Miles, Mystery & Mayhem - Lois McMaster Bujold [32]
Miles grimaced back in non-appreciation of the height-humor, and drifted off again. Some people just didn't want to be saved. He decided instead to try to talk with some of Yenaro's male friends, several of whom were clustered at the opposite end of the room.
It wasn't hard to get them to talk about themselves. It seemed that was all they had to talk about. Forty minutes of valiant effort in the art of conversation convinced Miles that most of Yenaro's friends had the minds of fleas. The only expertise they displayed was in witty commentary upon the personal lives of their equally idle compatriots: their clothes, various love affairs and the mismanagement thereof, sports—all spectator, none participatory, and mainly of interest due to wagers on the outcome—and the assorted latest commercial feelie dreams and other offerings, including erotic ones. This retreat from reality seemed to absorb by far the bulk of the ghem-lordlings' time and attention. Not one of them offered a word about anything of political or military interest. Hell, Ivan had more mental clout.
It was all a bit depressing. Yenaro's friends were excluded men, wasted wastrels. No one was excited about a career or service—they had none. Even the arts received only a ripple of interest. They were strictly feelie dream consumers, not producers. All in all, it was probably a good thing these youths had no political interests. They were just the sort of people who started revolutions but could not finish them, their idealism betrayed by their incompetence. Miles had met similar young men among the Vor, third or fourth sons who for whatever reason had not gained entry to a traditional military career, living as pensioners upon their families, but even they could look forward to some change in their status by mid-life. Given the average ghem life span, any chance of ascent up the social ladder by inheritance was still some eighty or ninety years off for most of Yenaro's set. They weren't inherently stupid—their genetics did not permit it—but their minds were damped down to some artificial horizon. Beneath the air of hectic sophistication, their lives were frozen in place. Miles almost shivered.
Miles decided to try out the women, if Ivan had left any for him. He excused himself from the group to pursue a drink—he might have left without explanation just as easily, for all anyone seemed to care about Lord Yenaro's most unusual, and shortest, guest. Miles helped himself at a bowl from which everyone else seemed to be ladling their drinks, and touched the cup to his lips, but did not swallow. He looked up to find himself under the gaze of a slightly older woman who had come late to the party with a couple of friends, and who had been lingering quietly on the fringes of the gathering. She smiled at him.
Miles smiled back and slid around the table to her side, composing a suitable opening line. She took the initiative from him.
"Lord Vorkosigan. Would you care to take a walk in the garden with me?"
"Why . . . certainly. Is Lord Yenaro's garden a sight to see?" In the dark?
"I think it will interest you." The smile dropped from her face as if wiped away with a cloth the moment she turned her back to the room, to be replaced with a look of grim determination. Miles fingered the com link in his trouser pocket, and followed in the perfumed wake of her robes. Once out of sight of the room's glass doors among the neglected shrubbery, her step quickened. She said nothing more. Miles limped after her. He was unsurprised when they came to a red-enameled, square-linteled gate and found a person waiting, a slight, androgynous shape with a dark hooded robe protecting its bald head from the night's gathering dew.
"The ba will escort you the rest of the way," said the woman.
"The rest of the way where?"
"A short walk." The ba