Mark had never thought of Miles as seriously crazed; he’d only thought of him as perfect. This was all highly unsettling.

“The Dendarii truly function as a covert operations arm of ImpSec,” said the Count, looking a bit unsettled himself. “Spectacularly well, occasion.”

“Of course they do. You wouldn’t let Miles keep them if they didn’t, so he makes sure of it. I merely point out that their official function is not their only function. And—if Miles ever ceases to need them, it won’t be a year before ImpSec finds reason to cut that tie. And you’ll earnestly believe you are acting perfectly logically.”

Why weren’t they blaming him … ? He mustered the courage to say it aloud. “Why aren’t you blaming me for killing Miles?”

With a glance, the Countess fielded the question to her husband, ne nodded and answered. For them both? “Illyan’s report stated Miles was shot by a Bharaputran security trooper.”

“But he wouldn’t have been in the line of fire if I hadn’t—”

Count Vorkosigan held up an interrupting hand. “If he hadn’t foolishly chosen to be. Don’t attempt to camouflage your real blame by taking more than your share. I’ve made too many lethal errors myself be fooled by that one.” He glanced at his boots. “We have also considered the long view. While your personality and persona are nearly distinct from Miles’s, any children you sire would be genetically indistinguishable. Not you, but your son, may be what Barrayar needs.”

“Only to continue the Vor system,” Countess Vorkosigan put in lightly. “A dubious goal, love. Or are you picturing yourself as a grandfatherly mentor to Mark’s theoretical children, as your father was to Miles?”

“God forbid,” muttered the Count fervently.

“Beware your own conditioning.” She turned to Mark. “The trouble . .” she looked away, looked back, “if we fail to recover Miles, at you will be facing is not just a relationship. It’s a job. At a minimum, you’d be responsible for the welfare of a couple of million people in your District; you would be their Voice in the Council of Counts. It’s a job Miles was trained for literally from birth; I’m not sure it’s possible to send in a last-minute substitute.”

Surely not, oh, surely not.

“I don’t know,” said the Count thoughtfully. “I was such a substitute. Until I was eleven years old I was the spare, not the heir. I admit, after my older brother was murdered, the rush of events made the shift in destinies easy for me. We were all so intent on revenge, in Mad Yuri’s War. By the time I looked up and drew breath again, I’d fully assimilated the fact I would be Count someday. Though I scarcely imagined that someday would be another fifty years. It’s possible you too, Mark, could have many years to study and train. But it’s also possible my Countship could land in your lap tomorrow.”

The man was seventy-two standard years old, middle-aged for a galactic, old for harsh Barrayar. Count Aral had used himself hard; had he used himself nearly up? His father Count Piotr had lived twenty years more than that, a whole other lifetime. “Would Barrayar even accept a clone as your heir?” he asked doubtfully.

“Well, it’s past time to start developing laws one way or the other. Yours would be a major test case. With enough concentrated will, I could probably ram it down their throats—”

Mark didn’t doubt that.

“But starting a legal war is premature, till things sort themselves out with the missing cryo-chamber. For now, the public story is that Miles is away on duty, and you are visiting for the first time. All true enough. I need scarcely emphasize that the details are classified.”

Mark shook his head and nodded in agreement, feeling dizzy. “But—is this necessary? Suppose I’d never been created, and Miles was killed in the line of duty somewhere. Ivan Vorpatril would be your heir.”

“Yes,” said the Count, “and House Vorkosigan would come to an end, after eleven generations of direct descent.”

“What’s the problem with that?”

“The problem is that it is not the case. You do exist. The problem is … that I have always wanted Cordelia’s son to be my heir. Note, we’re discussing rather a lot of property, by ordinary standards.”

“I thought most of your ancestral lands glowed in the dark, after the destruction of Vorkosigan Vashnoi.”

The Count shrugged. “Some remain. This residence, for example. But my estate is not just property; as Cordelia puts it, it comes with a full-time job. If we allow your claim upon it, you must allow its claim upon you.”

“You can keep it all,” said Mark sincerely. “I’ll sign anything.”

The Count winced.

“Consider it orientation, Mark,” said the Countess. “Some of the people you may encounter will be thinking much about these questions. You simply need to be aware of the unspoken agendas.”

The Count acquired an abstracted look; he let out his breath in a long trickle. When he looked up again his face was frighteningly serious. “That’s true. And there’s one agenda that is not only unspoken, unspeakable. You must be warned.”

So unspeakable Count Vorkosigan was having trouble spitting it out self, apparently. “What now?” asked Mark warily.

“There is a … false theory of descent, one of six possible lines, puts me next in line to inherit the Barrayaran Imperium, should Emperor Gregor die without issue.”

“Cripes,” said Mark impatiently, “of course I knew. Galen’s plot turned exploiting that legal argument. You, then Miles, then Ivan.”

“Well now it’s me, then Miles, then you, then Ivan. And Miles technically—dead at the moment. That leaves only me between and being targeted. Not as an imitation Miles, but in your own right.”

“That’s rubbish” exploded Mark. “That’s even crazier than the idea of my becoming Count Vorkosigan!”

“Hold that thought,” advised the Countess. “Hold it hard, and never even hint that you could think otherwise.”

I am fallen among madmen.

“If anyone approaches you with a conversation on the subject, report it to me, Cordelia, or Simon Illyan as soon as possible,” the Count added.

Mark had retreated as far back into his chair as he could go. “All right …”

“You’re scaring him, dear,” the Countess remarked.

“On that topic, paranoia is the key to good health,” said the Count carefully. He watched Mark silently for a moment. “You look tired. I’ll show you to your room. You can wash up and rest a bit.”

They all rose. Mark followed them out to the paved hallway. The Countess nodded to an archway leading straight back under the arched stairway. “I’m going to take the lift tube up and see Elena.”

“Right,” the Count agreed. Mark perforce followed him up the steps. Two flights let him know how out of shape he was. By the time they reached the second landing he was breathing as heavily as old man. The Count turned down a third floor hallway.

Mark asked in some dread, “You’re not putting me in Miles’s room, are you?”

“No. Though the one you’re getting was mine, once, when I was a child.” Before the death of his older brother, presumably. The second son’s room. That was almost as unnerving.

“It’s just a guest room, now.” The Count swung open another blank wooden door on hinges. Beyond it lay a sunny chamber. Obviously hand-made wooden furniture of uncertain age and enormous value included a bed and chests; a domestic console to control lighting and the mechanized windows sat incongruously beside the carved headboard.

Mark glanced back, and collided with the Count’s deeply questioning stare. It was a thousand times worse than even the Dendarii’s I-love-Naismith look. He clenched his hands to his head, and grated, “Miles isn’t in here!”

“I know,” said the Count quietly. “I was looking for … myself, I suppose. And Cordelia. And you.”

Uncomfortably compelled, Mark looked for himself in the Count, reciprocally. He wasn’t sure. Hair color, formerly; he and Miles shared the same dark hair he had seen on vids of the younger Admiral Vorkosigan. Intellectually, he’d known Aral Vorkosigan was the old General Count Piotr Vorkosigan’s younger son, but that lost older brother had been dead for sixty years. He was astonished the present Count remembered with such immediacy, or made of it a connection with himself. Strange, and frightening. I was to kill this man. I still could. He’s not guarding himself at all.