Captain Vorpatril's Alliance

Chapter Sixteen

It wasn’t till the whole party was rising in the lift tube to Lady Vorpatril’s penthouse that Tej whispered to Ivan, “Um, I didn’t get a chance to explain about Simon yet.”

“You haven’t…?” Ivan twitched. “What were you talking about all that time?”

“Not that.”

Ivan stepped out into the lift-tube foyer, trailing senior Arquas like ducklings. “Well, too late.” Simon would just have to explain himself, this round. Or not, as he chose. The marquetry doors slid open before them—someone had been on the watch. Mamere and Simon were both standing together waiting in her spacious hallway. From the wide living room beyond, a clink of glassware and murmur of voices assured Ivan that Rish and Byerly had managed to shepherd the rest of the family safely here.

Tej stepped bravely forward. “Dada, Baronne, Grandmama, I would like to introduce you to Ivan Xav’s mother, Lady Alys Vorpatril, and my stepfather-in-law, Captain Simon Illyan, Imperial Service, retired. Lady Alys, Simon: Lady Moira ghem Estif, Shiv and Udine ghem Estif Arqua—Baron and Baronne Cordonah.” A slightly defiant tone to that last claim; retired was not quite the word for their current status.

Simon cast Tej a strange surprised smile, as he stepped forward alongside Lady Alys to murmur suitable greetings after her to the offworlder guests. The Baronne didn’t turn a hair as he bowed over her fingers, nor did Lady ghem Estif, but the Baron, after a surprised glance aside at Tej, advanced to shake Simon’s proffered hand heartily.

“Ah, that Simon Illyan, I do believe—the ImpSec chief with the cyborg brain?” said Arqua, in his deep, carrying voice. “Your fame has reached even to the Whole. Ivan and Tej were just now showing us your ImpSec building. Very, ah, large, isn’t it. One of the sights of Vorbarr Sultana, they tell me.”

“Not my building anymore, nor my brain either, I’m afraid. My memory chip was removed four years ago,” said Illyan. “Upon the occasion of my retirement.”

Well, that left out a few details. Ivan took note.

“Ah,” said Arqua. “Sounds a bit drastic, as exit interviews go. My condolences.”

“Hardly that. I was ecstatic, personally.”

“Were you.” The grip finally loosened, and Ivan wondered if they’d been doing that who-can-break-whose-bones-first thing. Seeing the two men—the two aging fathers-in-law?—face-to-face for the first time was a trifle alarming. Arqua was stout, dark, intense despite his fatigue, openly dangerous. Simon was slight, graying, self-effacing…quietly dangerous. An effect not at all lessened—the reverse, really—by knowing that he wasn’t quite as mentally reliable as he’d used to be…Ivan was obscurely relieved when, greetings completed and their wraps removed by his mother’s efficient servants, they spilled into the living room and the family reunion.

Ivan dropped back to murmur to Simon, “Why did you grin like that at Tej, just now?”

A ghost of that pleased smile flitted over Simon’s face. “Because that was the first time I’d been introduced as anybody’s stepfather. Oddly flattering.”

“Was…that something you’d wanted, sir?” Ivan asked, taken aback. For all the other people who’d made assumptions about Ivan’s faux-filial relationship with his mother’s partner, Ivan realized in sudden retrospect, Simon himself never had. Not once.

“As your lady mother would say, that would not be correct. Which is no one’s fault”—or business flitted past, implied—“but our own. Although”—a brief, sideways hesitation, surely not diffident?—“I could likely do without all the mumbled ums.”

Um, Ivan started to say, then thought better of it. He converted it to an “Oh.” Did Simon care about that? Evidently. Ivan’s mental review of all the awkward, smart-ass ways he’d introduced Simon these past four years was interrupted, thankfully, by Byerly sauntering over.

By gave Simon an apologetic nod. It was always a little fascinating to watch By’s habitual smarmy irony so thoroughly purged, not only from his expression, but from his body language, around the former ImpSec chief. Illyan plainly still unnerved By to the marrow of his bones, even though By had once worked for him—or was that, because he had once worked for him?

Ivan’s glance took inventory of Arquas and Jewels, gathered around the drinks trolley or gazing out the windows into the softening winter dusk. “I see you managed to get them all here. Mamere find a bus?”

