“You probably are,” said Tej, with touching faith in his ability to decipher elliptical hints from senior officers. Likely justified, in this case.
“You had something from the Whole . . . ?”
“Letter from Rish.” She tapped her reader. “So frustrating. She hates writing, so she never puts in enough detail, but she’s too cheap to send a recording.” Written messages were, indeed, the least expensive tightbeam communication to send by the long and winding wormhole routes, which was why almost everything that made it as far as Ylla was in this form. “Repairs on Cordonah Station are almost complete, she says. The reunited Jewels have danced their first public performance again, now that Topaz’s replacement legs have taken. I hope the Baronne tracked down whatever nasty Prestene head-meat came up with that idea.” She scowled. “In person.”
Ivan had never met Topaz, but he hoped so, too. Far more cruel than shaved hair, that amputation had sounded; it had allegedly been ordered in revenge for Topaz helping the Baron and Baronne to escape their Prestene captivity, all those months ago. A loyalty now redeemed; good. The revenge cycle . . . he declined to touch.
“And your brother Erik? Did they finally decide if he was cryo-revivable?”
“Mm, yes, but . . . huh.” Her brows rose. “They’re still keeping him on ice for a while. You know that Prestene capturing the station was in-part an inside job? Appears Erik was the in-part part. Tired of waiting for his inheritance? And so he received the reward from Prestene that anyone with a clue might have guessed was coming . . . unless he saw which way things were going and turned to fight them at the end. Give him credit, Rish says, he does seem to have been thinking of forcible retirement for Dada, not patricide, but apparently someone figured out how to cut those costs. Dada and the Baronne must have known this, but back on Barrayar they didn’t give me the least hint . . . Oh, my, that boy is so grounded! I expect my parents’ll keep him as a threat in reserve for a while, in case Star and Pidge aren’t able to work out their little differences as to who should be heiress. That’s one way to keep them yoked together . . .”
Ivan tried not to picture Erik Arqua’s cryochamber being used as a coffee table, but who knew? “So . . . will they ever revive him?”
“In a few years, I expect. When Star and Pidge are firmly in place. And then he’ll get to be their little brother.” Ivan wasn’t sure he wanted to know what family memories fueled her evil chuckle. “In other words, House Cordonah’s internal politics are nearly back to normal. So glad I’m here and not there . . .” Her ankle-coins chimed, as her foot rubbed Ivan’s calf.
“I am, too,” he declared, without reservation. “Does she write anything about Byerly?”
She scrolled on a short way. “No, not really. But if anything dire had happened to him she would have said—I think—so I suppose all is well.”
“I have one from him. What’s the date on yours . . . ?” A quick cross-check assured Ivan that By’s letter had followed almost a week after Rish’s, so that was all right. So far. “At least I can’t accuse Byerly of writing, or talking, too little. Though finding the message in the missive is a bit like looking for the meat in those meatballs they sell off the carts in the Great Square . . . Holy crap.” Ivan’s lurch nearly tipped the hammock.
Tej’s bright eyes widened in inquiry.
“You know that brooch-thing that your Grandmama picked up off the floor in the bunker . . . ?”
“Yes?”
“By finally found out what the hell it was.”
“I was thinking haut-lady bio-weapons, myself, but I didn’t like to say anything at the time. I didn’t think we needed more complications to getting everyone on their way home without being jailed, and if she wanted to use them on Prestene, that was between her and the Baron and Baronne. Nothing to do with Barrayar, right?”
“Weirder than that. Even.” Ivan blinked. “And a whole lot to do with Barrayar. Seems the beads on the brooch contained something like a hundred thousand sporulated genetic samples from Barrayarans born in the Vorbarra District before the end of the Time of Isolation. It was the bloody gene-survey library!”
“Oh. My.” Tej hesitated. “Will the Barrayarans be mad?”
“I’m . . . not sure. I mean, we never knew.”
“I suppose you do now. Byerly will have reported, right?”
“Yeah.” Ivan read on. “You could—well, not you, but someone crazy could—clone all our ancestors from those samples, you realize? I wonder if there was anyone famous in there?”
