Komarr

offense wasn't because the galactics stared less—or more—at him, it was that they stared equally at everybody.

She also discovered that he was attracted by the dreadful, among the galactic wares cramming the narrow shops into which they ducked. He actually appeared to seriously consider for several minutes what was claimed to be a genuine twentieth-century reproduction lamp, of Jacksonian manufacture, consisting of a sealed glass vessel containing two immiscible liquids which slowly rose and fell in the convection currents. 'It looks just like red blood corpuscles floating in plasma,' Vorkosigan opined, staring in fascination at the underlit blobs.

'But as a wedding present?' she choked, half amused, half appalled. 'What kind of message would people take it for?'

'It would make Gregor laugh,' he replied. 'Not a gift he gets much. But you're right, the wedding present proper needs to be, er, proper. Public and political, not personal.' With a regretful sigh, he returned the lamp to its shelf. After another moment, he changed his mind again, bought it, and had it shipped. 'I'll get him another present for the wedding. This can be for his birthday.'

After that, he let Ekaterin lead him into the more sophisticated end of the district, with shops displaying well-spread-out and well-lit jewelry and artwork and antiques, interspersed with discreet couturiers of the sort, she thought, who might send minions to his aunt. He seemed to find it much less interesting than the galactic rummage sale a few streets and levels away, the animation fading from his face, until his eye was caught by an unusual display in a jeweler's kiosk.

Tiny model planets, the size of the end of her thumb, turned in a grav-bubble against a black background. Several of the little spheres were displayed under various levels of magnification, where they proved to be perfectly-mapped replicas of the worlds they represented, right down to the one-meter scale. Not just rivers and mountains and seas, but cities and roads and dams, were represented in realistic colors. Furthermore, the terminator moved across their miniature landscapes in real-time for the planetary cycle in question; cities lit the night side like living jewels. They could be hung in pairs as earrings, or displayed in pendants or bracelets. Most of the planets in the wormhole nexus were available, including Beta Colony and an Earth that included as an option its famous moon circling a handspan away, though how this pairing was to be hung on someone's body was not entirely clear. The prices, at which Vorkosigan did not even glance, were alarming.

'That's rather fine,' he murmured approvingly, staring in fascination at the little Barrayar. 'I wonder how they do that? I know where I could have one reverse-engineered. …'

'They seem more like toys than jewels, but I have to admit, they're striking.'

'Oh, yes, a typical tech toy—high-end this year, everywhere next year, nowhere after that, till the antiquarians' revival. Still … it would be fun to make up an Imperial set, Barrayar, Komarr, and Sergyar. I don't know any women with three ears . . . two earrings and a pendant, perhaps, though then you'd have the socio-political problem of how to rank the worlds.'

'You could put all three on a necklace.'

'True, or … I think my mother would definitely like a Sergyar. Or Beta Colony … no, might make her homesick. Sergyar, yes, very apropos. And there's Winterfair, and birthdays coming up—let's see, there's Mother, Laisa, Delia, Aunt Alys, Delia's sisters, Drou—maybe I ought to order a dozen sets, and have a couple to spare.'

'Uh,' said Ekaterin, contemplating this burst of efficiency, 'do all these women know each other?' Were any of them his lovers? Surely he wouldn't mention such in the same breath with his mother and aunt. Or might he be a suitor? But . . . toall of them?

'Oh, sure.'

'Do you really think you ought to get them all the same present?'

'No?' he asked doubtfully. 'But . . . they all know me …'

In the end, he restrained himself, purchasing only two earring sets, one each of Barrayars and Komarrs, and swapping them out, for the brides of the two mixed marriages. He added a Sergyar on a fine chain for his mother. At the last moment, he bolted back for another Barrayar, for which woman on his lengthy list he did not say. The packets of tiny planets were made up and gift-wrapped.

