Chapter One
The big groundcar jerked to a stop centimetersfrom the vehicle ahead of it, and Armsman Pym, driving,swore under his breath. Miles settled back againin his seat beside him, wincing at a vision of the acrimoniousstreet scene from which Pym's reflexes haddelivered them, Miles wondered if he could have persuadedthe feckless prole in front of them that beingrear-ended by an Imperial Auditor was a privilege to betreasured. Likely not. The Vorbarr Sultana Universitystudent darting across the boulevard on foot, who hadbeen the cause of the quick stop, scampered off throughthe jam without a backward glance. The line ofgroundcars started up once more.
"Have you heard if the municipal traffic control systemwill be coming on line soon?" Pym asked, aproposof what Miles counted as their third near-miss this week.
"Nope. Delayed in development again, Lord Vorbohnthe Younger reports. Due to the increase in fatallightflyer incidents, they're concentrating on getting theautomated air system up first."
Pym nodded, and returned his attention to thecrowded road. The Armsman was a habitually fit man,his graying temples seeming merely an accent to hisbrown-and-silver uniform. He'd served the Vorkosigansas a liege-sworn guard since Miles had been an Academycadet, and would doubtless go on doing so tilleither he died of old age, or they were all killed intraffic.
So much for short cuts. Next time they'd go aroundthe campus. Miles watched through the canopy as thetaller new buildings of the University fell behind, andthey passed through its spiked iron gates into the pleasantold residential streets favored by the families ofsenior professors and staff. The distinctive architecturedated from the last un-electrified decade before the endof the Time of Isolation. This area had been reclaimedfrom decay in the past generation, and now featuredshady green Earth trees, and bright flower boxes underthe tall narrow windows of the tall narrow houses. Milesrebalanced the flower arrangement between his feet.Would it be seen as redundant by its intended recipient?
Pym glanced aside at his slight movement, followinghis eye to the foliage on the floor. "The lady you meton Komarr seems to have made a strong impression onyou, m'lord ..." He trailed off invitingly.
"Yes," said Miles, uninvitingly.
"Your lady mother had high hopes of that very attractiveMiss Captain Quinn you brought home thosetimes." Was that a wistful note in Pym's voice?
"Miss Admiral Quinn, now," Miles corrected with asigh. "So had I. But she made the right choice for her."He grimaced out the canopy. "I've sworn off falling inlove with galactic women and then trying to persuadethem to immigrate to Barrayar. I've concluded my onlyhope is to find a woman who can already stand Barrayar,and persuade her to like me."
"And does Madame Vorsoisson like Barrayar?"
"About as well as I do." He smiled grimly.
"And, ah ... the second part?"
"We'll see, Pym." Or not, as the case may be. At leastthe spectacle of a man of thirty-plus, going courtingseriously for the first time in his life—the first time inthe Barrayaran style, anyway—promised to provide hoursof entertainment for his interested staff.
Miles let his breath and his nervous irritation trickleout through his nostrils as Pym found a place to parknear Lord Auditor Vorthys's doorstep, and expertlywedged the polished old armored groundcar into theinadequate space. Pym popped the canopy; Milesclimbed out, and stared up at the three-story patternedtile front of his colleague's home.
Georg Vorthys had been a professor of engineeringfailure analysis at the Imperial University for thirty years.He and his wife had lived in this house for most of theirmarried life, raising three children and two academiccareers, before Emperor Gregor had appointed Vorthysas one of his hand-picked Imperial Auditors. Neither ofthe Professors Vorthys had seen any reason to changetheir comfortable lifestyle merely because the awesomepowers of an Emperor's Voice had been conferred uponthe retired engineer; Madame Dr. Vorthys still walkedevery day to her classes. Dear no, Miles! the Professorahad said to him, when he'd once wondered aloud attheir passing up this opportunity for social display. Canyou imagine moving all those books? Not to mention thelaboratory and workshop jamming the entire basement.
Their cheery inertia proved a happy chance, whenthey invited their recently-widowed niece and her youngson to live with them while she completed her owneducation. Plenty of room, the Professor had boomedjovially, the top floor is so empty since the children left.So close to classes, the Professora had pointed outpractically. Less than six kilometers from Vorkosigan House!Miles had exulted in his mind, adding a polite murmurof encouragement aloud. And so Ekaterin Nile VorvayneVorsoisson had arrived. She's here, she's here! Might shebe looking down at him from the shadows of someupstairs window even now?
