Here is Ekaterin, and here is Nikki! That is the entire subset. How convenient.

"That's good, maybe this one will stick," says Linya encouragingly. "How about you, Nikki, what's up with you?"

Nikki ponders this question, then says, "I like your lightflyer!"

"I like it too! I learned to fly it just a couple of years ago and it's lots of fun."

"I bet," says Nikki. "Can I fly it too?"

"I don't think so, but you can sit on my lap on the way back to your house and see up close how I do it," she says. She has much longer arms than he does and can if necessary operate the thing one-handed, if he proves intractably handsy with the controls. "If you watch close enough, enough times, then you'll know how."

Nikki thinks this through, then says, "Okay." (His mama smiles.)

"I bought a replicator yesterday. They're cheaper than I expected," Linya remarks to Ekaterin. "Unless, of course, I wind up buying another one because we postpone Aral Adri for years and it's obsolete by the time we're ready."

"Do they go obsolete that fast? Or do you just have very high standards?"

"They haven't changed that much in the last couple hundred years, but nothing says that someone brilliant couldn't revolutionize the state of the art next month."

"What would a revolutionized uterine replicator even look like...? They're already revolutionary enough for me."

"If I knew what the next generation of replicators would be able to do, do you think I wouldn't be trying to invent it myself before someone else gets there?"

"Well. No," she says. "Of course you would be doing exactly that."

"But I found one that has a feature list I'm happy with - I won't bore you with the details of the chemical environment settings - and it'll be on its way from Escobar soon."

"Good. I didn't even know there was that much difference between - I mean, features? That's the sort of thing I'd expect to hear about a new - a new lightflyer, not a new womb."

"They're complicated machines. They differ in how you insert the zygote and how you decant the baby, and in how much fine control they can offer with respect to what the embryo's floating around in which I want particularly because I know a lot of genetic details and how those will interact with the replicator environment. They vary in how the placenta attaches when it forms, which as near as I can tell makes no difference to anything, and tolerance for environmental variation, which can - the ones sold on Beta Colony have to handle extreme exterior heat in case the air conditioning breaks, you don't want an entire batch of babies in progress wrecked because your air conditioning tech didn't show up; there are versions billed as being particularly earthquake-tolerant too!"

"That's amazing. So you wanted one with... fine control, but you didn't need it especially heatproof or earthquake-proof?"

"Right. Although I did get one rated for a fair amount of cold, in case something goes wrong with the heat. I could probably fix most things that might go wrong with the climate control, but I cannot teleport parts from wherever they are sold to my house, so if something particularly troublesome broke..."

"That makes sense. I'd never considered before how... in moving from the uterus to the replicator, you're not just getting rid of one set of problems, you're introducing new ones too. I never had to worry about - ordering replacement parts."

"The replicators themselves avoid needing replacement parts. They're designed for extreme robustness and redundancy," says Linya. "But, yes - in order to be adopted they couldn't even be just as good at growing a tiny human without letting the exterior environment do the tiny human any harm as the human body is. The human body isn't actually very good at that, although most miscarriages in populations that do body-birth are far too early to notice. A replicator has to get it right pretty much every single time from zygote all the way to decanting in order to look like a good idea."

"...Yes, I suppose that's true."

"It's an interesting chapter of history. I'm really curious about how Barrayar will adapt, as it's effectively the only planet that's been insulated from the technology in its early-adopter stage... are you planning on Nikki having any little brothers or sisters?"

"Oh - not yet," she says. "He's enough of a handful by himself." She is in fact holding Nikki's hand; she squeezes it. He makes a face, but then smiles, at this display of parental affection.

"Miles and I are thinking we'll wait and see how much of a handful Aral Adri is before we have any more, too," chuckles Linya.

"I hope he's not too bad. From what I've seen of your husband, he seems very, um... energetic."

"He is. I was a pretty calm baby, though. Especially once I learned to read."

"Well. Maybe you'll have a little bookworm, then."

"Maybe. ...Now I'm imagining Aral Adri holding a pen and reading with it and it is even more adorable."

"That is very cute."

"He's going to be so adorable but Miles doesn't want to look at the simulations."

