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We are going to have a race, Madame Vorsoisson. Do you wish to run with your right leg chopped off, or your left leg chopped off?

I want to run on both legs.

Aunt Vorthys had run on both legs, reasonably serenely—Ekaterin had lived in her household, and didn't think she overidealized her aunt—but then, she'd been married to Uncle Vorthys. One's career might depend solely on one's own efforts, but marriage was a lottery, and you drew your lot in late adolescence or early adulthood at a point of maximum idiocy and confusion. Perhaps it was just as well. If people were too sensible, the human race might well come to and end. Evolution favored the maximum production of children, not of happiness.

So how did you end up with neither?

She snorted self-derision, then sat up as the doors slid open and people began trickling through. Most of the tide had passed when Ekaterin spotted the short woman with the wobbly step, assisted by a shipping line porter who saw her through the doors and handed her the leash of the float pallet holding her luggage. Ekaterin rose, smiling, and started forward. Her aunt looked thoroughly frazzled, her long gray hair escaping its windings atop her head to drift about her face, which had lost its usual attractive pink glow in favor of a greenish-gray tinge. Her blue bolero and calf-length skirt looked rumpled, and the matching embroidered travel boots were perched precariously atop the pile of luggage, replaced on her feet with what were obviously bedroom slippers.

Aunt Vorthys fell into Ekaterin's hug. "Oh! So good to see you."

Ekaterin held her out, to search her face. "Was the trip very bad?"

"Five jumps," said Aunt Vorthys hollowly. "And it was such a fast ship, there wasn't as much time to recover between. Be glad you're one of the lucky ones."

"I get a touch of nausea," Ekaterin consoled her, on the theory that misery might appreciate company. "It passes off in about half an hour. Nikki is the lucky one—it doesn't seem to affect him at all." Tien had concealed his symptoms in grouchiness. Afraid of showing something he construed as weakness? Should she have tried to . . . It doesn't matter now. Let it go. "I have a nice quiet hostel room waiting for you to lie down in. We can get tea there."

"Oh, lovely, dear."

"Here, why is your luggage riding and you walking?" Ekaterin rearranged the two bags on the float pallet and flipped up the little seat. "Sit down, and I'll tow you."

"If it's not too dizzy a ride. The jumps made my feet swell, of all things."

Ekaterin helped her aboard, made sure she felt secure, and started off at a slow walk. "I apologize for Uncle Vorthys dragging you all the way out here for me. I'm only planning to stay a few more weeks, you see."

"I'd meant to come anyway, if his case went on much longer. It doesn't seem to be going as quickly as he expected."

"No, well . . . no. I'll tell you all the horrible details when we get in." A public concourse was not the venue for discussing it all.

"Quite, dear. You look well, if rather Komarran."

Ekaterin glanced down at her dun vest and beige trousers. "I've found Komarran dress to be comfortable, not the least because it lets me blend in."

"Someday, I'd love to see you dress to stand out."

"Not today, though."

"No, probably not. Do you plan on traditional mourning garb, when you get home?

"Yes, I think it would be a very good idea. It might save . . . save dealing with a lot of things I don't want to deal with just now."

"I understand." Despite her jump sickness, Aunt Vorthys stared around with interest at the passing station, and began updating Ekaterin on the lives of her Vorthys cousins.

Her aunt had grandchildren, Ekaterin thought, yet still seemed late-middle-aged rather than old. In the Time of Isolation, a Barrayaran woman would have been old at forty-five, waiting for death—if she made it even that far. In the last century, women's life expectancies had doubled, and might even be headed toward the triple-portion taken for granted by