Lois McMaster Bujold - 11 A Civil Campaign.pdf - Vorkosigan Saga - malbuj4512

A Civil Campaign

Lois McMaster Bujold

CHAPTER ONE

The big groundcar jerked to a stop centimeters fromthe vehicle ahead of it, and Armsman Pym, driving, swore under his

breath. Miles settled back again in his seat beside him, wincing at a vision of the acrimonious street scene from which Pym's

reflexes had delivered them. Miles wondered if he could have persuaded the feckless prole in front of them that being rear-ended

by an Imperial Auditor was a privilege to be treasured. Likely not. The Vorbarr Sultana University student darting across the

boulevard on foot, who had been the cause of the quick stop, scampered off through the jam without a backward glance. The line

of groundcars started up once more.

"Have you heard if the municipal traffic control system will be coming on line soon?" Pym asked, apropos of what Miles

counted as their third near-miss this week.

"Nope. Delayed in development again, Lord Vorbohn the Younger reports. Due to the increase in fatal lightflyer incidents,

they're concentrating on getting the automated air system up first."

Pym nodded, and returned his attention to the crowded road. The Armsman was a habitually fit man, his graying temples

seeming merely an accent to his brown-and-silver uniform. He'd served the Vorkosigans as a liege-sworn guard since Miles had

been an Academy cadet, and would doubtless go on doing so till either he died of old age, or they were all killed in traffic.

So much for short cuts. Next time they'd go around the campus. Miles watched through the canopy as the taller new buildings

of the University fell behind, and they passed through its spiked iron gates into the pleasant old residential streets favored by the

families of senior professors and staff. The distinctive architecture dated from the last un-electrified decade before the end of the

Time of Isolation. This area had been reclaimed from decay in the past generation, and now featured shady green Earth trees, and

bright flower boxes under the tall narrow windows of the tall narrow houses. Miles rebalanced the flower arrangement between

his feet. Would it be seen as redundant by its intended recipient?

Pym glanced aside at his slight movement, following his eye to the foliage on the floor. "The lady you met on Komarr seems

to have made a strong impression on you, m'lord..." He trailed off invitingly.

"Yes," said Miles, uninvitingly.

"Your lady mother had high hopes of that very attractive Miss Captain Quinn you brought home those times." Was that a

wistful note in Pym's voice?

"Miss Admiral Quinn, now," Miles corrected with a sigh. "So had I. But she made the right choice for her." He grimaced out

the canopy. "I've sworn off falling in love with galactic women and then trying to persuade them to immigrate to Barrayar. I've

concluded my only hope is to find a woman who can already stand Barrayar, and persuade her to like me."

"And does Madame Vorsoisson like Barrayar?"

"About as well as I do." He smiled grimly.

"And, ah... the second part?"

"We'll see, Pym." Or not, as the case may be. At least the spectacle of a man of thirty-plus, going courting seriously for the

first time in his life - the first time in the Barrayaran style, anyway - promised to provide hours of entertainment for his interested

staff.

Miles let his breath and his nervous irritation trickle out through his nostrils as Pym found a place to park near Lord Auditor

Vorthys's doorstep, and expertly wedged the polished old armored groundcar into the inadequate space. Pym popped the canopy;

Miles climbed out, and stared up at the three-story patterned tile front of his colleague's home.

Georg Vorthys had been a professor of engineering failure analysis at the Imperial University for thirty years. He and his wife

had lived in this house for most of their married life, raising three children and two academic careers, before Emperor Gregor had

appointed Vorthys as one of his hand-picked Imperial Auditors. Neither of the Professors Vorthys had seen any reason to change

their comfortable lifestyle merely because the awesome powers of an Emperor's Voice had been conferred upon the retired

engineer; Madame Dr. Vorthys still walked every day to her classes. Dear no, Miles! the Professora had said to him, when he'd

once wondered aloud at their passing up this opportunity for social display. Can you imagine moving all those books? Not to

mention the laboratory and workshop jamming the entire basement.

