Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen - eARC

by Lois McMaster Bujold

  Jole blinked, blindsided by this new notion. His imagination had been filled with his three potential sons. Might there be a daughter, too, in some more distant someday? It was an oddly mind-melting vision. “I’d think those slots are filled by what she has on ice already. You don’t imagine I could talk her into more, surely?”

  Miles snorted. “Have you ever heard the phrase, like shooting fish in a barrel?” A reminiscent look came over his face. “Except, actually, that turns out not to be as easy as it sounds. I tried it once, when I was a kid down at Vorkosigan Surleau.”

  “With what?” Jole couldn’t help asking, diverted by this vision of the young Miles. Would his half-brothers be anything like him? Minus the soltoxin damage, thankfully.

  “I started with an old bow and arrows I’d found in a shed, but the results weren’t too satisfactory. Refraction in the water, plus the bow was too big for me and I was pretty awkward—I’m not sure I could have hit a real target at that age. Plus the fish were slippery buggers. The stunner that I filched from one of the armsmen didn’t work all that well, either—the water absorbed the charge. The fish just sort of…grew confused. Swam very oddly. I was just set to try a third test run with a plasma arc stolen ditto when they caught up with me. Sadly. I’ll bet that would have been spectacular.”

  Jole choked a laugh. “Or lethal!” Betan science crossed with Barrayaran militarism made an appalling hybrid at age, what, six or seven, maybe?

  Miles’s lips tweaked back. “Certainly for the fish. But, yes, steam burns and barrel shrapnel for anyone within range, I’m sure. Which would have certainly included me, though in my defense, I had also secured a dustbin lid.” He mimed this shield with a sweep of his arm.

  Was this a good opening to confess to his frozen sons? Jole, with an effort, pushed himself as far as, “Do you like being a da?” Because nothing said this impromptu grilling had to go in only one direction.

  Miles leaned back atop his stack, as if surprised in turn. “It’s had its hair-tearing moments, but—yeah, so far I like it a lot. Although it’s still a bit scary if I stop to think about it, which happily I don’t often have time to. My scope for really screwing up seems hugely expanded. Thank God for Ekaterin.”

  It occurred to Jole that Miles, too, must once have undergone something like Jole’s venture to the rep center. Or maybe he’d had some sort of at-home arrangement—Vorkosigan House’s basement-level infirmary, made top-grade during Aral’s regency, was presumably kept up-to-date. Perhaps his bride had helped out, rendering the enterprise less lonesome. He wasn’t about to ask.

  “I can’t imagine going it alone as a parent,” Miles went on, “although come to think I suppose old Piotr was forced to, when Yuri’s War left him with only my da. Half-grown by then, but still. It seems to have been rough sailing for both them. Disturbing to think that, by the time I came along, Piotr was said to have mellowed. Though it might have just been exhaustion.” The edge to his faint smile reminded Jole of knives. “They both did all right in the end, though. I guess people do, somehow.”

  Cordelia’s mother had been a widowed parent, too, Jole recalled. He wondered why Miles didn’t trot her out as a counterexample as well. The Betan bereaved-family experience seemed to have been much smoother than the Barrayaran, and not only for the absence of a bloody civil war. There’s Cordelia’s model, he realized. Her mother. Consciously or unconsciously internalized? Either way, it had left her remarkably confident.

  Miles’s expression grew more introspective. “My one regret was that I didn’t start my kids sooner. Couldn’t, I suppose, but…Lizzie and Taurie won’t remember Granda Aral, and of course Selig and Simone never had the chance to meet him at all. Well, he did come to look at the cryofreezer, soon after our marriage when Ekaterin and I had sequestered the six embryos, but that’s hardly the same thing.”

  Jole tried to picture the scene. It must have fallen early in the joint Viceroy and Vicereine’s sojourn on Sergyar, during one of their trips home. He would have been left helping hold the fort here in what was now Bobrik’s seat. “How did he, er, seem to process it? All the technology?”

