"G'evening," he managed, and shambled past them to find his favorite chair, and lower himself carefully into it.
"Good evening, Miles," his mother returned. His father put his console on hold, and regarded him with bland interest.
"How was your trip home from Sergyar?" Miles went on, after about a minute of silence.
"Entirely without incident, happily enough," his mother said. "Till the very end."
"Ah," said Miles. "That." He brooded into his tea mug.
His parents humanely ignored him for several minutes, but whatever they'd been separately working on seemed to not hold their attention anymore. Still, nobody left.
"We missed you at breakfast," the Countess said finally. "And lunch. And dinner."
"I was still throwing up at breakfast," said Miles. "I wouldn't have been much fun."
"So Pym reported," said the Count.
The Countess added astringently, "Are you done with that now?"
"Yeh. It didn't help." Miles slumped a little further, and stretched his legs out before him. "A life in ruins with vomiting is still a life in ruins."
"Mm," said the Count in a judicious tone, "though it does make it easy to be a recluse. If you're repulsive enough, people spontaneously avoid you."
His wife twinkled at him. "Speaking from experience, love?"
"Naturally." His eyes grinned back at her.
More silence fell. His parents did not decamp. Obviously, Miles concluded, he wasn't repulsive enough. Perhaps he should emit a menacing belch.
He finally started, "Mother—you're a woman—"
She sat up, and gave him a bright, encouraging Betan smile. "Yes . . . ?"
"Never mind," he sighed. He slumped again.
The Count rubbed his lips and regarded him thoughtfully. "Do you have anything to do? Any miscreants to go Imperially Audit, or anything?"
"Not at present," Miles replied. After a contemplative moment he added, "Fortunately for them."
"Hm." The Count tamped down a smile. "Perhaps you are wise." He hesitated. "Your Aunt Alys gave us a blow-by-blow account of your dinner party. With editorials. She was particularly insistent that I tell you she trusts," Miles could hear his aunt's cadences mimicked in his father's voice, "you would not have fled the scene of any other losing battle the way you deserted last night."
Ah. Yes. His parents had been left with the mopping up, hadn't they. "But there was no hope of being shot dead in the dining room if I stayed with the rear guard."
His father flicked up an eyebrow. "And so avoid the subsequent court martial?"
"Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all," Miles intoned.
"I am sufficiently your partisan," said the Countess, "that the sight of a pretty woman running screaming, or at least swearing, into the night from your marriage proposal rather disturbs me. Though your Aunt Alys says you scarcely left the young lady any other choice. It's hard to say what else she could have done but walk out. Except squash you like a bug, I suppose."
Miles cringed at the word bug.
"Just how bad—" the Countess began.
"Did I offend her? Badly enough, it seems."
"Actually, I was about to ask, just how bad was Madame Vorsoisson's prior marriage?"
Miles shrugged. "I only saw a little of it. I gather from the pattern of her flinches that the late unlamented Tien Vorsoisson was one of those subtle feral parasites who leave their mates scratching their heads and asking, Am I crazy? Am I crazy?" She wouldn't have those doubts if she married him, ha.
"Aah," said his mother, in a tone of much enlightenment. "One of those. Yes. I know the type of old. They come in all gender-flavors, by the way. It can take years to fight your way out of the mental mess they leave in their wake."
"I don't have years," Miles protested. "I've never had years." And then pressed his lips shut at the little flicker of pain in his father's eyes. Well, who knew what Miles's second life expectancy was, anyway. Maybe he'd started his clock all over, after the cryorevival. Miles slumped lower. "The hell of it is, I knew better. I'd had way too much to drink, I panicked when Simon . . . I never meant to ambush Ekaterin like that. It was friendly fire . . ."
He went on after a little, "I had this great plan, see. I thought it could solve everything in one brilliant swoop. She has this real passion for gardens, and her husband had left her effectively destitute. So I figured, I could help her jump-start the career of her dreams, slip her some financial support, and get an excuse to see her nearly every day, and get in ahead of the competition. I had to practically wade through the fellows panting after her in the Vorthys's parlor, the times I went over there—"
"For the purpose of panting after her in her parlor, I take it?" his mother inquired sweetly.
"No!" said Miles, stung. "To consult about the garden I'd hired her to make in the lot next door."
"Is that what that crater is," said his father. "In the dark, from the groundcar, it looked as though someone tried to shell Vorkosigan House and missed, and I'd wondered why no one had reported it to us."
"It is not a crater. It's a sunken garden. There's just . . . just no plants in it yet."
"It has a very nice shape, Miles," his mother said soothingly. "I went out and walked through it this afternoon. The little stream is very pretty indeed. It reminds me of the mountains."
"That was the idea," said Miles, primly ignoring his father's mutter of . . . after a Cetagandan bombing raid on a guerilla position . . .
Then Miles sat bolt upright in sudden horror. Not quite no plants. "Oh, God! I never went out to look at her skellytum! Lord Dono came in with Ivan—did Aunt Alys explain to you about Lord Dono?—and I was distracted, and then it was time for dinner, and I never had the chance afterwards. Has anyone watered—? Oh, shit, no wonder she was angry. I'm dead meat twice over—!" He melted back into his puddle of despair.