Their cheery inertia proved a happy chance, when they invited their recently-widowed niece and her young son to live with

them while she completed her own education. Plenty of room, the Professor had boomed jovially, the top floor is so empty since

the children left. So close to classes, the Professora had pointed out practically. Less than six kilometers from Vorkosigan House!

Miles had exulted in his mind, adding a polite murmur of encouragement aloud. And so Ekaterin Nile Vorvayne Vorsoisson had

arrived. She's here, she's here! Might she be looking down at him from the shadows of some upstairs window even now?

Miles glanced anxiously down the all-too-short length of his body. If his dwarfish stature bothered her, she'd shown no signs

of it so far. Well and good. Going on to the aspects of his appearance he could control: no food stains spattered his plain gray

tunic, no unfortunate street detritus clung to the soles of his polished half-boots. He checked his distorted reflection in the

groundcar's rear canopy. Its convex mirroring widened his lean, if slightly hunched, body to something resembling his obese

clone-brother Mark, a comparison he primly ignored. Mark was, thank God, not here. He essayed a smile, for practice; in the

canopy, it came out twisted and repellent. No dark hair sticking out in odd directions, anyway.

"You look just fine, my lord," Pym said in a bracing tone from the front compartment. Miles's face heated, and he flinched

away from his reflection. He recovered himself enough to take the flower arrangement and rolled-up flimsy Pym handed out to

him with, he hoped, a tolerably bland expression. He balanced the load in his arms, turned to face the front steps, and took a deep

breath.

After about a minute, Pym inquired helpfully from behind him, "Would you like me to carry anything?"

"No. Thank you." Miles trod up the steps and wiggled a finger free to press the chime-pad. Pym pulled out a reader, and

settled comfortably in the groundcar to await his lord's pleasure.

Footsteps sounded from within, and the door swung open on the smiling pink face of the Professora. Her gray hair was wound

up on her head in her usual style. She wore a dark rose dress with a light rose bolero, embroidered with green vines in the manner

of her home District. This somewhat formal Vor mode, which suggested she was just on her way either in or out, was belied by

the soft buskins on her feet. "Hello, Miles. Goodness, you're prompt."

"Professora." Miles ducked a nod to her, and smiled in turn. "Is she here? Is she in? Is she well? You said this would be a good

time. I'm not too early, am I? I thought I'd be late. The traffic was miserable. You're going to be around, aren't you? I brought

these. Do you think she'll like them?" The sticking-up red flowers tickled his nose as he displayed his gift while still clutching the

rolled-up flimsy, which had a tendency to try to unroll and escape whenever his grip loosened.

"Come in, yes, all's well. She's here, she's fine, and the flowers are very nice - " The Professora rescued the bouquet and

ushered him into her tiled hallway, closing the door firmly behind them with her foot. The house was dim and cool after the spring

sunshine outside, and had a fine aroma of wood wax, old books, and a touch of academic dust.

"She looked pretty pale and fatigued at Tien's funeral. Surrounded by all those relatives. We really didn't get a chance to say

more than two words each." I'm sorry and Thank you , to be precise. Not that he'd wanted to talk much to the late Tien

Vorsoisson's family.

"It was an immense strain for her, I think," said the Professora judiciously. "She'd been through so much horror, and except for

Georg and myself - and you - there wasn't a soul there to whom she could talk truth about it. Of course, her first concern was

getting Nikki through it all. But she held together without a crack from first to last. I was very proud of her."

"Indeed. And she is... ?" Miles craned his neck, glancing into the rooms off the entry hall: a cluttered study lined with

bookshelves, and a cluttered parlor lined with bookshelves. No young widows.

"Right this way." The Professora conducted him down the hall and out through her kitchen to the little urban back garden. A

couple of tall trees and a brick wall made a private nook of it. Beyond a tiny circle of green grass, at a table in the shade, a woman

sat with flimsies and a reader spread before her. She was chewing gently on the end of a stylus, and her dark brows were drawn

down in her absorption. She wore a calf-length dress in much the same style as the Professora's, but solid black, with the high

collar buttoned up to her neck. Her bolero was gray, trimmed with simple black braid running around its edge. Her dark hair was

drawn back to a thick braided knot at the nape of her neck. She looked up at the sound of the door opening; her brows flew up and

her lips parted in a flashing smile that made Miles blink. Ekaterin .