“A luxurious sort of ground-barge, yes. We didn’t lose a single Arqua overboard,” Byerly said, with mock pride. “Not for lack of their trying. You have a lot of new in-laws Ivan.”

“Yeah, noticed that.” Ivan nabbed a drink, with a smile of intense gratitude to his mother’s servitor, a regular from that catering service Lady Alys called on for very-high-end governmental receptions, when she wasn’t using Imperial Residence staff. The woman smiled back in a motherly manner. Simon and Mamere were tag-teaming, Ivan saw out of the corner of his eye, Mamere escorting the Baronne and Lady ghem Estif to the wide windows to point out the highlights of Vorbarr Sultana, Simon doing the same for Shiv, both covertly watching the senior Arquas’ interactions with their very assorted children. Very adult children, but did any of the oldsters really see them that way…?

Tej was drawn into conversation with her brother Amiri, and his apparent jeeves-shadow Jet, or Onyx; did each of the full-blooded Arqua children rate his or her own Jewel, or what? This was a family dynamic that Ivan’s acquaintance with the Barrayaran historical precedent of acknowledged bastards did not quite seem to cover. He made the rounds of the rest of the clan, inquiring politely after their hotel, their naps, and their trip to his mother’s flat, all of which were reported as tolerable, then drifted over to join Simon and Shiv in time to hear Simon say, “So how did Prestene get the drop on you?”

Shiv heaved a sigh. “In part, it turned out to be an inside job. Some trusted subordinates—shouldn’t have been.”

“Unfortunate. But that can happen to the most supposedly-secure bastions.” Simon touched his forehead in a frustration-gesture Ivan hadn’t seen for a while. “That was how the bastard took down my chip.”

“Your eidetic memory chip that was removed upon your retirement? Was this not ordered by your Imperial masters? I don’t follow.”

“The other way around, I’m afraid. First the chip was bio-sabotaged, quite thoroughly—Ivan would doubtless remember that part better than I do”—a sharp glance under his lidded eyes Ivan’s way—“then the slagged remains surgically excised, happily before and not after the ugly side-effects killed me. Not the way I would have chosen to retire from the Imperial Service, for all my daydreams of doing just that, after forty years.”

“Ah. I quite see,” said Shiv, sounding entirely sincere.

The two men toasted each other ironically with their nearly-empty glasses, and drained them. The drinks-trolley elf appeared magically to refill them, then vanished into the mob again.

The marquetry doors on the end of the living room parted like the curtains on a play, revealing the stage, or at least the table, now pulled out to a spacious oblong and invitingly set. Mamere and her minions smoothly guided the guests to their places. Shiv seized the moment to murmur something in his daughter Pidge’s ear, before they were separated.

Ivan was unhappily parted from Tej, seated opposite her father who was placed at the foot of the table on Simon’s honored right. Alys, at the head, had Moira ghem Estif on her right, and Udine Arqua on her left—the usual protocols had plainly broken down in the face of the Arqua challenge, or things were being let to go a casual sort of family-style, or else Mamere had devised placements by some plan of her own, possibly with advice from ImpSec (retired). Ivan found himself plunked between his mother-in-law and his senior sister-in-law Star, with Byerly beyond her, separated from Rish by Emerald. Jet, Pearl, Amiri and Pidge filled the opposite side of the table between Lady ghem Estif and Tej. The table was too long to maintain a single conversation except in spurts; most likely the talk would fragment into two or three parts. By, in the middle, was placed to either hear everything or be utterly distracted, depending.

A hearty Winterfair-style soup appeared, appropriate to the season—Ivan recognized the recipe on the first heavenly sniff. His mother had apparently kidnapped Ma Kosti for the evening, and he trusted Miles wouldn’t find out. Rish, down the table, was assuring her fellow-Jewel Emerald that everything was going to be just fine, and the genetically sense-enhanced portion of the table, which was most of it, raised their spoons in bliss.

