"I understand, but . . . I was thinking, Nikki tends to withdraw around strangers. Make sure this fellow grasps that just because Nikki goes monosyllabic doesn't mean he's not desperately curious."
"I'll make sure he understands."
"Does he have much experience with children?"
"Not as far as I know." Miles gave her a rueful smile. "But perhaps he'll be grateful for the practice."
"Under the circumstances, I find that unlikely."
"Under the circumstances, I'm afraid you're right. But I trust his judgment."
The myriad other questions which lay between them had to wait, as Nikki came bouncing back with the news that all newborn kittens' eyes were blue. The near-hysteria which had crumpled his face when they'd first arrived was erased. This kitchen made a fair barometer of his internal state; pleasantly distracted by food and pets, he was clearly much calmer. That he now could be so diverted was telling, Ekaterin judged. I was right to come to Miles. How did Illyan know?
Ekaterin let Nikki burble on till he ran down, then said, "We should go. My aunt will be wondering what happened to us." The hasty note she'd penned had told where they'd gone, but not why; Ekaterin had been far too upset at the time to even try to include the details. She looked forward without pleasure to explaining this whole hideous mess to her uncle and aunt, but at least they knew the truth, and could be counted upon to share her outrage.
"Pym can drive you," Miles offered immediately.
He made no attempt to trap her here this time, she noted with dark amusement. Not a slow learner, indeed?
Promising to call her when he'd cleared Nikki's interview, Miles handed them personally into the rear compartment of the groundcar, and watched them out the gates. Nikki was quiet on this trip, too, but the silence was much less fraught now.
After a little, he gave her an odd, appraising look. "Mama . . . did you turn Lord Vorkosigan down 'cause he's a mutie?"
"No," she replied at once, and firmly. His brows bent. If he didn't get a more explicit answer, he would likely make up his own, she realized with an inward sigh. "You see, when he hired me to make his garden, it wasn't because he wanted a garden, or thought I was good at the work. He just thought it would give him a chance to see me a lot."
"Well," said Nikki, "that makes sense. I mean, it did, didn't it?"
She managed not to glower at him. Her work meant nothing to him—what did? If you could say anything to anyone . . . "Would you like it, if somebody promised to help you become a jump pilot, and you worked your heart out studying, and then it turned out they were tricking you into doing something else?"
"Oh." The light glimmered, dimly.
"I was angry because he'd tried to manipulate me, and my situation, in a way I found invasive and offensive." After a short, reflective pause, she added helplessly, "It seems to be hisstyle ." Was it a style she could learn to live with? Or was it a style he could bloody well learn not to try on her? Live, or learn? Can we have some of both?
"So . . . d'you like him? Or not?"
Like was surely not an adequate word for this hash of delight and anger and longing, this profound respect laced with profound irritation, all floating on a dark pool of old pain. The past and the future, at war in her head. "I don't know. Some of the time I do, yes, very much."
Another long pause. "Are you in love with him?"
What Nikki knew of adult love, he'd mostly garnered off the holovid. Part of her mind readily translated this question as code for, Which way are you going to jump, and what will happen to me? And yet . . . he could not share or even imagine the complexity of her romantic hopes and fears, but he certainly knew how such stories were supposed to Come Out Right.
"I don't know. Some of the time. I think."
He favored her with his Big People Are Crazy look. In all, she could only agree.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Miles had obtained copies of archives from the Council of Counts covering all the contested succession debates from the last two centuries. Together with a stack of gleanings from Vorkosigan House's own document room, they spread themselves over two tables and a desk in the library. He was deeply engrossed in a hundred-and-fifty-year-old account of the fourth Count Vorlakial's family tragedy when Armsman Jankowski appeared at the door from the anteroom and announced, "Commodore Galeni, m'lord."
Miles looked up in surprise. "Thank you, Jankowski." The Armsman gave him an acknowledging nod, and withdrew, closing the double doors discreetly behind himself.
Galeni trod across the great library, and regarded the scattering of papers, parchments, and flimsies with an ex-historian's alert eye. "Cramming, are you?" he inquired.
"Yes. Now, you had that doctorate in Barrayaran history. Do any really interesting District succession squabbles spring to your memory?"
