Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen

Chapter One

It was a good day on the military transfer station orbiting the planet Sergyar. The Vicereine was coming home.

As he entered the station’s Command-and-Control room, Admiral Jole’s eye swept the main tactics display, humming and colorful above its holo-table. The map of his territory—albeit presently set to the distorted scale of human interests within Sergyar’s system, and not the astrographic reality, which would leave everything invisible and put humans firmly in their place as a faint smear on the surface of a speck. A G-star burning tame and pleasant at this distance; its necklace of half-a-dozen planets and their circling moons; the colony world itself turning below the station. Of more critical strategic interest, the four wormhole jump points that were its gateways to the greater galactic nexus, and their attendant military and civilian stations—two highly active with a stream of commercial traffic and scheduled tightbeam relays, leading to the jump routes back to the rest of the Barrayaran Empire and on to its nearest neighbor on this side, currently peaceful Escobar; one accessing a long and uneconomical backdoor route to the Nexus; the last leading, as far as forty years of exploration had found, nowhere.

Jole wondered at what point in the past double-handful of years he’d started carrying the whole map and everything moving through it in his head at once. He’d used to consider his mentor’s ability to do so as something bordering on the supernatural, although the late Aral Vorkosigan had done it routinely for an entire three-system empire, and not just its smallest third. Time, it seemed, had gifted Jole easily with what earnest study had found hard. Good. Because time bloody owed him, for all that it had taken away.

It was quiet this morning in the C-and-C room, most of the techs bored at their stations, the ventilation laden with the usual scents of electronics, recycled air, and overcooked coffee. He moved to the one station that was brightly lit, letting his hand press the shoulder of the traffic controller, stay on task. The man nodded and returned his attention to the pair of ships coming in.

The Vicereine’s jump-pinnace was nearly identical to that of a fleet admiral, small and swift, bristling more with communications equipment than weapons. Its escort, a fast courier, could keep up, but was scarcely better armed; they traveled together more for safety in case of technical emergencies than any other sort. None this trip, thankfully. Jole watched with what he knew was perfectly pointless anxiety as they maneuvered into their docking clamps. No pilot would want to make a clumsy docking under those calm gray eyes.

His newest aide popped up at his elbow. “The honor guard reports ready, sir.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant Vorinnis. We’ll go over now.”

He motioned her into his wake as he exited C-and-C and made for the Vicereine’s docking bay. Kaya Vorinnis was far from the first of the techs, medtechs, and troops from the greatly expanded Imperial Service Women’s Auxiliary to be assigned to Sergyar command, nor the first to be assigned directly to his office. But the Vicereine would approve, which was a charming thought, though Cordelia would doubtless also make some less-charming remark about how her natal Beta Colony and a like list of advanced planets had boasted fully-gender-integrated space services since forever. Personally, Jole was relieved that he only had to supervise the women during working hours, and that their off-duty arrangements here on-station and on the downside base were the direct responsibility of a rather maternal and very efficient ISWA colonel.

“I’ve never seen Vicereine Vorkosigan in person,” Vorinnis confided to him. “Only in vids.” Jole was reminded not to let his long stride quicken unduly, though the lieutenant’s breathlessness might be as much due to incipient heroine-worship, not misplaced in Jole’s view.

“Oh? I thought you were a relative of Count Vorinnis. Had you not spent much time in Vorbarr Sultana?”

“Not that closely related, sir. I’ve only met the count twice. And most of my time in the capital was spent running around Ops. I was put on Admin track pretty directly.” Her light sigh was easy to interpret, having the identical content to those of her male predecessors: Not ship duty, dammit.

“Well, take heart. I was put through a seven-year rotation in the capital as a military secretary and aide, but I still caught three tours on trade fleet escort duty afterward.” The most active and far-flung space-based duty an Imperial officer could aspire to during peacetime, culminating in his one and only ship captaincy, traded in due course for this Sergyar patch.

“Yes, but that was aide to Regent Vorkosigan himself!”

“He was down to Prime Minister Vorkosigan, by then.” Jole permitted himself a brief lip twitch. “I’m not that old.” And just kept his mouth from adding, “…young lady!” It wasn’t merely Vorinnis’s height, or lack of it, that made her look twelve in his eyes, or her gender; her recent male counterparts were no better. “Although, by whatever irony, my one stint in an active theater of war was as his secretary, when I followed him to the Hegen Hub. Not that we knew it was going to end up a shooting war when that trip started.”

