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.This Regency business wasn't going to go away, however much she might wish it to; it was time and past time for her to start making connections of her own, and quit pestering Aral for guidance at every new step."Are you enjoying the party?" he inquired."Oh, yes." She tried to think of something more to say."It's extremely beautiful.""As are you, Milady." He raised his glass to her in a gesture of toast, and sipped.Her heart lurched, but she identified the reason why before her eyes did more than widen slightly.The last Barrayaran officer to toast her had been the late Admiral Vorrutyer, under rather different social circumstances.Vordarian had accidently mimicked his precise gesture.This was no time for torture-flashbacks.Cordelia blinked."Lady Vorpatril helped me a lot.She's very generous."Vordarian nodded delicately toward her torso."I understand you also are to be congratulated.Is it a boy or a girl?""Uh? Oh.Yes, a boy, thank you.He's to be named Piotr Miles, I'm told.""I'm surprised.I should have thought the Lord Regent would have sought a daughter first."Cordelia cocked her head, puzzled by his ironic tone."We started this before Aral became Regent.""But you knew he was to receive the appointment, surely.""I didn't.But I thought all you Barrayaran militarists were mad after sons.Why did you think a daughter?" I want a daughter."I assumed Lord Vorkosigan would be thinking ahead to his long-term, ah, employment, of course.What better way to maintain the continuity of his power after the Regency is over than to slip neatly into position as the Emperors father-in-law?"Cordelia boggled."You think he'd bet the continuity of a planetary government on the chance of a couple of teenagers falling in love, a decade and a half from now?""Love?" Now he looked baffled."You Barrayarans are—" she bit her tongue on the crazy.Impolite."Aral is certainly more.practical." Though she could hardly call him unromantic."That's extremely interesting," he breathed.His eyes flicked to and away from her abdomen."Do you fancy he contemplates something more direct?"Her mind was running tangential to this twisting conversation, somehow."Beg pardon?"He smiled and shrugged.Cordelia frowned."Do you mean to say, if we were having a girl, that's what everyone would be thinking?""Certainly."She blew out her breath."God.That's.I can't imagine anyone in their right mind wanting to get near the Barrayaran Imperium.It just makes you a target for every maniac with a grievance, as far as I can see." An image of Lieutenant Koudelka, bloody-faced and deafened, flashed in her mind."Also hard on the poor fellow who's unlucky enough to be standing next to you."His attention sharpened."Ah, yes, that unfortunate incident the other day.Has anything come of the investigation, do you know?""Nothing that I've heard.Negri and Illyan are talking Cetagandans, mostly.But the guy who launched the grenade got away clean.""Too bad." He drained his glass, and exchanged it for a freshly charged one presented immediately by a passing Vorbarra-liveried servant.Cordelia eyed the wineglasses wistfully.But she was off metabolic poisons for the duration.Yet another advantage of Betan-style gestation in uterine replicators, none of this blasted enforced clean living.At home she could have poisoned and endangered herself freely, while her child grew, fully monitored round-the-clock by sober techs, safe and protected in the replicator banks.Suppose she had been under that sonic grenade.She longed for a drink.Well, she did not need the mind-numbing buzz of ethanol; conversation with Barrayarans was mind-numbing enough.Her eyes sought Aral in the crowd—there he was, Kou at his shoulder, talking with Piotr and two other grizzled old men in counts' liveries.As Aral had predicted, his hearing had returned to normal within a couple of days.Yet still his eyes shifted from face to face, drinking in cues of gesture and inflection, his glass a mere untasted ornament in his hand.On duty, no question.Was he ever off-duty, anymore?"Was he much disturbed by the attack?" Vordarian inquired, following her gaze to Aral."Wouldn't you be?" said Cordelia."I don't know.he's seen so much violence in his life, almost more than I can imagine.It may be almost like.white noise.Tuned out." I wish I could tune it out."You have not known him that long, though.Just since Escobar.""We met once before the war.Briefly.""Oh?" His brows rose."I didn't know that.How little one truly knows of people." He paused, watching Aral, watching her watch Aral.One corner of his mouth crooked up, then the quirk vanished in a thoughtful pursing of his lips."He's bisexual, you know." He took a delicate sip of his wine."Was bisexual," she corrected absently, looking fondly across the room."Now he's monogamous."Vordarian choked, sputtering.Cordelia watched him with concern, wondering if she ought to pat him on the back or something, but he regained his breath and balance."He told you that?" he wheezed in astonishment."No, Vorrutyer did.Just before he met his, um, fatal accident." Vordarian was standing frozen; she felt a certain malicious glee at having at last baffled a Barrayaran as much as they sometimes baffled her.Now, if she could just figure out what she'd said that had thrown him.She went on seriously, "The more I look back on Vorrutyer, the more he seems a tragic figure.Still obsessed with a love affair that was over eighteen years ago.Yet I sometimes wonder, if he could have had what he wanted then—kept Aral—if Aral might have kept that sadistic streak that ultimately consumed Vorrutyer's sanity under control.It's as if the two of them were on some land of weird see-saw, each one's survival entailing the other's destruction.""A Betan [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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