"I don't know—a day or two, I suppose, for preliminary designs. But surely we'd have to meet with Enrique and Mark."
"I can't go to Vorkosigan House." Kareen slumped. She straightened again. "Could we meet here ?"
Ekaterin glanced at Martya, and back to Kareen. "I can't be a party to undercutting your parents, or going behind their backs. But this is certainly legitimate business. We could all meet here if you'll get their permission."
"Maybe," said Kareen. "Maybe. If they have another day or so to calm down . . . As a last resort, you could meet with Mark and Enrique alone. But I want to be here, if I can. I know I can sell the idea to them, if only I have a chance." She stuck out her hand to Ekaterin. "Deal?"
Ekaterin, looking amused, rubbed the soil from her hand against the side of her skirt, leaned across the table, and shook on the compact. "Very well."
Martya objected, "You know Da and Mama will stick me with having to tag along, if they think Mark will be here."
"So, you can persuade them you're not needed. You're kind of an insult anyway, you know."
Martya stuck out a sisterly tongue at this, but shrugged a certain grudging agreement.
The sound of voices and footsteps wafted from the open kitchen window; Kareen looked up, wondering if Ekaterin's aunt and uncle had returned. And if maybe one of them had heard anything from Miles or Tante Cordelia or . . . But to her surprise, ducking out the door after Nikki came Armsman Pym, in full Vorkosigan House uniform, as neat and glittery as though ready for the Count's inspection. Pym was saying, "—I don't know about that, Nikki. But you know you're welcome to come play with my son Arthur at our flat, any time. He was asking after you just last night, in fact."
"Mama, Mama!" Nikki bounced to the garden table. "Look, Pym's here!"
Ekaterin's expression closed as though shutters had fallen across her face. She regarded Pym with extreme wariness. "Hello, Armsman," she said, in a tone of utter neutrality. She glanced across at her son. "Thank you, Nikki. Please go in now."
Nikki departed, with reluctant backward glances. Ekaterin waited.
Pym cleared his throat, smiled diffidently at her, and gave her a sort of half-salute. "Good evening, Madame Vorsoisson. I trust I find you well." His gaze went on to take in the Koudelka sisters; he favored them with a courteous, if curious, nod. "Hello, Miss Martya, Miss Kareen. I . . . this is unexpected." He looked as though he was riffling through revisions to some rehearsed speech.
Kareen wondered frantically if she could pretend that her prohibition from speaking with anyone from the Vorkosigan household was meant to apply only to the immediate family, and not the Armsmen as well. She smiled back with longing at Pym. Maybe he could talk to her . Her parents hadn't—couldn't—enforce their paranoid rule on anyone else, anyhow. But after his pause Pym only shook his head, and turned his attention back to Ekaterin.
Pym drew a heavy envelope from his tunic. Its thick cream paper was sealed with a stamp bearing the Vorkosigan arms—just like on the back of a butter bug—and addressed in ink in clear, square writing with only the words: Madame Vorsoisson . "Ma'am. Lord Vorkosigan directs me to deliver this into your hand. He says to say, he's sorry it took so long. It's on account of the drains, you see. Well, m'lord didn't say that, but the accident did delay things all round." He studied her face anxiously for her response to this.
Ekaterin accepted the envelope and stared at it as if it might contain explosives.
Pym stepped back, and gave her a very formal nod. When, after a moment, no one said anything, he gave her another half-salute, and said, "Didn't mean to intrude, ma'am. My apologies. I'll just be on my way now. Thank you." He turned on his heel.
"Pym!" His name, breaking from Kareen's lips, was almost a shriek; Pym jerked, and swung back. "Don't you dare just go off like that! What's happening over there?"
"Isn't that breaking your word?" asked Martya, with clinical detachment.
"Fine! Fine! You ask him, then!"
"Oh, very well." With a beleaguered sigh, Martya turned to Pym. "So tell me, Pym, what did happen to the drains?"
"I don't care about the drains!" Kareen cried. "I care about Mark! And my shares."
"So? Mama and Da say you aren't allowed to talk to anyone from Vorkosigan House, so you're out of luck. I want to know about the drains."
Pym's brows rose as he took this in, and his eyes glinted briefly. A sort of pious innocence informed his voice. "I'm most sorry to hear that, Miss Kareen. I trust the Commodore will see his way clear to lift our quarantine very soon. Now, m'lord told me I was not to hang about and distress Madame Vorsoisson with any ham-handed attempts at making things up to her, nor pester her by offering to wait for a reply, nor annoy her by watching her read his note. Very nearly his exact words, those. He never ordered me not to talk with you young ladies, however, not anticipating that you would be here."
"Ah," said Martya, in a voice dripping with, in Kareen's view, unsavory delight. "So you can talk to me and Kareen, but not to Ekaterin. And Kareen can talk to Ekaterin and me—"
"Not that I'd want to talk to you," Kareen muttered.
"—but not to you. That makes me the only person here who can talk to everybody. How . . . nice. Do tell me about the drains, dear Pym. Don't tell me they backed up again."
Ekaterin slipped the envelope into the inside pocket of her bolero, leaned her elbow on her chair arm and her chin on her hand, and sat listening with her dark eyebrows crinkling.
Pym nodded. "I'm afraid so, Miss Martya. Late last night, Dr. Borgos—" Pym's lips compressed at the name "—being in a great hurry to return to the search for his missing queen, took two days' harvest of bug butter—about forty or fifty kilos, we estimated later—which was starting to overflow the hutches on account of Miss Kareen not being there to take care of things properly, and flushed it all down the laboratory drain. Where it encountered some chemical conditions which caused it to . . . set. Like soft plaster. Entirely blocking the main drain, which, in a household with over fifty people in it—all the Viceroy and Vicereine's staff having arrived yesterday, and my fellow Armsmen and their families—caused a pretty immediate and pressing crisis."
Martya had the bad taste to giggle. Pym merely looked prim.
"Lord Auditor Vorkosigan," Pym went on, with a bare glance under his eyelashes at Ekaterin, "being of previous rich military experience with drains, he informed us, responded at once and without hesitation to his mother's piteous plea, and drafted and led a picked strike-force to the subbasement to deal with the dilemma. Which was me and Armsman Roic, in the event."
"Your courage and, um, utility, astound me," Martya intoned, staring at him with increasing fascination.
Pym shrugged humbly. "The necessity of wading knee-deep in bug butter, tree root bits, and, er, all the other things that go into drains, could not be honorably refused when following a leader who had to wade, um, knee-deeper. Being as how m'lord knew exactly what he was doing, it didn't actually take us very long, and there was much rejoicing in the household. But I was made later than intended for bringing Madame Vorsoisson her letter on account of everyone getting a slow start, this morning."
"What happened to Dr. Borgos?" asked Martya, as Kareen gritted her teeth, clenched her hands, and bounced in her chair.
"My suggestion that he be tied upside-down to the subbasement wall while the, um, liquid level rose being most unfairly rejected, I believe the Countess had a little talk with him, afterwards, about what kinds of materials could and could not be safely committed to Vorkosigan House's drains." Pym heaved a sigh. "Milady is quite too gentle and kindly."