"Not until you get some people in here. Till you get your head fixed, you certainly need a driver, at the very least. I saw your lightflyer downstairs in the garage, by the way. In the shop for adjustments, my ass. And somebody to cook meals and stand over you and see you eat them. And somebody to clean up after you."

"I don't make that much mess—"

"And clean up after all the other somebodies," Ivan went on relentlessly. "This place needs a staff, Miles."

"Just like any other museum, eh? I don't know."

"If you're saying you don't know if you want them, guess what. You don't have a choice. If you're saying you don't know how to hire them . . . want my mother to do it for you?"

"Er . . . I think I'd rather select my own personnel. She'd make it all too right and proper, to use Sergeant Bothari's old phrase."

"There it is. Do it, or I'll have her do it for you. How's that for a threat?"

"Effective."

"Right, then."

"Don't you think I could get by with just one person? To do everything, drive, cook . . ."

Ivan snorted. "—chase after you and make you take your nasty medicine? For that, you'd need to hire a Baba to find you a wife. Why don't you just start with a driver and cook, and go on from there."

Miles grimaced tiredly.

"Look," said Ivan. "You're a bleeding Vor lord in Vorbarr Sultana. We own this town. So live like one! Have some fun for a change!"

"Have you lost your mind, Ivan?"

"You're not a guest in Vorkosigan House, Miles. You're its only child, or you were till Mark came along, and he has his own private fortune. At least widen your possibilities! You grew so narrow, working for Illyan. It's like you hardly had a life at all, lately."

That's quite right. Naismith had all the life. But Naismith was dead now—killed by that needle grenade on Jackson's Whole after all, though the double-take of realization had required a full year to run its course.

Miles had read of mutants, twins born joined together inseparably in their bodies. Sometimes, horrifically, one died first, leaving the other attached to a corpse for hours or days until they died too. Lord Vorkosigan and Admiral Naismith, body-bound twins. I don't want to think about this anymore. I don't want to think at all.

"Let's . . . go to bed, Ivan. It's late, isn't it?"

"Late enough," said Ivan.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Miles slept till midmorning the next day. To his dismay, when he threaded the labyrinth of the house down to the kitchen, he found Ivan sitting drinking coffee, his breakfast dishes piled in the sink.

"Don't you have to go to work?" Miles inquired, pouring the chewy dregs from the coffeemaker into his cup.

"I have a few days personal leave," Ivan informed him.

"How many?"

"As many as I need."