Mirror Dance

he was clearly a little fogged, but he wasn’t so far out of it as to have forgotten his Armsman’s violent death. “Elena’s smarter than her father was, I’ll give her that,” he sighed. The Countess finished with his feet.

He lay back, brows drawn down, apparently struggling to think of more useful advice. “I once thought—I only found this out when I grew old, understand—that there is no more terrible fate than to become the mentor. To be able to tell how, yet not to do. To send your protege out, all bright and beautiful, to stand your fire … I think I’ve found a worse fate. To send your student out knowing damn well you haven’t had a chance to teach enough. … Be smart, boy. Duck fast. Don’t sell yourself to your enemy in advance, in your mind. You can only be defeated here.” He touched his hands to his temples.

“I don’t even know who the enemy is, yet,” said Mark ruefully.

“They’ll find you, I suppose,” sighed the Count. “People give themselves to you, in their talking, and in other ways, if you are quiet and patient and let them, and not in such a damn rush to give yourself to them you go bat-blind and deaf. Eh?”

“I guess so. Sir,” said Mark, baffled.

“Huh.” The Count had run himself completely out of breath. “You’ll see,” he wheezed. The Countess eyed him, swung herself off the bed, and stood up.

“Well,” said Mark, and nodded briefly, “goodbye.” His word hung in the air, insufficient. Cardiac conditions are not contagious, dammit. What are you scared of? He swallowed, and cautiously went nearer the Count. He had never touched the man except the once when trying to help load him onto the float bike. Afraid, emboldened, he held out his hand. »

The Count grasped it, a brief, strong grip. His hand was big and square and blunt-fingered, a hand fit for shovels and picks, swords and guns. Mark’s own hand seemed small and child-like, plump and pale by contrast. They had nothing in common but the grip.

“Confusion to the enemy, boy,” whispered the Count.

“Turn-about is fair play, sir.”

His father snorted a laugh.

Mark made one final vid-call that evening, his last night on Bar-rayar. He sneaked off to use the console in Miles’s room, not in secret, exactly, but in private. He stared at the blank machine for ten minutes before spasmodically punching in the code he had obtained.

A middle-aged blonde woman’s image appeared over the vid plate when the chime stopped. The remains of a striking beauty made her face strong and confident. Her eyes were blue and humorous. “Commodore Koudelka’s residence,” she answered formally.

It’s her mother. Mark choked down panic to quaver, “May I speak with Kareen Koudelka, please—ma’am?”

A blonde brow twitched. “I believe I know which one you are, but—who may I say is calling?”

“Lord Mark Vorkosigan,” he got out.

“Just a moment, my lord.” She left the range of the vid pick-up; he could hear her voice fading in the distance, calling “Kareen!”

There was a muffled bumping in the background, garbled voices, a shriek, and Kareen’s laughing voice crying, “No, Delia, it’s for me! Mother, make her go away! Mine, all mine! Out!” The sound of a door thumping closed on, presumably, flesh, a yelp, then a firmer and more final slam.

Panting and tousled, Kareen Koudelka arrived in range, and gave him a starry-eyed “Hi!”

If not just like the look Lady Cassia had given Ivan, it was a robust and blue near-cousin. Mark felt faint. “Hello,” he said breathlessly. “I called to say goodbye.” No, dammit, that was much too short—

“What?”

“Um, excuse me, that’s not quite what I meant. But I’m going to be traveling off-planet soon, and I didn’t want to leave without speaking to you again.”

“Oh.” Her smile drooped. “When will you come back?”

“I’m not sure. But when I do, I’d like to see you again.”

“Well … sure.”

Sure, she said. What a lot of joyful assumptions were embedded in that sure.

Her eyes narrowed. “Is there something wrong, Lord Mark?”

“No,” he said hastily. “Um … was that your sister I heard in the background just now?”

“Yes. I had to lock her out, or she’d stand out of range and make faces at me while we talked.” Her earnest air of injury was immediately spoiled when she added, “That’s what I do to her, when fellows call.”

He was a fellow. How … how normal. He led her on with one question after another, to talk about her sisters, her parents, and her life. Private schools and cherished children … The Commodore’s family was well-to-do, but with some sort of Barrayaran-style work ethic driving a passion for education and accomplishment, an ideal of service running like an undercurrent, towing them all into their future. He went awash in her words, dreamily sharing. She was so peaceable and real. No shadow of torment, nothing spoiled or deformed. He felt like he was feeding, not his belly but his head. His brain felt warm and distended and happy, a sensation near-erotic but less threatening. Alas, after a time she became conscious of the disproportion in the conversation.

“Good heavens, I’m babbling. I’m sorry.”

“No! I like listening to you talk.”

“That’s a first. In this family, I’m lucky to get a word in edgewise. I didn’t talk till I was three. They had me tested. It turned out it was just because my sisters were answering everything for me!”

Mark laughed.

“Now they say I’m making up for lost time.”

“I know about lost time,” Mark said ruefully.

“Yes, I’ve … heard a little. I guess your life has been quite an adventure.”

“Not an adventure,” he corrected. “A disaster, maybe.” He wondered what his life would look like, reflected in her eyes. Something shinier… . “Maybe when I get back I can tell you a bit about it.” If he got back. If he brought this off.

I’m not a nice person. ’You should know that, before. Before what? The more over- extended their acquaintance became, the harder it would be to tell her his repellent secrets.

“Look, I … you have to understand.” God, he sounded just like Bothari-Jesek, working up to her confession. “I’m kind of a mess, and I’m not just talking about my outsides.” Hell, hell, and what had this f nice young virgin to do with the arcane subtleties of psycho-programming tortures, and their erratic results? What right had he to put horrors in her head? “I don’t even know what I should tell you!”

Now was too soon, he could feel that clearly. But later might be too late, leaving her feeling betrayed and tricked. And if he continued this conversation one more minute, he’d drift into abject-blurting mode, and lose the one bright, un-poisoned thing he’d found.

Kareen tilted her head in puzzlement. “Maybe you ought to ask the Countess.”

“Do you know her well? To talk to?”

“Oh, yes. She and my mother are best friends. My mother used to be her personal bodyguard, before she retired to have us.”

Mark sensed the shadowy league of grandmothers again. Powerful old women with genetic agendas… . He felt obscurely that there were some things a man ought to do for himself. But on Barrayar, they used go-betweens. He had in his camp an ambassadoress-extraordinary to the whole female gender. The Countess would act for his good. Yeah, like a woman holding down a screaming child to get it a painful vaccination that would save it from a deadly disease.

How much did he trust the Countess? Did he dare trust her in this?

“Kareen … before I come back, do me a favor. If you get a chance to talk privately to the Countess, ask her