"Lord Midnight the horse," Galeni replied at once. "Who always voted `neigh.' "
"Got that one already." Miles waved at the pile on the far end of the inlaid table. "What brings you here, Duv?"
"Official ImpSec business. Your requested analyst's report, My Lord Auditor, regarding certain rumors about Madame Vorsoisson's late husband."
Miles scowled, reminded. "ImpSec is late off the mark. This would have done a lot more good yesterday. Not a hell of a lot of point to order me to back off, and then let Ekaterin and Nikki be subjected to that surprise harassment—in her own home, good God—by that idiot Vormoncrief."
"Yes. Illyan told Allegre. Allegre told me. I wish I had someone to tell . . . I was still pulling in informants' reports and cross-checks as of midnight last night, thank you very much, my lord. I wasn't able to calculate anything like a decent reliability score till late yesterday."
"Oh. Oh, no, Allegre didn't put you on this . . . slander matter personally, did he? Sit, sit." Miles waved Galeni to a chair, which the Komarran pulled up around the corner of the table from Miles.
"Of course he did. I was an eyewitness to your ghastly dinner party, which seems to have launched the whole thing, and more to the point, I'm already in the need-to-know pool regarding the Komarr case." Galeni seated himself with a tired grunt; his eye automatically began to scan the documents sideways. "There was no way Allegre would add another man to that pool if he could possibly avoid it."
"Mm, makes sense, I guess. But I'd hardly think you'd have time ."
"I didn't," said Galeni bitterly. "I've been putting in an extra half shift after dinner nearly every day since I was promoted to head of Komarran Affairs. This came out of my sleep cycle. I'm considering abandoning meals and just hanging a food tube over my desk, which I could suck on now and then."
"I'd think Delia would put her foot down, after a while."
"Yes, and that's another thing," Galeni added, in an aggravated tone.
Miles waited a beat, but Duv did not elaborate. Well, and did he really need to? Miles sighed. "Sorry," he offered.
"Yes, well. From ImpSec's point of view, I have excellent news. No evidence has yet surfaced indicating any leak of the classified matters surrounding Tien Vorsoisson's death. No names, no hints of . . . technical activities, not even rumors of financial chicanery. There continues to be a complete and most welcome absence of Komarran conspirators of any stripe from any of the several scenarios of your murder of Vorsoisson."
"Several scenarios—! How many versions are circulating—no, don't tell me. It would just raise my blood pressure to no good purpose." Miles gritted his teeth. "So, what, am I supposed to have made away with Vorsoisson—a man twice my size—through some devilish ex-ImpSec trick?"
"Perhaps. In the one version concocted so far where you were not pictured as acting alone, the only henchmen posited were vile and corrupt ImpSec personnel. In your pay."
"This could only have been imagined by someone who never had to fill out one of Illyan's arcane expenditure-and/or-income reports," Miles growled.
Galeni shrugged amused agreement.
"And were there—no, let me tell you," Miles said. "There were
no leaks traced from the Vorthys's household."
"None," Galeni conceded.
Miles grumbled a few satisfied swear words under his breath. He knew he hadn't misestimated Ekaterin. "Do me a personal favor and be sure to highlight that fact in the copy of this you send up to Allegre, eh?"
Galeni opened his hand in a carefully noncommittal gesture.
Miles blew out his breath, slowly. No leaks, no treasons: just idle malice and circumstance. And a touch of theoretical blackmail. Upsetting to himself, to his parents when it came to them, as it soon must, upsetting to the Vorthyses, to Nikki, to Ekaterin. They had dared to upset Ekaterin with this . . . He carefully ignored his simmering fury. Rage had no place in this. Calculation and implacable action did.
"So what, if anything, is ImpSec planning to do about it all?" Miles asked at last.
"At present, as little as possible. It's not as though we don't have enough other tasks on our plate. We will, of course, continue to monitor all data for any key items that might lead public attention back to where we don't want it. It's a poor second choice to no attention at all, but this murder scenario does us one favor. For anyone who refuses to accept Tien Vorsoisson's death as a mere accident, it presents a plausible cover story, which entirely accounts for no further investigation being permitted."
"Oh, entirely," snarled Miles. I see where this is going . He sat back, and folded his arms mulishly. "Does this mean I'm on my own?"
