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"Fatigue, before nausea. But it was the little blue dots . . ." Her voice faltered, as she studied the girl's twisted-up features. "Drou, are all these questions academic, or do you have some more personal interest in the answers?"

Her face almost crumpled. "Personal," she choked out.

"Oh." Cordelia sat back. "D'you . . . want to talk about it?"

"No . . . I don't know. . . ."

"I presume that means yes," Cordelia sighed. Ah, yes. Just like playing Mama Captain to sixty Betan scientists back on Survey, though queries about pregnancy were perhaps the one interpersonal trouble they'd never laid in her lap. But given the Really Dumb Stuff that rational and select group had sprung on her from time to time, the feral Barrayaran version ought to be just . . . "You know I'll be glad to help you any way I can."

"It was the night of the soltoxin attack," she sniffled. "I couldn't sleep. I went down to the refectory kitchen to get something to eat. On the way back upstairs I noticed a light on in the library. Lieutenant Koudelka was in there. He couldn't sleep either."

Kou, eh? Oh, good, good. This might be all right after all. Cordelia smiled in genuine encouragement. "Yes?"

"We . . . I . . . he . . . kissed me."

"I trust you kissed him back?"

"You sound like you approve."

"I do. You are two of my favorite people, you and Kou. If only you'd get your heads straight . . . but go on, there has to be more." Unless Drou was more ignorant than Cordelia believed possible.

"We . . . we . . . we . . ."

"Screwed?" Cordelia suggested hopefully.

"Yes, Milady." Drou turned scarlet, and swallowed. "Kou seemed so happy . . . for a few minutes. I was so happy for him, so excited, I didn't care how much it hurt."

Ah, yes, the barbaric Barrayaran custom of introducing their women to sex with the pain of unanesthesized defloration. Though considering how much pain their reproductive methods later entailed, perhaps it constituted fair warning. But Kou, in the glimpses she'd had of him, hadn't seemed as happy as a new lover ought to be either. What were these two doing to each other? "Go on."

"I thought I saw a movement in the back garden, out the door from the library. Then came the crash upstairs—oh, Milady! I'm so sorry! If I'd been guarding you, instead of doing that—"

"Whoa, girl! You were off-duty. If you hadn't been doing that, you'd have been in bed asleep. No way is the soltoxin attack your fault, yours or Kou's. In fact, if you hadn't been up and, and more or less dressed, the would-be assassin might have gotten away." And we wouldn't be anticipating yet another public beheading, or whatever, God help us. One part of Cordelia wished they'd gone for seconds, and never looked out the damned window. But Droushnakovi had enough consequences to deal with right now without those mortal complications.

"But if only—"

"If onlys have been thick in the air around here, these last weeks. I think it's time to replace them with some Now-we-go-ons, frankly." Cordelia's mind caught up with herself at last. Drou was Barrayaran; Drou therefore didn't have a contraceptive implant. It didn't sound like that idiot Kou had offered an alternative, either. Drou had therefore spent the last three weeks wondering . . . "Would you like to try one of my little blue dots? I have lots left."

"Blue dots?"

"Yes, I started to tell you. I have a packet of these little diagnostic strips. Bought them in Vorbarr Sultana last summer at an import shop. You pee on one, and if the dot turns blue, you're in. I only used up three, last summer." Cordelia went to her dresser drawer, and rooted through it for the obsolete supplies. "Here." She handed one to Drou. "Go relieve yourself. And your mind."

"Do they work so soon?"

"After five days." Cordelia held up her hand. "Promise."

Staring worriedly at the little strip of paper, Droushnakovi vanished into Cordelia and Aral's bathroom, off the bedroom. She emerged in a few minutes. Her face was glum, her shoulders slumped.

What does this mean? Cordelia wondered in exasperation. "Well?"

"It stayed white."

"Then you