  Miles wrinkled his nose. “Bemused. I guess. Pleased for us, really pleased, though with my mother standing right there he could hardly have expressed any doubts about the tech. For all that he had worked all his life to drag Barrayar up to galactic standards, medically and otherwise, I’m not sure he expected what that was really going to feel like to him personally. What it would mean to his House, to that central Vor…thing.” A ragged wave of Miles’s hands, as if futilely trying to encompass the complexity of his history. “He adored the kids when they finally arrived, of course.” He glanced away, over the sunlit tarmac. “I thought we’d have more time.”

  Jole swallowed and, cravenly, said, “Speaking of time, if we want any for lunch…”

  “Ah. Yes, I suppose.” Miles managed to wriggle down off the stack of sacks without breaking anything, and Jole managed not to annoy him by grabbing for him, a dual victory of sorts.

  As they paced back toward the mess hall, Jole trying not to be obvious about shortening his steps, a strange ripple of feeling coursed through him, deep and confounding. Sunstroke, he tried to tell himself, but instead it came out, Please, be born soon. I want to meet you.

  While there is still time.

  Shaken, he walked on.

  * * *

  Miles arrived back at the Palace late for dinner after his war games; Cordelia ruthlessly carried off Ekaterin right afterward to steal a few more hours of civic garden planning, leaving Miles to deal with his offspring. They suffered no interruptions from explosions, fire alarms, or panicked people pounding on her office door, so she gathered his child-minding went smoothly. She’d readied herself for bed and was doing one last comconsole check—although really, if there was another task waiting, she didn’t want to know—when he stuck his head around her door, grunted a greeting, sloped in, and thumped down into a chair.

  She sat back and regarded him doubtfully. “And so?” she prodded.

  “Eh.” He did that thing with his feet; she wondered if he ought to be checked for restless leg syndrome. But they stilled, as if they had wound him up sufficiently for another whirr around the room, and he said, “Had a talk with your Oliver today.”

  She noted the possessive. A good sign? Or was it more of a rejective, your Oliver, your problem…“Oh?”

  “I grant you, he seems a nice fellow—always did—”

  “I certainly think so.”

  “But he’s not very forthcoming.”

  She cast him a glinty-eyed maternal scowl across her desk. “Were you interrogating the poor man?”

  “It wasn’t like that!”

  Which she construed as, It was exactly like that.

  “We just had a talk. Perfectly civil. Aired a few concerns. Well, I did, anyway. He listened. You could see he was thinking, but I’m damned if I know what.”

  “He has a lot on his mind at the moment.” She smiled at a sudden memory. “Although it used to be fairly amusing to eavesdrop on him when he was cornered by Nexus diplomats at official functions. He grew very adept at getting more than he gave, to their dismay.”

  Glumly, Miles rubbed his nose. “I certainly ended up talking more than listening.”

  Cordelia’s lips twitched. “Well, that would be the problem then, wouldn’t it?”

  He jerked up his chin and bared his teeth back at her.

  “So what were you interrogating him about, that it proved so unsatisfactory?”

  “Oh, just…plans for the future. His. Yours…”

  “Miles—were you actually demanding to know his intentions?”

  He scrunched a bit, looking shifty. “Not precisely. Well, sort of.”

  “I think you’d best save those impulses for Helen’s suitors. They’ll doubtless be coming along any minute now.”

  Miles gave a theatrical shudder. “Surely not yet.”

  “You could be surprised. Anyway, O
liver’s plans are Oliver’s business.”

  “But if he won’t talk about anything that involves you, and you won’t talk about anything that involves him, how the hell do I find out about…anything?” he protested.

  “Maybe you don’t.”

  He gave an offended snort. “You can’t feign that what you do doesn’t affect me. I don’t expect to have a Betan vote, but some basic information would be nice. At least enough for going on with!”

  “I haven’t made a secret of my plans. I mean to move the capital, resign the viceroyship, build a home, and raise my girls. That should take me to my century. After that, who knows? Maybe I’ll revive my science career. Or retire for real. Or engage a harem to entertain me in my declining years. Foot rubs, lots of foot rubs.”

  He was startled into a laugh. “Male or female harem?”

  “I was thinking male, but I could be flexible.”