"Ah . . ." said Galeni. He drew it out for a rather long time. Eventually, he ran out of ah and was forced to speak. "Not exactly."
Miles bared his set teeth, and waited for Galeni, who waited for him.
Miles broke first. "Dammit, Duv, am I supposed to just stand here and eat this shit raw?"
"Come on, Miles, you've done coverups before. I thought you covert ops fellows lived and breathed this sort of thing."
"Never in my own sandbox. Never where I had to live in it. My Dendarii missions were hit and run. We always left the stink far behind."
Galeni's shrug lacked sympathy. "I must also point out, these are first results. Just because there are no leaks yet doesn't mean none will be . . . siphoned out into the open later on."
Miles exhaled slowly. "All right. Tell Allegre he has his goat. Baaah." He added after a moment, "But I draw the line at pretending to guilt. It was a breath mask accident. Period."
Galeni waved a hand in acceptance of this. "ImpSec won't complain."
It was good , Miles reminded himself, that there was no security rupture in the Komarr case. But this also killed his faint, unvoiced hope that he could leave Richars and his cronies to the untender mercies of ImpSec to be disposed of. "As long as this is all gas, so be it. But you can let Allegre know, that if it goes to a formal murder charge against me in the Council . . ." Then what?
Galeni's eyes narrowed. "Do you have reason to think someone will charge you there? Who?"
"Richars Vorrutyer. I have a sort of . . . personal promise from him."
"He can't, though. Not unless he gets a member to lay it for him."
"He can if he beats out Lord Dono and is confirmed Count Vorrutyer." And my colleagues are like to choke on Lord Dono.
"Miles . . . ImpSec can't release the evidence surrounding Vorsoisson's death. Not even to the Council of Counts."
By the look on Galeni's face, Miles read that as Especially not to the Council of Counts. Knowing that erratic body, he sympathized. "Yes. I know."
Galeni said uneasily, "What are you planning to do?"
Miles had more compelling reasons than the strain on ImpSec's nerves to wish to sidestep this whole scenario. Two of them, mother and son. If he worked it right, none of this looming juridical mess need ever touch Ekaterin and her Nikki. "Nothing more—nor less—than my job. A little politicking. Barrayaran style."
Galeni eyed him dubiously. "Well . . . if you really intend to project innocence, you need to do a more convincing job. You . . . twitch ."
Miles . . . twitched. "There's guilt and there's guilt. I am not guilty of willful murder. I am guilty of screwing up. Now, I'm not alone—this one took a full committee. Headed by that fool Vorsoisson himself. If only he'd—dammit, every time you step off the downside shuttle into a Komarran dome they sit you down and make you watch that vid on breath mask procedures. He'd been living there nearly a year. He'd been told ." He fell silent a moment. "Not that I didn't know better than to go out-dome without informing my contacts."
"As it happens, no one is accusing you of negligence."
Miles's mouth twisted bitterly. "They flatter me, Duv. They flatter me."
"I can't help you with that one," said Galeni. "I have enough unquiet ghosts of my own."
"Check." Miles sighed.
Galeni regarded him for a long moment, then said abruptly, "About your clone."
"Brother."
"Yes, him. Do you know . . . do you understand . . . what the devil does he intend , with respect to Kareen Koudelka?"
"Is this ImpSec asking, or Duv Galeni?"
"Duv Galeni." Galeni paused for a rather longer time. "After the . . . ambiguous favor he did me when we first encountered each other on Earth, I was content to see him survive and escape. I wasn't even too shocked when I learned he'd popped up here, nor—now I've met your mother—that your family took him in. I'd even reconciled myself to the likelihood that we would meet, from time to time." His level voice cracked a trifle. "I wasn't expecting him to mutate into my brother-in-law!"
Miles sat back, his brows rising in partial sympathy. He refrained from doing anything so rude as, say, cackling. "I would point out, that in an exceedingly weird sense, you are related already. He's your foster brother. Your father had him made; by some interpretations of the galactic laws on clones, that makes him Mark's father too."
"This concept makes my head spin. Painfully." He stared at Miles in sudden consternation. "Mark doesn't think of himself as my foster brother, does he?"
