He found the address in a couple of minutes, to his sufficient satisfaction; he decided he didn't need to check inside. He turned back and took what looked like a short cut toward the main street and the bakery. It proved to be a cul-de-sac. He turned again and started for the alley's mouth.
An old woman and a skinny youth, who had been sitting on a stoop and watched him go in, now watched him coming out. The old woman's dull eye lit with a faint hostility as he came again into her short-sighted focus.
"That's no boy. That's a mutie," she hissed to the youth. Grandson? She nudged him pointedly. "A mutie come on our street."
Thus prodded, the youth slouched to his feet and stepped in front of Mark. Mark stopped. The kid was taller than he—who wasn't?—but not much heavier, greasy-haired and pale. He spread his legs aggressively, blocking Mark's dodge. Oh, God. Natives. In all their surly glory.
"Shouldn't ought to be here, mutie." He spat, in imitation-bully-mode; Mark almost laughed.
"You're right," he agreed easily. He let his accent go mid-Atlantic Earth, non-Barrayaran. "This place is a pit."
"Offworlder!" the old woman whined in even sharper disapproval. "You can take a wormhole jump to hell, offworlder!"
"I seem to have already," Mark said dryly. Bad manners, but he was in a bad mood. If these slum-louts wanted to bait him, he would bait them right back. "Barrayarans. If there's anything worse than the Vor it's the fools under 'em. No wonder galactics despise this place for a hole." He was surprised at how easily the suppressed rage vented, and how good it felt. Better not go too far.
"Gonna get you, mutie," the boy promised, hovering on the balls of his feet in nervous threat. The hag urged her bravo on with a rude gesture at Mark. A peculiar set-up; little old ladies and punks were normally natural enemies, but these two seemed in it together. Comrades of the Imperium, no doubt, uniting against a common foe.
"Better a mutie than a moron," Mark intoned with false cordiality.
The lout's brows wrinkled. "Hey! Is that back-chat to me? Huh?"
"Do you see any other morons around here?" At the boy's eye-flicker, Mark looked over his shoulder. "Oh. Excuse me. There are two more. I understand your confusion." His adrenaline pumped, turning his late lunch into a lump of regret in his belly. Two more youths, taller, heavier, older, but only adolescents. Possibly vicious, but untrained. Still . . . where was Ivan now? Where was that bloody invisible supposed outer perimeter guard? On break? "Aren't you late for school? Your remedial drooling class, perhaps?"
"Funny mutie," said one of the older ones. He wasn't laughing.
The attack was sudden, and almost took Mark by surprise; he thought etiquette demanded they exchange a few more insults first, and he was just working up some good ones. Exhilaration mixed strangely with the anticipation of pain. Or maybe it was the anticipation of pain that was exhilarating. The biggest punk tried to kick him in the groin. He caught the foot with one hand and boosted it skyward, flipping the kid onto his back on the stones with a wham that knocked the wind out of him. The second one launched a blow with his fist; Mark caught his arm. They whirled, and the punk found himself stumbling into his skinny companion. Unfortunately, now they both were between Mark and the exit.
They scrambled to their feet, looking astonished and outraged; what kind of easy pickings had they expected, for God's sake? Easy enough. His reflexes were two years stale, and he was already getting winded. Yet the extra weight made him harder to knock off his feet. Three to one on a crippled-looking fat little lost stranger, eh? You like those odds? Come to me, baby cannibals. The bakery bag was still clutched absurdly in his fist as he grinned and opened his arms in invitation.
They jumped him both together, telegraphing every move. The purely defensive katas continued to work charmingly; they flowed into, and out of, his momentum-gate to end up both on the ground, shaking their heads dizzily, victims of their own aggression. Mark wriggled his jaw, which had taken a clumsy blow, hard enough to sting and wake him up. The next round was not so successful; he ended up rolling out of reach, finally losing his grip on the bakery bag, which promptly got stomped. And then one of them caught up with him in a grapple, and they took some of their own back, pounding unscientific blows of clenched fists. He was getting seriously out of breath. He planned an arm-bar and a sprint to the street. It might have ended there, a good time having been had by all, if one of the idiot punks, crouching, hadn't pulled out a battered old shock-stick and jabbed it toward him.
