Jin wasn't sure how to interpret that soothing tone of voice.  More grownup lies?  By her scrunched face, he didn't think Mina was buying it, either.

But what she said was, "Lord Vorkosigan, if you had children you'd give them ponies, wouldn't you?  Not spiders?"

He looked a little taken aback.  "I do and I have.  Ponies, not spiders.  Although I suppose they could have spiders if they wanted some.  God knows we have butterbugs.  Monogrammed.  Didn't I ever show you my pictures?"

And then, to Jin's surprise and growing dismay, he pulled a holocube out of his pocket and proceeded to show off scans of a regular-sized, dark-haired woman—Jin could tell she was regular-sized because there were some shots of the two of them together, and the top of Miles-san's head barely reached her shoulder—and a bewildering succession of children at different ages.  Jin didn't quite sort them out till they came to a group shot—a dark-haired boy and a red-haired girl a bit younger than Mina, an infant in the pretty woman's arms, and a leggy toddler in the middle of the pack.  Four children.  He hoped Mina would muster the wit to look interested and not distraught.  He still wasn't altogether sure what Miles-san was, but he seemed to have a lot of clout.  Even the consul did whatever he said.

"And here's Helen on her pony down at Vorkosigan Surleau—it's a place we have in the country, on a lake—and here's Sasha petting his.  Xander.  Alex, I mean."

Jin wondered what kind of inattentive father Miles-san was, that he couldn't seem to remember his own son's name.  There was only the one boy, after all.  It wasn't as if he needed to run down a list till he got to the one who was irritating him, the way Uncle Hikaru had with him and Tetsu and Ken sometimes.

But Jin had to admit, they were very fine-looking ponies, one dappled silvery-gray, the other a glossy dark brown with black socks and mane and tail and a white star on its forehead, both with dark, liquid, friendly gazes, seeming tolerant of their child-admirers.  Mina goggled, her mouth dropping open in naked longing.  Yah and double-yah—a big place in the country.  With lots of animals—there had been dogs and cats and birds in the backgrounds of some of those shots, and who knew what creatures lurked in those wooded hills?  And fish in a real lake, not just in some little glass tank, and maybe creeping and crawling native marvels living in the streams running down into it—better than Jin had dared to dream.

And all belonging to these other children.   Children who had a live mother and father, too.  What was that line of Uncle Hikaru's?  Them what has, gets.