at first with gratifying disbelief, then with increasing and much less gratifying impatience, which was now edging into exasperation.
“I still can’t believe that one old man, who wasn’t even there, could cancel out my deal like that!” fumed Tej. “I thought this was supposed to be all fixed up in advance!”
“It was, it seems-but not by me,” said Ivan Xav, sounding morose. “That was my first mistake, going to someone who knows Mamere. We should have taken this to some judge who didn’t know me from a hole in the ground, let alone since childhood. Total strangers wouldn’t have known what the hell was going on, and might have let us just slide on through.”
“So what do you have to do?” said Rish. “To provide these grounds they want.”
Ivan Xav shook his head. “Divorce turns out to be a lot of work. Way more than I thought.”
“There has to be something. Let’s go down your list again,” said Rish in an annoyingly reasonable tone, squaring her shoulders. “Mutation. Couldn’t one of you pretend to be a mutant? Well, not Tej, I suppose. But the captain here is just a natural conception-a body-birth, if you can believe it! Run him through an exhaustive enough gene scan, something would be bound to turn up that you could pretend to object to.”
“No!” said Ivan Xav, incensed. “Besides, it would go down on the court’s public record. Think what it would do to my reputation! Dear God, I’d never get laid on this planet again.”
Rish tilted her head in concession. “All right, so what about this adultery thing? Which I gather isn’t about being a grownup, something we could probably use around here, but about sleeping with someone when you’re married to someone else. Sounds easy enough. Pleasurable, even.”
“Who with, for pity’s sake?” said Tej. “The only other male I even know very well on this benighted world is Byerly.”
Ivan Xav set down his drink with a thunk that sloshed it over the edge of the glass. “You are not sleeping with Byerly.”
“Who else have I even met here? Well, there’s The Coz and The Gregor, I suppose, but be reasonable. Anyway, they’re both taken.” Tej added after a moment, “And Simon Illyan was very nice, too, but no. Just no. Just…no.”
“No,” said Ivan Xav. “So many kinds of no, I can’t even count the ways.”
“That’s what I just said.” Tej eyed him in speculation. “I don’t suppose you could sleep with Byerly…?”
“Only if I can watch,” murmured Rish.
“ No! ” said Ivan Xav. “ Nobody is sleeping with Byerly, all right?”
Frostily, Rish cleared her throat.
Ivan Xav waved his arms. “You know what I mean. Neither Tej nor I are sleeping with Byerly. Separately or together.”
“A foursome, now there’s a thought,” purred Rish. “You know, I bet we could persuade By to-”
“Stop teasing poor Ivan Xav, Rish,” said Tej. He was getting an alarming flush. “If you can’t say something to the point, just give over.”
Rish looked at Ivan Xav. “Don’t you have any old girlfriends you could call on for a favor?”
“Sure, but they’re mostly married now. Even Dono, and Olivia would-never mind. Jealous husbands… spouses…I figured I was done dealing with that kind of excitement in my life. It’s just no fun anymore, y’know? Hasn’t been for a while.”
Both women stared at him in bemused silence; after a moment, he stirred uncomfortably and took another swallow of his wine.
Rish sat back. “What else was there? Oh yes, abuse.”
“I am not beating Tej.” Ivan Xav glowered at Rish. “You, I’m less and less sure about.”
Rish snickered. “You couldn’t lay a hand on me if you tried, natural-boy.”
Ivan Xav sighed, avoiding conceding the point. “Besides, it’d get me in so much trouble with so many people-after Mamere, Uncle Aral, and Aunt Cordelia-and Simon-there’d be Miles and Ekaterin and all the Koudelka girls lining up to deal with the remains- and their mother- and Gregor, and Desplains-God, there wouldn’t be enough left of me to carry to court in a bucket. Hell, a teacup.” Ivan Xav sat back in what, had he been of another gender, Tej would not have hesitated to describe as a flounce. A little too large and surly for the term, here.