Lady Alys diplomatically began the conversation with the most neutral topic available, inquiring of Lady ghem Estif how she had enjoyed Earth, and drawing Ivan in with a few leading remarks about his career-polishing stint there as an assistant military attaché, a decade—no, more—ago. A glance under her lashes warned Ivan to leave out the Interesting Bits, hardly necessary; it would take more drinks than this before Ivan would want to expand on his lingering feelings for those. Anyway, Lady ghem Estif relieved him of the necessity by being willingly led, describing her past eight years of residence on humanity’s homeworld in unexceptionable terms. To Ivan’s surprise, it seemed she had not spent her time there in a cloistered retirement, either rich or straitened, but in some sort of genetics-related consulting business, “To keep my hand in,” as she explained. “My original training is sadly out-of-date, by Cetagandan standards; not so much by Earth’s. Though I have kept up.” She smiled complacently at her assorted grandchildren, ranged along the table.

Star, who in Ivan’s estimation had been drinking pretty heavily, unless she had some sort of gengineered Cetagandan liver, looked up and said, “How did you and the old general come to have the Baronne, anyway? Did your old Constellation order it? Must have—it’s said the haut keep their outcrosses tightly controlled.”

“That is incorrect, dear. Although by then my Constellation and I had long parted ways. It’s the haut-haut crosses that are meticulously planned. It is precisely the outcrosses which are loosened, so as to permit the possibility of genetic serendipity.”

Udine smiled rather grimly across the table at her mother. “Did you find me so serendipitous?”

“In the longer view—ultimately. I admit, at the time, my motivations were more short-term and emotional.”

Star’s brow furrowed. “Were you in love with Grandfather ghem Estif, back then?”

Moira ghem Estif waved away this romantic notion. “Rae ghem Estif was not a lovable man, as such. I did feel, strongly, that he—that all of us who chose to stop on Komarr rather than return to the Empire—had suffered our efforts to be betrayed by our respective superiors. It was Rae’s one loss to the Ninth Satrapy that I could make up.”

Jet, next to her, looked confused. “What loss was that?”

Udine sipped her wine, smiled affectionately across at her son-and/or-construct, and said, “What, you never heard that tale?” Jet, Ivan was reminded, was the last Arqua, even younger than Tej.

Conversation had died, all along the table, as those at the far end strained to hear. Tej leaned forward and peered around the line of her seatmates, alert for some new tidbit. Their materfamilias must not often bore them with accounts of her youth, Ivan decided.

“It’s a very Barrayaran story, all waste and aggravation and futility, which I must suppose makes it appropriate to tell here,” said Lady ghem Estif, with a glance down the table at her presumed host. Simon smiled distantly back, but his eyes had gone quite attentive. “The general’s son by one of his prior wives was lost in the Ninth Satrapy.”

“Blown up by Ivan Xav’s ancestors?” Rish inquired brightly from her end.

“We initially thought so, but our best later guess was that he was killed by what is so oxymoronically called friendly fire. Captain ghem Estif vanished while on a three-day leave. Normally this would have been put down to his being murdered by the guerillas or having deserted—desertions were a growing problem by then—but Rae insisted it could not be the second and there was no sign of the first. It was only much later—we had already reached Komarr, as I recall—that one of his son’s friends spoke privately with us, and we found out that the captain had taken a Barrayaran lover.”

She paused to sip soup; fourteen people refrained from interrupting, in unison.

She swallowed delicately and went on: “The captain had apparently penetrated enemy lines to the most dire and notorious nest of guerrillas on the planet in search of his young man. It is entirely unclear if he had found out the city was secretly slated to be destroyed by the ruling ghem-junta—of which General ghem Estif was not a part, so he could not have had the news that way—and was trying to get him out, or if it was just bad luck and bad timing. For all the ironic horror of his son’s immolation, Rae did seem to take some consolation in the assurance that it was not desertion.”

The four Barrayarans around the table were not, actually, quieter than the rest of the audience, Ivan thought—but maybe he was getting a worked demonstration of the difference between attentive and choked silence. The infamous nuclear destruction of the Vorkosigan’s District capital had been the act that had galvanized the war-torn and exhausted planet into its final push against the Occupation.

“My cousin Miles actually owns the site of Vorkosigan Vashnoi,” Ivan put in, affably. Pseudo-affably? Even he wasn’t sure. “It’s finally stopped glowing.”

“Has it,” said Lady ghem Estif, unruffled. “Well, salute the brave ghem-captain and his beloved for me, next time you fly over. I assume you do not land there.”

“No,” said Ivan. “Not even now.”

