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leg up and leaned against a chair-arm, pretending to have been ignoring the
narcissistic attractions of his reflection.
"Ah, there you are." Mark wandered in to join him, pausing to study himself
briefly in the mirror, turning to check the fit of his clothing. His clothing
fit very well indeed. Mark had acquired the name of Gregor s tailor, a
closely-guarded ImpSec secret, by the simple expedient of calling Gregor and
asking him. The boxy loose cut of the jacket and trousers was aggressively
civilian, but somehow very sharp. The colors honored Winterfair, sort of; a
green so dark as to be almost black was trimmed with a red so dark as to be
almost black. The effect was somewhere between festive and sinister, like a
small, cheerful bomb.
Miles thought of that very odd moment in Rowan s lightflyer, when he d been
temporarily convinced he was Mark. How terrifying it had been to be Mark, how
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utterly isolated. The memory of that desolation made him shiver.
Is that how he feels all the time
?
Well, no more. Not if I have anything to say about it
.
"Looks good," Miles offered.
"Yeah." Mark grinned. "You re not so bad yourself. Not as cadaverous, quite."
"You re improving too. Slowly." Actually, Mark was, Miles thought. The most
alarming distortions of whatever horrors
Ryoval had inflicted upon Mark, and which he resolutely refused to talk about,
had gradually passed off. A solid residue of flesh yet lingered, however.
"What weight are you finally going to choose?" Miles asked curiously.
"You re looking at it. Or I wouldn t have invested the fortune in the
wardrobe."
"Er. Are you comfortable?" Miles inquired uncomfortably.
Mark s eyes glinted. "Yes, thank you. The thought that a one-eyed sniper, at a
range of two kilometers at midnight in a thunderstorm, could not possibly
mistake me for you, is very comfortable indeed."
"Oh. Well. Yes, there is that, I suppose."
"Keep exercising," Mark advised him cordially. "It s good for you." Mark sat
down and put his feet up.
"Mark?" the Countess s voice called from the foyer. "Miles?"
"In here," said Miles.
"Ah," she said, sweeping into the antechamber. "There you both are." She
smiled at them with a greedy maternal gloat, looking most satisfied. Miles
could not help feeling warmed, as if some last lingering ice chip inside from
the cryo-freezing finally thawed, steaming gently. The Countess wore a new
dress, more ornate than her usual style, in green and silver, with ruffs and
tucks and a train, a celebration of fabric. It did not make her stiff, though
- it wouldn t dare. The Countess was never intimidated by her clothing. Quite
the reverse. Her eyes outshone the silver embroidery.
"Father waiting on us?" Miles inquired.
"He ll be down momentarily. I m insisting we leave promptly at midnight. You
two can stay longer if you wish, of course.
He ll overdo, I predict, proving to the hyenas he s too tough for them to
jump, even when the hyenas aren t circling any more. A
lifetime of reflex. Try and focus his attention on the District, Miles. It
will drive poor Prime Minister Racozy to distraction to feel
Aral is looking over his shoulder. We really need to get out of the capital,
down to Hassadar, after Winterfair."
Miles, who had a very clear idea just how much recovery chest surgery took,
said, "I think you ll be able to persuade him."
"Please throw your vote in. I know he can t fool you, and he knows it too. Ah
- just what can I expect tonight, medically speaking?"
"He ll dance twice, once to prove he can do it, and the second time to prove
the first wasn t a fluke. After that you ll have no trouble at all persuading
him to sit down," Miles predicted with confidence. "Go ahead and play mother
hen, and he can pretend he s stopping to please you, and not because he s
about to fall over. Hassadar strikes me as a very good plan."
"Yes. Barrayar does not quite know what to do with retired strongmen.
Traditionally, they are decently deceased, and not hanging around to pass
comments on their successors. Aral may be something of a first. Though Gregor
has had the most horrifying idea."
"Oh?"
"He s muttering about the Vice-royalty of Sergyar, as a post for Aral, when he
is fully recovered. The present viceroy has been begging to come home, it
seems. Whining, actually. A more thankless task than colonial governor I
cannot imagine. An honest man gets ground to powder, trying to play interface
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between two sets of conflicting needs, the home government above and the
colonists below. Anything you can do to disabuse Gregor of this notion, I
would greatly appreciate."
"Oh, I don t know," Miles s brows rose thoughtfully. "I mean - what a
retirement project. A whole planet to play with.
Sergyar. And didn t you discover it yourself, back when you were a Betan
Astronomical Survey captain?"
"Indeed. If the Barrayaran military expedition hadn t been ahead of us,
Sergyar would be a Betan daughter-colony right now.
And much better managed, believe me. It really needs someone to take it in
hand. The ecological issues alone are crying for an injection of intelligence
- I mean, take that worm plague. A little Betan-style prudence could have...
well. They figured it out eventually, I guess."
Miles and Mark looked at each other. It wasn t telepathy. But the thought that
perhaps Aral Vorkosigan wasn t the only over-
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