“Were you ever under fire?”

“Well, yes. There is no rear echelon on a flagship. Since the Emperor was also aboard by that point, it was fortunate that our shields never failed.” Two decades ago, now. And what a top-secret cockup that entire episode had been, which, glued throughout to Ex-Regent Prime Minister Admiral Count Vorkosigan’s shoulder, Jole had witnessed at the closest possible range from first to last. His Hegen Hub war stories had always had to be among his most thoroughly edited.

“I guess you’ve known Vicereine Vorkosigan just as long, then?”

“Nearly exactly, yes. It’s been…” He had to calculate it in his head, and the sum took him aback. “Twenty-three years, almost.”

“I’m almost twenty-three,” Vorinnis offered, in a tone of earnest helpfulness.

“Ah,” Jole managed. He was rescued from any further fall into this surreal time warp by their arrival at Docking Bay Nine.

The dozen men of the honor guard braced, and Jole returned salutes punctiliously while running his eye over their turnout. Everything shipshape and shiny, good. He duly complimented the sergeant in charge and turned to take up a parade rest in strategic view of the personnel flex tube, just locking on under the competent and very attentive supervision of the bay tech. Exiting a null-gee flex tube into the grav field of a station or ship was seldom a graceful or dignified process, but the first three persons out were reasonably practiced: a ship’s officer, one of the Vicereine’s ImpSec guards, and Armsman Rykov, the only one of the new Count Vorkosigan’s personal retainers seconded to his mother, in her other hat as Dowager Countess. The first man attended to mechanics, the second made a visual and electronic scan of the docking bay for unscheduled human hazards, and the third turned to assist his liege lady. Vorinnis tried to stand on tiptoe and to attention simultaneously, which didn’t quite work, but she dropped from Jole’s awareness as the last figure cleared the tube in a smooth swing and flowed to her feet with the aid of her armsman’s proffered hands.

Everyone snapped to attention as the color sergeant piped her aboard. Admiral Jole saluted, and said formally, “Vicereine Vorkosigan. Welcome back. I trust your journey was uneventful.”

“Thank you, Admiral, and so it was,” she returned, equally formally. “It’s good to be back.”

He made a quick initial assay of her. She looked a trifle jump-lagged, but nothing like the frightening dead-gray bleakness that had haunted her features when she’d returned alone almost three years ago from her husband’s state funeral. Not that Jole himself had been in much better form, at the time. The colonists of Sergyar had been entirely uncertain if they were going to get their Vicereine back at all, that trip, or if some stranger-lord would be appointed in her place. But she was wearing colors again now, if subdued ones, Komarran-style trousers and jacket, and her unmistakable smile had warmed to something better than room temperature. She was still keeping her tousled red-gray hair cut short; the fine bones of her face held out, like a rampart that had never fallen.

Her left hand, down at her side, gripped what appeared to be a small cryofreezer case. Lieutenant Vorinnis, like any good admiral’s assistant, advanced upon it. “May I take your luggage, Your Excellency?”

Cordelia cried, sharply and unexpectedly, “No!” twitching the case away. At Jole’s eyebrow-lift, she seemed to catch herself up, and continued more smoothly, “No, thank you, Lieutenant. I’ll carry this one. And my armsman will see to the rest.” She cast a quick head-tilt toward the girl, and a plea of a look Jole’s way.

He took the hint. “Vicereine, may I introduce my new aide, Lieutenant Kaya Vorinnis. Just assigned—she arrived a few weeks after you left.” Cordelia had departed six weeks ago to present the Sergyaran Viceroy’s Annual Report to Emperor Gregor in person, and incidentally catch a little of Winterfair Season with her family back on Barrayar. Jole hoped that had been refreshing rather than exhausting, although having met the Vorkosigan offspring, he suspected it had been both.

“How do you do, Lieutenant? I hope you will find Sergyar an interesting rotation. Ah—any relation to the young count?”

“Not close, ma’am,” Vorinnis replied, an answer Jole suspected she was tired of offering, but she did it without grimacing here.

The Vicereine turned and delivered a few well-practiced words of thanks to the honor guard. Their sergeant returned the traditional, “Ma’am, yes, ma’am!” proudly on their behalf, and marched them out again. Cordelia watched them go, then turned with a sigh to take Jole’s arm proffered in escort.

She shook her head. “Really, Oliver, do you have to do this every time I transit? All I’m going to do is walk from the docking bay to the shuttle hatch. Those poor boys could have slept in.”