Miles glanced anxiously down the all-too-short lengthof his body. If his dwarfish stature bothered her, she'dshown no signs of it so far. Well and good. Going on tothe aspects of his appearance he could control: no foodstains spattered his plain gray tunic, no unfortunate streetdetritus clung to the soles of his polished half-boots. Hechecked his distorted reflection in the groundcar's rearcanopy. Its convex mirroring widened his lean, if slightlyhunched, body to something resembling his obese clonebrotherMark, a comparison he primly ignored. Mark was,thank God, not here. He essayed a smile, for practice;in the canopy, it came out twisted and repellent. No darkhair sticking out in odd directions, anyway.
"You look just fine, my lord," Pym said in a bracingtone from the front compartment. Miles's face heated,and he flinched away from his reflection. He recoveredhimself enough to take the flower arrangement androlled-up flimsy Pym handed out to him with, he hoped,a tolerably bland expression. He balanced the load inhis arms, turned to face the front steps, and took a deepbreath.
After about a minute, Pym inquired helpfully frombehind him, "Would you like me to carry anything?"
"No. Thank you." Miles trod up the steps and wiggleda finger free to press the chime-pad. Pym pulled out areader, and settled comfortably in the groundcar to awaithis lord's pleasure.
Footsteps sounded from within, and the door swungopen on the smiling pink face of the Professora. Hergray hair was wound up on her head in her usual style.She wore a dark rose dress with a light rose bolero,embroidered with green vines in the manner of herhome District. This somewhat formal Vor mode, whichsuggested she was just on her way either in or out, wasbelied by the soft buskins on her feet. "Hello, Miles.Goodness, you're prompt."
"Professora." Miles ducked a nod to her, and smiledin turn. "Is she here? Is she in? Is she well? You said thiswould be a good time. I'm not too early, am I? I thoughtI'd be late. The traffic was miserable. You're going to bearound, aren't you? I brought these. Do you think she'lllike them?" The sticking-up red flowers tickled his noseas he displayed his gift while still clutching the rolled-upflimsy, which had a tendency to try to unroll and escapewhenever his grip loosened.
"Come in, yes, all's well. She's here, she's fine, andthe flowers are very nice—" The Professora rescued thebouquet and ushered him into her tiled hallway, closingthe door firmly behind them with her foot. The housewas dim and cool after the spring sunshine outside, andhad a fine aroma of wood wax, old books, and a touchof academic dust.
"She looked pretty pale and fatigued at Tien's funeral.Surrounded by all those relatives. We really didn't geta chance to say more than two words each." I'm sorryand Thank you, to be precise. Not that he'd wanted totalk much to the late Tien Vorsoisson's family.
"It was an immense strain for her, I think," said theProfessora judiciously. "She'd been through so much horror,and except for Georg and myself—and you—therewasn't a soul there to whom she could talk truth aboutit. Of course, her first concern was getting Nikki throughit all. But she held together without a crack from firstto last. I was very proud of her."
"Indeed. And she is ...?" Miles craned his neck,glancing into the rooms off the entry hall: a clutteredstudy lined with bookshelves, and a cluttered parlorlined with bookshelves. No young widows.
"Right this way." The Professora conducted himdown the hall and out through her kitchen to thelittle urban back garden. A couple of tall trees anda brick wall made a private nook of it. Beyond a tinycircle of green grass, at a table in the shade, awoman sat with flimsies and a reader spread beforeher. She was chewing gently on the end of a stylus,and her dark brows were drawn down in her absorption.She wore a calf-length dress in much the samestyle as the Professora's, but solid black, with the highcollar buttoned up to her neck. Her bolero was gray,trimmed with simple black braid running around itsedge. Her dark hair was drawn back to a thickbraided knot at the nape of her neck. She looked upat the sound of the door opening; her brows flew upand her lips parted in a flashing smile that madeMiles blink. Ekaterin.
"Mil—my Lord Auditor!" She rose in a flare of skirt;he bowed over her hand.
"Madame Vorsoisson. You look well." She looked wonderful,if still much too pale. Part of that might be theeffect of all that severe black, which also made her eyesshow a brilliant blue-gray. "Welcome to Vorbarr Sultana.I brought these ..." He gestured, and the Professora setthe flower arrangement down on the table. "Though theyhardly seem needed, out here."
