"You shamed yourself, I fear, sir. If you had not gone down that path, you would not have found that trap."

Piotr's tight jaw worked this one over, the lines in his face grooved deep. Anger; embarrassment struggling with self-righteousness. Embarrassed as only one in the wrong can be. He doubts himself, Cordelia realized. A thread of hope. Let us not lose that thread, it may be our only way out of this labyrinth.

The self-rightousness took ascendance. "I shouldn't have to be doing this," snarled Piotr. "It's women's work. Guarding our genome."

"Was women's work, in the Time of Isolation," said Aral in level tones. "When the only answer to mutation was infanticide. Now there are other answers."

"How strange women must have felt about their pregnancies, never knowing if there was life or death at the end of them," Cordelia mused. One sip from that cup was all she desired for a lifetime, and yet Barrayaran women had drained it to the dregs over and over . . . the wonder was not that their descendants' culture was chaotic, but that it wasn't more completely insane.

"You fail all of us when you fail to control her," said Piotr. "How do you imagine you can run a planet when you cannot run your own household?"

One corner of Aral's mouth twisted up slightly. "Indeed, she is difficult to control. She escaped me twice. Her voluntary return still astounds me."

"Awake to your duties! To me as your Count if not as your father. You are liege-sworn to me. Do you choose to obey this off-worlder woman before me?"

"Yes." Aral looked him straight in the eye. His voice fell to a whisper. "That is the proper order of things." Piotr flinched. Aral added dryly, "Attempting to switch the issue from infanticide to obedience will not help you, sir. You taught me specious-rhetoric-chopping yourself."

"In the old days, you could have been beheaded for less insolence."

"Yes, the present setup is a little peculiar. As a count's heir, my hands are between yours, but as your Regent, your hands are between mine. Oath-stalemate. In the old days we could have broken the deadlock with a nice little war." He grinned back, or at least bared his teeth. Cordelia's mind gyrated, One day only: The Irresistible Force Meets the Immovable Object. Tickets, five marks.

The door to the hallway swung open, and Lieutenant Koudelka peered nervously within. "Sir? Sorry to interrupt. I'm having trouble with the comconsole. It's down again."

"What sort of trouble, Lieutenant?" Vorkosigan asked, wrenching his attention around with an effort. "The intermittency?"

"It's just not working."

"It was fine a few hours ago. Check the power supply."

"Did that, sir."

"Call a tech."

"I can't, without the comconsole."

"Ah, yes. Get the guard commander to open it up for you, then, see if the trouble is anything obvious. Then send for a tech on his clear-link."