Miles lay in his chair, making no effort to defend the issue or
himself. The Count could be trusted to argue himself down, taking
both parts, in a little time.
"We must bend with the times, I suppose. We must all bend with the times. Shopkeepers' sons are great soldiers, now. God knows, I
commanded a few in my day. Did I ever tell you about the fellow,
when we were fighting the Cetagandans up in the Dendarii Mountains
back behind Vorkosigan Surleau—best guerilla lieutenant I ever had. I wasn't much older than you, then. He killed more Cetagandans that
year . . . His father had been a tailor. A tailor, back when it was all cut and stitched by hand, hunched over all the little detailing . . ." He sighed for the irretrievable past. "What was the fellow's name . . ."
"Tesslev," supplied Miles. He raised his eyebrows quizzically at his feet. Perhaps I shall be a tailor, then. I'm built for it. But they're as obsolete as Counts, now.
"Tesslev, yes, that was it. He died horribly when they caught his patrol. Brave man, brave man . . ." Silence fell between them for a time.
The old Count spotted a straw, and clutched at it. "Was the test fairly administered? You never know, these days—some plebeian with
a personal ax to grind . . ."
Miles shook his head, and moved quickly to cut this fantasy down
before it had a chance to grow and flower. "Quite fair. It was me. I let myself get rattled, didn't pay attention to what I was doing. I failed because I wasn't good enough. Period."
The old man twisted his lips in sour negation. His hand closed
angrily, and opened hopelessly. "In the old days no one would have dared question your right . . ."
"In the old days the cost of my incompetence would have been paid in other men's lives. This is more efficient, I believe." Miles's voice was flat.
"Well . . ." The old man stared unseeingly out the window. "Well—
times change. Barrayar has changed. It underwent a world of change
between the time I was ten and the time I was twenty. And another
between the time I was twenty and forty. Nothing was the same . . .
And another between the time I was forty and eighty. This weak,
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degenerate generation—even their sins are watered down. The old
pirates of my father's day could have eaten them all for breakfast and digested their bones before lunch . . . Do you know, I shall be the first Count Vorkosigan to die in bed in nine generations?" He paused, gaze still fixed, and whispered half to himself, "God, I've grown weary of change. The very thought of enduring another new world dismays me.