Cetaganda

went on to exchange. Probably just social pleasantries, but still . . .

Miles and Ivan sampled the hors d'oeuvres, which were dainty but abundant, and selected drinks. Ivan chose a famous Marilacan wine. Miles, conscious of the flimsy in his pocket, chose black coffee. They abandoned each other with a silent wave, each to circulate after his own fashion. Miles leaned on the railing overlooking the lift-tube lobby. He sipped from the fragile cup and wondered where its stay-warm circuit was concealed—ah, there on the bottom, woven into the metallic glitter of the Marilacan embassy seal. 'Autumn Leaves' was chilling down to the end of its cycle. The water in the trickling fountains froze, or appeared to, stilled to silent black ice. The swirling colors faded to the sere yellow and silver-gray of a winter sunset, the figures, if figures they were, now suggesting skeletal despair. The chime/music faded to discordant, broken whispers. It was not a winter of snow and celebration. It was a winter of death. Miles shivered involuntarily. Damned effective.

So, how to begin asking questions without revealing anything in return? He pictured himself buttonholing some ghem-lord, Say, did one of your minions lose a code-key with a seal like this . . . ? No. By far the best approach was to let his . . . adversaries, find him, but they were being tediously slow about it. Miles's eye swept the throng for men without eyebrows, without success.

But Ivan had found a beautiful woman already. Miles blinked, as he registered just how beautiful. She was tall and slim, the skin of her face and hands as delicately smooth as porcelain. Jeweled bands bound her blond- white hair loosely at the nape of her neck, and again at her waist. The hair did not trail to its silky end until halfway to her knees. Her dress concealed rather than revealed, with layers of underslips, split sleeves, and vests sweeping to her ankles. The dark hues of the over-garments set off the pallor of her complexion, and a flash of cerulean silk underneath echoed her blue eyes. She was a Cetagandan ghem-lady, without question—she had that attenuated-elf look that suggested more than a tinge of haut-lord genes in her family tree. True, the look could be mimicked with surgeries and other therapies, but the arrogant arch to her brow had to be genuine.

Miles sensed the pheromones in her perfume while still spiraling in from three meters away. It seemed redundant; Ivan was already on overdrive, his dark eyes sparkling as he decanted some story featuring himself as hero, or at least protagonist. Something about training exercises, ah, of course, emphasizing his Barrayaran martial style. Venus and Mars, right. But she was actually smiling at something Ivan had said.

It wasn't that Miles enviously sought to deny Ivan his luck with women; it would simply be nice if some of the overflow would trickle down his way. Though Ivan claimed you had to make your own luck. Ivan's resilient ego could absorb a dozen rejections tonight for some smiling thirteenth payoff. Miles thought he would be dead of mortification by Attempt Three. Maybe he was naturally monogamous.

Hell, you had to at least achieve monogamy before you could go on to larger ambitions. So far he had failed to attach even one woman to his sawed-off person. Of course, nearly three years in covert ops, and the period before that in the all-male environs of the military academy, had limited his opportunities.

Nice theory. So why hadn't similar conditions stopped Ivan?

Elena . . . Was he still holding out for the impossible, on some level? Miles swore he wasn't nearly as choosy as Ivan—he could hardly afford to be—yet even this lovely ghem-blonde lacked . . . what? The intelligence, the reserve, the pilgrim soul . . . ? But Elena had chosen another, and probably wisely. Time and past time for Miles to move on too, and carve out some luck of his own. He just wished the prospect didn't feel so bleak.

Spiraling in from the other side a moment or two after Miles came a Cetagandan ghem-lord, tall and lean. The face rising up out of his dark and flowing robes was young; the fellow was not much older than Ivan and himself, Miles guessed. He was square-skulled, with prominent round cheekbones. One cheekbone was decorated with a circular patch, a decal, Miles realized, a stylized swirl of color identifying the man's rank and clan. It was a shrunken version of the full face paint a few other Cetagandans present wore, an avant-garde youth fashion currently being disapproved of by the older generation. Was he come to rescue his lady from Ivan's attentions?