"Mil - my Lord Auditor!" She rose in a flare of skirt; he bowed over her hand.

"Madame Vorsoisson. You look well." She looked wonderful, if still much too pale. Part of that might be the effect of all that

severe black, which also made her eyes show a brilliant blue-gray. "Welcome to Vorbarr Sultana. I brought these..." He gestured,

and the Professora set the flower arrangement down on the table. "Though they hardly seem needed, out here."

"They're lovely," Ekaterin assured him, sniffing them in approval. "I'll take them up to my room later, where they will be very

welcome. Since the weather has brightened up, I find I spend as much time as possible out here, under the real sky."

She'd spent nearly a year sealed in a Komarran dome. "I can understand that," Miles said. The conversation hiccuped to a brief

stop, while they smiled at each other.

Ekaterin recovered first. "Thank you for coming to Tien's funeral. It meant so much to me."

"It was the least I could do, under the circumstances. I'm only sorry I couldn't do more."

"But you've already done so much for me and Nikki - " She broke off at his gesture of embarrassed denial and instead said,

"But won't you sit down? Aunt Vorthys - ?" She drew back one of the spindly garden chairs.

The Professora shook her head. "I have a few things to attend to inside. Carry on." She added a little cryptically, "You'll do

fine."

She went back into her house, and Miles sat across from Ekaterin, placing his flimsy on the table to await its strategic moment.

It half-unrolled, eagerly.

"Is your case all wound up?" she asked.

"That case will have ramifications for years to come, but I'm done with it for now," Miles replied. "I just turned in my last

reports yesterday, or I would have been here to welcome you earlier." Well, that and a vestigial sense that he'd ought to let the

poor woman at least get her bags unpacked, before descending in force.

"Will you be sent out on another assignment now?"

"I don't think Gregor will let me risk getting tied up elsewhere till after his marriage. For the next couple of months, I'm afraid

all my duties will be social ones."

"I'm sure you'll do them with your usual flair."

God, I hope not. "I don't think flair is exactly what my Aunt Vorpatril - she's in charge of all the Emperor's wedding

arrangements - would wish from me. More like, shut up and do what you're told, Miles. But speaking of paperwork, how's your

own? Is Tien's estate settled? Did you manage to recapture Nikki's guardianship from that cousin of his?"

"Vassily Vorsoisson? Yes, thank heavens, there was no problem with that part."

"So, ah, what's all this, then?" Miles nodded at the cluttered table.

"I'm planning my course work for the next session at university. I was too late to start this summer, so I'll begin in the fall.

There's so much to choose from. I feel so ignorant."

"Educated is what you aim to be coming out, not going in."

"I suppose so."

"And what will you choose?"

"Oh, I'll start with basics - biology, chemistry..." She brightened. "One real horticulture course." She gestured at her flimsies.

"For the rest of the season, I'm trying to find some sort of paying work. I'd like to feel I'm not totally dependent on the charity of

my relatives, even if it's only my pocket money."

That seemed almost the opening he was looking for, but Miles's eye caught sight of a red ceramic basin, sitting on the wooden

planks forming a seat bordering a raised garden bed. In the middle of the pot a red-brown blob, with a fuzzy fringe like a rooster's

crest growing out of it, pushed up through the dirt. If it was what he thought... He pointed to the basin. "Is that by chance your old

bonsai'd skellytum? Is it going to live?"

She smiled. "Well, at least it's the start of a new skellytum. Most of the fragments of the old one died on the way home from

Komarr, but that one took."

"You have a - for native Barrayaran plants, I don't suppose you can call it a green thumb, can you?"

"Not unless they're suffering from some pretty serious plant diseases, no."

"Speaking of gardens." Now, how to do this without jamming his foot in his mouth too deeply. "I don't think, in all the other

uproar, I ever had a chance to tell you how impressed I was with your garden designs that I saw on your comconsole."

"Oh." Her smile fled, and she shrugged. "They were no great thing. Just twiddling."

