Komarr b-11 Read online

  "No . . . no, not that," she hastily denied. "It just seems like some kind of hubris, I guess."

  "Oh, it's all kinds of hubris." Except that he did not look in the least daunted by the prospect, merely calculating.

  His thoughtful look fell on her then; he cleared his throat, and began, "When I was working on your comconsole yesterday morning—" The deceleration of the bubble-car interrupted him. The little man craned his neck as they slid to a halt in the station. "Damn," he murmured.

  "Is something wrong?" she asked, concerned.

  "No, no." He hit the pad to raise the canopy. "So, let's see this Docks and Locks district …"

  Lord Vorkosigan seemed to enjoy their stroll through the organized chaos of the Shuttleport Locks district, though the route he chose was decidedly nonstandard; he zig-zagged by preference down to what Ekaterin thought of as the underside of the area, where people and machines loaded and unloaded cargo, and where the less well-off sorts of spacers had their hostels and bars. There were plenty of odd-looking people in the district, in all colors and sizes, wearing strange clothes; snatches of conversations in utterly strange languages teased her ear in passing. The looks they gave the two Barrayarans were noted but ignored by Vorkosigan. Ekaterin decided that his lack of offense wasn't because the galactics stared less—or more—at him, it was that they stared equally at everybody.

  She also discovered that he was attracted by the dreadful, among the galactic wares cramming the narrow shops into which they ducked. He actually appeared to seriously consider for several minutes what was claimed to be a genuine twentieth-century reproduction lamp, of Jacksonian manufacture, consisting of a sealed glass vessel containing two immiscible liquids which slowly rose and fell in the convection currents. "It looks just like red blood corpuscles floating in plasma," Vorkosigan opined, staring in fascination at the underlit blobs.

  "But as a wedding present?" she choked, half amused, half appalled. "What kind of message would people take it for?"

  "It would make Gregor laugh," he replied. "Not a gift he gets much. But you're right, the wedding present proper needs to be, er, proper. Public and political, not personal." With a regretful sigh, he returned the lamp to its shelf. After another moment, he changed his mind again, bought it, and had it shipped. "I'll get him another present for the wedding. This can be for his birthday."

  After that, he let Ekaterin lead him into the more sophisticated end of the district, with shops displaying well-spread-out and well-lit jewelry and artwork and antiques, interspersed with discreet couturiers of the sort, she thought, who might send minions to his aunt. He seemed to find it much less interesting than the galactic rummage sale a few streets and levels away, the animation fading from his face, until his eye was caught by an unusual display in a jeweler's kiosk.

  Tiny model planets, the size of the end of her thumb, turned in a grav-bubble against a black background. Several of the little spheres were displayed under various levels of magnification, where they proved to be perfectly-mapped replicas of the worlds they represented, right down to the one-meter scale. Not just rivers and mountains and seas, but cities and roads and dams, were represented in realistic colors. Furthermore, the terminator moved across their miniature landscapes in real-time for the planetary cycle in question; cities lit the night side like living jewels. They could be hung in pairs as earrings, or displayed in pendants or bracelets. Most of the planets in the wormhole nexus were available, including Beta Colony and an Earth that included as an option its famous moon circling a handspan away, though how this pairing was to be hung on someone's body was not entirely clear. The prices, at which Vorkosigan did not even glance, were alarming.

  "That's rather fine," he murmured approvingly, staring in fascination at the little Barrayar. "I wonder how they do that? I know where I could have one reverse-engineered. …"

  "They seem more like toys than jewels, but I have to admit, they're striking."

  "Oh, yes, a typical tech toy—high-end this year, everywhere next year, nowhere after that, till the antiquarians' revival. Still … it would be fun to make up an Imperial set, Barrayar, Komarr, and Sergyar. I don't know any women with three ears . . . two earrings and a pendant, perhaps, though then you'd have the socio-political problem of how to rank the worlds."

  "You could put all three on a necklace."

  "True, or … I think my mother would definitely like a Sergyar. Or Beta Colony … no, might make her homesick. Sergyar, yes, very apropos. And there's Winterfair, and birthdays coming up—let's see, there's Mother, Laisa, Delia, Aunt Alys, Delia's sisters, Drou—maybe I ought to order a dozen sets, and have a couple to spare."