"Did he say why not? If it were me, I might prefer to be surprised... it seems backwards to have the baby pictures before the baby."

"I suppose that could be it. He was willing to compare my simulation pictures against actual pictures of me as a child, but then, I am not surprising in the relevant respect..."

"Yes. Your case is definitely one of baby pictures after the baby, by now."

"I keep looking at the simulations myself as a layer of error-checking - I'm done with everything that has cosmetic effects, now, so if something changes I'll know I've made a mistake - although in almost every case one of the software safeties would catch it first, it doesn't hurt to be careful. And it is a little annoying that nobody else wants to see them. I suppose I'll be insufferable once I have photographs of the actual baby actually babying."

"Pictures, whether before or after, are definitely no substitute for an actual babying baby."

"Not a bit," agrees Linya.

"So pictures of an actual babying baby are probably better than pictures of an imaginary computer-generated baby, just because they get you that much closer to the real thing."

"I suppose once I have an actual babying baby I can just show him to people in person."

"Yes. Well, some of them might prefer the pictures. Especially if he babies very loudly."

Linya giggles.

So does Ekaterin!

"We should be at the picnic spot I found on the map in about fifteen minutes," Linya mentions.

"Is he heavy? He doesn't look very heavy."

"How much is too much?" wonders Linya.

"Too much is too much!" says Nikki, tautologically.

"Aha. I am enlightened."

"Are you all done walking for the day, or just a little while?"

"I can carry him too, if he wants."

Nikki peers at Linya, as though to evaluate her carrying capacity.

"I'm stronger than I look."

"Why?"

"It seemed like a good idea."

...Nikki puzzles over this answer, and falls silent. Ekaterin smiles.

Linya giggles and puts the basket down on a corner of the blanket and sits. She has brought sandwiches and salad and fruit and maple candy, portioned with lots for her and some for Ekaterin and a little for Nikki.

Nikki is really enthusiastic about the maple candy, and disdains the salad. Ekaterin permits him to disdain his salad, because this is a special occasion.

And soon all of the food except Nikki's salad is eaten. "You don't like salad, Nikki?"

Nikki shakes his head.

"Why not?"

"I don't like it," he says. Nikki does not seem to be very good at explaining himself.

"Maybe next time I will not bring salad, then. What do you like?"

"I like candy," he says. "And groats."

"I like groats too! I never had them before I came to Barrayar but now they're one of my favorite things."

"You never had groats?" he says, astonished.

"Nope! They weren't very popular on Eta Ceta."

"Where's that?" wonders Nikki.

"It's two weeks' worth of jumps away. Do you want to see it on a nexus map?"

"Yeah!" he says. Ekaterin smiles at him.

Linya produces her pen and calls up a nexus map. "Here's Barrayar. If you want to get anywhere from here you need to go through Komarr, here, which is five jumps -" She traces out the route. "And then if you want to go to Eta Ceta, you go this way." She traces the whole route. "And it takes two weeks cooped up in a ship!"

"I got a lot of work done. I've been on longer trips, though. I went all the way from here to Earth once, but I stopped on the way."

"Where did you stop?" asks Nikki.

"Here," she points, "at Escobar, and here at Tau Ceti. So I didn't spend that long on a ship all at once on my way to Earth, but I only stopped at Escobar on my way back and only for a day."

"How long was it?" he asks, staring in fascination at the map.

"It took me twenty-four days to get from Earth back to Barrayar."

"That's a long time," says Nikki. "Longer than two weeks!"

"Yep. Two and a half. But I was on Earth for months, so it seemed worth it."

"What did you do there?" wonders Nikki. "Did you have fun?"

"I had lots of fun! I saw interesting Earth things - there's so much pretty scenery and so many old buildings! - and I got lots of work done and I convinced a friend to move to Komarr so I could visit him without spending months in jumpships."

"Just about. Some of the ships go a little faster if nobody on them gets jumpsick."

"Getting jumpsick sounds like no fun," says Nikki.

"It does sound that way. I don't know what it's like, I don't get sick on jumps at all. My friend from Earth does, though. He had to make the trip back extra slowly so he wouldn't be jumping every day."

