Cryoburn - Lois McMaster Bujold [142]
Mark nodded. "It's a deal. If we come. Could be interesting. Or hair-raising."
"Or both. I sometimes wonder how different things would be if he'd lived. Our father would never have become the count, for one. Maybe not even Lord Vorkosigan, if his brother had managed to pop an heir before our grandfather died. He'd have spent his life as Lord Aral."
"I'll bet he'd still have had a military career, though," said Mark judiciously.
"Perhaps. Or perhaps, with the responsibility for our House taken up by someone else, he'd have felt freer to rebel. Do something else, be someone else."
"Huh," said Mark.
Miles fingered the holocube in his pocket. There was no point in pulling it out and showing it to Mark again, as he'd already done so. Twice. "You and Kareen planning kids yet? Not to mention marriage," Miles added in an afterthought. The couple's informal partnership, which would have been unremarkable on Beta Colony, had been a difficult pill for Kareen's very Barrayaran parents to swallow, but after several years the senior Koudelkas seemed pretty reconciled. And Kareen had three older married sisters, all of whom had sprung at least one sprog, so there wasn't the family pressure on her that there had been on, say, Miles.
"Children frighten me," Mark confessed. "You had your Da as a role model, but all I ever had growing up was an insane Komarran terrorist who spent all his time trying to train me to be you."
"Da spent a good bit of time trying to train me to be me, too," said Miles, "but it wasn't at all the same thing."
Mark snorted. "Indeed."
We can laugh about this now, sort of, Miles thought, pleased and bemused. What a journey that's been. "You'd have Kareen for a co-parent," Miles offered. "She's one of the sanest people I know."
"There is that," Mark admitted. "So what's your greatest terror, now you're a Da yourself?"
"What if . . ." Miles pulled at his hair, looking up cross-eyed to see if he could spot any of the sneaky gray ones, but this cut was still too short. "What if my children find out I'm not really a grownup? How dreadfully disappointed would they be?"
This time, Mark laughed out loud. It was a very good sound, Miles thought, and he grinned back ruefully at his brother.
"I think your wife already knows," said Mark.
"I'm afraid so." Miles rubbed his lips. "Heh. D'you think Vorlynkin and Madame Sato will make a match of it?"
"Good God, how would I know?"
"I thought he had that look in his eye. Not as sure about her . . ." Which gave Miles a rather comradely feeling toward Vorlynkin, now he considered it. He wished the man luck.
Roic stiffened, peering down into the concourse.
"What?" said Miles.
"There's Colonel Vorventa," Roic answered. "Wonder what he wants?"
Miles leaned toward the railing and craned to see. The Barrayaran officer was, among other duties, senior ImpSec liaison from the local Barrayaran embassy on this main transfer station; Miles had dealt with him before, though more often with his predecessors. The colonel looked up, saw Roic, then Miles, waved in a wait-right-there sort of fashion, and made for the lift tubes at the end of the concourse. "Us, I'll bet. Or me." ImpSec would have known when their ship was coming in, of course.
"You, I hope," said Mark. "I've had a few conversations with him. I don't think he trusts me."
"He's actually pretty cosmopolitan, for a Barrayaran," said Miles. "One of Da's New Men. Blast, I hope he's not bringing me more work."
It was a compelling and unwelcome notion. If some fresh forest fire involving Barrayar's interests had sprung up somewhere on this end of the Nexus, well, here was one of Gregor's most notable firemen already halfway there. Miles's lips twisted. No, I've just been! I want to go home now!
"That's funny," said Roic, in slow speculation. "I don't think I've ever seen him wearing his dress greens before."
Miles hadn't either. "That's true. He always wears local civvies, and tries to blend in."
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