"Hm." Her smile grew more pensive. "Some of our domes are over four hundred years old. And yet Barrayar seems older, even when it isn't. There is something intrinsically archaic about you, I think."

Miles reflected briefly upon the nature of her homeworld. In another four hundred years, the terraforming on Komarr might begin to make it habitable for humans outdoors without breath masks. For now, the Komarrans lived all together in domed arcologies, as dependent upon their technology for survival against the choking chill as the Betans were on their screaming hot desert world. Komarr had never had a Time of Isolation, never been out of touch with the galactic mainstream. Indeed, it made its living fishing out of that stream, with its one vital natural resource—six important wormhole jump points in close practical proximity to one another. The jumps had made Komarran local space a nexus crossroads, and eventually, unfortunately, a strategic target. Barrayar had exactly one wormhole jump route connecting it to the galactic nexus—and it went through Komarr. If you did not hold your own gateway, those who did control it would own you.

Miles pulled his thoughts back to a smaller and more private human scale. Obviously, Galeni ought to take his lady out in the open Barrayaran air. She'd surely enjoy all those kilometers of un-Komarran wilderness. Hiking, say, or, if she truly favored the archaic—

"You ought to get Duv to take you horseback riding," Miles suggested.

"Goodness. Can he ride, too?" Her amazing turquoise eyes widened.

"Er . . ." Good question. Well, if not, Miles could give him a crash course. "Sure."

"Intrinsically archaic seems so . . ." She dropped her voice to a secretive tone—"intrinsically romantic. But don't tell Duv I said so. He's such a stickler for historical accuracy. The first thing he does is blow off all the fairy dust."

Miles grinned. "I'm not surprised. But I thought you were the practical businesswoman type, yourself."

Her smile grew more serious. "I'm a Komarran. I have to be. Without the value-added, from our trade, labor, transport, banking, and remanufacturing, Komarr would dwindle again to the desperate subsistence—and less-than-subsistence—level from which it rose. And seven out of ten of us would die, one way or another."

Miles twitched an interested brow; he thought her figures exaggerated, if obviously sincerely felt. "Well, we shouldn't hold up the parade. Shall we go in?"

He and Galeni rearranged themselves at the sides of their respective ladies, and Miles led the way through the nearby double doors. The Glass Hall was a long reception chamber lined on one side with tall windows, on the other with tall antique mirrors, hence its name, acquired when glass was a lot harder to come by.