Right. Let them not bring up any more of the recent past than absolutely necessary, till time had a chance to blunt memory's

razor edges. "It was your Barrayaran garden, the one with all the native species, which caught my eye. I'd never seen anything like

it."

"There are a dozen of them around. Several of the District universities keep them, as living libraries for their biology students.

It's not really an original idea."

"Well," he persevered, feeling like a fish swimming upstream against this current of self-deprecation, " I thought it was very

fine, and deserved better than just being a ghost garden on the holovid. I have this spare lot, you see..."

He flattened out his flimsy, which was a ground plot of the block occupied by Vorkosigan House. He tapped his finger on the

bare square at the end. "There used to be another great house, next to ours, which was torn down during the Regency. ImpSec

wouldn't let us build anything else - they wanted it as a security zone. There's nothing there but some scraggly grass, and a couple

of trees that somehow survived ImpSec's enthusiasm for clear lines of fire. And a criss-cross of walks, where people made mud

paths by taking short cuts, and they finally gave up and put some gravel down. It's an extremely boring piece of ground." So

boring he had completely ignored it, till now.

She tilted her head, to follow his hand as it blocked out the space on the ground plan. Her own long finger made to trace a

delicate curve, but then shyly withdrew. He wondered what possibility her mind's eye had just seen, there.

"Now, I think," he went on valiantly, "that it would be a splendid thing to install a Barrayaran garden - all native species -

open to the public, in this space. A sort of gift from the Vorkosigan family to the city of Vorbarr Sultana. With running water, like

in your design, and walks and benches and all those civilized things. And those discreet little name tags on all the plants, so more

people could learn about the old ecology and all that." There: art, public service, education - was there any bait he'd left off his

hook? Oh yes, money. "It's a happy chance that you're looking for a summer job," chance, hah, watch and see if I leave anything

to chance, "because I think you'd be the ideal person to take this on. Design and oversee the installation of the thing. I could give

you an unlimited, um, generous budget, and a salary, of course. You could hire workmen, bring in whatever you needed."

And she would have to visit Vorkosigan House practically every day , and consult frequently with its resident lord. And by the

time the shock of her husband's death had worn away, and she was ready to put off her forbidding formal mourning garb, and

every unattached Vor bachelor in the capital showed up on her doorstep, Miles could have a lock on her affections that would

permit him to fend off the most glittering competition. It was too soon, wildly too soon, to suggest courtship to her crippled heart;

he had that clear in his head, even if his own heart howled in frustration. But a straightforward business friendship just might get

past her guard....

Her eyebrows had flown up; she touched an uncertain finger to those exquisite, pale unpainted lips. "This is exactly the sort of

thing I wish to train to do. I don't know how to do it yet ."

"On-the-job training," Miles responded instantly. "Apprenticeship. Learning by doing. You have to start sometime. You can't

start sooner than now."

"But what if I make some dreadful mistake?"

"I do intend this be an ongoing project. People who are enthusiasts about this sort of thing always seem to be changing their

gardens around. They get bored with the same view all the time, I guess. If you come up with better ideas later, you can always

revise the plan. It will provide variety."

"I don't want to waste your money."

If she ever became Lady Vorkosigan, she would have to get over that quirk, Miles decided firmly.

"You don't have to decide here on the spot," he purred, and cleared his throat. Watch that tone, boy. Business. "Why don't you

come to Vorkosigan House tomorrow, and walk over the site in person, and see what ideas it stirs up in your mind. You really

can't tell anything by looking at a flimsy. We can have lunch, afterward, and talk about what you see as the problems and

possibilities then. Logical?"

She blinked. "Yes, very." Her hand crept back curiously toward the flimsy.

"What time may I pick you up?"

"Whatever is convenient for you, Lord Vorkosigan. Oh, I take that back. If it's after twelve hundred, my aunt will be back

from her morning class, and Nikki can stay with her."

"Excellent!" Yes, much as he liked Ekaterin's son, Miles thought he could do without the assistance of an active nine-year-old

in this delicate dance. "Twelve hundred it will be. Consider it a deal." Only a little belatedly, he added, "And how does Nikki like

Vorbarr Sultana, so far?"