Lady Alys, with thirty years of diplomatic experience under her belt, looked as if she was discovering a whole new meaning for the term, conversation pit. But she made a valiant effort to recover. “Is that why you and the ghem-general took up Komarran citizenship?”

“I believe Rae’s motivations for that were more practical—he had been given access to a large block of planetary voting shares.”

Bribed, did that translate as?

“I did not actually apply for Komarran citizenship myself, merely claiming umbrella residency as a spouse,” Lady ghem Estif went on. “Later, when I lived with Udine and Shiv, the question of governmental loyalties was, mm, locally moot. I have actually managed to remain a stateless person for the better part of a century, which, I can tell you, is not something the Nexus generally makes easy to do.”

“Indeed,” said Illyan from the other end of the table, staring at her in fascination, “not.”

The next course arrived and the conversation broke apart, the female-dominated end of the table going on to Cetagandan genetic techniques as applied to Jacksonian outcrosses, with a side-order of current Barrayaran techno-obstetrical fashions, the other end to military history and its financing. Ivan was maddened by not quite being able to hear the details when Simon and Shiv began to compare-and-contrast, or possibly one-up, anecdotes of brigandage and covert ops in the Jackson’s Whole system, presumably heavily edited on both sides.

Ivan decided to let someone else explain the provenance of the mouth-melting maple ambrosia served for dessert, but to his relief no one inquired; Lady Alys’s description of it as ‘a traditional Barrayaran confection’ seemed to cover it. The menu item was likely inevitable, given the cook; Ma Kosti was collecting royalties on the recipe, Ivan understood.

Dinner ended without disaster, despite Lady ghem Estif’s little wobble into ancient angst. With the seniors setting the pace, it was clear the evening was not going to run late or turn raucous. Ivan followed when Simon drew Shiv off to his study, an unusual postprandial honor; he normally only permitted the most select guests into this private space, such as Gregor or Miles or Uncle Aral when he was on-world. The honor was underscored when Simon rummaged in his credenza and emerged with a bottle of the even more select brandy, the one from the Vorkosigan’s District so rare that it didn’t even have a label, being distributed solely as a gift from the Count’s own hand.

And two glasses. Simon studied Ivan with his most annoying blandness, and murmured, “I expect Lady Tej will be wanting your support out there, eh, Ivan?”

They eyed each other; Ivan tried not to let his gaze fix on the bottle gently dangling from Simon’s hand. “I’m very concerned for Tej’s future, sir.”

“I am aware, Ivan. It’s one of the things in the forefront of my mind.”

Ivan couldn’t say, out loud in front of his putative father-in-law watching this play with keen interest, Dammit, I need to be dealing with Shiv! Wait your turn! Nor, as Simon chivvied him firmly to the door and evicted him, Don’t forget! Just how many things could Simon keep in the forefront of his mind these days without losing track? The very soundproof, not to mention projectile-, plasma-, and poison gas-proof, door slid closed in front of Ivan’s nose, exiling him to the hallway.

Byerly wandered up, looking faintly frazzled. “Have you seen where Arqua and Illyan disappeared to?”

Ivan jerked his thumb at the study. “Private conclave, evidently. Discussing Vorkosigan brandy, and I’m not sure what else.”

Byerly stared at the blank door with curiosity second only to Ivan’s own. “Well…Illyan. Presumably he has things in hand.”

“I’m not so sure. You were closer to that end of the table than I was. Did you get the impression that Shiv was hustling Simon? I mean, subtly, of course.”

By shrugged. “Well, of course. Arqua has to be hustling every possibility he sees, right about now. Trying to get support for his House in exile, in the interest of making it not in exile. It was less clear”—By hesitated—“why Simon seemed to be hustling him back. Even more subtly, note. Unless it was just habit, I suppose.”

“That’s a disturbing thought. The two of them, hustling each other.”

“Yeah. It was…kind of like watching two women trying to make each other pregnant.”

Ivan contemplated this arresting, not to mention distracting, metaphor for a moment. “That’s done. Technologically. Even on Barrayar, these days.”

Byerly waved a dissociating hand. “You see what I mean, though.”

“Yeah.” Ivan nibbled his lip. “Are you outed, by the way?”

“By Rish? I’m not yet sure. Do you know if Tej has told her family anything?”

