CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Ekaterin waited on the sidewalk, holding Nikki's hand, while Uncle Vorthys hugged his wife good-bye and his chauffeur loaded his valise into the back of his groundcar. Uncle Vorthys would be going straight from this upcoming morning meeting to the shuttleport and an Imperial fast courier to Komarr, there to deal with what he'd described to Ekaterin as a few technical matters . The trip was the culmination, she supposed, of the long hours he'd been spending lately closeted at the Imperial Science Institute; in any case, it hadn't seemed to take the Professora by surprise.

Ekaterin reflected on Miles's penchant for understatement. She'd felt ready to faint, last night, when Uncle Vorthys had sat her and Nikki down and informed them who Miles's "man with authority" was, the fellow he thought could talk with understanding to Nikki because he too had lost a father young. Emperor-to-be Gregor had been not yet five years old when the gallant Crown Prince Serg had been blown to bits in Escobar orbit during the retreat from that ill-advised military adventure. In all, she was glad no one had told her till the audience was confirmed, or she would have worked herself into an even worse state of nerves. She was uncomfortably aware that her hand gripping Nikki's was a little too moist, a little too chill. He would take his cue from the adults; she must appear calm, for his sake.

They all piled into the rear compartment at last, waved to the Professora, and pulled away. Her eye was becoming more educated, Ekaterin decided. The first time she'd ridden in the courtesy car that the Imperium provided her uncle on permanent loan, she hadn't known to interpret its odd smooth handling as a cue to its level of armoring, nor the attentive young driver as ImpSec to the bone. For all her uncle's deceptive failure to deck himself out in high Vor mode, he moved in the same rarefied circles Miles inhabited with equal ease—Miles because he'd lived there all his life, her uncle because his engineer's eye gauged men by other criteria.

Uncle Vorthys smiled fondly down at Nikki, and patted him on the hand. "Don't look so scared, Nikki," he rumbled comfortably. "Gregor is a good fellow. You'll be fine, and we'll be with you."

Nikki nodded dubiously. It was his black suit that made him look so pale, Ekaterin told herself. His only really good suit; he'd last worn it at his father's funeral, a piece of unpleasant irony Ekaterin schooled herself to ignore. She'd drawn the line at donning her own funeral dress. Her everyday black-and-gray outfit was getting a trifle shabby, but it would have to do. At least it was clean and pressed. Her hair was pulled back with neat severity, braided into a knot at the back of her neck. She touched the lump of the little Barrayar pendant, hidden beneath her high-necked black blouse, for secret reassurance.

"Don't you look so scared either," Uncle Vorthys added to her.

She smiled wanly.

It was a short drive from the University district to the Imperial Residence. The guards scanned them and passed them smoothly through the high iron gates. The Residence was a vast stone building several times the size of Vorkosigan House, four stories high and built, over a couple of centuries and radical changes of architectural styles, in the form of a somewhat irregular hollow square. They drew up under a secondary portico on the east end.

Some sort of high household officer in Vorbarra livery met them, and guided them down two very long and echoing corridors to the north wing. Nikki and Ekaterin both stared around, Nikki openly, Ekaterin covertly. Uncle Vorthys seemed indifferent to the museum-quality d?cor; he'd trod this corridor dozens of times to deliver his personal reports to the ruler of three worlds. Miles had lived here till he was six, he'd said. Had he been oppressed by the somber weight of this history, or had he regarded it all as his personal play set? One guess.

The liveried man ushered them into a sleekly-appointed office the size of most of one floor of the Professor's house. On the near end, a half-familiar figure leaned against a huge comconsole desk, his arms folded. Emperor Gregor Vorbarra was grave, lean, dark, good-looking in a narrow-faced, cerebral fashion. The holovid did not flatter him, Ekaterin decided instantly. He wore a dark blue suit, with only the barest hint of military decoration in the thin side-piping on the trousers and the high-necked tunic. Miles stood across from him dressed in his usual impeccable gray, rendered somewhat less impeccable by his feet-apart posture and his hands stuffed in his trouser pockets. He broke off in midsentence; his eyes rose anxiously to Ekaterin's face as she entered, and his lips parted. He gave his fellow Auditor a jerky little encouraging nod.

The Professor did not need the cue. "Sire, may I present my niece, Madame Ekaterin Vorsoisson, and her son, Nikolai Vorsoisson."

Ekaterin was spared an awkward attempt at a curtsey when Gregor stepped forward, took her hand, and shook it firmly, as though she were one of the equals he was first among. "Madame, I am honored." He turned to Nikki, and shook his hand in turn. "Welcome, Nikki. I'm sorry our first meeting should be occasioned by such a difficult matter, but I trust it will be followed by many happier ones." His tone was neither stiff nor patronizing, but perfectly straightforward. Nikki managed an adult handshake, and only goggled a little.

Ekaterin had met a few powerful men before; they had mostly looked through her, or past her, or at her with the sort of vague aesthetic appreciation she'd bestowed on the knickknacks in the corridor outside. Gregor looked her directly in the eye as if he saw all the way through to the back of her skull. It was at once unnervingly uncomfortable and strangely heartening. He gestured them all toward a square arrangement of leather-covered couches and armchairs at the far end of the room, and said softly, "Won't you please be seated?"

The tall windows overlooked a garden of descending terraces, brilliant with full summer growth. Ekaterin sank down with her back to it, Nikki beside her; the cool northern light fell on their Imperial host's face, as he took an armchair opposite them. Uncle Vorthys sat between; Miles pulled up a straight chair and sat a little apart from them all. He appeared arms crossed and at his ease. She wasn't quite sure how she came to read him as tense and nervous and miserable. And masked. A glass mask . . .

Gregor leaned forward. "Lord Vorkosigan asked me to meet with you, Nikki, because of the unpleasant rumors which have sprung up surrounding your father's death. Under the circumstances, your mother and your great-uncle agreed it was needful."

"Mind you," Uncle Vorthys put in, "I wouldn't have chosen to drag the poor little fellow further into it if it weren't for those gabbling fools."

Gregor nodded understanding. "Before I begin, some caveats—words of warning. You may not be aware of it, Nikki, but in your uncle's household you have been living under a certain degree of security monitoring. At his request, it is usually as limited and unobtrusive as possible. It's only gone to a higher and more visible level twice in the last three years, during some unusually difficult cases of his."

"Aunt Vorthys showed us the outside vid pickups," Nikki offered tentatively.

"Those are part of it," Uncle Vorthys said. The least part, according to the thorough briefing a polite ImpSec officer in plainclothes had given Ekaterin the day after she and Nikki had moved in.

"All the comconsoles are also either secured or monitored," Gregor elaborated. "Both his vehicles are kept in guarded locations. Any unauthorized intruder should bring down an ImpSec response in under two minutes."

Nikki's eyes widened.