  "Uh," said Ekaterin, contemplating this burst of efficiency, "do all these women know each other?" Were any of them his lovers? Surely he wouldn't mention such in the same breath with his mother and aunt. Or might he be a suitor? But . . . toall of them?

  "Oh, sure."

  "Do you really think you ought to get them all the same present?"

  "No?" he asked doubtfully. "But . . . they all know me …"

  In the end, he restrained himself, purchasing only two earring sets, one each of Barrayars and Komarrs, and swapping them out, for the brides of the two mixed marriages. He added a Sergyar on a fine chain for his mother. At the last moment, he bolted back for another Barrayar, for which woman on his lengthy list he did not say. The packets of tiny planets were made up and gift-wrapped.

  Feeling a little overwhelmed by the Komarran bazaar, Ekaterin led him off for a look at one of her favorite parks. It bounded the end of the Locks district, and featured one of the largest and most naturally landscaped lakes in Serifosa. Ekaterin mentally planned a stop for coffee and pastry, after they circumnavigated the lake along its walking trails.

  They paused at a railing above a modest bluff, where a view across the lake framed some of the higher towers of Serifosa. The crippled soletta array was in full view overhead now, through the park's transparent dome, creating dim sparkles on the lake's wavelets. Cheerful voices echoed distantly across the water, from families playing on an artificially-natural swimming beach.

  "It's very pretty," said Ekaterin, "but the maintenance cost is terrific. Urban forestry is a full-time specialty here. Everything's consciously created, the woods, the rocks, the weeds, everything."

  "World-in-a-box," murmured Vorkosigan, gazing out over the reflecting sheet. "Some assembly required."

  "Some Serifosans think of their park system as a promise for the future, ecology in the bank," she went on, "but others, I suspect, don't know the difference between their little parks and real forests. I sometimes wonder if, by the time the atmosphere is breathable, the Komarrans' great-grandchildren will all be such agoraphobes, they won't even venture out in it."

  "A lot of Betans tend to think like that. When I was last there—" His sentence was shattered by a sudden crackling boom; Ekaterin started, till she identified the noise as a load dropped from a mag-crane working on some construction, or reconstruction, back over their shoulders beyond the trees. But Vorkosigan jumped and spun like a cat; the package in his right hand went flying, his left made to push her behind him, and he drew a stunner she hadn't even known he was carrying half out of his trouser pocket before he, too, identified the source of the bang. He inhaled deeply, flushed, and cleared his throat. "Sorry," he said to her wide-eyed look. "I overreacted a trifle there." Though they both surreptitiously examined the dome overhead; it remained placidly intact. "Stunner's a pretty useless weapon anyway, against things that go bump like that." He shoved it back deep into his pocket.

  "You dropped your planets," she said, looking around for the white packet. It was nowhere in sight.

  He leaned out over the railing. "Damn."

  She followed his gaze. The packet had bounced off the boardwalk, and fetched up a meter down the bluff, caught on a bit of hanging foliage, a thorny bittersweet plant dangling over the water.

  "I think maybe I can reach it …" He swung over the rai
ling past the sign admonishing caution: stay on the trail and flung himself flat on the ground over the edge before she could squeak, But your good suit— Vorkosigan was not, she suspected, a man who routinely did his own laundry. But his blunt fingers swung short of the prize they sought. She had a hideous vision of an Imperial Auditor under her guest-hold landing head-down in the pond. Could she be accused of treason? The bluff was barely four meters high; how deep was the water here?

  "My arms are longer," she offered, climbing after him.

  Temporarily thwarted, he scrambled back to a sitting position. "We can fetch a stick. Or better yet, a minion with a stick." He glanced dubiously at his wrist comm.

  "I think," she said demurely, "calling ImpSec for this might be overkill." She lay prone, and reached as he had. "It's all right, I think I can …" Her fingers too swung short of the packet, but only just. She inched forward, feeling the precarious pull of the undercut slope. She stretched . . .

