Miles, Mutants and Microbes - Lois McMaster Bujold [164]
The Emperor continued, "In matters rather closer to Barrayar, something has stirred up the Cetagandans around Rho Ceta. No need to go into the peculiar details here, but I would appreciate it if you would settle this impoundment crisis as swiftly and efficiently as you can. If the Rho Cetan business becomes any more peculiar, I'll want you safely home. The communications lag between Barrayar and Sector V is going to be too long for me to breathe over your shoulder, but some occasional status or progress reports from you would be a nice touch, if you don't mind." Gregor's voice did not change to convey irony. It didn't need to. Miles snorted. "Good luck," Gregor concluded. The image on the viewer returned to a mute display of the Imperial Seal. Miles reached forward and keyed it off. The detailed reports, he could study once he was en route.
He? Or we?
He glanced up at Ekaterin's pale profile; she turned her serious blue eyes toward him. He asked, "Do you want to go with me, or continue on home?"
"Can I go with you?" she asked doubtfully.
"Of course you can! The only question is, would you like to?"
Her dark brows rose. "Not the only question, surely. Do you think I'd be of any use, or would I just be a distraction from your work?"
"There's official use, and there's unofficial use. Don't bet that the first is more important than the second. You know the way people talk to you to try to get oblique messages to me?"
"Oh, yes." Her lips twisted in distaste.
"Well, yes, I realize it's tedious, but you're very good at sorting them out, you know. Not to mention the information to be obtained just from studying the kinds of lies people tell. And, ah—not-lies. There may well be people who will talk to you who won't talk to me, for one reason or another."
She conceded the truth of this with a little wave of her free hand.
"And . . . it would be a real relief for me to have someone along I can talk to freely."
Her smile tilted a little at this. "Talk, or vent?"
"I—hem!—suspect this one is going to entail quite a lot of venting, yes. D'you think you can stand it? It could get pretty thick. Not to mention boring."
"You know, you keep claiming your job is boring, Miles, but your eyes have gone all bright."
He cleared his throat and shrugged unrepentantly.
Her amusement faded, and her brows drew down. "How long do you think this sorting out will take?"
He considered the calculation she had doubtless just made. It would be six more weeks, give or take a few days, to the scheduled births. Their original travel plan would have put them back at Vorkosigan House a comfortable month early. Sector V was in the opposite direction from their present location to Barrayar, insofar as the network of jump points people navigated to get from here to there could be said to have a direction. Several days to get from here to Graf Station, plus an extra two weeks of travel at least to get home from there, even in the fastest of fast couriers. "If I can settle things in less than two weeks, we can both get home on time."
She breathed a short laugh. "For all that I try to be all modern and galactic, that feels so strange. All sorts of men don't make it home for the births of their children. But My mother was out of town on the day I was born, so she missed it, just seems . . . seems like a more profound complaint, somehow."
"If it runs over, I suppose I could send you home on your own, with a suitable escort. But I want to be there, too." He hesitated. It's my first time, dammit, of course it's making me crazy, was a statement of the obvious that he managed to stop on his lips. Her first marriage had left her riddled with sensitive scars, none of them physical, and this topic trod near several of them. Rephrase, O Diplomat. "Does it . . . make it any easier, that it's the second time, for you?"
Her expression grew introspective. "Nikki was a body birth; of course everything was harder. The replicators take