Ekaterin accepted the envelope and stared at it as if it might contain explosives.

Pym stepped back, and gave her a very formal nod. When, after a moment, no one said anything, he gave her another half-salute, and said, "Didn't mean to intrude, ma'am. My apologies. I'll just be on my way now. Thank you." He turned on his heel.

"Pym!" His name, breaking from Kareen's lips, was almost a shriek; Pym jerked, and swung back. "Don't you dare just go off like that! What's happening over there?"

"Isn't that breaking your word?" asked Martya, with clinical detachment.

"Fine! Fine! You ask him, then!"

"Oh, very well." With a beleaguered sigh, Martya turned to Pym. "So tell me, Pym, what did happen to the drains?"

"I don't care about the drains!" Kareen cried. "I care about Mark! And my shares."

"So? Mama and Da say you aren't allowed to talk to anyone from Vorkosigan House, so you're out of luck. I want to know about the drains."

Pym's brows rose as he took this in, and his eyes glinted briefly. A sort of pious innocence informed his voice. "I'm most sorry to hear that, Miss Kareen. I trust the Commodore will see his way clear to lift our quarantine very soon. Now, m'lord told me I was not to hang about and distress Madame Vorsoisson with any ham-handed attempts at making things up to her, nor pester her by offering to wait for a reply, nor annoy her by watching her read his note. Very nearly his exact words, those. He never ordered me not to talk with you young ladies, however, not anticipating that you would be here."

"Ah," said Martya, in a voice dripping with, in Kareen's view, unsavory delight. "So you can talk to me and Kareen, but not to Ekaterin. And Kareen can talk to Ekaterin and me—"

"Not that I'd want to talk to you," Kareen muttered.

"—but not to you. That makes me the only person here who can talk to everybody. How . . . nice. Do tell me about the drains, dear Pym. Don't tell me they backed up again."

Ekaterin slipped the envelope into the inside pocket of her bolero, leaned her elbow on her chair arm and her chin on her hand, and sat listening with her dark eyebrows crinkling.

Pym nodded. "I'm afraid so, Miss Martya. Late last night, Dr. Borgos—" Pym's lips compressed at the name "—being in a great hurry to return to the search for his missing queen, took two days' harvest of bug butter—about forty or fifty kilos, we estimated later—which was starting to overflow the hutches on account of Miss Kareen not being there to take care of things properly, and flushed it all down the laboratory drain. Where it encountered some chemical conditions which caused it to . . . set. Like soft plaster. Entirely blocking the main drain, which, in a household with over fifty people in it—all the Viceroy and Vicereine's staff having arrived yesterday, and my fellow Armsmen and their families—caused a pretty immediate and pressing crisis."

Martya had the bad taste to giggle. Pym merely looked prim.

"Lord Auditor Vorkosigan," Pym went on, with a bare glance under his eyelashes at Ekaterin, "being of previous rich military experience with drains, he informed us, responded at once and without hesitation to his mother's piteous plea, and drafted and led a picked strike-force to the subbasement to deal with the dilemma. Which was me and Armsman Roic, in the event."

"Your courage and, um, utility, astound me," Martya intoned, staring at him with increasing fascination.

Pym shrugged humbly. "The necessity of wading knee-deep in bug butter, tree root bits, and, er, all the other things that go into drains, could not be honorably refused when following a leader who had to wade, um, knee-deeper. Being as how m'lord knew exactly what he was doing, it didn't actually take us very long, and there was much rejoicing in the household. But I was made later than intended for bringing Madame Vorsoisson her letter on account of everyone getting a slow start, this morning."

"What happened to Dr. Borgos?" asked Martya, as Kareen gritted her teeth, clenched her hands, and bounced in her chair.

"My suggestion that he be tied upside-down to the subbasement wall while the, um, liquid level rose being most unfairly rejected, I believe the Countess had a little talk with him, afterwards, about what kinds of materials could and could not be safely committed to Vorkosigan House's drains." Pym heaved a sigh. "Milady is quite too gentle and kindly."

The story having apparently finally wound to its conclusion, Kareen punched Martya on the shoulder and hissed, "Ask him how is Mark ."

A little silence stretched, while Pym waited benignly for his translator, and Kareen reflected that it probably would take someone with a sense of humor as arcane as Pym's to get along so well with Miles as an employer. At last, Martya broke down and said ungraciously, "So, how's the fat one?"

"Lord Mark ," Pym replied with faint emphasis, "having narrowly escaped injury in an attempt to consume—" his mouth paused, open, while he changed course in mid-sentence, "though quite visibly depressed by the unfortunate turn of events night before last, has been kept busy in assisting Dr. Borgos in his bug recovery."

Kareen decoded "visibly depressed" without difficulty. Gorge has got out. Probably Howl, as well. Oh, hell, and Mark had been doing so well in keeping the Black Gang subordinated. . . .

Pym went on smoothly, "I think I may speak for the entire Vorkosigan household when I say that we all wish Miss Kareen may return as soon as possible and restore order. Lacking information on the events in the Commodore's family, Lord Mark has been uncertain how to proceed, but that should be remedied now." His eyelid shivered in a ghost of a wink at Kareen. Ah yes, Pym was former ImpSec and proud of it; thinking sideways in two directions simultaneously was no mystery to him. Throwing her arms around his boots and screaming, Help, help! Tell Tante Cordelia I'm being held prisoner by insane parents! would be entirely redundant, she realized with satisfaction. Intelligence was about to flow.

"Also," Pym added in the same bland tone, "the piles of bug butter tubs lining the basement hall are beginning to be a problem. They toppled on a maid yesterday. The young lady was very upset."

Even the silently listening Ekaterin's eyes widened at this image. Martya snickered outright. Kareen suppressed a growl.

Martya glanced sideways at Ekaterin, and added somewhat daringly, "And so how's the skinny one?"

Pym hesitated, followed her glance, and finally replied, "I'm afraid the drain crisis brightened his life only temporarily."

He sketched a bow at all three ladies, leaving them to construe the stygian blackness of a soul that could find fifty kilos of bug butter in the main drain an improvement in his gloomy world. "Miss Martya, Miss Kareen, I hope we may see all the Koudelkas at Vorkosigan House again soon. Madame Vorsoisson, allow me to excuse myself, and apologize for any discomfort I may have inadvertently caused you. Speaking only for my own house, and Arthur, may I ask if Nikki may still be permitted to visit us?"

"Yes, of course," said Ekaterin faintly.

"Good evening, then." He touched his forehead amiably, and trod off to let himself out the garden gate in the narrow space between the houses.

Martya shook her head in amazement. "Wheredo the Vorkosigans find their people ?"

Kareen shrugged. "I suppose they get the cream of the Empire."

"So do a lot of high Vor, but they don't get a Pym . Or a Ma Kosti. Or a—"

"I heard Pym came personally recommended by Simon Illyan, when he was head of ImpSec," said Kareen.

"Oh, I see. They cheat . That accounts for it."

Ekaterin's hand strayed to touch her bolero, beneath which that fascinating cream envelope lay hidden, but to Kareen's intense disappointment, she didn't take it out and break it open. She doubtless wouldn't read it in front of her uninvited guests. It was, therefore, time to shove off.