"They're lovely," Ekaterin assured him, sniffing themin approval. "I'll take them up to my room later, wherethey will be very welcome. Since the weather has brightenedup, I find I spend as much time as possible out here,under the real sky."
She'd spent nearly a year sealed in a Komarran dome."I can understand that," Miles said. The conversationhiccuped to a brief stop, while they smiled at each other.
Ekaterin recovered first. "Thank you for coming toTien's funeral. It meant so much to me."
"It was the least I could do, under the circumstances.I'm only sorry I couldn't do more."
"But you've already done so much for me and Nikki—"She broke off at his gesture of embarrassed denial andinstead said, "But won't you sit down? Aunt Vorthys—?"She drew back one of the spindly garden chairs.
The Professora shook her head. "I have a few thingsto attend to inside. Carry on." She added a little cryptically,"You'll do fine."
She went back into her house, and Miles sat acrossfrom Ekaterin, placing his flimsy on the table to awaitits strategic moment. It half-unrolled, eagerly.
"Is your case all wound up?" she asked.
"That case will have ramifications for years to come,but I'm done with it for now," Miles replied. "I justturned in my last reports yesterday, or I would have beenhere to welcome you earlier." Well, that and a vestigialsense that he'd ought to let the poor woman at leastget her bags unpacked, before descending in force.
"Will you be sent out on another assignment now?"
"I don't think Gregor will let me risk getting tied upelsewhere till after his marriage. For the next couple ofmonths, I'm afraid all my duties will be social ones."
"I'm sure you'll do them with your usual flair."
God, I hope not. "I don't think flair is exactly whatmy Aunt Vorpatril—she's in charge of all the Emperor'swedding arrangements—would wish from me. More like,shut up and do what you're told, Miles. But speakingof paperwork, how's your own? Is Tien's estate settled?Did you manage to recapture Nikki's guardianship fromthat cousin of his?"
"Vassily Vorsoisson? Yes, thank heavens, there was noproblem with that part."
"So, ah, what's all this, then?" Miles nodded at thecluttered table.
"I'm planning my course work for the next session atuniversity. I was too late to start this summer, so I'll beginin the fall. There's so much to choose from. I feel soignorant."
"Educated is what you aim to be coming out, not goingin."
"I suppose so."
"And what will you choose?"
"Oh, I'll start with basics—biology, chemistry ..." Shebrightened. "One real horticulture course." She gesturedat her flimsies. "For the rest of the season, I'm tryingto find some sort of paying work. I'd like to feel I'mnot totally dependent on the charity of my relatives,even if it's only my pocket money."
That seemed almost the opening he was looking for,but Miles's eye caught sight of a red ceramic basin,sitting on the wooden planks forming a seat borderinga raised garden bed. In the middle of the pot a red-brownblob, with a fuzzy fringe like a rooster's crestgrowing out of it, pushed up through the dirt. If it waswhat he thought ... He pointed to the basin. "Is thatby chance your old bonsai'd skellytum? Is it going tolive?"
She smiled. "Well, at least it's the start of a newskellytum. Most of the fragments of the old one diedon the way home from Komarr, but that one took."
"You have a—for native Barrayaran plants, I don't supposeyou can call it a green thumb, can you?"
"Not unless they're suffering from some pretty seriousplant diseases, no."
"Speaking of gardens." Now, how to do this withoutjamming his foot in his mouth too deeply. "I don't think,in all the other uproar, I ever had a chance to tell youhow impressed I was with your garden designs that Isaw on your comconsole."
"Oh." Her smile fled, and she shrugged. "They wereno great thing. Just twiddling."
Right. Let them not bring up any more of the recentpast than absolutely necessary, till time had a chanceto blunt memory's razor edges. "It was your Barrayarangarden, the one with all the native species, which caughtmy eye. I'd never seen anything like it."
"There are a dozen of them around. Several of theDistrict universities keep them, as living libraries fortheir biology students. It's not really an original idea."
"Well," he persevered, feeling like a fish swimmingupstream against this current of self-deprecation, "Ithought it was very fine, and deserved better than justbeing a ghost garden on the holovid. I have this sparelot, you see ..."