“We never did less for the Viceroy. It’s an honor for them as well as for you, you know.”

“Aral was your war hero. Several times over.”

The corners of Jole’s mouth twitched up. “And you’re not?” He added in curiosity, “What’s in the box? Not a severed head—again—I trust?” It seemed too small for that, fortunately.

Cordelia’s gray eyes glinted. “Now, now, Oliver. Bring home one dismembered body part, once, mind you, once, and people get twitchy about checking your luggage ever after.” Her smile grew wry. “But that we can joke about that now…ah, well.”

Lieutenant Vorinnis, trailing, looked vaguely appalled, though whether at the famous historical incident that had ended the Pretender’s War, a disturbing number of years before her birth, or her superiors’ attitude to it, Jole was not sure.

Jole said, “Do you want to take a break, Cordelia, before catching your downside leg? I don’t know what meal schedule you’re on, but we can provide.” The entire Barrayaran Imperial fleet, and by extension this station, kept Vorbarr Sultana time, which unfortunately did not mesh with that of the colonial capital below, as the two planets had, among other things, different day lengths. Not that the same time on two different sides of a wormhole jump, let alone a string of them, had any but an arbitrary congruence. “Your shuttle will await your convenience, I promise you.”

Cordelia shook her head in regret. “I switched to Kareenburg time when we made Sergyaran space a day ago. I think my next meal is lunch, though I’ll find out when we land. But no, thank you, Oliver, not this round. I’m eager to get home.” Her grip on the freezer case tightened.

“I hope we’ll be able to catch up more thoroughly soon.”

“Oh, count on it. When do you next cycle down to base?”

“End of the week.”

Her eyes narrowed in some unconfided calculation. “Ye-es. That might just about do. My secretary will be in touch, then.”

“Right-oh.” Jole accepted this affably, hiding his disappointment. News from Barrayar arrived hourly by tightbeam. Stories from home arrived with returning visitors, more erratically. Could a man be homesick for a voice? A light, particular voice, still laced with a broad Betan accent forty-plus years after pledging and proving allegiance to an alien Imperium?

All too soon, they arrived at the shuttle hatch. Jole had inspected the vessel personally not an hour ago. The pilot reported at the ready. Jole stood aside with Cordelia, stealing a few more minutes together as her luggage was trundled aboard.

“You’re traveling lighter, these days.”

She smiled. “Aral was used to moving an army. I prefer simpler logistics.” She glanced toward the shuttle hatch, as if anxious to be boarding. “Any forest fires downside that I haven’t heard about by tightbeam?”

“None that have penetrated the stratosphere.” Their traditional dividing line for their respective responsibilities. Cordelia rode herd on some two million colonists on behalf of Emperor Gregor; Jole suspected that a good half of them would be at her for attention the moment her foot touched the soil. At least he could make sure that no new troubles dropped on her from above. “Take care of yourself down there. Or at least let your staff do so.” Jole exchanged a conspiratorial glance with Armsman Rykov, who acted more-or-less as the Vicereine’s household seneschal, and who nodded endorsement of this notion.

Cordelia just smiled. “See you soon, Oliver.”

And off she goes. And goes and goes, like any Vorkosigan. Jole shook his head.

He waited till he heard the docking clamps release, then turned away.

Vorinnis, pacing him, inquired, “Were you there, sir, when she brought back the Pretender’s head?”

“I was eight, Lieutenant.” He tried to rub the amusement off his mouth, and recover his expected admiral’s gravity. “I grew up in one of the westernmost districts—it had no military shuttleport, so we weren’t a high-value target for either side. I mainly remember the war as everyone trying to carry on normally, but all the adults being awash in fear and fantastic rumors. The Lord Regent had made away with the boy emperor, he was brainwashed by Betan spies, worse slanders…Everyone believed that Lady Vorkosigan had been sent on that commando raid by her husband, but the truth, I later learned, was a deal more complicated.” And not all his to tell, Jole was reminded. “We meet fairly frequently in the course of business here on Sergyar—you may get a chance to try to get her to decant some of her war stories.” Although upon reflection, Jole wasn’t sure of the advisability of introducing a keen young officer to Vorkosigan notions of initiative. Metaphors about fighting fire with gasoline rose to his mind.

He grinned and returned to Command-and-Control, there to keep the Vicereine’s shuttle in view till its safe touchdown was confirmed.