Mark almost killed him instantly with a kick to the neck; he pulled his punch barely in time, and the blow landed slightly off-center. Even through his boot he could feel the tissues crush, a sickening sensation richoceting up through his body. Mark recoiled in horror as the kid lay gurgling on the ground. No, I wasn't trained to fight. I was trained to kill. Oh, shit. He'd managed not to quite smash the larynx. He prayed the kick hadn't snapped a major internal blood vessel. The other two assailants paused in shock.
Ivan pounded around the corner. "What the hell are you doing?" he cried hoarsely.
"I don't know," Mark gasped, bent over with his hands on his knees. His nose was bleeding all over his new shirt. In delayed reaction, he was beginning to shake. "They jumped me." I baited them. Why the hell was he doing this? It had all happened so fast. . . .
"Is the mutie with you, soldier?" the skinny kid demanded in a mixture of surprise and dread.
Mark could see the struggle in Ivan's face with the urge to disavow all connection with him. "Yes," Ivan choked out at last. The big punk who was still on his feet faded backward, turned, and ran. The skinny kid was glued to the scene by the presence of the injured man and the old woman, though he looked as if he wanted to run too. The hag, who had risen and hobbled over to her downed champion, screamed accusations and threats at Mark. She was the only one present who seemed undismayed by the sight of Ivan's officer's greens. Then the municipal guards arrived.
Once he was sure the injured punk was going to be taken care of, Mark shut up and let Ivan handle it. Ivan lied like a . . . trooper, to keep the name of Vorkosigan from ever coming up; the municipal guards in turn, realizing who Ivan was, dampened the old woman's hysteria and extricated them with speed. Mark declined to press assault charges even without Ivan's urgent advice to that effect. Thirty minutes later they were back in Ivan's groundcar. This time Ivan drove much more slowly; residual terror, Mark judged, from having almost lost his charge.
"Where the hell was that outer perimeter guy who was supposed to be my guardian angel?" Mark asked, gingerly probing the contusions on his face. His nose had finally stopped bleeding. Ivan hadn't let him in his groundcar until it had, and he'd made sure Mark wasn't going to throw up.
"Who d'you think called the municipal guards? The outer perimeter's supposed to be discreet."
"Oh." His ribs hurt, but nothing was broken, Mark decided. Unlike his progenitor, he'd never had a broken bone. Mutie. "Was . . . did Miles have to deal with this kind of crap?" All he'd done to those people was walk past them. If Miles had been dressed as he was, been alone as he was, would they have attacked him?
"Miles wouldn't have been stupid enough to wander in there by himself in the first place!"
Mark frowned. He'd gained the impression from Galen that Miles's rank made him immune to Barrayar's mutagenic prejudices. Did Miles actually have to run a constant safety-calculation in his head, editing where he could go, what he could do?
"And if he had," Ivan continued, "he'd have talked his way out of it. Slid on by. Why the hell did you mix in with three guys? If you just want somebody to beat the shit out of you, come to me. I'd be glad to."
Mark shrugged uncomfortably. Is that what he'd been secretly seeking? Punishment? Was that why things went so bad, so fast? "I thought you all were the great Vor. Why should you have to slide on by? Can't you just stomp the scum?"
Ivan groaned. "No. And am I ever glad I'm not going to be your permanent bodyguard."
"I'm glad too, if this is a sampl
e of your work," Mark snarled in return. He checked his left canine tooth; his gum and lips were puffy, but it wasn't actually loose.
Ivan merely growled. Mark settled back, wondering how the kid with the damaged throat was doing. The municipal guards had taken him away for treatment. Mark should not have fought him; he'd come within a centimeter of killing him. He might have killed all three. The punks were only little cannibals, after all. Which was why, Mark realized, Miles would have talked and slid away; not fear, and not noblesse oblige, but because those people weren't up to his . . . weight class. Mark felt ill. Barrayarans. God help me.