  The root-compacted soil of the edge sagged under her weight, and she began to slide precipitously forward. She yelped; pushing backward fragmented her support totally. One wildly back-grappling arm was caught suddenly in a viselike grip, but the rest of her body turned as the soil gave way beneath her, and she found herself dangling absurdly feet-down over the pond. Her other arm, swinging around, was caught, too, and she looked up into Vorkosigan's face above her. He was lying prone on the slope, one hand locked around each of her wrists. His teeth were clenched and grinning, his gray eyes alight.

  "Let go, you idiot!" she cried.

  The look on his face was weirdly, wildly exultant. "Never," he gasped, "again—"

  His half-boots were locked around . . . nothing, she realized, as he began to slide inexorably over the edge after her. But his death-grip never slackened. The exalted look on his face melted to sudden horrified realization. The laws of physics took precedence over heroic intent for the next couple of seconds; dirt, pebbles, vegetation, and two Barrayaran bodies all hit the chilly water more or less simultaneously.

  The water, it turned out, was a bit over a meter deep. The bottom was soft with muck. She wallowed upright onto her feet, one shoe gone who knew where, sputtering and dragging her hair from her eyes and looking around frantically for Vorkosigan. Lord Vorkosigan. The water came to her waist, it ought not to be over his head—no half-booted feet were sticking up like waving stumps anywhere—could he swim?

  He popped up beside her, and blew muddy water out of his mouth, and dashed it from his eyes to clear his vision. His beautiful suit was sodden, and a water-plant dangled over one ear. He clawed it away, and located her, his hand going toward her and then stopping.

  "Oh," said Ekaterin faintly. "Drat."

  There was a meditative pause before Lord Vorkosigan spoke. "Madame Vorsoisson," he said mildly at last, "has it ever occurred to you that you may be just a touch oversocialized?"

  She couldn't stop herself; she laughed out loud. She clapped her hand over her mouth, and waited fearfully for some masculine explosion of wrath.

  None came; he merely grinned back at her. He looked around till he spotted his packet, now dangling mockingly overhead. "Ha. Now gravity's on our side, at least." He waded underneath the remains of the overhang, disappeared into the water again, and came up holding a couple of rocks. He shied them at the thorn plant till he dislodged his package, and caught it one-handed as it fell, before it could hit the water. He grinned again, and splashed back to her, and offered her his other arm for all the world as though they were about to enter some ambassadorial reception. "Madame, will you wade with me?"

  His humor was irresistible; she found herself laying her hand upon his sleeve. "My pleasure, my lord."

  She abandoned her surreptitious toe-prodding for her lost shoe. They sloshed off toward the nearest low place on shore, with the most serenely cockeyed dignity Ekaterin had ever experienced. Packet in his teeth, he scrambled ahead of her, grabbed a narrow out-leaning tree trunk for support, and handed her up through the mud with the air of an Armsman-driver helping his lady from the rear compartment of her groundcar. To Ekaterin's intense relief, no one across the lake appeared to have noticed their show. Could Vorkosigan's Imperial authority save them from arrest for swimming in a no-swimming zone?

  "You aren't upset about the accident?" she inquired timorously as they regained the path, still hardly able to believe her good fortune in his admittedly odd reaction. A passing jogger stared at them, turning and bouncing backward a moment, but Vorkosigan waved him genially onward.

  He tucked his packet under his arm. "Madame Vorsoisson, trust me on this one. Needle grenades are accidents. That was just an amusing inconvenience." But then his smile slipped, his face stiffened, and his breath drew in sharply. He added in a rush, "I should mention, I've lately become subject to occasional seizures. I pass out and have convulsions. They last about five minutes, and then go away, and I wake up, no harm done. If one should occur, don't panic."

  "Are you about to have one now?" she asked, panicked.

  "I feel a little strange all of a sudden," he admitted.

  There was a bench nearby, along the trail. "Here, sit down—" She led him to it. He sat abruptly, and hunched over with his face in his hands. He was beginning to shiver with the wet cold, as was she, but his shudders were long and deep, traveling the length of his short body. Was a seizure starting now? She regarded him with terror.