Tej tilted her head, considering this. “That might actually be made lucrative.”
“Buy your own clone of Prince Xav? Or worse, Mad Emperor Yuri . . . ? Ye gods. No . . . !” His speeding eyes widened. “Lady ghem Estif offered to sell them back to the Star Crèche!”
“That’s terrible!” said Tej, but went on in earnest critique, “She should have set up a bidding war between the Star Crèche and Barrayar, at the very least! The Baronne could have advised her. What’s the point of having an auction with only one bidder?”
Ivan swallowed this practical Jacksonian view without gulping, much. Or at least without comment.
Tej added, with keen interest, “What did they offer her? I can’t believe By didn’t find out that.”
“He did. Ten million Betan dollars. Here’s where it all goes sideways. She set up a hand-off in a neutral location—House Dyne?”
Tej nodded. “That makes sense.”
“While Byerly was knocking himself out trying to steal the thing—ah, there you go, evidently he did offer to buy it, first—but he couldn’t get past her. Rish . . . apparently refused to take sides. So anyway, they dragged this Star Crèche envoy, an actual haut lady, in her bubble and everything, though I’m not sure how you could tell—I wonder if it was Pel?—all the way out from Eta Ceta to the Whole, together with a suitcase full of bearer-credit—well not a suitcase, probably, doubtless an elegant little card, but anyway—and a platoon of really scary bodyguards. And the Dyne guy had the bond in hand, all cleared and ready to hand over. And Lady ghem Estif set the brooch down in a little force-bubble with, evidently, a hidden plasma charge, stood back, and set it off—blinding light, but no concussion—and turned it all to elemental gases. Right in front of them. By says he thought he was having a heart attack. And then he wished he’d had.”
“Wow!” said Tej.
“But why? Why would anyone, in effect, set fire to ten million Betan dollars?”
“Well, Grandmama . . .” Tej pursed her lips, then took a sip of fruity drink as she apparently thought this through. “Grandmama was really incensed at being culled from the haut, back when.”
“That was a hundred years ago! She’s held this grudge for over a century?”
Tej gave a nod. “It’s . . . it’s a girl thing,” she offered. “Ghem Estif-Arqua style.”
“Ye gods.” Should I keep this in mind?
Tej smiled a sharp little smile, and for a moment, he could see Shiv in her face. “What did my parents think about it all?”
Ivan read on. By could stand to have one of those accuracy-brevity-clarity tutorials, but maybe Allegre favored a different style. And he did still seem to have been quite upset when he’d composed this. Hysterical was probably not too strong a term. “The Baronne seems to have thought it wasteful. The Baron just laughed.”
“Despite all the mother-in-law jokes everyone tells,” Tej said meditatively, “Grandmama always did get along very well with Dada. I think it was because she spent the whole of her life up until the Barrayaran annexation of Komarr following all the rules, no matter how stupid they were, and being screwed over for it, and Dada finally taught her how to break them. And break away from them.”
“By wants to know, did either of us—meaning, probably, you—know? About the brooch, I think he’s asking, though it’s hard to tell.”
“Nope,” said Tej. “Tell him, sorry.”
“I guess.”
Ivan finally started on his own
frosty fruity drink—nice kick—as Tej scrolled down. “Here’s one to me from your mother,” she said. “She and Simon are back safely from their big galactic trip, during which nobody tried to kill, kidnap, or otherwise vex anybody after all. Though she says she was a little afraid for some Tau Cetan customs inspectors at one point, but she got Simon calmed down . . .”
Simon and Lady Alys’s exile had not been nearly so summarily ordered as Ivan and Tej’s, a mere suggestion conveyed through Empress Laisa to her social secretary that she was overdue for a nice, long holiday. Though Ivan doubted that any Imperial nuances had been lost en route. Ivan remembered that part of his last conversation with Gregor, too.
Gregor had been pacing, exasperated, when he’d wheeled and burst out: “And Simon—what the hell?”
Ivan hesitated, while his hope that this might be a rhetorical question died a lonely death, then ventured, “I think he was bored, Gregor.”
“Bored!” Gregor jerked to a halt, taken aback. “I thought he was exhausted.”
