'Mm.' Shuffle, turn, shuffle. Flash! 'Then I won't invite her.'
'Ah.' Count Vorkosigan relaxed. 'Wise, I'm sure …'
'I'll have Mother invite her. Let's see him object to that!'
Count Vorkosigan emitted a surprised laugh. 'Underhanded, boy!' But his tone was approving. Miles's heart lifted.
'This trip idea was really hers, wasn't it, sir?' Miles said.
'Well—yes,' Count Vorkosigan admitted. 'But in fact, I was glad she suggested it. It would—ease my mind, to have you safe on Beta Colony for the next few months.' He rose. 'You must excuse me. Duty calls. I have to go feel up that rampant creeper Vordrozda, for the greater glory of the Empire.' His expression of distaste spoke volumes. 'Frankly, I'd rather be getting drunk in a corner with that idiot Ivan—or talking to you.' His father's eyes were warm upon him.
'Your work comes first, of course, sir. I understand that.'
Count Vorkosigan paused, and gave him a peculiar look. 'Then you understand nothing. My work has been a blight on you from the very beginning. I'm sorry, sorry it made such a mess for you—'
Mess of you, thought Miles. Say what you really mean, damn it.
'—I never meant it to be so.' A nod, and he withdrew.
Apologizing to me again, thought Miles miserably. For me. He keeps telling me I'm all right—and then apologizing. Inconsistent, Father.
He shuffled back and forth across the room again, and his pain burst into speech. He flung his words against the deaf door, 'I'll make you take back that apology! I am all right, damn it! I'll make you see it. I'll stuff you so full of pride in me there'll be no room left for your precious guilt! I swear by my word as Vorkosigan. I swear it, Father,' his voice fell to a whisper, 'Grandfather. Somehow, I don't know how …'
He took another turn around his chamber, collapsing back into himself, cold and desperately sleepy. A mess of crumbs, an empty wine bottle, an open full one. Silence.
'Talking to yourself in an empty room again, I see,' he whispered. 'A very bad sign, you know.'
His legs hurt. He cradled the second bottle, and took it with him to lie down.
CHAPTER FIVE
'Well, well, well,' said the sleek Betan customs agent, in sarcastic simulation of good cheer. 'If it isn't Sergeant Bothari of Barrayar. And what did you bring me this time, Sergeant? A few nuclear antipersonnel mines, overlooked in your back pocket? A maser cannon or two, accidentally mixed up with your shaving kit? A gravitic imploder, slipped somehow into your boot?'
The Sergeant answered this sally with something between a growl and a grunt.
Miles grinned, and dredged his memory for the agent's name. 'Good afternoon. Officer Timmons. Still working the line, are you? I thought for sure you'd be in administration by now.'
The agent gave Miles a somewhat more courteous nod of greeting. 'Good afternoon, Lord Vorkosigan. Well, civil service, you know.' He sorted through their documents and plugged a data disc into his viewer. 'Your stunner permits are in order. Now if you will please step, one at a time, through this scanner?'
Sergeant Bothari frowned at the machine glumly, and sniffed disdain. Miles tried to catch his eye, but he was studiously finding something of interest in midair somewhere. On the suspicion, Miles said, 'Elena and I first, I think.'
Elena passed through with a stiff uncertain smile like a person holding still too long for a photograph, then continued to look eagerly around. Even if it was only a rather bleak underground customs entry port, it was another planet. Miles hoped Beta Colony would make up for the disappointing fizzle of the Escobar layover.
Two days of records searches and trudging through neglected military cemeteries in the rain, pretending to Bothari a passion for historical detail, had produced no maternal grave or cenotaph after all. Elena had seemed more relieved than disappointed by the failure of their covert search.
'You see?' she had whispered to Miles. 'Father didn't lie to me. You have a hyper imagination.'
The Sergeant's own bored reaction to the tour clinched the argument; Miles conceded. And yet …
It was his hyper imagination, maybe. The less they found the more queasy Miles became. Were they looking in the wrong army's cemetery? Miles's own mother had changed allegiances to return to Barrayar with his father; maybe Bothari's romance had not taken so prosperous a turn. But if that were so, should they even be looking in cemeteries? Maybe he should be hunting Elena's mother in the comm link directory … He did not quite dare suggest it.
He wished he had not been so intimidated by the conspiracy of silence surrounding Elena's birth to refrain from pumping Countess Vorkosigan. Well, when they returned home he would screw up his courage and demand the truth of her, and let her wisdom guide him as to how much to pass on to Bothari's daughter.
For now, Miles stepped after Elena through the scanner, enjoying her air of wonder, and looking forward like a magician to pulling Beta Colony out of a hat for her delight.
The Sergeant stepped through the machine. It gave a rude blat.
Agent Timmons shook his head and sighed. 'You never give up, do you, Sergeant?'
'Ah, if I may interrupt,' said Miles, 'the lady and I are cleared, are we not?' Receiving a nod, he retrieved their stunners and his own travel documentation. 'I'll show Elena around the shuttleport, then, while you two are discussing your, er, differences. You can bring the luggage when he gets done with it, Sergeant. Meet you in the main concourse.'
'You will not—' began Bothari.
'We'll be perfectly all right,' Miles assured him airily. He grasped Elena's elbow and hustled her off before his bodyguard could marshall further objections.
Elena looked back over her shoulder. 'Is my father really trying to smuggle in an illegal weapon?'
'Weapons. I expect so,' said Miles apologetically. 'I don't authorize it, and it never works, but I guess he feels undressed without deadly force. If the Betans are as good at spotting everyone else's goods as they are at spotting ours, we really don't have anything to worry about.'
He watched her, sideways, as they entered the main concourse, and had the satisfaction of seeing her catch her breath. Golden light, at once brilliant and comfortable, spun down from a huge high vault upon a great tropical garden, dark with foliage, vibrant with flowers and birds, murmurous with fountains.
'It's like stepping into a giant terrarium,' she commented. 'I feel like a little horned hopper.'
'Exactly,' he agreed. 'The Silica Zoo maintains it. One of their extended habitats.'
They strolled toward an area given over to small shops. He steered Elena carefully along, trying to pick out things she might enjoy, and avoid catastrophic culture shock. That sex-aids shop, for example, was probably a little too much for her first hour on the planet, no matter how attractive the pink when she blushed. However, they spent a pleasant few minutes in a most extraordinary pet store. His good sense barely restrained him from making her an awkward present of a large ruffed Tau Cetan beaded lizard, bright as jewelry, that caught her eye. It had rather strict dietary requirements, and besides, Miles was not quite sure if the 50 kilo beast could be housebroken. They wandered along a balcony overlooking the great garden, and he bought them rational ice creams, instead. They sat on the bench lining the railing to eat.
'Everything seems so free, here,' Elena said, licking her fingers and looking around with shining eyes. 'You don't see soldiers and guards all over the place. A woman—a woman could be anything here.'
'Depends on what you mean by free,' said Miles. 'They put up with rules we'd never tolerate at home. You should see everyone fall into place during a power outage drill, or a sandstorm alarm. They have no margin for—I don't know how to put it. Social failures?'
Elena gave him a baffled smile, not understanding. 'But everyone arranges their own marriages.'
'But did you know you have to have a permit to have a child here? The first one is free, but after that …'
'That's absurd,' she remarked absently. 'How could they possibly enforce it?' She evidently felt her question to be rather bold, for she took a quick glance around, to be sure the Sergeant was nowhere near.
Miles echoed her glance. 'Permanent contraceptive implants, for the women and hermaphrodites. You need