  After a couple of minutes, his ragged breathing steadied. He rubbed his face, hard, and looked up. He was extremely pale, almost gray-faced. His pasted-on smile, as he turned toward her, was so plainly false that she almost would rather he'd have frowned. "I'm sorry. I haven't done anything like that in quite a while, at least not in a waking state. Sorry."

  "Was that a seizure?"

  "No, no. False alarm entirely. Actually, it was a, um, combat flashback, actually. Unusually vivid. Sorry, I don't usually … I haven't done … I don't usually do things like this, really." His speech was scrambled and hesitant, entirely unlike himself, and failed signally to reassure her.

  "Should I go for help?" She was sure she needed to get him somewhere warmer, as soon as possible. He looked like a man in shock.

  "Ha. No. Worlds too late. No, really, I'll be all right in a couple of minutes. I just need to think about this for a minute." He looked sideways at her. "I was just stunned by an insight, for which I thank you."

  She clenched her hands in her lap. "Either stop talking gibberish, or stop talking at all," she said sharply.

  His chin jerked up, and his smile grew a shade more genuine. "Yes, you deserve an explanation. If you want it. I warn you, it's a bit ugly."

  She was so rattled and exasperated by now, she'd have cheerfully choked explanations out of his cryptic little throat. She took refuge in the mockery of formality which had extracted them so nobly from the pond. "If you please, my lord!"

  "Ah, yes, well. Dagoola IV. I don't know if you've heard much about it . . . ?"

  "Some."

  "It was an evacuation under fire. It was an unholy mess. Shuttles lifting with people crammed aboard. The details don't matter now, except for one. There was this woman, Sergeant Beatrice. Taller than you. We had trouble with our shuttle's hatch ramp, it wouldn't retract. We couldn't dog the hatch and lift above the atmosphere till we'd jettisoned it. We were airborne, I don't know how high, there was thick cloud cover. We got the damaged ramp loosened, but she fell after it. I grabbed for her. Touched her hand, even, but I missed."

  "Did . . . was she killed?"

  "Oh, yes." His smile now was utterly peculiar. "It was a long way down by then. But you see . . . something I didn't see until about five minutes ago. I've spent five, six years walking around with this picture in my head. Not all the time, you understand, just when I chanced to be reminded. If only I'd been a little quicker, grabbed a little harder, hadn't lost my grip, I might have pulled her in. Instant replay on an endless repeat. In all those years, I never once pictured what would really have happened i
f I'd made my grab good. She was almost twice my weight."

  "She'd have pulled you out," said Ekaterin. For all the simplicity of his words, the images they evoked were intense and immediate. She rubbed at the deep red marks aching now on her wrists. Because you would not have let go.

  He looked for the first time at the marks. "Oh. I'm sorry."

  "It's all right." Self-conscious, she stopped massaging them.

  This didn't help, because he took her hand, and rubbed gently at the blotches, as if he might erase them. "I think there must be something askew with my body image," he said.

  "Do you think you're six feet tall, inside your head?"

  "Apparently my dream-self thinks so."

  "Does that—realizing the truth—make it any better?"

  "No, I don't think so. Just . . . different. Stranger."

  Both their hands were freezing cold. She sprang to her feet, eluding his arresting touch. "We have to go get dry and warm, or we'll both … be in a state." Catch your death, was her great-aunt's old phrase for it, and a singularly inept phrase it would be to use just now. She dropped her useless remaining shoe in the first trash bin they passed.

  On their way to the bubble-car stop near the public beach, Ekaterin darted into a kiosk and bought a stack of colorful towels. In the bubble-car, she turned the heat up to its stingy maximum.

  "Here," she said, shoving towels at Lord Vorkosigan as the car accelerated. "Get out of that sopping tunic, at least, and dry off a bit."

  "Right." Tunic, silk shirt, and thermal undershirt hit the floor with a wet splat, and he rubbed his hair and torso vigorously. His skin had a blotched purple-blue tinge; pink and white scars sprang out in high contrast to their darkened background. There were scars on scars on scars, mostly very fine and surgically straight, in criss-crossing layers running back through time, growing fainter and paler: on his arms, on his hands and fingers, on his neck and running up under his hair, circling his ribcage and paralleling his spine, and, most pinkly and recently, an unusually ragged and tangled mess centered on his chest.