  He appeared to be briefly distracted by this vision, but then, alas, came back on track. “But then what are Oliver’s plans?”

  “He’s still working on them, and I’ll thank you to leave him alone while he does it. He’s a smart man. He’ll figure it out.”

  “Figure what out? He seems to think you don’t want to marry him.”

  “I don’t want to marry anyone, till the girls are launched. After that…will be a new world. Another new world.” Her, what…fifth? Sixth?

  “Yeah, that’s what he said. So how come he knows that, and I don’t?”

  “He’s not hard-of-listening?”

  Miles drummed his fingers on the chair arms. The feet started up again.

  Obviously, Oliver had not mentioned his boys yet, or this would be a much different and possibly more explosive conversation. Well, she’d registered her views about that; the rest was up to Oliver.

  “Gregor said, if I wanted to know more, I should ask you. This implies that there’s more to know, or he wouldn’t have said any such thing, right?”

  Cordelia was more inclined to interpret it as Gregor saying, sensibly, I’m not touching this with a stick. But the trouble with handing Miles a stick was that he’d take it and head straight to the nearest wasp nest, and what idiot had ever decided that importing Earth wasps to Barrayar would be a valuable addition to the ecosystem? Speaking of fellow invasive species. Little Miles, who had gritted his teeth through any number of broken bones, had actually cried for that encounter. Screamed, actually. It had taken a couple of hours and some scary drugs to get him settled down. After which Cordelia had taken a military stunner and a poison sprayer and made damn sure it would never happen again. Speak softly, and carry the right tool for the job.

  But that same attitude was part of what had made the grownup Miles one of Gregor’s best Imperial investigators, later in life. He’d plumbed the depths of mysteries and drains with equal tenacity. She was beginning to get an inkling of why his suspects had so often tried to sting him.

  “I am under no obligation to gratify your salacious curiosity,” she told him. “Just…channel your inner Betan and try to relax, all right? I expect all things to resolve themselves shortly.” One way or another, thank-you-I-think Admiral Desplains.

  “So where does Oliver fit into all this?” The corner of his mouth tucked up. “Besides heading the harem, I suppose.”

  Indeed, Oliver is diligent in all tasks he takes on. Cordelia quashed a smirk, and answered forthrightly, “Where he chooses. He has a certain career decision to make, which is not mine to discuss with you, after which…we’ll all know more.”

  Miles pursed his lips. “Career decision? What career decision? He’s Admiral of Sergyar Fleet, for pity’s sake!” His eyes narrowed in rapid thought. “They wouldn’t move him out of the line at this stage of his career. Resign and go into diplomacy, like Ivan? He’d be good at that. Or—no. Has to be…Komarr Fleet, Home Fleet, Chief of Ops? Thibault is solid on Komarr, Kuprin just got promoted to Home Fleet last year, Desplains is…good grief, has he been offered Chief of Ops?”

  Argh. She’d forgotten how quick Miles could be, and how eclectically informed. “Miles! I promised confidentiality! I had need-to-know as Vicereine. You don’t.”

  “I need to know—wait, what? That would take him back to Vorbarr Sultana! What is this, hit-and-run love?” He sat up, suddenly seething with indignation. “He seduces you and takes off, and you’re not even trying to trip him on the way out the door?”

  “First, we seduced each other, and second, he hasn’t made it to the door yet. And third, it is all much more complicated than that.”

  “Which brings us back around to why is that?”

  “A few days ago, you were glaring like a suspicious guard dog at him when we so much as snuggled. Have you switched sides?”

  “I’m on your side,” he grumbled. “If I could figure out what it is.”

  “I know, love,” she sighed. I just wish you’d be on my side more quietly, somewhere else.

  “Chief of Ops,” he mused on, unhelpfully. “Wow. You do know, turning down a plum offer like that is something of a career-killer. They think you aren’t committed.”

  “I am aware of the psychology of the high command, yes.”

  “Not that Oliver’s career isn’t pretty…pretty mature as it stands.”

  “That it is.”