"He seems to like his room, and this house. I think he's going to get a little bored, if he has to wait until his school starts to

locate boys his own age."

It would not do to leave Nikolai Vorsoisson out of his calculations. "I gather then that the retro-genes took, and he's in no

more danger of developing the symptoms of Vorzohn's Dystrophy?"

A smile of deep maternal satisfaction softened her face. "That's right. I'm so pleased. The doctors in the clinic here in Vorbarr

Sultana report he had a very clean and complete cellular uptake. Developmentally, it should be just as if he'd never inherited the

mutation at all." She glanced across at him. "It's as if I'd had a five-hundred-kilo weight lifted from me. I could fly, I think."

So you should.

Nikki himself emerged from the house at this moment, carrying a plate of cookies with an air of consequence, followed by the

Professora with a tea tray and cups. Miles and Ekaterin hastened to clear a place on the table.

"Hello, Nikki," said Miles.

"Hi, Lord Vorkosigan. Is that your groundcar out front?"

"Yes."

"It's a barge." This observation was delivered without scorn, as a point of interest.

"I know. It's a relic of my father's time as Regent. It's armored, in fact - has a massive momentum."

"Oh yeah?" Nikki's interest soared. "Did it ever get shot at?"

"I don't believe that particular car ever did, no."

"Huh."

When Miles had last seen Nikki, the boy had been wooden-faced and pale with concentration, carrying the taper to light his

father's funeral offering, obviously anxious to get his part of the ceremony right. He looked much better now, his brown eyes

quick and his face mobile again. The Professora settled and poured tea, and the conversation became general for a time.

It became clear shortly that Nikki's interest was more in the food than in his mother's visitor; he declined a flatteringly

grownup offer of tea, and with his great-aunt's permission snagged several cookies and dodged back indoors to whatever he'd

been occupying himself with before. Miles tried to remember what age he'd been when his own parents' friends had stopped

seeming part of the furniture. Well, except for the military men in his father's train, of course, who'd always riveted his attention.

But then, Miles had been military-mad from the time he could walk. Nikki was jump-ship mad, and would probably light up for a

jump pilot. Perhaps Miles could provide one sometime, for Nikki's delectation. A happily married one, he corrected this thought.

He'd laid his bait on the table, Ekaterin had taken it; it was time to quit while he was winning. But he knew for a fact that she'd

already turned down one premature offer of remarriage from a completely unexpected quarter. Had any of Vorbarr Sultana's

excess Vor males found her yet? The capital was crawling with young officers, rising bureaucrats, aggressive entrepreneurs, men

of ambition and wealth and rank drawn to the empire's heart. But not, by a ratio of almost five to three, with their sisters. The

parents of the preceding generation had taken galactic sex-selection technologies much too far in their foolish passion for male

heirs, and the very sons they'd so cherished - Miles's contemporaries - had inherited the resulting mating mess. Go to any formal

party in Vorbarr Sultana these days, and you could practically taste the damned testosterone in the air, volatilized by the alcohol

no doubt.

"So, ah... have you had any other callers yet, Ekaterin?"

"I only arrived a week ago."

That was neither yes nor no. "I'd think you'd have the bachelors out in force in no time." Wait, he hadn't meant to point that

out...

"Surely," she gestured down her black dress, "this will keep them away. If they have any manners at all."

"Mm, I'm not so sure. The social scene is pretty intense just now."

She shook her head and smiled bleakly. "It makes no difference to me. I had a decade of... of marriage. I don't need to repeat

the experience. The other women are welcome to the bachelors; they can have my share, in fact." The conviction in her face was

backed by an uncharacteristic hint of steel in her voice. "That's one mistake I don't have to make twice. I'll never remarry."

Miles controlled his flinch, and managed a sympathetic, interested smile at this confidence. We're just friends. I'm not hustling

you, no, no. No need to fling up your defenses, milady, not for me.

He couldn't make this go faster by pushing harder; all he could do was screw it up worse. Forced to be satisfied with his one

day's progress, Miles finished his tea, exchanged a few more pleasantries with the two women, and took his leave.