Ivan swung by his apartment, which was in a tower in one of the city's better districts, not far from the entirely modern government buildings housing the Imperial Service Command headquarters. There he allowed Mark to wash up and remove the bloodstains from his clothing before his return to Vorkosigan House. Tossing Mark's shirt back to him from the dryer, Ivan remarked, "Your torso is going to be piebald, tomorrow. Miles would have been in hospital for the next three weeks over that. I'd have had to cart him out of there on a board."
Mark glanced down at the red blotches, just starting to turn purple. He was stiffening up all over. Half a dozen pulled muscles protested their abuse. All that, he could conceal, but his face bore marks that were going to have to be explained. Telling the Count and Countess that he'd been in a groundcar wreck with Ivan would be perfectly believable, but he doubted they'd get away with the lie for long.
In the event, Ivan did the talking again, delivering him back to the Countess with a true but absolutely minimized account of Mark's adventure: "Aw, he wandered off and got pushed around a little by the local residents, but I caught up with him before anything much could happen. 'Bye, Aunt Cordelia . . ." Mark let him escape without impediment.
The whole report had certainly caught up with the Count and Countess by dinner. Mark sensed the cool faint tension even as he slid into his place at the table opposite Elena Bothari-Jesek, who was back at last from her lengthy and presumably grueling debriefing at ImpSec HQ.
The Count waited until the first course had been served and the human servant had departed the dining room before remarking, "I'm glad your learning experience today was not lethal, Mark."
Mark managed to swallow without gagging, and said in a subdued voice, "For him, or me?"
"Either. Do you wish a report on your, ah, victim?"
No. "Yes. Please."
"The physicians at the municipal hospital expect to release him in two days. He will be on a liquid diet for a week. He will recover his voice."
"Oh. Good." I didn't mean to . . . What was the point of excuses, apologies, protests? None, surely.
"I looked into picking up his medical bill, privately, only to discover that Ivan had been in ahead of me. Upon reflection, I decided to let him stand for it."
"Oh." Ought he to offer to repay Ivan, then? Did he have any money, or any right to any? Legally? Morally?
"Tomorrow," stated the Countess, "Elena will be your native guide. And Pym will accompany you."
Elena looked very much less than thrilled.
"I spoke with Gregor," Count Vorkosigan continued. "You apparently impressed him enough, somehow, that he has given his approval for my formal presentation of you as my heir, House Vorkosigan's cadet member of the Council of Counts. At a time of my discretion, if and when Miles's death is confirmed. Obviously, this step is still premature. I'm not sure myself whether it would be better to get your confirmation pushed through before the Counts get to know you, or after they have had time to get used to the idea. A swift maneuver, hit and run, or a long tedious siege. For once, I think a siege would be better. If we won, your victory would be far more secure."
"Can they reject me?" Mark asked. Is that a light I see at the end of this tunnel?
"They must accept and approve you by a simple majority vote for you to inherit the Countship. My personal property is a separate matter. Normally, such approval is routine for the eldest son, or, lacking a son, whatever competent male relative a count may put forward. It doesn't even have to be a relative, technically, though it almost always is. There was the famous case of one of the Counts Vortala, back in the Time of Isolation, who had fallen out with his son. Young Lord Vortala had allied with his father-in-law in the Zidiarch Trade War. Vortala disinherited his son and somehow managed to maneuver a rump session of the counts into approving his horse, Midnight, as his heir. Claimed the horse was just as bright and had never betrayed him."
"What . . . a hopeful precedent for me," Mark choked. "How did Count Midnight do? Compared to the average Count."
"Lord Midnight. Alas, no one found out. The horse pre-deceased the Vortala, the war petered out, and the son eventually inherited after all. But it was one of the zoological high points of the Council's varied political history, right up there with the infamous Incendiary Cat Plot." Count Vorkosigan's eye glinted with a certain skewed enthusiasm, relating all this. His eye fell on Mark and his momentary animation faded. "We've had several centuries to accumulate any precedent you please, from absurdities to horrors. And a few sound saving graces."
The Count did not make further inquiries into Mark's day, and Mark did not volunteer further details. The dinner went down like lead, and Mark escaped as soon as he decently could.