The Sergyaran afternoon was luminous, on the restaurant terrace overlooking what Cordelia could no longer call the encampment, nor even the village, but surely the city even by galactic standards. The terrace’s perch above a sharp drop-off on the hillside lent a pleasant illusion of looking out into a gulf of light. When the server, seating her at her reserved corner table, inquired if ma’am wanted the polarizing awning raised, Cordelia answered simply, “Not yet,” and waved him off. She sat back and lifted her face to the warmth, closing her eyes and letting its caress soothe her. And tried not to think how long it had been since any more palpable caress had done so. Three years next month, the too-busy part of her brain that she could not shut off supplied.

As an anodyne, she reopened her eyes to her surroundings. The two tables closest to hers were empty by arrangement, except for her plainclothes ImpSec bodyguard who already sat at the farther one, not-sipping iced tea and looking around as well. Situational awareness, right. Her over forty years as a subject and servant of the Barrayaran Empire had included all too many situations; for today, she was willing to default to I have people for that. Except that the fellow looked so young; she felt as though she should be watching out for him, maternally. She must never offend his dignity by letting on, she supposed.

She sucked in a long breath of the soft air, as if she might so draw its lightness into the darker hollows of her heart. The server brought two water glasses. She was only a few sips into hers when the figure she had been awaiting appeared through the building’s door, glanced around, spied her, lifted a hand in greeting, and strode her way. Her bodyguard, watching this progress and taking in her guest’s civilian garb, visibly restrained himself from standing and saluting the man as he passed by, although they did exchange acknowledging nods.

When Cordelia had first met Lieutenant Oliver Perrin Jole, back when he was, what—twenty-seven?—she had not hesitated to describe him as gorgeous. Tall, blond, lean, chiseled features—oh my, the cheekbones—blue eyes alive with earnest intelligence. More diffident, back then. After two decades and some change—and changes—Admiral Jole was still tall and straight, if more solid in both build and demeanor. The bright blondness of his hair was a trifle tarnished with gray, the clear eyes framed with what were really quite fetching crow’s feet, and he had grown into a quiet, firm self-confidence. Still with those unfair cheekbones and eyelashes, though. She smiled a little, permitting herself this private moment of delicate enjoyment, before he arrived to bow over her hand and seat himself.

“Vicereine.”

“Just Cordelia, today, Oliver. Unless you want me to start admiraling you.”

He shook his head. “I get enough of that at work.” But his curious smile grew more crooked. “And there was only ever the one true admiral, among us. My last promotion always felt a touch surreal, when I was in his company.”

“You’re a true admiral. The Emperor said so. And the Viceroy advised.”

“I shan’t argue.”

“Good, because it would be a few years—and a great deal of work—too late.”

Jole chuckled, twitched his long fingers at her in surrender of the point, if no other sort, and took up the menu. He tilted his head. “You’re looking less tired, at least. That’s good.”

Cordelia had no doubt that she’d looked downright hagged often enough in their late scramble for their new balance. She ran a hand through her close-cropped red-roan hair, curling in its usual feral fashion around her head. “I’m feeling less tired.” She grimaced. “I sometimes go for whole hours at a time without thinking of him, now. Last week, there was a whole day.”

He nodded in, she was sure, complete understanding.

Cordelia wondered how to begin. We haven’t seen enough of each other these past three years was not really true. The Admiral of the Sergyaran Fleet had moved smoothly into his tasks as the military right arm of the lone Vicereine of Sergyar—just as for the joint Viceroy and Vicereine formerly. He’d been accepted by the colony planet on his own considerable merits even when his mentor’s immense shadow silently backing him was removed by that—could she call it untimely?—that immense death. Vicereine Vorkosigan and Admiral Jole had adjusted to the new patterns of their respective jobs, working around that aching absence, tightening the public stitches over that wound. Briefings, inspections, diplomatic duties, petitions, advice given and listened to, arguments with budget committees both in tandem and, a few times, in opposition—their workload After Aral was scarcely changed in substance or rhythm from their workload Before. And, slowly, the civic scar had healed, though it still twinged now and then.

The inmost wounds…they’d scarcely touched, or touched upon, in mutual mercy perhaps. She would never count Oliver as less bereaved than herself just because his grief was more circumspectly hidden—though she had more than once, as she forced herself though what had seemed the endless gauntlet of public ceremonies befalling the Viceregal Widow, envied him its privacy.

It was only their former intimacy that seemed taken away, buried with its nexus point. Like two planets left to wander when their mutual sun vanished. It was time, perhaps, for a renewed source of gravity and light.