He flattened out his flimsy, which was a ground plotof the block occupied by Vorkosigan House. He tappedhis finger on the bare square at the end. "There usedto be another great house, next to ours, which was torndown during the Regency. ImpSec wouldn't let us buildanything else—they wanted it as a security zone. There'snothing there but some scraggly grass, and a couple oftrees that somehow survived ImpSec's enthusiasm forclear lines of fire. And a criss-cross of walks, wherepeople made mud paths by taking short cuts, and theyfinally gave up and put some gravel down. It's anextremely boring piece of ground." So boring he hadcompletely ignored it, till now.
She tilted her head, to follow his hand as it blockedout the space on the ground plan. Her own long fingermade to trace a delicate curve, but then shyly withdrew.He wondered what possibility her mind's eye hadjust seen, there.
"Now, I think," he went on valiantly, "that it wouldbe a splendid thing to install a Barrayaran garden—allnative species—open to the public, in this space. A sortof gift from the Vorkosigan family to the city of VorbarrSultana. With running water, like in your design, andwalks and benches and all those civilized things. Andthose discreet little name tags on all the plants, so morepeople could learn about the old ecology and all that."There: art, public service, education—was there any baithe'd left off his hook? Oh yes, money. "It's a happychance that you're looking for a summer job," chance,hah, watch and see if I leave anything to chance, "becauseI think you'd be the ideal person to take this on. Designand oversee the installation of the thing. I could giveyou an unlimited, um, generous budget, and a salary,of course. You could hire workmen, bring in whateveryou needed."
And she would have to visit Vorkosigan House practicallyevery day, and consult frequently with its residentlord. And by the time the shock of her husband's deathhad worn away, and she was ready to put off her forbiddingformal mourning garb, and every unattached Vorbachelor in the capital showed up on her doorstep, Milescould have a lock on her affections that would permit himto fend off the most glittering competition. It was toosoon, wildly too soon, to suggest courtship to her crippledheart; he had that clear in his head, even if his own hearthowled in frustration. But a straightforward businessfriendship just might get past her guard....
Her eyebrows had flown up; she touched an uncertainfinger to those exquisite, pale unpainted lips. "Thisis exactly the sort of thing I wish to train to do. I don'tknow how to do it yet."
"On-the-job training," Miles responded instantly."Apprenticeship. Learning by doing. You have to startsometime. You can't start sooner than now."
"But what if I make some dreadful mistake?"
"I do intend this be an ongoing project. People whoare enthusiasts about this sort of thing always seem tobe changing their gardens around. They get bored withthe same view all the time, I guess. If you come up withbetter ideas later, you can always revise the plan. It willprovide variety."
"I don't want to waste your money."
If she ever became Lady Vorkosigan, she would haveto get over that quirk, Miles decided firmly.
"You don't have to decide here on the spot," hepurred, and cleared his throat. Watch that tone, boy.Business. "Why don't you come to Vorkosigan Housetomorrow, and walk over the site in person, and seewhat ideas it stirs up in your mind. You really can't tellanything by looking at a flimsy. We can have lunch,afterward, and talk about what you see as the problemsand possibilities then. Logical?"
She blinked. "Yes, very." Her hand crept back curiouslytoward the flimsy.
"What time may I pick you up?"
"Whatever is convenient for you, Lord Vorkosigan.Oh, I take that back. If it's after twelve hundred, myaunt will be back from her morning class, and Nikki canstay with her."
"Excellent!" Yes, much as he liked Ekaterin's son,Miles thought he could do without the assistance of anactive nine-year-old in this delicate dance. "Twelvehundred it will be. Consider it a deal." Only a littlebelatedly, he added, "And how does Nikki like VorbarrSultana, so far?"
"He seems to like his room, and this house. I thinkhe's going to gets little bored, if he has to wait untilhis school starts to locate boys his own age."
It would not do to leave Nikolai Vorsoisson out ofhis calculations. "I gather then that the retro-genes took,and he's in no more danger of developing the symptomsof Vorzohn's Dystrophy?"
A smile of deep maternal satisfaction softened herface. "That's right. I'm so pleased. The doctors in theclinic here in Vorbarr Sultana report he had a very cleanand complete cellular uptake. Developmentally, it shouldbe just as if he'd never inherited the mutation at all."She glanced across at him. "It's as if I'd had a five-hundred-kiloweight lifted from me. I could fly, I think."
So you should.
Continues...
Excerpted from A Civil Campaignby Lois McMaster Bujold Copyright © 2007 by Lois McMaster Bujold. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