“Right after the chip breakdown, sure.” Profoundly so. “For a while, everyone—even Mamere and Simon himself—assumed he was some fragile convalescent. But . . . quietly—he does everything quietly—he’s grown better.”
“I thank your mother for that, yes.”
Yeah, really. Ivan shied from trying to imagine the biography of a post-chip-Simon minus Alys, but it might have been a much shorter tale. “He’s fine when she’s with him. But she’s been going off to the Residence a lot, lately, leaving him to his own devices. And then Shiv came along and pushed all his old buttons, and, well, here we all are.”
Gregor contemplated the hereness of everyone, grimly. “I see.”
“I think he needs something to do. Not a full-time job. Occasional. Varied. Not too much like his old job.”
“That . . . will take some careful thought.”
Ivan hoped their long trip had given Gregor time for that thinking. He couldn’t help noticing, in retrospect, that despite the reported outbreak of Imperial sarcasm, it had been the Illyan Plan for the Arquas that Gregor had finally adopted, more or less. And that it seemed to be working, so far.
Tej, still reading—Mamere could be chatty—went on: “Oh, good, the new ImpSec building has been dedicated. Not built opposite the old one. They found another site. With fewer holes under it.”
“There’s a kindness,” Ivan put in. “Miles used to say that the one advantage of working in ImpSec HQ was that you couldn’t see ImpSec HQ.”
“They got Simon to cut the ribbon, ah, that’s sweet. She says they wanted to name it after him, but he declined the honor very firmly, so it’s going to go nameless for now.”
“I suppose they can circle back after he’s dead . . .” Ivan plowed on to his next letter. “Huh. Aunt Cordelia writes to me?”
“I really enjoyed meeting her and your Uncle Aral, when we stopped at Sergyar,” said Tej.
“She says she liked you, too. And to be sure to allow time to stop again on our way back. She seems to assume we’ll be let to come back—that’s heartening. Simon and Mamere dropped in on their way home, too, evidently. Probably what triggered this. Simon and Aral enjoyed their trip out to see the new settlement . . . so glad for a chance to catch up with Alys . . . heard all about their nice visit to Beta Colony, yes, Mamere wrote me all about that, too . . . what?”
“What what?” said Tej agreeably.
Mamere hadn’t written her only son everything about her trip to Beta Colony, evidently. “She took Simon to the Orb? Or was it the other way around . . . ? No, I guess not. Female collusion, I bet.” He read on, his face screwing up, then demanded of the auntless, and therefore blameless, air, “Why do you think you have to tell me these things, Aunt Cordelia?”
Tej’s lips twitched. “So what does she tell you?”
“They signed up for some sort of one-week deluxe instructional course. That doesn’t sound too . . . Role-playing? Because Mamere thought it might be easy for Simon to get into, on account of having done covert ops in his youth. And the first day was pretty rocky, but once she persuaded Simon to stop treating the mandatory psychological interest survey as a hostile interrogation, things smoothed out . . . and . . . Thank God, now Aunt Cordelia switches to telling me all about Commodore Jole’s new sailboat—the Sergyaran seas don’t dissolve human skin the way Ylla’s do, happily. He took them all out for a sail, good. And no one drowned. Much better.”
“Better than what?” Tej was still laughing at him, he feared.
“Just—better.” Ivan took refuge in what dignity a man wearing nothing but shorts and sipping fruity girly drinks could muster. And also in the drink.
“We should go to the Orb, on the way back,” mused Tej. “I mean, it’s famous for its erotic arts instruction, which I’ve already had, but I’ve always wanted to see it.”
Ivan was torn. “Yeah, so have I, but . . . what the hell is the mandatory psychological interest survey? Nobody ever mentioned that before.” Not even Miles.
Tej brightened. “My Betan tutors told me all about that. It’s not like a multiple-choice test—it’s more like a brain scan, while they run all kinds of images and stimuli past you, and then put the response-data through their analysis program. They pitch it to the customers as a way of helping people with limited time sort through the menu of offerings to find what will please them most—and it does do that. But it also screens for problem customers.”
“Are they turned away?”