Rish turned her head toward Tej. “That leaves it up to you.”
“But I don’t want to hit Ivan Xav! I want to kiss Ivan Xav.”
“Try it,” urged Rish. “Just for the experiment.” Her gold eyes glinted.
Reluctantly, at Rish’s gesture, Ivan Xav put down his drink and stood up. Tej bunched her hand, drew it back, and poked him in the solar plexus. Her fist made a little fump sound, bouncing off his heavy uniform jacket.
Ivan Xav just stared glumly at her. “What was that supposed to be…?”
“It’s really hard,” Tej protested. “When you don’t want to. Besides, it would hurt my hand.”
“Bloody Falco,” muttered Ivan Xav, sitting back down and retrieving his drink, which he drained.
Rish ran her hands through her hair in a ragged swipe. “Look. Think. You’re both making this too hard by trying to do the divorce thing first. It’s not necessary. Desertion, wasn’t that one of the grounds? Tej and I go off to Escobar, change our identities, disappear, you’re got your desertion right there. Tootle back to court on your own, get it done. You don’t have to drag us into it at all.”
“There are time limits about that sort of thing,” said Ivan Xav. “Three or four years, or was it seven? Or was that for declaring someone dead…?” He frowned in doubt.
“What does that mean?” asked Tej. “In Barrayaran.”
“It means that even though you were gone, I’d still be married to you. For several more years. I couldn’t, say, remarry in that time. Or even become betrothed, I suppose.”
“Oh,” said Tej. “That’s right, this place only lets people have one spouse at a time, doesn’t it? That wouldn’t be a good problem to dump on you, would it. You might meet someone you liked…” A strangely unheartening picture. Didn’t she want him to be happy?
Ivan Xav, on the other hand, sat up, brightening a trifle. “That actually could be more of a feature than a bug, come to think. My mother couldn’t very well lean on me to seriously court other women if I was already married, huh? Yeah, that docking slot would be all filled up.” His brow wrinkled. “Not sure what it would do to my hit rate, though…”
“In that case,” said Rish, rolling to her feet, “I hereby declare this a non-emergency, and would appreciate it if you two would clear my bedroom. Some of us want to sleep.”
Ivan Xav appeared to give this serious consideration. “Yeah, Miles goes all frantic and forward-momentum-y when he hits a snag in his plans, but I usually prefer to give it a bit of time. Maybe there’ll be a better idea come along, or the problem will change, or, if you wait long enough, even go away on its own, without having to do anything. If people don’t keep poking at it, that is.”
“Time would certainly do the trick, sure,” said Rish cordially. “I figure it would only take, oh, you’re a natural-maybe sixty more years? Unless you die sooner in a groundcar crash, that is.”
Ivan Xav said, in a faraway voice, “Yeah, that would be the line of least resistance, now, wouldn’t it…?”
Rish shook her head. “Go to bed. Screw what’s left of your brains out, deal with it again in the morning. Or some other time when I don’t have to listen to you two.” She departed to collect her bedding from the linen closet in the dressing room.
Ivan Xav stood up and took Tej’s hand, warm in his warmer one. “Best advice she’s offered all night. Let’s just…give it a rest. Maybe something else will come up.”
As the week wore on, Ivan contemplated the merits of inertia as a problem-solving technique with growing favor. Desplains kept him only normally occupied during his workdays, there being no real crises at Ops this week, and Ivan being quite unmoved by now by all the synthetic ones, although he did garner some enjoyment selecting snarky return memos. In the mornings, Tej continued her language studies, or games, as she seemed to insist on thinking of them, alternated with afternoon visits along with Rish to Ma Kosti. Even better, they brought back culinary homework. Ivan surreptitiously let his uniform belt out one notch.
Byerly continued to carry off Rish most evenings, a public service to which Ivan could muster no objection. The Creatures of the Night, as he began to think of them, returned at varied hours. He didn’t mind it if Rish came in
