Bothari left to scrounge clothing for Kou's new persona of poor-young-husband-and-father. "Customers are always leaving things," he remarked. Cordelia wondered what he could collect here in the way of street clothes for Lady Vorpatril. Kou took food in to Lady Vorpatril and Drou. He returned with a very bleak expression on his face, and settled again beside Cordelia.

After a time he said, "I guess I understand now why Drou was so worried about being pregnant."

"Do you?" said Cordelia.

"Lady Vorpatril's troubles make mine look . . . pretty small. God, that looked painful."

"Mm. But the pain only lasts a day." She rubbed her scar. "Or a few weeks. I don't think that's it."

"What is, then?"

"It's . . . a transcendental act. Making life. I thought about that, when I was carrying Miles. 'By this act, I bring one death into the world.' One birth, one death, and all the pain and acts of will between. I didn't understand certain Oriental mystic symbols like the Death-mother, Kali, till I realized it wasn't mystic at all, just plain fact. A Barrayaran-style sexual 'accident' can start a chain of causality that doesn't stop till the end of time. Our children change us . . . whether they live or not. Even though your child turned out to be chimerical this time, Drou was touched by that change. Weren't you?"

He shook his head in bafflement. "I wasn't thinking about all that. I just wanted to be normal. Like other men."

"I think your instincts are all right. They're just not enough. I don't suppose you could get your instincts and your intellect working together for once, instead of at cross-purposes?"

He snorted. "I don't know. I don't know . . . how to get through to her now. I said I was sorry."

"It's not all right between you two, is it?"

"No."

"You know what's bothered me most, on the journey up here?" said Cordelia.

"No . . ."

"I couldn't say goodbye to Aral. If . . . anything happens to me—or to him, for that matter—it will leave something hanging, unraveled, between us. And no way to ever make it right."

"Mm." He folded a little more into himself, slumped in the chair.

She meditated a bit. "What have you tried besides 'I'm sorry'? How about, 'How do you feel? Are you all right? Can I help? I love you,' there's a classic. Words of one syllable. Mostly questions, now I think on it. Shows an interest in starting a conversation, y'know?"

He smiled sadly. "I don't think she wants to talk to me anymore."