“About your line of work? Not a clue. No one has given me any time to talk with my wife for the past day.” Ivan hesitated. “She has talked with them about something.”

“Well, try to find out, will you? Both,” By added in afterthought.

Ivan growled. “Spying is supposed to be your job.”

“I’m trying,” By bit out.

“Hey. You’re the one who outed yourself, back on Komarr. Surprised the hell out of me at the time. Were you trying to impress the pretty python with your daring dual identity, or what?”

“At the time, there were only the two of them, and I never imagined they’d ever get closer than five jumps to Vorbarr Sultana. It seemed a fair deal, and they seemed to agree. They weren’t going to blab to their enemies. Never pictured it lasting more than a couple of days before we went our separate ways. Or Rish having to choose me over her family, for God’s sake.”

Or Tej having to choose me over her family? Ivan had just time to think, before a door slid open down the hall, and By’s teeth snapped shut. Tall and cinnamon Pidge emerged from the guest lav, began to stride back toward the living room, spied the two of them lingering, and hove to with a smile. Snazzy heels on her shoes positioned her to look Ivan directly in the eye, and down on Byerly, very Baronette Sophia Arqua. Strange courtesy title, that. Ivan kept hearing it as bayonet, which…might not be so wrong.

“Oh, Ivan Xav.” A nod included Byerly in the greeting. “What a very pleasant evening this has been, after the tensions of our travels.”

“I’m glad,” said Ivan. “Do tell my mother. Entertaining is an art form, to her.”

“I could see that,” said Pidge, with near-Cetagandan approval. “Your mother’s partner is an interesting fellow, too,” she went on. Yes, she had been closer to Simon’s end of the table, through dinner. In the place next to Tej that should have been Ivan’s, eh. “Illyan is a, what do you call your grubbers, a prole name, though, isn’t it? Not one of you Vor.”

“No twice-twenty-years Imperial Service man need yield to any Vor for his place in our military caste,” said Ivan firmly.

Pidge looked to Byerly for confirmation of this cultural detail; he nodded cordially.

“Still, a captain. Even after, what, forty years—why do you call it twice-twenty, I wonder? But isn’t that the same rank as you?”

“No,” said Ivan. “Chief of Imperial Security, which was his job title, technically isn’t a military rank at all, but a direct Imperial appointment. He froze his military rank at captain because his predecessor, Emperor Ezar’s security chief Captain Negri—the man they called Ezar’s Familiar—never took a higher rank, either. A political statement, that. It was, after all, a very political job.”

Pidge tilted her head. “And what did they call your Illyan?”

“Aral Vorkosigan’s Dog,” By put in, lips quirking with amusement.

“But…Vorkosigan wasn’t an emperor. Was he…?”

“Imperial Regent for sixteen years, you know, when Emperor Gregor was a minor,” Byerly charitably glossed for her outworlder benefit. “All of the work, none of the perqs.” Ivan wondered if that was a direct quote from Uncle Aral. Or Aunt Cordelia, more likely.

“And what do they call the current Chief of ImpSec?”

“Allegre? They call him the Chief of ImpSec.” Byerly cast her the hint of an apologetic bow. “I fear we live in less colorful times.”

Thank God, Ivan thought. “Allegre was already a general at the time of his appointment. They didn’t make him give it back, so I suppose that’s the end of that tradition.”

Pidge’s generous mouth pursed, as she puzzled through this. “It seems quite odd. Are Barrayaran captains very well paid, then?”

“No,” said Ivan, sadly. He added, lest she think less of his um-stepfather, “Illyan was given a vice-admiral’s salary, though, which makes more sense considering the workload.” Or perhaps it didn’t—26.7 hours a day for thirty years, all-consuming? Such a pyre wasn’t something a man entered into for pay. “Half-salary, now he’s retired.”

“How much would that be?”

Ivan, who dealt with military payrolls regularly and could have recited the wage ranges for every IS-number/rank ever invented, current or historical, said, “I imagine you could look it up somewhere.” Byerly smiled a little; the sweep of his lashes invited Ivan to carry on.

“Then…is he rich independently?” Pidge persisted.

“I have no idea.”

Pidge tossed her head in surprise; the amber curls gathered in a clasp at her nape, far more controlled than Tej’s cloud, failed to bounce much. “How can you not know?”