Pym hurried to open the groundcar door as Miles skipped down the last three steps in one jump. He flung himself into the

passenger seat, and as Pym slipped back into the driver's side and closed the canopy, waved grandly. "Home, Pym."

Pym eased the groundcar into the street, and inquired mildly, "Go well, did it, m'lord?"

"Just exactly as I had planned. She's coming to Vorkosigan House tomorrow for lunch. As soon as we get home, I want you to

call that gardening service - get them to get a crew out tonight and give the grounds an extra going-over. And talk to - no, I'll talk

to Ma Kosti. Lunch must be... exquisite, yes. Ivan always says women like food. But not too heavy. Wine - does she drink wine in

the daytime, I wonder? I'll offer it, anyway. Something from the estate. And tea if she doesn't choose the wine, I know she drinks

tea. Scratch the wine. And get the house cleaning crew in, get all those covers off the first floor furniture - off all the furniture. I

want to give her a tour of the house while she still doesn't realize... No, wait. I wonder... if the place was a dreadful bachelor mess,

perhaps it would stir up her pity. Maybe instead I ought to clutter it up some more, used glasses strategically piled up, the odd

fruit peel under the sofa - a silent appeal, Help us! Move in and straighten this poor fellow out - or would that be more likely to

frighten her off? What do you think, Pym?"

Pym pursed his lips judiciously, as if considering whether it was within his Armsman's duties to spike his lord's taste for street

theater. He finally said in a cautious tone, "If I may presume to speak for the household, I think we should prefer to put our best

foot forward. Under the circumstances."

"Oh. All right."

Miles fell silent for a few moments, staring out the canopy as they threaded through the crowded city streets, out of the

University district and across a mazelike corner of the Old Town, angling back toward Vorkosigan House. When he spoke again,

the manic humor had drained from his voice, leaving it cooler and bleaker.

"We'll be picking her up tomorrow at twelve hundred. You'll drive. You will always drive, when Madame Vorsoisson or her

son are aboard. Figure it in to your duty schedule from now on."

"Yes, m'lord." Pym added a carefully laconic, "My pleasure."

The seizure disorder was the last souvenir that ImpSec Captain Miles Vorkosigan had brought home from his decade of

military missions. He'd been lucky to get out of the cryo-chamber alive and with his mind intact; Miles was fully aware that many

did not fare nearly so well. Lucky to be merely medically discharged from the Emperor's Service, not buried with honors, the last

of his glorious line, or reduced to some animal or vegetative existence. The seizure-stimulator the military doctors had issued him

to bleed off his convulsions was very far from being a cure, though it was supposed to keep them from happening at random

times. Miles drove, and flew his lightflyer - but only alone. He never took passengers anymore. Pym's batman's duties had been

expanded to include medical assistance; he had by now witnessed enough of Miles's disturbing seizures to be grateful for this

unusual burst of level-headedness.

One corner of Miles's mouth crooked up. After a moment, he asked, "And how did you ever capture Ma Pym, back in the old

days, Pym? Did you put your best foot forward?"

"It's been almost eighteen years ago. The details have gone a bit fuzzy." Pym smiled a little. "I was a senior sergeant at the

time. I'd taken the ImpSec advanced course, and was assigned to security duty at Vorhartung Castle. She had a clerk's job in the

archives there. I thought, I wasn't some boy anymore, it was time I got serious... though I'm not just sure that wasn't an idea she

put into my head, because she claims she spotted me first."

"Ah, a handsome fellow in uniform, I see. Does it every time. So why'd you decide to quit the Imperial Service and apply to

the Count-my-father?"

"Eh, it seemed the right progression. Our little daughter'd come along by then, I was just finishing my twenty-years hitch, and

I was facing whether or not to continue my enlistment. My wife's family was here, and her roots, and she didn't particularly fancy

following the flag with children in tow. Captain Illyan, who knew I was District-born, was kind enough to give me a tip, that your

father had a place open in his Armsmen's score. And a recommendation, when I nerved up to apply. I figured a Count's Armsman

would be a more settled job, for a family man."

