"Is that a rhetorical question, for dramatic effect, or are you actually asking my advice?" his mother inquired tartly. "Because I'm not going to waste my breath on you unless you're finally paying attention."
He opened his mouth for an angry reply, then closed it. He glanced for support to his father. His father opened his hand blandly in the direction of his mother. Miles wondered what it would be like, to be in such practiced teamwork with someone that it was as though you coordinated your one-two punches telepathically. I'll never get the chance to find out. Unless.
"I'm paying attention," he said humbly.
"The . . . the kindest word I can come up with for it is blunder —was yours. You owe the apology. Make it."
"How? She's made it abundantly clear she doesn't want to speak to me!"
"Not in person, good God, Miles. For one thing, I can't imagine you could resist the urge to babble, and blow yourself up. Again."
What is it about all my relatives, that they have so little faith in—
"Even a live comconsole call is too invasive," she continued. "Going over to the Vorthys's in person would be much too invasive."
"The way he's been going about it, certainly," murmured the Count. "General Romeo Vorkosigan, the one-man strike force."
The Countess gave him a faintly quelling flick of her eyelash. "Something rather more controlled, I think," she continued to Miles. "About all you can do is write her a note, I suppose. A short, succinct note. I realize you don't do abject very well, but I suggest you exert yourself."
"D'you think it would work?" Faint hope glimmered at the bottom of a deep, deep well.
"Working is not what this is about. You can't still be plotting to make love and war on the poor woman. You'll send an apology because you owe it, to her and to your own honor. Period. Or else don't bother."
"Oh," said Miles, in a very small voice.
"Cross-ball," said his father. Reminiscently. "Huh."
"The knife is in the target," sighed Miles. "To the hilt. You don't have to twist." He glanced across at his mother. "Should the note be handwritten? Or should I just send it on the comconsole?"
"I think your just just answered your own question. If your execrable handwriting has improved, it would perhaps be a nice touch."
"Proves it wasn't dictated to your secretary, for one thing," put in the Count. "Or worse, composed by him at your order."
"Haven't got a secretary yet." Miles sighed. "Gregor hasn't given me enough work to justify one."
"Since work for an Auditor hinges on awkward crises arising in the Empire, I can't very well wish more for you," the Count said. "But no doubt things will pick up after the wedding. Which will have one less crisis because of the good work you just did on Komarr, I might say."
He glanced up, and his father gave him an understanding nod; yes, the Viceroy and Vicereine of Sergyar were most definitely in the need-to-know pool about the late events on Komarr. Gregor had undoubtedly sent on a copy of Miles's eyes-only Auditor's report for the Viceroy's perusal. "Well . . . yes. At the very least, if the conspirators had maintained their original schedule, there'd have been several thousand innocent people killed that day. It would have marred the festivities, I think."
"Then you've earned some time off."
The Countess looked momentarily introspective. "And what did Madame Vorsoisson earn? We had her aunt give us her eyewitness description of their involvement. It sounded like a frightening experience."
"The public gratitude of the Empire is what she should have earned," said Miles, in reminded aggravation. "Instead, it's all been buried deep-deep under the ImpSec security cap. No one will ever know. All her courage, all her cool and clever moves, all her bloody heroism , dammit, was just . . . made to disappear. It's not fair."
"One does what one has to, in a crisis," said the Countess.
"No." Miles glanced up at her. "Some people do. Others just fold. I've seen them. I know the difference. Ekaterin—she'll never fold. She can go the distance, she can find the speed. She'll . . . she'll do ."
"Leaving aside whether we are discussing a woman or a horse," said the Countess—dammit, Mark had said practically the same thing, what was with all Miles's nearest and dearest?—"everyone has their folding-point, Miles. Their mortal vulnerability. Some just keep it in a nonstandard location."
The Count and Countess gave each other one of those Telepathic Looks again. It was extremely annoying. Miles squirmed with envy.
He drew the tattered shreds of his dignity around him, and rose. "Excuse me. I have to go . . . water a plant."
It took him thirty minutes of wandering around the bare, crusted garden in the dark, with his hand-light wavering and the water from his mug dribbling over his fingers, to even find the blasted thing. In its pot, the skellytum rootling had looked sturdy enough, but out here, it looked lost and lonely: a scrap of life the size of his thumb in an acre of sterility. It also looked disturbingly limp. Was it wilting? He emptied the cup over it; the water made a dark spot in the reddish soil that began to evaporate and fade all too quickly.
He tried to imagine the plant full grown, five meters high, its central barrel the size, and shape, of a sumo wrestler, its tendril-like branches gracing the space with distinctive corkscrew curves. Then he tried to imagine himself forty-five or fifty years old, which was the age to which he'd have to survive to see that sight. Would he be a reclusive, gnarled bachelor, eccentric, shrunken, invalidish, tended only by his bored Armsmen? Or a proud, if stressed, paterfamilias with a serene, elegant, dark-haired woman on his arm and half a dozen hyperactive progeny in tow? Maybe . . . maybe the hyperactivity could be toned down in the gene-cleaning, though he was sure his parents would accuse him of cheating. . . .
Abject.
He went back inside Vorkosigan House to his study, where he sat himself down to attempt, through a dozen drafts, the best damned abject anybody'd ever seen.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Kareen leaned over the porch rail of Lord Auditor Vorthys's house and stared worriedly at the close-curtained windows in the bright tile front. "Maybe there's no one home."
"I said we should have called before we came here," said Martya, unhelpfully. But then came a rapid thump of steps from within—surely not the Professora's—and the door burst open.
"Oh, hi, Kareen," said Nikki. "Hi, Martya."
"Hello, Nikki," said Martya. "Is your mama home?"
"Yeah, she's out back. You want to see her?"
"Yes, please. If she's not too busy."
"Naw, she's only messing with the garden. Go on through." He gestured them hospitably in the general direction of the back of the house, and thumped back up the stairs.
Trying not to feel like a trespasser, Kareen led her sister through the hall and kitchen and out the back door. Ekaterin was on her knees on a pad by a raised flower bed, grubbing out weeds. The discarded plants were laid out beside her on the walk, roots and all, in rows like executed prisoners. They shriveled in the westering sun. Her bare hand slapped another green corpse down at the end of the row. It looked therapeutic. Kareen wished she had something to kill right now. Besides Martya.