get. This thing is going to wipe out my travel allowance, so anything you can save—eh?" He gave his draftee his most encouraging smile, as if the offer of two full days locked in struggle with the electronic labyrinth of Betan business practices was a high treat.

Elena looked doubtful. "I've never outfitted a ship before."

"It'll be easy," he assured her airily. "Just bang into it—you'll have it figured out in no time. If I can do it, you can do it." He zipped lightly over this argument, giving her no time to reflect on the fact that he had never outfitted a ship either. "Figure for Pilot Officer, Engineer, the Sergeant, me, and Major Daum, for eight weeks, and maybe a little margin, but not too much—remembering the budget. We boost the

day after tomorrow."

"All right—when . . . ?" She snapped to full alertness, thunder in the crimp of her black winging eyebrows. "What about me? You're not leaving me behind while you—"

Metaphorically, Miles slunk behind Bothari and waved a white

flag. "That's up to your father. And Grandmother, of course."

"She's welcome to stay with me," said Mrs. Naismith faintly. "But Miles—you just got here. . . ."

"Oh, I still mean to make my visit, ma'am," Miles reassured her.

"We'll just reschedule our return to Barrayar. It's not like I had to—to get back in time for school or anything."

Elena stared at her father, tight-lipped with silent pleading.

Bothari blew out his breath, his gaze turning calculatingly from his daughter to Mrs. Naismith to the holovid viewer, then inward to what thoughts or memories Miles could not guess. Elena barely restrained herself from hopping up and down in agitation. "Miles—my lord—you can order him to—"

Miles flicked a hand palm-out, and gave a tiny shake of his head,

signalling, wait.

Mrs. Naismith glanced at Elena's anxiety, and smiled thoughtfully

behind her hand. "Actually, dear, it would be lovely having you all to myself for a time. Like having a daughter again. You could meet young people—go to parties—I have some friends over in Quartz who could

take you desert-trekking. I'm too old for the sport myself, now, but I'm sure you'd enjoy it. . . ."

Bothari flinched. Quartz, for example, was Beta Colony's principal

hermaphrodite community, and although Mrs. Naismith herself

typified hermaphrodites as "people who are pathologically incapable of making up their minds," she bristled in patriotic Betan defense of them at Bothari's open Barrayaran revulsion to the sex. And Bothari

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had personally carried Miles home unconscious from more than one

Betan party. As for Miles's nearly disastrous desert-trek . . . Miles shot his grandmother a look of thanks from crinkling eyes. She