. This one knows that Miles is dead. How the hell does he know? Is he an ImpSec insider? But no Horus-eye stared from his collar; he bore a ship insignia of some kind, which Mark could not quite make out. Active-duty type. "What, to you, is one more little spare Vor drone living off a family pension in Vorbarr Sultana? I saw a herd of them up there tonight, swilling away."
"You're very cocky."
"Consider the venue," said Mark in exasperation. "You're not going to carry out any death threats here. It would embarrass ImpSec. And I don't think you want to annoy Simon Illyan, whoever the hell you are." He kept on counting.
"I don't know what hold you think you have on ImpSec," the man began furiously.
But he was interrupted. A smiling servant in the Residence's livery walked down the path carrying a tray of glasses. He was a very physically-fit young man.
"Drinks, gentlemen?" he offered.
The anonymous Vor glowered at him. "No, thank you." He turned on his heel and strode off. Shrubbery whipped in his wake, scattering droplets of dew.
"I'll take one, thanks," said Mark brightly. The servant proffered the tray with a slight bow. For his abused stomach's sake Mark stuck with the same light wine he'd been drinking most of the evening. "Eighty-five seconds. Your timing is lousy. He could have killed me three times over, but you interrupted just as the talk was get
ting interesting. How do you fellows pick this stuff out, real-time? You can't possibly have enough people upstairs to be following every conversation in the building. Automated key-word searches?"
"Canapé, sir?" Blandly, the servant turned the tray and offered the other side.
"Thank you again. Who was that proud Vor?"
The servant glanced down the now-empty pathway. "Captain Edwin Vorventa. He's on personal leave while his ship is in orbital dock."
"He's not in ImpSec?"
"No, my lord."
"Oh? Well, tell your boss I'd like to talk to him, at his earliest convenience."
"That would be Lord Voraronberg, the castellan's food and beverage manager."
Mark grinned. "Oh, sure. Go away, I'm drunk enough."
"Very good, my lord."
"Not come morning. Ah! One more thing. You wouldn't know where I could find Ivan Vorpatril right now, would you?"
The young man stared absently over the balcony a moment, as though listening, though no earbug showed. "There is a sort of gazebo at the bottom of the next left-hand turn, my lord, near a fountain. You might try there."
"Thank you."
Mark followed his directions, through the cool night mist. In a stray ray of light, fog droplets on his uniform sleeve shone like a cloud across the little silver rivers of the embroidery. He soon heard the plash of the fountain. A petite stone building, no walls, just deeply shadowed arches, overlooked it.
It was so quiet in this pocket of the garden, he could hear the breathing of the person inside. Only one person; good, he wasn't about to diminish his already low popularity still further by interrupting a tryst. But it was strangely hoarse. "Ivan?"
There was a long pause. He was trying to decide whether to call again or tiptoe off when Ivan's voice returned an uninviting growl of, "What?"
"I just . . . wondered what you were doing."
"Nothing."
"Hiding from your mother?"
" . . . Yeah."
"I, ah, won't tell her where you are."
"Good for you," was the sour reply.
"Well . . . see you later." He turned to go.
"Wait."
He waited, puzzled.
"Want a drink?" Ivan offered after a long pause.
"Uh . . . sure."
"So, come get it."
Mark ducked inside and waited for his eyes to adjust. The usual stone bench, and Ivan a seated shadow. Ivan proffered the gleaming bottle, and Mark topped up his glass, only to find too late that Ivan wasn't drinking wine, but rather some sort of brandy. The accidental cocktail tasted vile. He sat down by the steps with his back to a stone post and set his glass aside. Ivan had dispensed with the formality of a glass.
"Are you going to be able to make it back to your groundcar?" asked Mark doubtfully.
"Don't plan to. The Residence's staff will cart me out in the morning, when they pick up the rest of the trash."
"Oh." His night vision continued to improve. He could pick out the glittery bits on Ivan's uniform, and the polished glow of his boots. The reflections of his eyes. The gleam of wet tracks down his cheeks. "Ivan, are you—" Mark bit his tongue on crying, and changed it in mid-sentence to, "all right?"
"I," Ivan stated firmly, "have decided to get very drunk."
"I can see that. Why?"
"Never have, at the Emperor's Birthday. It's a traditional challenge, like getting laid here."
"Do people do that?"
"Sometimes. On a dare."
"How entertaining for ImpSec."
Ivan snorted a laugh. "Yeah, there is that."
"So who dared you?"
"Nobody."
Mark felt he was running out of probing questions faster than Ivan was running out of monosyllabic replies.
But, "Miles and I," Ivan said in the dark, "used to work this party together, most every year. I was surprised . . . how much I missed the little bugger's slanderous political commentary, this time around. Used to make me laugh." Ivan laughed. It was a hollow and un-funny noise. He stopped abruptly.
"They told you about finding the empty cryo-chamber, didn't they," said Mark.
"Yeah."
"When?"
"Couple of days ago. I've been thinking about it, since. Not good."
"No." Mark hesitated. Ivan was shivering, in the dark. "Do you . . . want to go home and go to bed?" I sure do.
"Never make it up the hill, now," shrugged Ivan.
"I'll give you a hand. Or a shoulder."