The groundcar arrived at Vorkosigan House; the ImpSec corporal on duty opened the gates for them, and Pym pulled around

to the porte cochere and popped the canopy.

"Thank you, Pym," Miles said, and hesitated. "A word in your ear. Two words."

Pym made to look attentive.

"When you chance to socialize with the Armsmen of other Houses... I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't mention Madame

Vorsoisson. I wouldn't want her to be the subject of invasive gossip, and, um... she's no business of everyone and his younger

brother anyway, eh?"

"A loyal Armsman does not gossip, m'lord," said Pym stiffly.

"No, of course not. Sorry, I didn't mean to imply... um, sorry. Anyway. The other thing. I'm maybe guilty of saying a little too

much myself, you see. I'm not actually courting Madame Vorsoisson."

Pym tried to look properly blank, but a confused expression leaked into his face. Miles added hastily, "I mean, not formally .

Not yet . She's... she's had a difficult time, recently, and she's a touch... skittish. Any premature declaration on my part is likely to

be disastrous, I'm afraid. It's a timing problem. Discreet is the watchword, if you see what I mean?"

Pym attempted a discreet but supportive-looking smile.

"We're just good friends," Miles reiterated. "Anyway, we're going to be."

"Yes, m'lord. I understand."

"Ah. Good. Thank you." Miles climbed out of the groundcar, and added over his shoulder as he headed into the house, "Find

me in the kitchen when you've put the car away."

* * *

Ekaterin stood in the middle of the blank square of grass with gardens boiling up in her head.

"If you excavated there," she pointed, "and piled it up on that side, you'd gain enough slope for the water flow. A bit of a wall

there, too, to block off the street noise and to heighten the effect. And the walkway curving down - " She wheeled, to encounter

Lord Vorkosigan watching her, smiling, his hands stuffed in his gray trouser pockets. "Or would you prefer something more

geometrical?"

"Beg pardon?" He blinked.

"It's an aesthetic question."

"I, uh... aesthetics are not exactly my area of expertise." He said this in a tone of sad confession, as though it might be

something of which she was previously unaware.

Her hands sketched the bones of the projected piece, trying to call structure out of the air. "Do you want an illusion of a

natural space, Barrayar before it was touched by man, with the water seeming like rocks and a creek, a slice of backcountry in the

city - or something more in the nature of a metaphor, with the Barrayaran plants in the interstices of these strong human lines -

probably in concrete. You can do really wonderful things with water and concrete."

"Which is better?"

"It's not a question of better. It's a question of what you are trying to say."

"I hadn't thought of it as a political statement. I'd thought of it as a gift."

"If it's your garden, it will be seen as a political statement whether you intended it or not."

The corner of his lip quirked as he took this in. "I'll have to think about that. But there's no doubt in your mind something

could be done with the area?"

"Oh, none." The two Earth trees, seemingly stuck in the flat ground at random, would have to go. That silver maple was punky

in the heartwood and would be no loss, but the young oak was sound - perhaps it could be moved. The terraformed topsoil must

also be salvaged. Her hands twitched with the desire to start digging into the dirt then and there. "It's an extraordinary space to

find preserved in the middle of Vorbarr Sultana." Across the street, a commercial office building rose a dozen stories high.

Fortunately, it angled to the north and did not block out much light. The hiss and huff of groundcar fans made continuous

counterpoint along the busy thoroughfare crossing the top end of the block, where she'd mentally placed her wall. Across the park

on the opposite side, a high gray stone wall topped with iron spikes was already in place; treetops rising beyond it half-screened

from view the great house holding down the center of the block.

"I'd invite you to sit while I think about it," said Lord Vorkosigan, "but ImpSec never put in benches - they didn't want to

encourage loitering around the Regent's residence. Suppose you run up both contrasting designs on your comconsole, and bring

them to me for review. Meanwhile, shall we walk round to the house? I think my cook will have lunch ready soon."

"Oh... all right..." With only one backward glance at the entrancing possibilities, Ekaterin let him lead her away.

Lois McMaster Bujold - 11 A Civil Campaign.pdf

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