  A wistful look stole over his face—envy for the Imperial military life he’d once aspired to? Frankly, Cordelia thought Miles had been much better placed in ImpSec, where his erratic genius had found its full scope. Sticking him in the regulars would have been a disaster—had been, she recalled from the results of just such an early experiment. We all have our might-have-beens.

  He rolled his cane in his hands, and conceded, “All right. Yeah. That is some serious decision for a working officer. Especially for a prole of his generation who came up out of nowhere.”

  “If you were in his place, how would you make it?” she asked curiously.

  “My life would have to have been radically different, for me to be in his place.”

  “Granting that. But a speculative scenario. Say, you were courting Ekaterin, and she could not or would not leave Sergyar.”

  “That…doesn’t quite work. Because any woman engaging herself to a senior Imperial officer would know she was taking on the package, presumably. It would be her choice to follow or stay, not his to stay or go. I mean, if he were under orders. Which isn’t quite the case here, yeah, true. The only decision I ever made that put my heart on the line like that…” He stopped rather abruptly.

  “Mm?”

  “Wasn’t about a woman,” he finished. He added after a meditative silence, “It was about ambition, though. Um. Yeah. I don’t think I envy Oliver his dilemma.”

  Oh, kiddo. You have no idea.

  He was watching her face, she realized. He offered, not quite facetiously enough, “I could help trip him if you want…”

  Eee. “What I want is for Oliver to make a decision he won’t regret. I don’t think either of us can help him with that.” She managed to add, “Though I appreciate the thought. It was well-meant.” Potentially disastrous, but well-meant. “But if you really want to be helpful, go to bed, so I can.”

  He snorted. “Yeah, yeah. I can take a hint.” To her relief, he clambered up and limped out, with a backward wave.

  * * *

  The best way to avoid another uncomfortable tête-à-tête with Cordelia’s inquisitive son, Jole decided, was to not let himself get caught alone with him. In pursuit of this plan, he invited Kaya and Fyodor along to the next day’s lunch in the upstairs dining room of the officers’ mess. Between fiendish hijacking sim schemes—Kaya was with Miles’s team on the attack side this afternoon—and Gridgrad gripes, avoiding the personal seemed easy, and Jole relaxed back in his chair and let his guests go at each other with his good will.

  Until Kaya, after a brief lull while people remembered to chew and swallow, came out with, “What do you most want for your birthday picnic, Admiral?”

  Ta
ken by surprise, he answered honestly: “No casualties.”

  “Amen,” Fyodor endorsed this, in a heartfelt growl. He had not yet said, out loud, I told you so in Jole’s hearing as the event had ballooned, but he had managed a few expressive silences along the way. An appreciative grin flicked over Miles’s face.

  “The committee has a safety officer assigned,” Kaya assured him earnestly. “He’s liaising with the Kayburg Guard and everything. But no, seriously.”

  The committee had obviously detailed Kaya as scout on this burning question, logically enough. Jole dragged his brain into gear. His first pick would be a day alone with Cordelia in Penney’s Shack One, obviously not on. His next would be a day alone, period, ensconced somewhere quiet and comfortable, feet up, perhaps with the next issue of the Uni’s bio journal and its endlessly strange explorations. A hike, preferably with Cordelia, in the backcountry might be fine, too—packing a picnic for two, not two thousand. He could go on, but probably shouldn’t.

  Kaya plainly hoped for something simple and manageable, such as a bottle of his favorite liquor—a null set, alas—a pony ride, whatever. And if he didn’t come up with an answer, or at least a direction, he risked being lumbered with God-knew-what.

  He’d hesitated a little too long. Fyodor, himself a veteran of a career’s worth of promotion parties and change-of-command ceremonies, and thus doubtless having no trouble figuring out his dilemma, snorted in amused fellow feeling. “Whatever happened to that lunatic scheme of yours of having a son for your fiftieth, Oliver? Although I suppose that’s not something the committee could supply. Unless you adopt one of the junior ensigns, which, let me tell you, could save you a world of steps.”

  Miles went still, then blinked like a lizard. “Really? Did my mother get to you, Oliver?”

  In so many ways. “She pitches the virtues of the new rep center to anyone who will listen. She gets very Betan about it.” Two perfectly true statements.