Komarr

She began as a minimum gesture to pull her library off the wall and fit it into a box. The urge to cram a few of her things hastily into some shopping bag and flee before Tien returned as strong. But sooner or later, she would have to face him. Because of Nikki, there would have to be negotiations, formal plans, eventually legal petitions, the uncertainty of which made her sick to her stomach. But she had been years coming to this moment. If she could not do this now, when her anger was high, how could she find the strength to face the rest in colder blood?

She walked through the apartment, staring at the objects of her life. They were few enough; the major furnishings had all come with the place and would stay with the place. Her spasmodic efforts at decoration, at creating some semblance of a Barrayaran home, the hours of work—it was like deciding what to grab in a fire, only slower. Nothing. Let it all burn. The sole awkward exception was her great-aunt's bonsai'd skellytum. It was her one memento of her life before Tien, and it was in the nature of a sacred trust to the dead. Keeping something that foolish and ugly alive for seventy and more years . . . well, it was a typical Vor woman's job. She smiled bitterly, and brought it off the balcony into the kitchen, and began to look around for some way to transit it. At the sound of the hall door opening, she caught her breath, and schooled her features to as little expression as possible.

'Kat?' Tien ducked into the kitchen and stared around, 'Where's dinner?'

My first question would have been, Where's Nikolai? I wonder how long it will take that thought to come to him. 'Where is Lord Vorkosigan?'

'He stayed on at the office. He'll be along later, he said, to take his things away.'

'Oh.' She realized then that some tiny part of her had been hoping to conduct the impending conversation while Vorkosigan was still finishing up in her workroom or something; his presence providing some margin of safety, of social restraint upon Tien. Maybe it was better this way. 'Sit down, Tien. I have to talk with you.'

He raised dubious brows, but sat at the head of the table, around to her left. She would have preferred to have him opposite her.

'I am leaving you tonight.'

'What?' His astonishment appeared genuine. 'Why?'

She hesitated, reluctant to be drawn into argument. 'I suppose . . . because I have come to the end of myself.' Only now, looking back over the long draining years, did she become aware of how much of her there had been to use up. No wonder it had taken so long. All gone now.

'Why . . . why now?' At least he didn't say, You must be joking. 'I don't understand, Kat.' She could see him begin to grope, not toward understanding, but away from it, as far away as possible. 'Is it the Vorzohn's Dystrophy? Damn, I knew—'

'Don't be stupid, Tien. If that was the issue, I'd have left years ago. I took oath to you in sickness and health.'

He frowned and sat back, his brows lowering. 'Is there someone else? There's someone else, isn't there!'

'I'm sure you wish there were. Because then it would be because of them, and not because of you.' Her voice was level, utterly flat. Her stomach churned.

He was obviously shocked, and beginning to shake a little. 'This is madness. I don't understand.'

'I have nothing more to say.' She began to rise, wishing nothing more than to be gone at once, away from him. You could have done this over the comconsole, you know.

No. I took my oath in the flesh. I will break it to pieces in the same way.

He rose with her, and his hand closed over hers, gripping it, stopping her. 'There's more to it.'

'You would know more about that than I would, Tien.' He hesitated now, beginning, she thought, to be really afraid. This might not be any safer for her. He's never hit me yet, I'll give him that much credit. Part of her almost wished he had. Then there would have been clarity, not this endless muddle. 'What do you mean?'

'Let go of me.'

'No.'

She considered his hand on hers, tight but not grinding. But still much stronger than her own. He was half a head taller and outweighed her by thirty kilos. She did not feel as much physical fear as she had thought she would. She was too numb, perhaps. She raised her face to his. Her voice grew edged. 'Let go of me.'

A little to her surprise, he did so, his hand flexing awkwardly. 'You have to tell me why. Or I'll believe it's to go to some lover.'

'I no longer care what you believe.'

'Is he Komarran? Some damned Komarran?'

Goading her in the usual spot, and why not? It had worked before to bring her into line. It half-worked still. She had sworn to herself that she wasn't even going to bring up the subject of Tien's actions and inactions. Complaint was a tacit plea for help, for reform, for … continuation. Complaint was to attempt to shuffle off the responsibility for action onto another. To act was to obliterate the need for complaint. She would act, or not act. She would not whine. Still in that dead-level voice, she said, 'I found out about your trade shares, Tien.'

His mouth opened, and shut again. After a moment he said, 'I can make it up. I know what went wrong now. I can make the losses up again.'

'I don't think so. Where did you get that forty thousand marks, Tien.' Her lack of inflection made it not a question.

'I …' She could watch it in his face, as he ratcheted over his choice of lies. He settled on a fairly simple one. 'Part I saved, part I borrowed. You're not the only one who can scrimp, you know.'

'From Administrator Soudha?'

He flinched at the name, but said ingenuously, 'How did you know?'

'It doesn't matter, Tien. I'm not going to turn you in.' She stared at him in weariness. 'I take no part in you anymore.'

He paced, agitated, back and forth across the kitchen, his face working. 'I did it for you,' he said at last.

Yes. Now he will attempt to make me feel guilty. All my fault. It was as familiar as the steps of some well-practiced, poisonous dance. She watched silently.

'All for you. You wanted money. I worked my tail off, but it was never enough for you, was it?' His voice rose, as he tried to lash himself into a relieving, self-righteous anger. It fell a little flat to her experienced ear. 'You pushed me into taking a chance, with your endless nagging and worrying. So it didn't work, and now you want to punish me, is that it? You'd have been quick enough to make up to me if it had paid off.'

He was very good at this, she had to admit, his accusations echoing her own dark doubts. She listened to his patterned litany with a sort of detached appreciation, like a torture victim, gone beyond pain unbeknownst, admiring the color of her own blood. Now he will attempt to make me feel sorry for him. But I'm done feeling sorry. I'm done feeling anything.

'Money money money, is that what this is all about? What is it that you want to buy so damned much, Kat?'

Your health, as you may recall. And Nikki's future. And mine.

As he paced, sputtering, his eye fell on the bright red skellytum, sitting in its basin on the kitchen table. 'You don't love me. You only love yourself. Selfish, Kat! You love your damned potted plants more than you love me. Here, I'll prove it to you.'

He snatched up the pot and pressed the control for the door to the balcony. It opened a little too slowly for his dramatic timing, but he strode through nonetheless, and whirled to face her. 'Which shall it be to go over the railing, Kat? Your precious plant, or me? Choose!'

She neither spoke nor moved. Now he will attempt to terrify me with suicide