"Pleasantly?" she asked dryly.

It was his turn to fail to suppress a smile. "Not necessarily." He looked away from her again, and his smile faded from wry to pensive. "I've had many subordinates over the years who've turned in impeccable careers. Perfection takes no risks with itself, you see. Miles was many things, but never perfect. It was a privilege and a terror to command him, and I'm thankful and amazed we both got out alive. Ultimately . . . his career ran aground in disaster. But before it ended, he changed worlds."

She didn't think Illyan meant that for a figure of speech. He glanced back at her, and made a little palm-open motion with his hands in his lap, as if apologizing for having once held worlds there.

"Do you take him for a great man?" Ekaterin asked Illyan seriously. And does it take one to know one? "Like his father and grandfather?"

"I think he is a great man . . . in an entirely different way than his father and grandfather. Though I've often been afraid he'd break his heart trying to be them."

Illyan's words reminded her strangely of her Uncle Vorthys's evaluation of Miles, back when they'd first met on Komarr. So if a genius thought Miles was a genius, and a great man thought he was a great man . . . maybe she ought to get him vetted by a really good husband.

Voices carried faintly from the house through the open windows into the back garden, too muffled to make out the words. One was a low-pitched male rumble. The other was Nikki's. It didn't sound like the comconsole or the vid. Was Uncle Vorthys home already? Ekaterin had thought he would be out till dinnertime.

"I will say," Illyan went on, waving a thoughtful finger in the air, "he did always have the most remarkable knack for picking personnel. Either picking or making; I was never quite sure which. If he said someone was the person for the job, they proved to be so. One way or another. If he thinks you'd be a fine Lady Vorkosigan, he's undoubtedly right. Although," his tone grew slightly morose, "if you do throw in your lot with him, I can personally guarantee you'll never be in control of what happens next again. Not that one ever is, really."

Ekaterin nodded wry agreement. "When I was twenty, I chose my life. It wasn't this one."

Illyan laughed painfully. "Oh, twenty. God. Yes. When I took oath at twenty to Emperor Ezar, I had my military career all sketched out. Ship duty, eh, and ship captain by thirty, and admiral by fifty, and retirement at sixty, a twice-twenty-years man. I did allow for being killed, of course. All very neat. My life began to diverge from the plan the following day, when I was assigned to ImpSec instead. And diverged again, when I found myself promoted to chief of ImpSec in the middle of a war I'd never foreseen, serving a boy emperor who hadn't even existed a decade earlier. My life has been one long chain of surprises. A year ago, I could not have even imagined myself today. Or dreamed myself happy. Of course, Lady Alys . . ." His face softened at the mention of her name, and he paused, an odd smile playing on his lips. "Lately, I have come to believe that the principal difference between heaven and hell is the company you keep there."

Could one judge a man by his company? Could she judge Miles that way? Ivan was charming and funny, Lady Alys fine and formidable, Illyan, despite his sinister history, strangely kind. Miles's clone brother Mark, for all his bitter bite, seemed a brother in truth. Kareen Koudelka was pure delight. The Vorbrettens, the rest of the Koudelka clan, Duv Galeni, Tsipis, Ma Kosti, Pym, even Enrique . . . Miles seemed to collect friends of wit and distinction and extraordinary ability around himself as casually and unselfconsciously as a comet trailed its banner of light.

Looking back, she realized how very few friends Tien had ever made. He'd despised his coworkers, scorned his scattered relations. She'd told herself that he hadn't the knack for socializing, or was just too busy. Once past his school days, Tien had never made a new good friend. She'd come to share his isolation; alone together was a perfect summation of their marriage.

"I think you are very right, sir."

From the house, Nikki's voice rose suddenly in volume and pitch, yanking her maternal ear: "No! No!" Was he defying his uncle over something? Ekaterin raised her head, listening, and frowned uneasily.

"Um . . . excuse me." She flashed a brief smile at Illyan. "I think I'd better go check something out. I'll be right back . . ."

Illyan nodded understanding, and politely pretended to fix his attention on the surrounding garden.

Ekaterin entered the kitchen, her eyes slow to adjust from the glare outside, and quietly rounded the corner through the dining room to the parlor. She stopped in the archway in surprise. The voice she'd heard was not her uncle's; it was Alexi Vormoncrief's.

Nikki was sitting scrunched up in Uncle Vorthys's big chair in the corner. Vormoncrief loomed over him, his face tense, his hands anxiously crooked.

"Back to these bandages you saw on Lord Vorkosigan's wrists the day after your father was killed," Vormoncrief was saying, in an urgent voice. "What kind were they? How big?"

"I dunno." Nikki gave a trapped shrug. "They were just bandages."

"What kind of wounds did they conceal, though?"

"Dunno."

"Well, sharp slashes? Burns, blisters, like from a plasma arc? Can you remember seeing them later?"

Nikki shrugged again, his face stiff. "I dunno. They were raggedy, all the way around, I guess. He still has the red marks." His voice was constricted, on the verge of tears.

An arrested look crossed Vormoncrief's face. "Hadn't noticed that. He's very careful to wear long sleeves, isn't he? In high summer, huh. But did he have any other marks, on his face perhaps? Bruises, scratches, maybe a black eye?"

"Dunno . . ."

"Are you sure ?"

"Lieutenant Vormoncrief!" Ekaterin interrupted this sharply. Vormoncrief jerked upright, and lurched around. Nikki looked up, his lips parting in relief. "What are you doing ?"

"Ah! Ekaterin, Madame Vorsoisson. I came to see you." He waved vaguely around the book-lined parlor.

"Then why didn't you come out to where I was?"

"I seized the chance to talk to Nikki, and I'm very glad I did."

"Mama," Nikki gulped from his chair-barricade, "he says Lord Vorkosigan killed Da!"

"What? " Ekaterin stared at Vormoncrief, for a moment almost too stunned to breathe.

Vormoncrief gestured helplessly, and gave her an earnest look. "The secret is out. The truth is known."

"What truth? By whom ?"

"It's being whispered all over town, not that anyone dares—or cares—to do anything about it. Gossips and cowards, the lot of them. But the picture's getting plainer. Two men went out into the Komarran wilderness. One returned, and with some pretty strange injuries, apparently. Accident with a breath mask , indeed. But I realized at once that you couldn't have suspected foul play, till Vorkosigan dropped his guard and proposed to you at his dinner. No wonder you ran out crying."

Ekaterin opened her mouth. Nightmare memories flashed. Your accusation is physically impossible, Alexi; I know. I found them, out in that wilderness, alive and dead both. A cascade of security considerations poured through her head. It was a direct chain of very few links from the details of Tien's death to the persons and objects that no one dared mention. "It was not like that at all." That sounded weaker than she'd intended. . . .

"I'll wager Vorkosigan was never questioned under fast-penta. Am I right?"

"He's ex-ImpSec. I doubt he could be."

"How convenient." Vormoncrief grimaced ironically.

"I was questioned under fast-penta."

"They cleared you of complicity, yes! I was sure of it!"