The server returned, and she was spared from her further internal…dithering, yes, she was dithering, by the minor distractions of placing their orders. When they were alone again, Oliver relieved her of her quandary by remarking, “If this is to be a working lunch, someone was behindhand in supplying me with the agenda.”

“Not work, no, but I do have an agenda,” she confessed. “Personal and private, which is why I invited you here on our so-called day off.” She wondered what signals he’d read in her invitation that brought him here in comfortable-if-flattering civvies, instead of his uniform. He’d always been alert to nuance, an invaluable trait back when he’d first been assigned as Prime Minister Vorkosigan’s military secretary in the hothouse political atmosphere of the Imperial capital back on Barrayar. We are far from Vorbarr Sultana. And I’m glad of it.

She took a sip of water, and the plunge. “Have you heard anything about the new replicator center we opened downtown?”

“I…not per se, no. I am aware that your public health efforts continue.” He blinked at her in his most amiable I-am-not-following-you-but-I’m-still-listening look.

“My mother back on Beta Colony helped me headhunt an exceptional team of Betan reproductive experts to staff it, on five-year contracts. They’re teaching Sergyaran medtechs in the clinic, as well as serving the public. By the end of their terms, we expect to be able to hive off several daughter clinics to the newer colonial towns. And, if we’re lucky, maybe seduce a few of the Betans into staying on.”

Jole, unmarried and unlikely to be so, smiled and shrugged. “I’m actually old enough to remember when that was new and controversial technology, back on Barrayar. The younger officers coming on take it for granted, and not just the Komarran-born ones, or the ISWA girls.”

The server arrived with their wine—a light, fruity, well-chilled white, produced right here on this planet, yes!—and she fortified herself with a sip before continuing forthrightly. “In this case, the public good is also a personal one. As, um, Aral may never have mentioned to you, and I don’t recall I ever did either, during one of the dodgier times of Aral’s regency—before you came on board—we took the precaution of privately sequestering gametes from each of us. Frozen sperm from him, frozen eggs from me.” Over thirty-five years ago, that had been.

Oliver’s steely blond brows rose. “He told me once that he was infertile, after the soltoxin attack.”

“For natural conceptions, probably. Low sperm count, lots of cellular damage accumulated over his lifetime. But—technology. You only need one good gamete, if you can sort it.”

“Huh.”

“For reasons more political than either biological or technological, we never went back to that bank. But Aral made sure in his will that the samples’ ownership was mine absolutely, after his death. On this trip home for Winterfair and the annual Viceroy’s Report, I pulled them all. And brought them back to Sergyar with me. Those were what was in that freezer case I was—well, sitting on more like a mother hen than you knew.”

Oliver sat up, abruptly interested. “Posthumous children for Aral? Can you?”

“That’s what I needed the top Betan experts to determine. As it turns out, the answer is yes.”

“Huh! Now that Miles is Count Vorkosigan in his own right, with a son of his own, I suppose another son—brother?—would not present an inheritance issue…Uh—would they be legitimate, under Barrayaran law?”

Her elder son Miles, Cordelia reflected ruefully, was only eight years younger than Jole. “I actually plan to sidestep all those issues by conceiving only daughters. This takes advantage of one of the peculiarities of Barrayaran inheritance law in that they will all be, without question, mine alone. They will bear the very prole surname of Naismith. No claim on the Vorkosigan’s District or Vorkosigan estates. Nor vice versa.”

Oliver pursed his lips, frowning. “Aral…would have wanted to support them. To say the least.”

“I have been, and will be, setting aside the rather comfortable widow’s jointure due me as Dowager Countess Vorkosigan for that purpose. Since I have both my salary as Vicereine, at least for a while longer, and my own personal investments, mostly here on Sergyar, to support a private household quite adequately.”

“A while?” said Jole at once, pouncing upon a key point and looking alarmed. As she might have known he would.

“I never planned to remain as Vicereine till I died in harness,” she said gently. As Aral did, she did not say aloud. “I’m a Betan. I expect to live to a hundred and twenty or more. I have fed about as much of my life to Barrayar as I wish to. It’s time…” She drained her wineglass; Jole politely poured her more. “They say that a person should not make major life decisions or changes for at least a year after bereavement, due to having their brains scrambled, to the truth of which I can testify, except I’d make it two years.”

Jole nodded bleak agreement.