“I expect he has his savings,” Byerly put in, stirring what imagined pot Ivan barely wanted to contemplate, but was probably going to have to. “He couldn’t have started out with much, as a young prole officer, but that social class tends to be frugal. And he had no visible vices.”

“Nor secret ones, either,” Ivan put in. “He wouldn’t have had time.” Not that Illyan hadn’t been good at secrets…many years of unrequited and largely unsuspected prole pining for Lady Alys, for example. Which had escaped Ivan’s attention entirely, till the shoes had dropped—both pairs…

Well, all right, one secret vice. They had both been very drunk at the Emperor’s Birthday celebration a couple of years ago, Ivan by habit and tradition, the retired Illyan because he’d always been on ImpSec duty before and had never, he said, had a chance to. Through a progression of subjects that were soon a blur in Ivan’s mind, they had somehow got on to just what Illyan did and did not recall or miss from his memory chip, at which point Ivan had learned just where the largest and most arcane pornography collection on Barrayar had been secreted…

It’s not as if I acquired most of it on purpose, Illyan had protested. But the damned chip didn’t allow me to delete anything, whether I picked it up inadvertently or in a moment of bad mood or bad judgment or bad company, and then I was stuck with it forever. Or in the line of work, oh, God, those were the worst. Do you have any idea how many truly appalling surveillance vids I had to review in forty years…?

There were some things, Ivan reflected, that no man should know about another, not even or perhaps especially his um-stepfather. People had occasionally—in Ivan’s hearing or even buttonholing him directly—speculated about just how long this matter between Illyan and Lady Alys had really been going on, since Illyan’s retirement when it had become…overt? Public? Not flaunted, Lady Alys didn’t flaunt, that would be tasteless. More like…they wore each other with well-earned pride. But it had occurred to Ivan then that the physical danger Illyan trailed from his work might not have been the only thing he’d been loath to take to bed with his esteemed Vor lady. Ivan had decided he was thankful when Illyan appeared to have forgotten the conversation the next day—hangovers were definitely for the young, the man had moaned—and didn’t remind him of it in any way.

And when Ivan had got over his own hangover, and the generational whiplash, and the unwanted lurid-but-maybe-not-even-lurid-enough imaginings, he’d finally decided that what it had mostly sounded like was lonely, actually.

Being married to a wife beat being married to a job, it seemed increasingly clear to Ivan.

“Captain Illyan is—or was—a clever man, was he not?” said Pidge. “I should have thought that a position as a security chief would have lent itself to considerable personal acquisition, in three decades. If not directly, then through clever use of inside information.”

It was a measure of…something…that this thought had never crossed Ivan’s mind till now. If nothing else, Illyan had spent vast tracts of time and wells of energy dealing with corrupt people and the effects of their corruptions; really, there could hardly be anything he hadn’t learned about the depravity of the human condition. And yet…just because Illyan took confessions didn’t make him a priest.

“No,” said Ivan after a moment, grabbing for his tilting certainty. “ImpSec was his passion; he didn’t need another. If he had a drug, it was adrenaline.”

Byerly’s brows rose. “Really?”

“God, yes. He only looked normal by contrast because he hung around with a pack of the biggest adrenaline-junkies on three worlds. All the great men have to be, to ride the Imperial Horse. I mean, think who Illyan used to run in covert ops. And at whose request.”

“That,” said Byerly, “is a point.”

“But he’s retired from all that now.”

“A modest frugal retirement for a loyal Imperial bureaucrat?” said Pidge. “And yet your mother so wealthy.”

“Doesn’t bother her,” Ivan said stoutly.

“But does it bother him?”

About to deny this with equal vehemence, Ivan realized that among the many things he didn’t know about Simon…that was another. “I am sure he has more important things on his mind.”

Pidge smiled at him. “Fascinating.” With a little Shiv-like wave of her fingers, she trailed away toward the party; Byerly, with one of his less-comprehensible grimaces, promptly trailed after.

Ivan gave the blank study door one last look of frustration, and followed.

Ivan still hadn’t had a chance to talk alone with Tej when the party broke up an hour later. Simon and Shiv had at last emerged from Simon’s lair. Byerly was fidgety from having been excluded from a long, all-female confabulation amongst Lady Vorpatril, Lady ghem Estif, and Baronne Cordonah, from which they’d emerged as Alys, Moira, and Udine. Wraps were produced in the hallway, even its generous proportions elbow-jostling for this crowd. Christos reappeared to guide everyone back to their respective groundcars.

