She could barely sense the acceleration as the ferry sped onward. She popped the book-disk the law counselor had recommended to her on estate and financial management into her viewer, and settled back. The counselor had confirmed Vorkosigans shrewd guess about Tiens debts ending with his estate. She would be walking away after ten years with exactly nothing, empty-handed as she had come. Except for the value of the experience she snorted. Upon reflection, she actually preferred to be beholden to Tien for nothing. Let all debts be canceled.
The management disk was dry stuff, but a disk on Escobaran water gardens waited as her reward when she was done with her homework. It was true she had no money to manage as yet. That too must change. Knowledge might not be power, but ignorance was definitely weakness, and so was poverty. Time and past time to stop assuming she was the child, and everyone else the grownups. Ive been down once. Im never going down again.
She finished one book and half the other, got in an exquisite uninterrupted two-hour nap, and waked and tidied herself by the time the ferry arrived and began maneuvering to dock. She repacked her overnight bag, hitched up its shoulder strap, and went off to watch through the lounge viewports as they approached the transfer station and the jump point it served.
This station had been built nearly a century ago, when fresh explorations of the wormhole had yielded up the rediscovery of Barrayar. The lost colony had been found at the end of a complex multijump route entirely different from the one through which it had originally been settled. The station had undergone modification and enlargement during the period of the Cetagandan invasion; Komarr had granted the ghem lords right of passage in exchange for massive trade concessions throughout the Cetagandan Empire and a slice of the projected profits of the conquest, a bargain it later came to regret. A quieter period had followed, till the Barrayarans, graduates of the harsh school of the failed Cetagandan occupation, had poured through in turn.
Under the new Barrayaran Imperial management, the station had grown again, into a far-flung and chaotic structure housing some five thousand resident employees, their families, and a fluctuating number of transients, and serving some hundreds of ships a week on the only route to and from cul-de-sac Barrayar. A new long docking bar was under construction, sticking out from the bristling structure. The Barrayaran military station was a bright dot in the distance, bracketing the invisible five-space jump point. Ekaterin could see half a dozen ships in flight between civilian station and jump point, maneuvering to or from dock, and a couple of local-space freighters chugging off with cargoes to transfer at one of the other wormhole jump points. Then the ferry itself slid into its docking bay, and the looming station occluded the view.
The tedious business of customs checks having been got through back in Komarr orbit before boarding, the ferrys passengers disembarked freely. Ekaterin checked her holocube map, very necessary in this fantastic maze of a place, and went off to ensure a hostel room for the night for herself and her aunt, and to drop off her luggage there. The hostel room was small but quiet, and should do nicely to give poor Aunt Vorthys time to recover from her jump sickness before completing the last leg of her journey. Ekaterin wished shed had such a luxury available on her own inbound passage. Realizing that the last thing the Professora would want to face immediately was a meal, Ekaterin prudently paused for a snack in an adjoining concourse cafe, then went off to wait her ships docking in the disembarkation lounge nearest its assigned bay.
She selected a seat with a good view of the airseal doors, and faintly regretted not bringing her reader, in case of delays. But the station and its denizens were a fascinating distraction. Where were all these people going, and why? Most arresting to her eye were the obvious galactics, not-from-around-here in strange planetary garb; were they passing through for business, diplomacy, refuge, recreation? Ekaterin had seen two worlds, in her life; would she ever see more? Two, she reminded herself, was one more than most people ever got. Dont be greedy.
How many had Vorkosigan seen?
Her idle thoughts circled back to her own personal disaster, like a flood victim sorting through her ruined possessions after the waters have receded. Was the Old Vor ideal of marriage and family an intrinsic contradiction of a womans soul, or was it just Tien whod been the source of her shrinkage? It was not clear how to sort out the answer without multiple trials, and marriage was not an experiment she cared to repeat. Yet the Professora seemed to be proof of the possible. She had public achievement-she was a historian, teacher, scholar in four languages-she had three grown children, and a marriage heading for the half-century mark. Had she made secret compromises? She had a solid place in her profession might she have had a place at the top? She had three children-might she have had six?
We are going to have a race, Madame Vorsoisson. Do you wish to run with your right leg chopped off, or your left leg chopped off?
I want to run on both legs.
Aunt Vorthys had run on both legs, reasonably serenely Ekaterin had lived in her household, and didnt think she overidealized her aunt-but then, shed been married to Uncle Vorthys. Ones career might depend solely on ones own efforts, but marriage was a lottery, and you drew your lot in late adolescence or early adulthood at a point of maximum idiocy and confusion. Perhaps it was just as well. If people were too sensible, the human race might well come to an end. Evolution favored the maximum production of children, not of happiness.
So how did you end up with neither?
She snorted self-derision, then sat up as the doors slid open and people began trickling through. Most of the tide had passed when Ekaterin spotted the short woman with the wobbly step, assisted by a shipping line porter who saw her through the doors and handed her the leash of the float pallet holding her luggage. Ekaterin rose, smiling, and started forward. Her aunt looked thoroughly frazzled, her long gray hair escaping its windings atop her head to drift about her face, which had lost its usual attractive pink glow in favor of a greenish-gray tinge. Her blue bolero and calf-length skirt looked rumpled, and the matching embroidered travel boots were perched precariously atop the pile of luggage, replaced on her feet with what were obviously bedroom slippers.
Aunt Vorthys fell into Ekaterins hug. Oh! So good to see you.
Ekaterin held her out, to search her face. Was the trip very bad?
Five jumps, said Aunt Vorthys hollowly. And it was such a fast ship, there wasnt as much time to recover between. Be glad youre one of the lucky ones.
I get a touch of nausea, Ekaterin consoled her, on the theory that misery might appreciate company. It passes off in about half an hour. Nikki is the lucky one-it doesnt seem to affect him at all. Tien had concealed his symptoms in grouchiness. Afraid of showing something he construed as weakness? Should she have tried to It doesnt matter now. Let it go. I have a nice quiet hostel room waiting for you to lie down in. We can get tea there.
Oh, lovely, dear.
Here, why is your luggage riding and you walking? Ekaterin rearranged the two bags on the float pallet and flipped up the little seat. Sit down, and Ill tow you.