“I’ve been thinking about this from the night we buried him at Vorkosigan Surleau.” The night she’d cut all her waist-length hair, which Aral had always loved, nearly to the roots to lay in the burning brazier. Because the usual sacrificial lock had seemed absurdly inadequate. Not one of her fellow mourners had said a word in protest, nor asked one in question. She’d never worn it longer than its current finger-length, thereafter. “It will be three years next month. I think…this is what I truly want, and if I’m going to, it’s time. Betan or no, I am not getting any younger.”

“A person would take you for fifty,” offered Jole. His own age, very nearly. He actually meant it; he wasn’t just flattering her. Barrayarans.

“Only a Barrayaran. A galactic would know better.” She considered seventy-six. It…made no sense. Except that sometime in the past three years, she had switched from counting her years not up from birth, but back from death—a grab-bag of time not growing, but shrinking, use it or lose it.

The server arrived with their vat-chicken-and-strawberry salads and fancy breads, giving her a moment to muster her next push. Jole, to his credit, had not asked, Why are you telling me all this? but had taken it in as a simple—well, maybe not that simple—confidence from a friend. And by no means an unwelcome one. She took another sip of wine. Then a gulp of wine. She set down her glass.

“We didn’t have a large number of eggs to work with, once the substandard ones were filtered out. I took my share of damage over the years, too. But I think I can get as many as six girls, altogether.”

Jole huffed a laugh. “Well, Sergyar needs women.”

“And men. There were also a very few ova which might still be healthy as…I suppose you could say, enucleated eggshells. They will carry my mitochondrial DNA, anyway. And such enucleated ova are exactly what are used to host the same-sex IVF crosses.”

Jole stopped in mid-chew and stared at her, blue eyes going wide. His quickness of mind had always been one of his more endearing traits, she reflected.

“If you like—and you can take as long as you need to think about it—I would donate to you some of those enucleated eggs, and genetic material from Aral, and you could…you and Aral could have a son or sons of your own. I mention sons for legal, not biological reasons. With an X chromosome from Aral and a Y chromosome from yourself, the offspring would be unassailably legally yours. With no damned bloody lethal Vor hung on the front of their names, either.”

Jole swallowed his belated bite with the aid of a large gulp of his own wine. “This…sounds insane. At first blush.”

He was blushing a trifle, actually. Interesting. On him, of course, it looked good. But then, it always had. All the way down, as she recalled, and suppressed a smile. “On Beta Colony, it would be routine. Or Escobar, or Earth, or any of the advanced planets.” The normal planets, as Cordelia thought of them. “Or even Komarr, for heaven’s sake. This biotech trick was worked out centuries ago.”

“Yes, but not for us, not for…” He hesitated.

Not for Barrayar, did he mean to say? Or…not for me?

Instead he said, “So is this waste not, want not?”

“Just want.”

“How many…how many such eggs?”

“Four. Which does not guarantee four live births, I hope you realize. Or, in fact, any. But it’s four genetic lottery tickets, anyway.”

“How long have you been thinking about this, um…extraordinary offer?” He was still staring at her wide-eyed. “Did you already have it in mind when you docked, the other day?”

“No, only since my conference with Dr. Tan, three days ago. We were discussing what to do with the leftovers, which was the one question I’d never anticipated. He suggested I donate the eggshells to the clinic, which could use them, and if this doesn’t interest you, I probably will. But then I had a better idea.” She’d hardly slept that night, thinking about it. And then she’d given up on running in circles inside her head trying to second-guess herself, and just invited Oliver to lunch.

“I’d never thought—I’d given up all thought—of ever having children, you know,” he said. “There was my career, there was Aral, there was…what we three had. Which was more than I’d ever dreamed of having.”

“Yes. I’d thought you insufficiently imaginative.” She took a fortifying crunch of chicken salad. “Not to mention insufficiently greedy in the extreme.”

“How could I ever take care of…” he began, then cut himself off.

“Plenty of time to think about the practical details,” Cordelia assured him. “I just wanted to put the idea into your head.”

Oliver made a hair-clutching gesture, not quite jesting. “And explode it? You always did have that little sadistic streak, Cordelia.”

“Now, Oliver. Assertive, perhaps. As you may recall.”

From the way he choked on his next swallow of wine, he did. Good. But the next words out of his mouth were, unexpectedly, “Everard Piotr Jole?”