He slunk off to the library, the long room at the end of one wing of the oldest part of the house. The Countess had encouraged him to browse there. In addition to a reader accessing public data banks and a code-locked and secured government comconsole with its own dedicated comm links, the room was lined with bound books printed and even hand-calligraphed on paper from the Time of Isolation. The library reminded Mark of Vorhartung Castle, with its modern equipment and functions awkwardly stuffed into odd corners of an antique architecture that had never envisioned nor provided place for them.
As he was thinking about the museum, a large folio volume of woodcuts of arms and armor caught his eye, and he carefully pulled it from its slipcase and carried it to one of a pair of alcoves flanking the long glass doors to the back garden. The alcoves were luxuriously furnished, and a little table pulled up to a vast wing-chair provided support for the, in both senses, heavy volume. Bemused, Mark leafed through it. Fifty kinds of swords and knives, with every slight variation possessing its own name, and names for all the parts as well . . . what an absolutely fractal knowledge-base, the kind created by, and in turn creating, a closed in-group such as the Vor. . . .
The library's door swung open, and footsteps sounded across the marble and carpeting. It was Count Vorkosigan. Mark shrank back in the chair in the alcove, drawing his legs up out of sight. Maybe the man would just take something and go out again. Mark did not want to get trapped into some intimate chat, which this comfortable room so invited. He had conquered his initial terror of the Count, yet the man managed still to make him excruciatingly uncomfortable, even without saying a word.
Unfortunately, Count Vorkosigan seated himself at one of the comconsoles. Reflections of the colored lights of its display flickered on the glass of the windows Mark's chair faced. The longer he waited, Mark realized, lurking like an assassin, the more awkward it was going to be to reveal himself. So say hello. Drop the book. Blow your nose, something. He was just working up the courage to try a little throat-clearing and page-rustling, when the door hinges squeaked again, and lighter footsteps sounded. The Countess. Mark huddled into a ball in the wing-chair.
"Ah," said the Count. The lights reflecting in the window died away as he shut down the machine in favor of this new diversion, and swung around in his station chair. Did she lean over for some quick embrace? Fabric whispered as she seated herself.
"Well, Mark is certainly getting a crash-course about Barrayar," she remarked, effectively spiking Mark's last frantic impulse to make his presence known.
"It's what he needs," sighed the Count. "He has twenty years of catching up to do, if he is to function."
"Must he function? I mean
, instantly?"
"No. Not instantly."
"Good. I thought you might be setting him an impossible task. And as we all know, the impossible takes a little longer."
The Count vented a short laugh, which faded quickly. "At least he's had a glimpse of one of our worst social traits. We must be sure he gets a thorough grounding in the history of the mutagen disasters, so he'll understand where the violence is coming from. How deeply the agony and the fear are embedded, which drive the visible anxieties and, ah, as you Betans would see it, bad manners."
"I'm not sure he'll ever be able to duplicate Miles's native ability to dance through that particular minefield."
"He seems more inclined to plow through it," murmured the Count dryly, and hesitated. "His appearance . . . Miles took enormous pains to move, act, dress, so as to draw attention away from his appearance. To make his personality overpower the evidence of the eye. A kind of whole-body sleight-of-hand, if you will. Mark . . . almost seems to be willfully exaggerating it."
"What, the surly slump?"
"That, and . . . I confess, I find his weight gain disturbing. Particularly, judging from Elena's report, its rapidity. Perhaps we ought to have him medically checked. It can't be good for him."
The Countess snorted. "He's only twenty-two. It's not an immediate health problem. That's not what's bothering you, love."
"Perhaps . . . not entirely."
"He embarrasses you. My body-conscious Barrayaran friend."
"Mm." The Count did not deny this, Mark noticed.
"Score one for his side."
"Would you care to clarify that?"
"Mark's actions are a language. A language of desperation, mostly. They're not always easy to interpret. That one is obvious, though."
"Not to me. Analyze, please."
"It's a three-part problem. In the first place, there's the purely physical side. I take it you did not read the medical reports as carefully as I did."