Simon and Shiv parted with another of those disquieting handshakes. As the mob thinned, Simon gazed thoughtfully at the broad departing back, but turned with a slight smile to take Tej’s hand.

“Intriguing fellow, your Dada, Tej. The man could sell elephants to circus masters.”

She gave him a puzzled, gratified, and alarmed smile back. “I’d think circus masters would want to buy elephants, sir.”

Illyan’s smile stretched. “Quite so.”

Tej had successfully avoided Ivan Xav all evening, while the party swirled around her spinning head. A bass beat of Cetagandan gold, Cetagandan gold, Cetagandan gold! had thumped in her brain, with an occasional descant of Buried treasure! and discord wail of But ImpSec…! Dada, despite the lack of stepfather-in-law intel for which he had shot her that pointed look—and it wasn’t her fault that no one had let her explain earlier—seemed to have made a swift recovery and hit it off just fine with Simon. That had to be good. Didn’t it?

Normally, she looked forward to pillow talk with Ivan Xav, and what followed, for sheer aesthetic reasons if nothing else. It had become a very comfortable time of the day, something to anticipate with pleasure. Not this day. As they dodged around each other and Rish in and out of the bathroom, the conversation was utilitarian. Tej made it under the covers first. She didn’t have to pretend to be exhausted—if she just rolled over and closed her eyes…

“Tej…” The other side of the bed creaked and dipped as Ivan Xav sat down, but then he sighed, got up again, padded to the bedroom door, opened it, and called through, “Hey, Rish!”

“What?” Rish’s tired, irritated voice called back.

“Have you outed Byerly yet? About what he does for a living, I mean?”

“Of course not! That was the deal. Tacitly. I assumed.”

Ivan Xav’s tense shoulders relaxed. “Ah.”

“—just to my family, of course.”

The shoulders went from relaxed to slumped. “Of course,” Ivan Xav mumbled. He raised his voice again: “That would be, like, nine more people, yeah?”

“Great, the natural-boy can count.”

Ivan Xav growled, and let the door slide shut.

He returned to the bed and sat up against the headboard, looking down in the soft lamplight at Tej, who, under the press of the stare between her shoulder blades, rolled over onto her back.

“Tej,” he began again, hesitantly, “could your Dada possibly imagine that he could suborn Simon?”

How to deal with this…“Suborn, what a word, suborn. You’d only need to suborn someone for something, like, treasonous, or evil. Something political or military, bad for Barrayar.” Financial wasn’t political or military, right? “Of course Dada wouldn’t do something like that.”

“Couldn’t, I’d say. You do realize—Shiv must realize—Simon’s had thirty, forty years for his probity and loyalty to be tested by, by more pressure than anything your Dada could possibly bring to bear—maybe more than you or I can even imagine.”

“Yeah, so?”

“So…”

“Look, Dada’s not stupid.”

“Neither is Simon.” Ivan Xav’s face managed peeved, not his best expression. “They’re up to something, aren’t they. You—the Arquas.”

“They came to Barrayar to get Rish and me.”

“Yes, and that’s something else we need to talk about—I mean, that’s the conversation I’ve been rehearsing all bloody day, before all this came—Tej, what do you know?”

She scowled up at him, looming on her left. Ivan Xav wasn’t stupid, either, of course. “Then are you in or out?” And was it even worth probing? He was Barrayaran to the bone, seven-eighths, anyway. He’d be bound to want to grab everything for his empire, his own gang—that was what the uniform he wore every day meant.

“Of what? I can’t say till I know what I’m in or out of. Though it’s got to be trouble, or you’d just be telling me. There’s some kind of Jacksonian deal going on under the table. Yeah?”

“I can’t tell you unless you’re in. Or you decide you’re out, and then I really can’t tell you.”

“Married people,” said Ivan Xav austerely after a moment, “shouldn’t keep secrets from each other.”

Tej rolled up on her elbow, annoyed. For once, this move failed to distract him. “What, you keep secrets from me all the time. All that classified stuff at your work.”