"So, let me get this straight," said the Countess slowly, studying him dispassionately. "You took this destitute widow, struggling to get on her own feet for the first time in her life, and dangled a golden career opportunity before her as bait, just to tie her to you and cut her off from other romantic possibilities."
That seemed an uncharitably bald way of putting it. "Not . . . not just," Miles choked. "I was trying to do her a good turn. I never imagined she'd quit—the garden was everything to her."
The Countess sat back, and regarded him with a horribly thoughtful expression, the one she acquired when you'd made the mistake of getting her full, undivided attention. "Miles . . . do you remember that unfortunate incident with Armsman Esterhazy and the game of cross-ball, when you were about twelve years old?"
He hadn't thought of it in years, but at her words, the memory came flooding back, still tinged with shame and fury. The Armsmen used to play cross-ball with him, and sometimes Elena and Ivan, in the back garden of Vorkosigan House: a low-impact game, of minimum threat to his then-fragile bones, but requiring quick reflexes and good timing. He'd been elated the first time he'd won a match against an actual adult, in this case Armsman Esterhazy. He'd been shaken with rage, when a not-meant-to-be-overheard remark had revealed to him that the game had been a setup. Forgotten. But not forgiven.
"Poor Esterhazy had thought it would cheer you up, because you were depressed at the time about some, I forget which, slight you'd suffered at school," the Countess said. "I still remember how furious you were when you figured out he'd let you win. Did you ever carry on about that one. We thought you'd do yourself a harm."
"He stole my victory from me," grated Miles, "as surely as if he'd cheated to win. And he poisoned every subsequent real victory with doubt. I had a right to be mad."
His mother sat quietly, expectantly.
The light dawned. Even with his eyes squeezed shut, the intensity of the glare hurt his head.
"Oh. Noooo," groaned Miles, muffled into the cushion he jammed over his face. "I did that to her?"
His remorseless parent let him stew in it, a silence sharper-
edged than words.
"I did that to her . . ." he moaned, pitifully.
Pity did not seem to be forthcoming. He clutched the cushion to his chest. "Oh. God. That's exactly what I did. She said it herself. She said the garden could have been her gift. And I'd taken it away from her. Too. Which made no sense, since it was she who'd just quit . . . I thought she was starting to argue with me. I was so pleased, because I thought, if only she would argue with me . . ."
"You could win?" the Count supplied dryly.
"Uh . . . yeah."
"Oh, son." The Count shook his head. "Oh, poor son." Miles did not mistake this for an expression of sympathy. "The only way you win that war is to start with unconditional surrender."
"That you is plural, note," the Countess put in.
"I tried to surrender!" Miles protested frantically. "The woman was taking no prisoners! I tried to get her to stomp me, but she wouldn't. She's too dignified, too, oversocialized, too, too . . ."
"Too smart to lower herself to your level?" the Countess suggested. "Dear me. I think I'm beginning to like this Ekaterin. And I haven't even finished being properly introduced to her yet. I'd like you to meet—she's getting away! seemed a little . . . truncated."
Miles glared at her. But he couldn't keep it up. In a smaller voice, he said, "She sent all the garden plans back to me this afternoon, on the comconsole. Just like she'd said she would. I'd set it to code-buzz me if any call originating from her came in. I damn near killed myself, getting over to the machine. But it was just a data packet. Not even a personal note. Die, you rat would have been better than this . . . this nothing." After a fraught pause, he burst out, "What do I do now?"
"Is that a rhetorical question, for dramatic effect, or are you actually asking my advice?" his mother inquired tartly. "Because I'm not going to waste my breath on you unless you're finally paying attention."
He opened his mouth for an angry reply, then closed it. He glanced for support to his father. His father opened his hand blandly in the direction of his mother. Miles wondered what it would be like, to be in such practiced teamwork with someone that it was as though you coordinated your one-two punches telepathically. I'll never get the chance to find out. Unless.
"I'm paying attention," he said humbly.
"The . . . the kindest word I can come up with for it is blunder—was yours. You owe the apology. Make it."
"How? She's made it abundantly clear she doesn't want to speak to me!"
"Not in person, good God, Miles. For one thing, I can't imagine you could resist the urge to babble, and blow yourself up. Again."
What is it about all my relatives, that they have so little faith in—
"Even a live comconsole call is too invasive," she continued. "Going over to the Vorthys's in person would be much too invasive."
"The way he's been going about it, certainly," murmured the Count. "General Romeo Vorkosigan, the one-man strike force."
The Countess gave him a faintly quelling flick of her eyelash. "Something rather more controlled, I think," she continued to Miles. "About all you can do is write her a note, I suppose. A short, succinct note. I realize you don't do abject very well, but I suggest you exert yourself."
"D'you think it would work?" Faint hope glimmered at the bottom of a deep, deep well.
