Miles Errant - Lois McMaster Bujold [295]
"Lord Mark," she said, after a sip of wine, "you're almost a galactic. If you were married, and going to have children, would you want your wife to use a uterine replicator, or not?"
"Why would any couple not choose to use a replicator?" he asked, his head spinning with this sudden new tack in conversation.
"To, like, prove her love for him."
"Good God, how barbaric! Of course not. I'd think it would prove just the opposite, that he didn't love her." He paused. "That was a strictly theoretical question, wasn't it?"
"Sort of."
"I mean, you don't know anyone who's seriously having this debate—not your sisters or anything?" he asked in worry. Not you, surely? Some barbarian needed his head stuck in a bucket of ice water, if so. And held under for a good long time, like till he stopped wriggling.
"Oh, none of my sisters are married yet. Though it's not for lack of offers. But Mama and Da are holding out. It's a strategy," she confided.
"Oh?"
"Lady Cordelia encouraged them, after the second of us girls came along. There was a period soon after she immigrated here, when galactic medicine was really spreading out, and there was this pill you could take to choose the sex of your child. Everyone went crazy for boys, for a while. The ratio's evened up again lately. But my sisters and I are right in the middle of the girl-drought. Any man who won't agree in the marriage contract to let his wife use a uterine replicator is having a real hard time getting married, right now. The go-betweens won't even bother dealing for him." She giggled. "Lady Cordelia's told Mama if she plays the game well, every one of her grandchildren could be born with a Vor in front of their names."
"I see." Mark blinked. "Is that an ambition of your parents?"
"Not necessarily." Kareen shrugged. "But all else being equal, that prefix does give a fellow an edge."
"That's . . . good to know. I guess." He considered his wine, and did not drink.
Ivan came out of one of the ballroom doors, saw them both, and gave them a friendly wave, but kept on going. He had not a glass but an entire bottle swinging from his hand, and he cast a slightly hunted look back over his shoulder before disappearing down the walkway. Glancing over the balustrade a few minutes later, Mark saw the top of his head pass by on a descending path.
Mark took a gulp of his drink then. "Kareen . . . am I possible?"
"Possible for what?" She tilted her head and smiled.
"For—for women. I mean, look at me. Square on. I really do look like a toad. All twisted up, and if I don't do something about it soon, I'm going to end up as wide as I am . . . short. And on top of it all, I'm a clone." Not to mention the little breathing problem. Summed up that way, hurling himself head-first over the balustrade seemed a completely logical act. It would save so much pain in the long run.
"Well, that's all true," she allowed judiciously.
Dammit, woman, you're supposed to deny it all, to be polite.
"But you're Miles's clone. You have to have his intelligence, too."
"Do brains make up for all the rest? In the female view?"
"Not to every woman, I suppose. Just to the smart ones."
"You're smart."
"Yes, but it would be rude of me to say so." She raked her curls and grinned.
How the hell was he to construe that? "Maybe I don't have Miles's brains," he said gloomily. "Maybe the Jacksonian body-sculptors stupified me, when they were doing all the rest, to keep me under control. That would explain a lot about my life." Now there was a morbid new thought to wallow in.