Feeling a little overwhelmed by the Komarran bazaar, Ekaterin led him off for a look at one of her favorite parks. It bounded the end of the Locks district, and featured one of the largest and most naturally landscaped lakes in Serifosa. Ekaterin mentally planned a stop for coffee and pastry, after they circumnavigated the lake along its walking trails.

They paused at a railing above a modest bluff, where a view across the lake framed some of the higher towers of Serifosa. The crippled soletta array was in full view overhead now, through the park's transparent dome, creating dim sparkles on the lake's wavelets. Cheerful voices echoed distantly across the water, from families playing on an artificially-natural swimming beach.

'It's very pretty,' said Ekaterin, 'but the maintenance cost is terrific. Urban forestry is a full-time specialty here. Everything's consciously created, the woods, the rocks, the weeds, everything.'

'World-in-a-box,' murmured Vorkosigan, gazing out over the reflecting sheet. 'Some assembly required.'

'Some Serifosans think of their park system as a promise for the future, ecology in the bank,' she went on, 'but others, I suspect, don't know the difference between their little parks and real forests. I sometimes wonder if, by the time the atmosphere is breathable, the Komarrans' great-grandchildren will all be such agoraphobes, they won't even venture out in it.'

'A lot of Betans tend to think like that. When I was last there—' His sentence was shattered by a sudden crackling boom; Ekaterin started, till she identified the noise as a load dropped from a mag-crane working on some construction, or reconstruction, back over their shoulders beyond the trees. But Vorkosigan jumped and spun like a cat; the package in his right hand went flying, his left made to push her behind him, and he drew a stunner she hadn't even known he was carrying half out of his trouser pocket before he, too, identified the source of the bang. He inhaled deeply, flushed, and cleared his throat. 'Sorry,' he said to her wide-eyed look. 'I overreacted a trifle there.' Though they both surreptitiously examined the dome overhead; it remained placidly intact. 'Stunner's a pretty useless weapon anyway, against things that go bump like that.' He shoved it back deep into his pocket.

'You dropped your planets,' she said, looking around for the white packet. It was nowhere in sight.

He leaned out over the railing. 'Damn.'

She followed his gaze. The packet had bounced off the boardwalk, and fetched up a meter down the bluff, caught on a bit of hanging foliage, a thorny bittersweet plant dangling over the water.

'I think maybe I can reach it …' He swung over the railing past the sign admonishing caution: stay on the trail and flung himself flat on the ground over the edge before she could squeak, But your good suit— Vorkosigan was not, she suspected, a man who routinely did his own laundry. But his blunt fingers swung short of the prize they sought. She had a hideous vision of an Imperial Auditor under her guest-hold landing head-down in the pond. Could she be accused of treason? The bluff was barely four meters high; how deep was the water here?

'My arms are longer,' she offered, climbing after him.

Temporarily thwarted, he scrambled back to a sitting position. 'We can fetch a stick. Or better yet, a minion with a stick.' He glanced dubiously at his wrist comm.

'I think,' she said demurely, 'calling ImpSec for this might be overkill.' She lay prone, and reached as he had. 'It's all right, I think I can …' Her fingers too swung short of the packet, but only just. She inched forward, feeling the precarious pull of the undercut slope. She stretched . . .

The root-compacted soil of the edge sagged under her weight, and she began to slide precipitously forward. She yelped; pushing backward fragmented her support totally. One wildly back-grappling arm was caught suddenly in a viselike grip, but the rest of her body turned as the soil gave way beneath her, and she found herself dangling absurdly feet-down over the pond. Her other arm, swinging around, was caught, too, and she looked up into Vorkosigan's face above her. He was lying prone on the slope, one hand locked around each of her wrists. His teeth were clenched and grinning, his gray eyes alight.

'Let go, you idiot!' she cried.

The look on his face was weirdly, wildly exultant. 'Never,' he gasped, 'again—'

His half-boots were locked around . . . nothing, she realized, as he began to slide inexorably over the edge after her. But his death-grip never slackened. The exalted look on his face melted to sudden horrified realization.