"Is jumpsick throw-up sick or sneezy sick or yucky sick?" he asks next.

"Mostly the first kind," says Linya. "Yucky sick sometimes too, if it's really bad. I have never heard of jumping making anybody sneeze."

"Are they?" Linya's not entirely sure she can recall ever suffering any of the above, so he's the expert here. "Well, I hope you don't get jumpsick if you ever go to another planet."

"Do you want to go to other planets, Nikki?"

"I think Komarr's nice. Everybody there lives in arcologies."

"What's an arcology?" inquires Nikki.

"It's a big dome that keeps the air inside. Komarr doesn't have nice air on the rest of it."

"Is it like vacuum?" he wonders. "Or is it smelly air?"

"It's not vacuum, and I don't know how it smells. It doesn't have enough oxygen in it."

"Well, it started out that way, and people are working on making it have good real air instead, but it's taking a long time."

"Why's it take so long?" he asks. "Can't they just get it from somewhere that has lots?"

"Most of the places that have air want to keep it all for themselves. Even if they didn't, you'd need so many ships to hold all the air that you'd need to cover up a whole planet. Ships are pretty small compared to planets."

"I guess so," he concedes.

"So they're figuring out how to make it at home, out of the fake air, with algae and stuff like that."

"What's an algae?" he asks next.

"It's a little plant that lives in large groups. Some of it looks like green, wet hair."

"That sounds weird," says Nikki.

"It's kind of weird. But it's good at making oxygen for the air."

"So people can breathe it?" he asks, in the interests of clarification.

"Yup. Algae is helpful like that. All plants are, but algae grows quick and it's less picky about some things than some other plants are."

"For one thing, Komarr doesn't get very much sunshine, and plants love sunshine," supplies Linya.

"Oh. Why doesn't Komarr get sunshine?" asks Nikki.

"Its sun is far away. It has a mirror to help it get more sun, but that only helps a little."

"A mirror?" he asks.

"Yep! A big space mirror to reflect the sun at the planet."

"Wow. It must be so big!" he says, impressed.

"It's huge! There's actually seven mirrors, all stuck together."

"Wow," he repeats.

"On Earth, they have a huge moon, even bigger than the mirror Komarr has. And no one had to build it, it's just there, and it reflects light too. It looks like a pearl in the sky at night when it's full."

"Wow! I wanna see a picture," he says.

So she waves away the nexus map and calls up a picture of Earth's sky at night, complete with a full moon.

Nikki gazes at it in utter amazement.

"I went with a tour group to the middle of the ocean, where there aren't any buildings that light up, and I sat there in the dark and my eyes adjusted and there were so many stars," she says. "You could do that here too, but there wouldn't be the moon, just the stars." She woggles her pen to check its chrono, and then gets up. "And I think I'm supposed to drop you off at home pretty soon so we'd better start walking back to the lightflyer."

Linya folds up the blanket and puts it and the discards from lunch into the basket and goes with them along the path.

Linya scoops him up. He's not heavy at all. "Do you want to be carried or sit on my shoulders?" she asks.

"No trouble," says Linya, and she carries Nikki all the way back to the lightflyer. And then as promised he gets to sit in her lap and watch her pilot it.

Where her husband asks, "How was your visit?"

"It was good. Nikki doesn't like salad, and does like pictures of the Earth night sky and nexus maps and the lightflyer. And Ekaterin joins you in not quite approving of baby pictures preceding babies."

"Oh? What's her reasoning?"

"She thought it seemed backwards and that pictures don't substitute for the real thing."

"Sensible of her."

"If you say so."

"Of the possible reasons, I think those are sensible ones."

"Are they yours? I don't think I have an understanding of yours?"

"I... don't think you have an understanding of mine either," he sighs. "It's complicated."

Pet pet. "Do you want to try to explain or is it not worth the trouble?"

"I'm not sure."

"Then I will probably languish in confusion for a bit longer." Pet, pet.

Snuggle.

Snuggle. "I love you."

"I love you too."

"Your emphasis implies that there's someone who doesn't. Miles?" she guesses.