“That’s different. That’s…it’s assumed, no, it’s not just assumed, they make it quite explicit that fellows don’t babble about Ops business at home. Or anywhere else. It’s not like I keep those secrets from you preferentially.”

“It would probably be really boring anyway.”

“Most of it,” admitted Ivan Xav, almost diverted.

“Except maybe that stuff you mumble about in your sleep.”

Ivan Xav stiffened, and not in the good way. He was, in fact, quite limp in that region at the moment. “I talk in my sleep? About classified…?”

“It’s kind of hard to tell.” Tej composed her mouth into Ivan Xav’s accent and cadences, and recited, “‘Don’t eat that avocado, Admiral, it’s gone blue. The blue ones have shifty eyes.’”

“Don’t remember that dream,” Ivan Xav muttered, looking vaguely horrified. “Fortunately…”

“I actually guessed it was a dream. Unless Barrayar’s running some sort of military bioengineering experiments, I suppose.”

“Not as far as I know. Not like that, anyway. The avocado didn’t…meow, did it?”

Tej stared. “I don’t know. You only said it looked shifty.”

Ivan Xav appeared inexplicably relieved. But then, alas, went on: “If it’s something benign, there’s no reason to keep it a secret.”

“Sure there is.”

“Like what?”

“Like, oh, to keep other people from stealing…whatever.”

“It’s a thing, then.”

It was a bit hopeless to tell herself Wake up! when her head was so filled with fatigue-fog. Tej tried anyway. “Not necessarily. People steal ideas.”

“So it’s a thing, and…and Shiv and your family think it’s something that can somehow help their cause, I suppose. That would make sense. Well, really, By is right; it’s the only thing that would make sense. Something that would help them, something they need to take back their House. So, more power to them—but not here. What can they be up to here?”

“I am not playing fast-penta interrogation with you at this time of night. Or at any other time.”

“That’s…actually a party game. Fast-penta Or Dare. People take turns asking questions, and you have to either tell the truth, or take the dare. Not with real fast-penta, of course. Unless it’s a pretty dodgy party. By would know…”

“Barrayarans are strange.”

“Yes,” Ivan Xav agreed with a pensive sigh, then seemed to belatedly decide this might be considered a slur on his homeworld and revised it hastily, “No! Not as strange as Jacksonians, anyway. Or Cetagandans.” He added something under his breath that might have been, Frigging mutant space aliens, but swallowed it before Tej could be sure. She did not ask him to repeat it more loudly.

“It’s not just the House,” Tej tried, after a minute of silence stretched unpleasantly. “Prestene has Eric and Topaz. Held hostage or…or worse.”

“So…” Ivan Xav’s voice went uncomfortably uncertain. “Eric may well not be revivable. And Topaz is…just a Jewel, right? No genetic relation to Shiv. You said.”

Tej frowned. “Dada never made any distinction amongst us kids. Or else when he was yelling at us, he wouldn’t have kept mixing up our names.” Those cadences came easily to her mouth and memory; her voice deepened automatically. “‘You, Rish, Pidge, Jet, Em—no—Tej, you’re the one—you, stop that!’” Her lips turned up despite herself. “I suppose you could think of him as a stepfather to the Jewels, but since he didn’t bother to sort us, we never bothered to sort him. Of course, he was a busy man. It might have just been equal inattention, but the point is…” She’d lost track of the point.

“And your mother? With all the names?”

“The Baronne,” sighed Tej, “never mixed up anything.” She paused. “Simon seems a funny sort of stepfather to you.”

Ivan flapped his hands. “If I’d been five. Or fifteen. When he took up with Mamere. Things might have been different. I’d wanted a father, then. At thirty, we could only be adult acquaintances, and him Mamere’s…husband. Sort of. Um-husband. Partner. Whatever.” He hesitated for a longer time. “Leaving aside the thirty years he’d watched out for me before that. But then, Simon Illyan watched out for everybody. Not…not making a distinction amongst us. But Simon—” Ivan Xav stuttered, and went on, “Do you realize that—no, I can’t say that. Or that, I suppose. Or…or that…”

Tej, irate and exhausted and not just by the day, snapped, “Well, then, stop talking and go to sleep.”

Ivan Xav humphed, sounding like…a lot like Count Falco, really.

They rolled over with their backs to each other.