" . . . All right."
It took some doing, but he hoisted Ivan to his unsteady feet, and they navigated back up the steep garden. Mark didn't know what charitable ImpSec guardian angel passed the word, but they were met at the top not by Ivan's mother, but by his aunt.
"He's, ah . . ." Mark was not sure what to say. Ivan peered around blearily.
"So I see," said the Countess.
"Can we spare an armsman, to drive him home?" Ivan sagged, and Mark's knees buckled. "Better make it two armsmen."
"Yes." The Countess touched a decorative comm pin on her bodice. "Pym . . . ?"
Ivan was thus taken off his hands, and Mark breathed a sigh of relief. His relief grew to outright gratitude when the Countess commented that it was time for them to quit, too. In a few minutes Pym brought the Count's groundcar around to the entrance, and the night's ordeal was over.
The Countess didn't talk much, for a change, in the groundcar going back to Vorkosigan House. She leaned back against her seat and closed her eyes in exhaustion. She didn't even ask him anything.
In the black-and-white paved foyer the Countess handed off her cloak to a maid, and headed left, toward the library.
"You'll excuse me, Mark. I'm going to call ImpMil."
She looked so tired. "Surely they'd have called you, ma'am, if there was any change in the Count's condition."
"I'm going to call ImpMil," she said flatly. Her eyes were puffy slits. "Go to bed, Mark."
He didn't argue with her. He trudged wearily up the stairs to his bedroom corridor.
He paused outside the door to his room. It was very late at night. The hallway was deserted. The silence of the great house pressed on his ears. On an impulse, he turned back and stepped down the hall to Miles's room. There he paused again. In all his weeks on Barrayar, he had not ventured in here. He had not been invited. He tried the antique knob. The door was not locked.
Hesitantly, he entered, and keyed up the lights with a word. It was a spacious bedchamber, given the limits of the house's old architecture. An adjoining antechamber once meant for personal servants had long ago been converted to a private bathroom. At first glance the room seemed almost stripped, bare and neat and clean. All the clutter of childhood must have been boxed and put away in an attic, in some spasm of maturity. He suspected Vorkosigan House's attics were astonishing.
Yet a trace of the owner's personality remained. He walked slowly around the room, hands in his pockets like a patron at a museum.
Reasonably enough, the few mementos that had been retained tended heavily to reminders of successes. Miles's diploma from the Imperial Service Academy, and his officer's commission, were normal enough, though Mark wondered why a battered old Service issue weather manual was also framed and placed exactly between them. A box of old gymkhana awards going back to youth looked as if they might be heading for an attic very soon. Half a wall was devoted to a massive book-disk and vid collection, thousands of titles. How many had Miles actually read? Curious, he took the hand-viewer off its hook on the wall nearby and tried three disks at random. All had at least a few notes or glosses entered in the margin-boxes, tracks of Miles's thought. Mark gave up the survey, and passed on.
One object he knew personally; a cloissoné-hilted dagger, which Miles had inherited from old General Piotr. He dared to take it down and test its heft and edge. So when in the past two years had Miles stopped carting it around, and sensibly begun leaving it safely at home? He replaced it carefully on the shelf in its
sheath.
One wall-hanging was ironic, personal, and obvious: an old metal leg-brace, crossed, military-museum fashion, with a Vor sword. Half joke, half defiance. Both obsolete. A cheap photonic reproduction of a page from an ancient book was matted and mounted in a wildly expensive silver frame. The text was all out of context, but appeared to be some sort of pre-jump religious gibberish, all about pilgrims, and a hill, and a city in the clouds. Mark wasn't sure what that was all about; nobody had ever accused Miles of being the religious type. Yet it was clearly important to him.
Some of these things aren't prizes, Mark realized. They are lessons.
A holovid portfolio box rested on the bedside table. Mark sat down and activated it. He expected Elli Quinn's face, but the first videoportrait to come up was of a tall, glowering, extraordinarily ugly man in Vorkosigan armsmen's livery. Sergeant Bothari, Elena's father. He keyed through the contents. Quinn was next, then Bothari-Jesek. His parents, of course. Miles's horse, Ivan, Gregor: after that, a parade of faces and forms. He keyed through faster and faster, not recognizing even a third of the people. After the fiftieth face, he stopped clicking.
He rubbed his face wearily. He's not a man, he's a mob. Right. He sat bent and aching, face in his hands, elbows on his knees. No. I am not Miles.
Miles's comconsole was the secured type, in no way junior to the one in the Count's library. Mark walked over and examined it only by eye; his hands he shoved back deep into his trouser pockets. His fingertips encountered Kareen Koudelka's crumpled flowerlets.
He drew them out and spread them on his palm. In a spasm of frustration, he smashed the blooms with his other hand, and threw them to the floor. Less than a minute later he was on his hands and knees frantically scraping the scattered bits up off the carpet again. I think I must be insane. He sat on his knees on the floor and began to cry.
Unlike poor Ivan, no one interrupted his misery, for which he was profoundly grateful. He sent a mental apology after his Vorpatril cousin, Sorry, sorry . . . though odds were even whether Ivan would remember anything about his intrusion come the morning. He gulped for control of his breath, his head aching fiercely.
Miles Errant Page 66