Miles in Love - Lois McMaster Bujold [332]
"As it happens, no one is accusing you of negligence."
Miles's mouth twisted bitterly. "They flatter me, Duv. They flatter me."
"I can't help you with that one," said Galeni. "I have enough unquiet ghosts of my own."
"Check." Miles sighed.
Galeni regarded him for a long moment, then said abruptly, "About your clone."
"Brother."
"Yes, him. Do you know . . . do you understand . . . what the devil does he intend, with respect to Kareen Koudelka?"
"Is this ImpSec asking, or Duv Galeni?"
"Duv Galeni." Galeni paused for a rather longer time. "After the . . . ambiguous favor he did me when we first encountered each other on Earth, I was content to see him survive and escape. I wasn't even too shocked when I learned he'd popped up here, nor—now I've met your mother—that your family took him in. I'd even reconciled myself to the likelihood that we would meet, from time to time." His level voice cracked a trifle. "I wasn't expecting him to mutate into my brother-in-law!"
Miles sat back, his brows rising in partial sympathy. He refrained from doing anything so rude as, say, cackling. "I would point out, that in an exceedingly weird sense, you are related already. He's your foster brother. Your father had him made; by some interpretations of the galactic laws on clones, that makes him Mark's father too."
"This concept makes my head spin. Painfully." He stared at Miles in sudden consternation. "Mark doesn't think of himself as my foster brother, does he?"
"I have not so far directed his attention to that legal wrinkle. But think, Duv, how much easier it will be if you only have to explain him as your brother-in-law. I mean, lots of people have embarrassing in-laws; it's one of life's lotteries. You'll have all their sympathy."
Galeni gave him a look of Very Limited Amusement.
"He'll be Uncle Mark," Miles pointed out with a slow, unholy smile. "You'll be Uncle Duv. I suppose, by some loose extension, I'll be Uncle Miles. And here I never thought I'd be anybody's uncle—an only child and all that."
Come to think of it . . . if Ekaterin ever accepted him, Miles would become an instant uncle, acquiring three brothers-in-law simultaneously, all with attached wives, and a pack of nieces and nephews already in place. Not to mention the father-in-law and the stepmother-in-law. He wondered if any of them would be embarrassing. Or—a new and unnerving thought—if he was going to be the appalling brother-in-law . . .
"Do you think they'll marry?" asked Galeni seriously.
"I . . . am not certain what cultural format their bonding will ultimately take. I am certain you could not pry Mark away from Kareen with a crowbar. And while Kareen has good reasons to take it slowly, I don't think any of the Koudelkas know how to betray a trust."
That won a little eyebrow-flick from Galeni, and the slight mellowing that any reminder of Delia invariably produced in him.
"I'm afraid you're going to have to resign yourself to Mark as a permanent fixture," Miles concluded.
"Eh," said Galeni. It was hard to tell if this sound represented resignation, or stomach cramp. In any case, he climbed to his feet and took his leave.
* * *
Mark, entering the black-and-white tiled entry foyer from the back hallway to the lift tubes, encountered his mother descending the front staircase.
"Oh, Mark," Countess Vorkosigan said, in a just-the-man-I-want-to-see voice. Obediently, he paused and waited for her. She eyed his neat attire, his favorite black suit modified by what he trusted was an unthreatening dark green shirt. "Are you on your way out?"
"Shortly. I was just about to hunt up Pym and ask him to assign me an Armsman-driver. I have an interview set up with a friend of Lord Vorsmythe's, a food service fellow who's promised to explain Barrayar's distribution system to me. He may be a future customer—I thought it might look well to arrive in the groundcar, all Vorkosiganly."
"Very likely."
Her further comment was interrupted by two half-grown boys rounding the corner: Pym's son Arthur, carrying a smelly fiber-tipped stick, and Jankowski's boy Denys, lugging