“No, no. They just get a different level of supervision. They mean a lot of varied things by problem, you see. Some people are very distressed by insights that the survey reveals about them, things that they didn’t want to know, and then they have to be sort of gently talked down.”
Ivan considered this, warily. “I think Simon already knows everything about himself that he doesn’t want to know. He never seemed much given to self-deception. All those years of nonadjustable memory.”
“I can believe that.”
But a new reason for some people not to talk much about their visits to the famous Orb glimmered in Ivan’s mind. The next time he caught up with Miles . . .
Speaking of that devil. “Ah, here’s one from my cousin, Lord-Auditor-and-don’t-you-forget-it.”
“Oh, those are always very interesting.” Tej perked up.
Ivan read for a minute or so, his lips parting. “Oh, my God. The investing angel who bought the old ImpSec site from the Imperial government? Turns out to have been my clone-cousin Mark Vorkosigan.”
“For a Betan dollar?”
“No, not that much nepotism. But he bargained them way down by accepting all legal liabilities. Apparently, his engineers found a way to raise the building back to ground level again! And stabilize the subsoil. It took several months, but they got it up pretty much whole.”
“That must have been almost as bizarre a sight as sinking it was. But . . .” Her brows drew down. “What in the world is the man going to do with an ugly old government building? It was pretty much gutted, wasn’t it?”
“Stripped more than gutted, I gather. Surprisingly intact. Mark Vorkosigan Enterprises’ new headquarters? He needs one. No . . .” Ivan scrolled on. His lips drew back in an uncontrollable grin. “Ooh, snarky, Miles! I just bet you’re upset . . .”
“Come on,” urged Tej, grinning as if he were the best show in town.
“Mark’s turning it into a theme hotel, restaurant, and nightclub. With an espionage museum, very educational. He plans to sell ‘the whole ImpSec experience’ to the tourists, both backcountry and galactic, apparently.”
“Will people pay to sleep in old ImpSec cells and offices and things? I mean—it seems more like a place people would have paid to get out of.”
“That was then, this is now . . . oh, my. Oh, you’ll have to read this. Miles is so pissed, but he can’t say so directly, because, Mark. The grand opening is in a couple of weeks. And it’s already booked solid for the first two months.” Ivan could
n’t help adding, after a moment of somewhat skewed beatific vision, “I wonder if there’ll be an Adults Only section . . . ? Because, Mark . . .”
He wanted to go back and start over right then, just to savor the letter on all its levels, but there was more, taking another direction. “Oh, no, Miles and Ekaterin have decanted another one. Going into production, coz? I suppose you are. Still trying to outrun . . . everything. And pictures. Why? Babies all look alike, I swear . . .”
“Ooh. Send over.” Tej held out a demanding hand; he extended her his reader, now displaying flat scans of what, he was assured, was a baby girl, one Lady Elizabeth Vorkosigan. His newest niece. Uncle Ivan, good God, the urchins would probably be up to calling him that by the time they got home to Vorbarr Sultana. And Aunt Tej, as well, now. How is it I can have my identity changed by something I didn’t even do . . . ?
He cautiously considered the sobriquet Da. That one, at least, might be his own doing . . .
Tej was not, thankfully, goopy the way some women got when presented with baby pictures. But the look in her eye was curious, and, when she raised her face to his again, speculative.
“One wouldn’t,” she said neutrally, “want to start an infant in a replicator here, and then have to drag it, decanted or otherwise, back through all those stressful wormhole jumps to Barrayar. More sensible to wait a bit.”
“A bit,” Ivan agreed. The memory of so comfortably ignoring his thirty-sixth birthday drifted across his mind. But some deadlines demanded attention. “You know . . . I’m going to be a twenty-years man in just four more years. That used to seem forever away, and now it’s . . . not.”
“What does that mean? In Barrayaran. Or Vor, as the case may be.”
“MilSpeak. Yet another dialect for you. It’s the time a mid-grade officer like me either takes early retirement—not all that early, really—or retakes his oaths and gets serious about tracking for high command. They used to encourage men to stay in, but they don’t so much, these days. They’d rather have new young fellows with new young training.”