"Working is not what this is about. You can't still be plotting to make love and war on the poor woman. You'll send an apology because you owe it, to her and to your own honor. Period. Or else don't bother."
"Oh," said Miles, in a very small voice.
"Cross-ball," said his father. Reminiscently. "Huh."
"The knife is in the target," sighed Miles. "To the hilt. You don't have to twist." He glanced across at his mother. "Should the note be handwritten? Or should I just send it on the comconsole?"
"I think your just just answered your own question. If your execrable handwriting has improved, it would perhaps be a nice touch."
"Proves it wasn't dictated to your secretary, for one thing," put in the Count. "Or worse, composed by him at your order."
"Haven't got a secretary yet." Miles sighed. "Gregor hasn't given me enough work to justify one."
"Since work for an Auditor hinges on awkward crises arising in the Empire, I can't very well wish more for you," the Count said. "But no doubt things will pick up after the wedding. Which will have one less crisis because of the good work you just did on Komarr, I might say."
He glanced up, and his father gave him an understanding nod; yes, the Viceroy and Vicereine of Sergyar were most definitely in the need-to-know pool about the late events on Komarr. Gregor had undoubtedly sent on a copy of Miles's eyes-only Auditor's report for the Viceroy's perusal. "Well . . . yes. At the very least, if the conspirators had maintained their original schedule, there'd have been several thousand innocent people killed that day. It would have marred the festivities, I think."
"Then you've earned some time off."
The Countess looked momentarily introspective. "And what did Madame Vorsoisson earn? We had her aunt give us her eyewitness description of their involvement. It sounded like a frightening experience."
"The public gratitude of the Empire is what she should have earned," said Miles, in reminded aggravation. "Instead, it's all been buried deep-deep under the ImpSec security cap. No one will ever know. All her courage, all her cool and clever moves, all her bloody heroism, dammit, was just . . . made to disappear. It's not fair."
"One does what one has to, in a crisis," said the Countess.
"No." Miles glanced up at her. "Some people do. Others just fold. I've seen them. I know the difference. Ekaterin—she'll never fold. She can go the distance, she can find the speed. She'll . . . she'll do."
"Leaving aside whether we are discussing a woman or a horse," said the Countess—dammit, Mark had said practically the same thing, what was with all Miles's nearest and dearest?—"everyone has their folding-point, Miles. Their mortal vulnerability. Some just keep it in a nonstandard location."
The Count and Countess gave each other one of those Telepathic Looks again. It was extremely annoying. Miles squirmed with envy.
He drew the tattered shreds of his dignity around him, and rose. "Excuse me. I have to go . . . water a plant."
It took him thirty minutes of wandering around the bare, crusted garden in the dark, with his hand-light wavering and the water from his mug dribbling over his fingers, to even find the blasted thing. In its pot, the skellytum rootling had looked sturdy enough, but out here, it looked lost and lonely: a scrap of life the size of his thumb in an acre of sterility. It also looked disturbingly limp. Was it wilting? He emptied the cup over it; the water made a dark spot in the reddish soil that began to evaporate and fade all too quickly.
He tried to imagine the plant full grown, five meters high, its central barrel the size, and shape, of a sumo wrestler, its tendril-like branches gracing the space with distinctive corkscrew curves. Then he tried to imagine himself forty-five or fifty years old, which was the age to which he'd have to survive to see that sight. Would he be a reclusive, gnarled bachelor, eccentric, shrunken, invalidish, tended only by his bored Armsmen? Or a proud, if stressed, paterfamilias with a serene, elegant, dark-haired woman on his arm and half a dozen hyperactive progeny in tow? Maybe . . . maybe the hyperactivity could be toned down in the gene-cleaning, though he was sure his parents would accuse him of cheating. . . .
Abject.
He went back inside Vorkosigan House to his study, where he sat himself down to attempt, through a dozen drafts, the best damned abject anybody'd ever seen.
Chapter Eleven
Kareen leaned over the porch rail of Lord Auditor Vorthys's house and stared worriedly at the close-curtained windows in the bright tile front. "Maybe there's no one home."
"I said we should have called before we came here," said Martya, unhelpfully. But then came a rapid thump of steps from within—surely not the Professora's—and the door burst open.
"Oh, hi, Ka
reen," said Nikki. "Hi, Martya."
"Hello, Nikki," said Martya. "Is your mama home?"
"Yeah, she's out back. You want to see her?"
"Yes, please. If she's not too busy."
"Naw, she's only messing with the garden. Go on through." He gestured them hospitably in the general direction of the back of the house, and thumped back up the stairs.
Trying not to feel like a trespasser, Kareen led her sister through the hall and kitchen and out the back door. Ekaterin was on her knees on a pad by a raised flower bed, grubbing out weeds. The discarded plants were laid out beside her on the walk, roots and all, in rows like executed prisoners. They shriveled in the westering sun. Her bare hand slapped another green corpse down at the end of the row. It looked therapeutic. Kareen wished she had something to kill right now. Besides Martya.