Vaagen bustled about, happily important. He still wore his eyepatch, but promised Cordelia he would take the time for the last round of surgery to restore his vision very soon now. A tech trundled out the uterine replicator and Vaagen paused, as if trying to figure out how to put the proper drama and ceremony into what Cordelia knew for a very simple event. He settled on turning it into a technical lecture for his colleagues, detailing the composition of the hormone solutions as he injected them into the appropriate feed-lines, interpreting readouts, describing the placental separation going on within the replicator, the similarities and differences between replicator and body births. There were several differences Vaagen didn't mention. Alys Vorpatril should see this, Cordelia thought.

Vaagen looked up to see her watching him, paused self-consciously, and smiled. "Lady Vorkosigan." He gestured to the replicator's latch-seals. "Would you care to do the honors?"

She reached, hesitated, and looked around for Aral. There he was, solemn and attentive at the edge of the crowd. "Aral?"

He strode forward. "Are you sure?"

"If you can open a picnic cooler, you can do this." They each took a latch and raised them in unison, breaking the sterile seal, and lifted the top off. Dr. Ritter moved in with a vibra-scalpel, cutting through the thick felt mat of nutrient tubing with a touch so delicate the silvery amniotic sac beneath was unscored, then cut Miles free of his last bit of biological packaging, clearing his mouth and nose of fluids before his first surprised inhalation. Aral's arm, around her, tightened so hard it hurt. A muffled laugh, no more than a breath, broke from his lips; he swallowed and blinked to bring his features, suffused with elation and pain, back under strict control.

Happy birthday, thought Cordelia. Good color . . .

Unfortunately, that was about all that was really good. The contrast with baby Ivan was overwhelming. Despite the extra weeks of gestation, ten months to Ivan's nine-and-a-half, Miles was barely half Ivan's size at birth, and far more wizened and wrinkled. His spine was noticeably deformed, and his legs were drawn up and locked in a tight bend. He was definitely a male heir, though, no question about that. His first cry was thin, weak, nothing at all like Ivan's angry, hungry bellow. Behind her, she heard Piotr hiss with disappointment.

"Has he been getting enough nutrition?" she asked Vaagen. It was hard to keep the accusation out of her tone.

Vaagen shrugged helplessly. "All he would absorb."

The pediatrician and his colleague laid Miles out under a warming light, and began their examination, Cordelia and Aral on either side.