"It's not rude," laughs Linya. "I'm an attempt to eliminate akrasia. It basically worked, even. When I've decided how it would be best to spend my time that's what I do. I just didn't decide it would be best to spend my time pursuing traditional haut life."

"Oh. Congratulations...? I suppose those would be more appropriately directed to your - designer. Although I can still congratulate you for deciding to go and do useful things with your... ability to... do things."

"I'm very pleased with my designer's work, but it's also socially acceptable to compliment successful experiments directly regardless. And thank you."

"Well, good, then. And you're welcome."

"I do sort of wonder if she's going to make any more children. Lisbet seemed impressed enough by me that she might ask for some, especially since I personally am no longer available for most practical purposes."

"I suppose you aren't, yes... what was your designer's name, do you know?"

"Sathanne Niari. I did meet her. We had one long conversation and then that seemed to suffice. I don't know if she's heard about my departure yet, although certainly someone will tell her eventually."

"I wonder what she'll think of it... if the Empress is likely to ask her for more of you, I suppose she won't feel too bad."

"Oh, yes. Getting to make haut children instead of just ba experiments or none at all is a coup; getting to do it more than once a bigger coup; an express commission from the Empress the biggest of all."

"What an... odd arrangement."

"Is it? How so?"

"Well - competing for who gets to design the next generation."

"Everyone does that, just - clumsily. Someone who gets themselves killed before they have any children, or simply can't convince anyone to cooperate with the project, will not be participating in the next generation. The haut way has its disadvantages, but it's much quicker at getting results once one has results in mind, and less bloody."

"...I'm not sure that's what I meant. Of course ideally no one would get themselves killed. That's a separate issue from whether or not one should have to win a design competition in order to - well - surely if everyone had a free choice, there would be some people who'd choose to reproduce the old-fashioned way. And their design skills wouldn't matter to the, um, project at all."

"That's - all true, yes. I mean, a lot of haut have children made from their genes without having personally designed them - my constellation selector wasn't a geneticist at all and here I am, about thirty-four percent him, because my designer was impressed with how he conformed to her project vision. It's not entirely about design skill even when it's all done by design."

"But design skill determines who creates, even if it doesn't determine who... serves as material."

"Yes - is there very much to miss about the old-fashioned creation process that can't be had a la carte?" wonders Linya archly.

"Well, being able to have children without getting a degree in genetics first. And - who raises little haut?"

"Ba, mostly. Haut who like children are free to take an interest if they like and some do. Although the reason that cross-constellation children are not placed in the designer's constellation is that we're more likely to be experimental and it's frowned upon to tweak the experiment by - customizing your design's environment overmuch."

"Well then. For those of us who want to have and raise our own children, with our co-parents... co-parenting, the haut system sounds completely impossible to get along with. That's not an advantage to be had a la carte."

"True. Although a lot of the advantages could be combined by just having - the approximate process that typical haut-wives go through in making their own children, applied to everybody's. I... haven't talked to Miles yet about how much he's going to let me intervene for ours, when we get around to having them, but if I'd married a ghem-lord I'd design our mutual children and then co-parent them. I imagine plenty of people would be willing to do something similar for would-be parents without genetics degrees. Although I imagine someone trying to start this consultancy on Barrayar would have public relations difficulties."

"There would certainly be Barrayarans who couldn't be convinced to let anyone design their children, no matter the charm of your public relations. I have no way to know if your husband is one of them - I'm sorry."

"If he wants random-assembly children, he's... entitled to them. I am hoping otherwise but there is no rush."

"I hope you work it out between you somehow," she says. "But - maybe I'm just too Barrayaran - if everyone's children were designed by geneticists, even if the parents don't have to be geneticists themselves, that still implies whoever, um, helps them out, would have some kind of goal in mind beyond 'produce a healthy child'. I like healthy children as much as the next woman. I don't think I'd like to - provide the material and the parenting for someone's design project. Unless you meant something I don't understand by 'the approximate haut-wife process'."

"The approximate haut-wife process is - approximate, here. Certainly if I were operating a consultancy like that I'd take client goals into account. And... We may have different standards of 'health'. I do not feel a strong pull to select my children's eye color or their hormone balances or their metabolic tendencies; I'd do it anyway if I were unfettered by Barrayaran prejudice, because abdicating the decisions in question doesn't seem like an improvement and it just won't take me that much time since I absconded with plenty of genetics helper software on my pen, but I'll abandon that sort of quibbling over genetic details if Miles prefers without complaint. What worries me is that I will have a child who develops - allergies or headaches or arthritis or something. A child who is in pain because I did not argue thoroughly enough with their father, because I left them to the mercies of a process that is not intended to improve their quality of life."