Good grief, he’s naming them already! Well…she’d had her hypothetical girls named for a year. Wow, this pitch went fast. Fortunately, there was a certain amount of time built-in for second thoughts, and the cascade of worrying that she knew from experience would follow. “We’re on Sergyar, here. Not bound to tradition. You could choose any names you liked. I’m going to name my first girl Aurelia Kosigan Naismith. They’re all going to be named Kosigan Naismith, actually. Except the Kosigan will be an actual middle name, no hyphens or anything.” Or prefixes. “I’m not sure they’ll thank me, later.”

“What, um…what does your son Miles think of this? Or his clone-brother Mark, for that matter?”

“I haven’t discussed it with them yet. Nor do I intend to, till after the fact. I won’t say, Not Miles’s business, but I will say, Not his decision.”

“Did you—or Aral—ever tell him about us? Does he know? I was never quite sure. That is, if he knew and accepted me, or if he just didn’t know.”

And the grueling state funeral, which had been the last time Oliver and her sons had crossed paths in person, had been no place to bring it up. “Ha. No. Speaking of exploding heads, Aral always spared Miles that. I never much agreed with that choice, but I have to admit it was simpler.”

He nodded relieved acceptance.

She regarded him a moment, and added, deliberately, “Aral was always so very proud of you. I hope you know that.”

His breath caught, and he looked away. Swallowed. Nodded shortly. It took him another few breaths, but he recovered his train of thought: “When you started to tell me about this, I thought perhaps you were going to ask me to stand as godfather or something—what’s that Betan term, co-parent?”

“A co-parent is legally, and usually genetically, the same as a parent—a godfather is more like the orphan’s legal guardian in the event of parental death. And yes, I’m going to have to give thought to my new will. Fortunately, I have access to the best lawyers on the planet. And so will you, in the event.”

“Aral Kosigan Jole…?” he muttered, as if he hadn’t heard this, though she knew he had.

“No one would blink,” she assured him. “Or Oliver Jole, Junior, or anything you like.”

“How could I…explain their mother? Or their lack of a mother?”

“Anonymously donated eggs purchased from the gamete bank, perfectly standard. Which isn’t even untrue. You hit fifty, and suddenly decided to have a child for your midlife crisis instead of a shiny red lightflyer, whatever.”

He swiped a hand through his tarnished gold hair, and laughed uncertainly. “I am beginning to think you are my midlife crisis, Cordelia.”

She shrugged, amused. “Shall I apologize?”

“Never.” The best smile tugged up his lips, despite his dismay.

No—they hadn’t seen enough of each other these past three years, had they. They’d merely swept past each other often. She and Oliver had both been running like hell for their work and other duties, frequently on different planets, or on opposite ends of a gravity well, and the last thing the widowed Vicereine, under intense scrutiny in her new solo position, possessed was any personal privacy. She envied Aral his cool former command of his privacy, in retrospect. And how his cloak of loyalties had stretched to cover them all.

She dug a card out of her pocket, scribbled a note on the back, and handed it across. “This is the doctor to see, if you decide to stop in at the rep center and leave a donation. My key Betan man, Dr. Tan. He’s been fully apprised. In your own time, Mister Jole.”

Jole took it gingerly, and read it closely. “I see.” His long fingers placed it in his shirt pocket with care, and touched it again as if to make sure. “This is an astounding gift. I would never have thought of it.”

“So I concluded.” She scrubbed her lips with her napkin. “Well, think about it now.”

“I doubt I’ll be able to think about anything else.” His smile tilted. “Thank you for not dropping this on me in the middle of a working day, by the way.”

She cast him a ghost of a salute.

His eyes grew warmer, intent upon her. “Huh…This makes it the second time that my life has been turned upside-down and sent in directions I’d never even imagined by a Vorkosigan. I might have known.”

“The first being, ah, when Aral fell in love with you?”

“Say, fell in love on me. It was like being hit by a falling building. Not a building falling over—a building falling from the sky.”

She grinned back. “I am familiar with the sensation.” She regarded him in reminded curiosity. “Aral talked to me about nearly everything—I was his only safe repository for that part of himself, till you came along—but he was always a bit cagey about how you two got started. The empire was at peace, Miles was safely locked up in the Academy, political tensions were at an all-time low—not that that lasted—I go off to visit my mother on Beta Colony leaving him in no worse straits than another of his unrequited silent crushes. I come back to find you two up and running and poor Illyan having a meltdown—it was like talking him in off a ledge.” Aral’s utterly loyal security chief had never come closer to, if not weeping with relief, at least cracking an expression, to find in her not an outraged spouse, but an unruffled ally. I knew Aral was bisexual when I married him. And he knew I was Betan. Melodrama was never an option, Illyan. “The only surprise was how you two ever got past all your Barrayaran inhibitions in the first place.”