"I have not so far directed his attention to that legal wrinkle. But think, Duv, how much easier it will be if you only have to explain him as your brother-in-law. I mean, lots of people have embarrassing in-laws; it's one of life's lotteries. You'll have all their sympathy."
Galeni gave him a look of Very Limited Amusement.
"He'll be Uncle Mark," Miles pointed out with a slow, unholy smile. "You'll be Uncle Duv. I suppose, by some loose extension, I'll be Uncle Miles. And here I never thought I'd be anybody's uncle—an only child and all that."
Come to think of it . . . if Ekaterin ever accepted him, Miles would become an instant uncle, acquiring three brothers-in-law simultaneously, all with attached wives, and a pack of nieces and nephews already in place. Not to mention the father-in-law and the stepmother-in-law. He wondered if any of them would be embarrassing. Or—a new and unnerving thought—if he was going to be the appalling brother-in-law . . .
"Do you think they'll marry?" asked Galeni seriously.
"I . . . am not certain what cultural format their bonding will ultimately take. I am certain you could not pry Mark away from Kareen with a crowbar. And while Kareen has good reasons to take it slowly, I don't think any of the Koudelkas know how to betray a trust."
That won a little eyebrow-flick from Galeni, and the slight mellowing that any reminder of Delia invariably produced in him.
"I'm afraid you're going to have to resign yourself to Mark as a permanent fixture," Miles concluded.
"Eh," said Galeni. It was hard to tell if this sound represented resignation, or stomach cramp. In any case, he climbed to his feet and took his leave.
* * *
Mark, entering the black-and-white tiled entry foyer from the back hallway to the lift tubes, encountered his mother descending the front staircase.
"Oh, Mark," Countess Vorkosigan said, in a just-the-man-I-want-to-see voice. Obediently, he paused and waited for her. She eyed his neat attire, his favorite black suit modified by what he trusted was an unthreatening dark green shirt. "Are you on
your way out?"
"Shortly. I was just about to hunt up Pym and ask him to assign me an Armsman-driver. I have an interview set up with a friend of Lord Vorsmythe's, a food service fellow who's promised to explain Barrayar's distribution system to me. He may be a future customer—I thought it might look well to arrive in the groundcar, all Vorkosiganly."
"Very likely."
Her further comment was interrupted by two half-grown boys rounding the corner: Pym's son Arthur, carrying a smelly fiber-tipped stick, and Jankowski's boy Denys, lugging an optimistically large jar. They clattered up the stairs past her with a breathless greeting of, "Hello, milady!"
She wheeled to watch them pass, her eyebrows rising in amusement. "New recruits for science?" she asked Mark as they thumped out of sight, giggling.
"For enterprise. Martya had a flash of genius. She put a bounty on escaped butter bugs, and set all the Armsmen's spare children to rounding them up. A mark apiece, and a ten-mark bonus for the queen. Enrique is back to work splicing genes full-time, the lab is caught up again, and I can return my attention to financial planning. We're getting bugs back at the rate of two or three an hour; it should be all over by tomorrow or the next day. At least, none of the children seem yet to have hit on the idea of sneaking into the lab and freeing Vorkosigan bugs, to renew their economic resource. I may devise a lock for that hutch."
The Countess laughed. "Come now, Lord Mark, you insult their honor. These are our Armsmen's offspring."
"I would have thought of that, at their age."
"If it weren't their liege-lord's bugs, they might have." She smiled, but her smile faded. "Speaking of insults . . . I wanted to ask you if you'd heard any of this vile talk going around about Miles and his Madame Vorsoisson."
"I've been head-down in the lab for the last several days. Miles doesn't come back there much, for some reason. What vile talk?"
She narrowed her eyes, slipped her hand through his arm, and strolled with him toward the antechamber to the library. "Illyan and Alys took me aside at the Vorinnis's dinner party last night, and gave me an earful. I'm extremely glad they got to me first. I was then cornered by two other people in the course of the evening and given garbled alternate versions . . . actually, one of them was trolling for confirmation. The other appeared to hope I'd pass it on to Aral, as he didn't dare repeat it to his face, the spineless little snipe. It seems rumors have begun to circulate through the capital that Miles somehow made away with Ekaterin's late husband while on Komarr."
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