'Lady Gelle,' he bowed slightly, and 'Lord Yenaro,' she responded with a precisely graded inclination of her head, by which Miles gathered that 1) she had a higher status in the ghem-community than the man, and 2) he was not her husband or brother—Ivan was probably safe.

'I see you have found some of the galactic exotics you were longing for,' said Lord Yenaro to her.

She smiled back at him. The effect was downright blinding, and Miles found himself wishing she'd smile at him even though he knew better. Lord Yenaro, doubtless inoculated by a lifetime of exposure to ghem-ladies, seemed immune. 'Lord Yenaro, this is Lieutenant Lord Ivan Vorpatril of Barrayar, and, ah—?' Her lashes swept down over her eyes, indicating Ivan should introduce Miles, a gesture as sharp and evocative as if she'd tapped Ivan's wrist with a fan.

'My cousin, Lieutenant Lord Miles Vorkosigan,' Ivan supplied smoothly, on cue.

'Ah, the Barrayaran envoys!' Lord Yenaro bowed more deeply. 'What luck to meet you.'

Miles and Ivan both returned decent nods; Miles made sure the inclination of his head was slightly shallower than his cousin's, a fine gradation alas probably spoiled by the angle of view.

'We have an historical connection, Lord Vorkosigan,' Yenaro went on. 'Famous ancestors.'

Miles's adrenaline level shot up. Oh, damn, this is some relative of the late ghem-General Estanis, and he's out to get the son of Aral Vorkosigan. . . .

'You are the grandson of General Count Piotr Vorkosigan, are you not?'

Ah. Ancient history, not recent. Miles relaxed slightly. 'Indeed.'

'I am in a sense your opposite number, then. My grandfather was ghem-General Yenaro.'

'Oh, the unfortunate commander of the, uh, what do you folks call it? The Barrayaran Expedition? The Barrayaran Reconnaissance?' Ivan put in.

'The ghem-general who lost the Barrayaran War,' Yenaro said bluntly.

'Really, Yenaro, must you bring him up?' said Lady Gelle. Did she actually want to hear the end of Ivan's story? Miles could have told her a much funnier one, about the time on training maneuvers when Ivan had led his patrol into gluey waist-deep mud, and they'd all had to be winched out by hovercar. . . .

'I am not a proponent of the hero-theory of disaster,' Miles said diplomatically. 'General Yenaro had the misfortune to be the last of five successive ghem-generals who lost the Barrayaran War, and thus the sole inheritor of a, as it were, tontine of blame.'

'Oh, well put,' murmured Ivan. Yenaro too smiled.

'Do I understand that thing in the lobby is yours, Yenaro?' the girl inquired, clearly hoping to steer the conversation away from a fast downslide into military history. 'A trifle banal for your crowd, isn't it? My mother liked it.'

'It is but a practice piece.' A slightly ironic bow acknowledged this mixed review. 'The Marilacans were delighted with it. True courtesy considers the tastes of the recipient. It has some levels of subtlety only apparent when you walk through it.'

'I thought you were specializing in the incense contests.'

'I'm branching out into other media. Though I still maintain scent is a subtler sense than sight. You must let me mix for you sometime. That civet-jasmine blend you're wearing tonight absolutely clashes with the third-level formal style of your dress, you know.'

Her smile went thin. 'Does it.'

Miles's imagination supplied background music, a scrape of rapiers, and a Take that, varlet! He tamped down a grin.

'Beautiful dress,' Ivan put in earnestly. 'You smell great.'

'Mm, yes, speaking of your craving for the exotic,' Lord Yenaro said to Lady Gelle, 'did you know that Lord Vorpatril here is a biological birth?'

The girl's feather-faint brows drew in, making a tiny crease in her flawless forehead. 'All births are biological, Yenaro.'

'Ah, but no. The original sort of biology. From his mother's body.'

' Eeeuu.' Her nose wrinkled in horror. 'Really, Yenaro. You are so obnoxious tonight. Mother is right, you and your retro-avant crowd are going to go too far one of these days. You are in danger of becoming someone not to know, instead of someone famous.' Her