A flash of old amusement crossed Jole’s always-expressive face. “Well—I’m afraid you’d think it was all more Barrayaran than Betan. It doubtless involved a lot less talking, which I cannot regret. The standard for declassification is still fifty years, isn’t it? That sounds about right to me.”

Cordelia snickered. “Never mind, then.”

Jole cocked his head in turn. “Did he have that many, er, silent crushes? Before me?”

“I ought to make you trade”—Jole made his own never mind, then, gesture, and Cordelia smiled—“but I’ll have pity. No, for all that the capital was awash with handsome officers, he more appreciated them as a man would a good sunset or a fine horse, abstractly. Intelligent officers, he recruited whenever he could, and if they happened to intersect the first set, well and good. Officers of extraordinary character—were always thinner on the ground. All three in one package—”

Jole made another fending gesture, which Cordelia brushed aside. “Oh, behave. The first time he ever saw you it was to pin that medal on you, wasn’t it? He’d already studied the reports of the orbital accident, in detail—he always did, for those honors—and all your prior records. If nothing else, you’d just saved the Emperor the trouble of replacing about a hundred very expensively trained men.” No wonder that Aral had recruited Jole as nearly on the spot as the paperwork and his physicians permitted. The other recruitment had come rather later.

Jole grimaced. “That always felt strange, to be cited for a set of actions I could barely remember. The hypoxia was cutting in badly by then. Not to mention the blood loss, I suppose. Or so my ImpMil physicians suggested, later. I could only think—but what if I had to do it again, and couldn’t remember how?” His lips twisted up in belated amusement. “God, I was young, wasn’t I?”

“You were as old as you’d ever been. As were we all, I suppose.” After a moment, she added curiously, “Had you thought you were monosexual, before Aral?”

He shrugged. “If one doesn’t count experiments at age fourteen. I’d dated women, as much as my career up till then permitted, which wasn’t much. But things never quite clicked. After Aral, I thought I knew why.” He glanced up through those lashes at her. “I was quite terrified of you, at first. Thought my head was going to end up in a sack.”

“Yes, it took some time to talk you down, too.”

“And I found out what the Countess’s famous Betan conversations were all about. I’d never thought of myself as a naïve backcountry boy, till then.”

Cordelia chuckled. “On Beta Colony, we’d have had earrings for it. We could have bought them in any jewelry shop.”

“Ha. Remind me to tell you about the Betan herm merchanter I once met when I was out on my third escort tour. Without your tutoring, I’d have missed…well, an extraordinary week.” He looked, for just a second, salaciously cheerful in his apparently fond memory. It wasn’t a look she’d surprised on him for quite some time. It was no mystery why they’d both been getting through on zombie-pilot, these past three years; but she wondered when it had become a habit.

“I’m glad you were over your, er, shyness by the time you came to us again on Sergyar.”

“The extra years and the captaincy under my belt probably helped.”

“Something had, certainly.” She bent her head, ambiguously but amiably. Silence fell between them, not unduly strained.

He twisted the stem of his wineglass; looked up at her directly. “This isn’t going to be easy, is it. Or simple.”

“It never has before; I have no idea why it should start now.”

His laugh was low, but real.

They lingered only a little longer, reverting to talking shop—Chaos Colony made sure that they never ran out of shop—and then rose together. He did not offer his arm, although he might have done so here unexceptionably enough, and she did not walk too close. He helped her into her groundcar, brought round to the front; as it pulled away she twisted and studied him through the canopy, striding off to his own vehicle. He did wheel and give her a bemused little wave as her car turned into the street. His hand, falling again, touched his breast pocket in passing.

Cordelia was conscious of a twinge of frustration on Oliver’s behalf, mostly because he never seemed to muster it for himself. Dammit, if there was ever a man who deserved to be loved…But if he’d made any connections since Aral’s death, he hadn’t confided them to her, not that he was under any obligation to do so. Her attempts at Barrayaran-style matchmaking had been extremely hit-or-miss over her lifetime, or she’d be tempted to try to help him somehow. But Oliver was…complicated. Which was why I broached this to him in the first place, she reminded herself.

His tall, solitary figure was lost to her sight as her car rounded the next corner.