Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen Read online

  “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 through 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-i
f-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 considered wryly, 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 wer
e 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?”