"Well, Ekaterin didn't either, but principally Miles, yes."

"Did he say why?"

"He implied that his reasons may not be sensible and is unsure that he wishes to attempt to explain them, last time it came up in conversation."

"I could hazard a guess," says Cordelia.

"Could you? What would it be?"

"These genome extrapolations - you could run them for anyone, couldn't you? If you ran them for me, you'd get a picture of me. If you ran them for Aral, you'd get a picture of Aral. If you ran them for Miles, you would not get a picture of Miles - definitely not one accurate below the neck, anyway."

"Right. He asked about that when I first brought up that I could produce the pictures. I think I'd want to know in his position but I can somewhat understand not - it makes less sense to me for Aral Adri, who is overwhelmingly unlikely to encounter similar issues."

"I think, for Miles... he has a very immediate understanding of how bad it would be for him, if pictures of the Miles who might have been existed anywhere. If Aral and I had seen them - if General Piotr had seen them, God forbid. So when he thinks about looking at advance pictures of his own children, that's what comes to mind first. It's an emotional response, not mediated by probability calculations. He can't discount the possibility, because it looms too large for him."

"I don't think I do understand how bad it would have been. What would the pictures have done? If you'd seen them?"

"He already subconsciously compares himself to the imaginary unimpaired Miles - very subconsciously, for the most part. If there were pictures, I think he would be... haunted is the word I would use. Haunted by them. The comparison would become a conscious one, and obsessive, and unpleasant. I think he might give himself too little credit for resilience... but I know I'm never going to ask to see pictures of his extrapolated phenotype. Not until well after he does, if he ever does."

"Well, he hasn't asked. I haven't even looked and I have the sample sequenced so as to be able to extract the eye color..."

"I suggest that you keep it that way, for his peace of mind. He might take it best from you, of all the people who could look, but 'best' unfortunately does not have to mean 'well'."

"I suppose it doesn't help much that I'd consider it a tremendous drawback if I couldn't scoop him up readily."

"Probably not."

"Oh well. I will continue to not look at pictures of hypothetical Miles. ...Possibly unless Mark wants a look one day, I think I'd consider him entitled."

"Perhaps, yes. That's a tricky one."

"It is. But Mark does not seem to have made any relatively short-term decision to show up, let alone ask for pictures of his nonscoopable hypothetical self, so perhaps the decision can be abdicated indefinitely."

"That would be lucky."

"Yes. ...But since simulation pictures of Aral Adri already exist, and I have already looked at them, do you want to see?"

"Sure."

"How much of this is design work? I know you mentioned giving him Miles's eyes... they're very lovely on him."

"Not much. I've made no strictly cosmetic changes besides the eyes, but some things have cosmetic effects incidentally. Good teeth, good skin, good posture," says Linya. "A completely unedited version would still be recognizable."

"Well, he's going to be adorable."

"I know. I am insufferably proud of myself." Linya puts her pen back on her necklace. "Unrelatedly, is there anything in particular planned for dinner tonight, such that I should not go get a large snack right now?"

"Oh—thank you for reminding me, I'd forgotten to mention it. Simon's coming over."

"Is he? Any particular occasion?"

"My whim. I'm mildly surprised that he said yes."

He grins at her.

"Hello, Linyabel. I've been thinking of getting a pen," says Simon.

"I think you know my feelings on the matter of pens. Do you have unprecedented design requirements that will require months of optics fiddling?"

"'Everyone ought to have a pen. Pens are lovely.' No, if I have any suggestions that require months of fiddling, they will be cryptographic in nature."

"I will be happy to field security update suggestions."

"That's convenient."

"Besides contemplating your possible electronics acquisitions, what have you been up to?"

"Not very much both interesting and suitable for dinner conversation. Not very much interesting at all, actually, which is always nice when you have my job." Then he smiles slightly. "I do happen to have an amusing anecdote about Mark, though."

"Oh? What's he up to?"

"It seems he has decided to express his displeasure at being surveilled by making the lives of my agents slightly surreal, rather than any more traditional kind of unpleasant. According to the latest report, the agent returned to his hotel room one evening to find that someone had lined up about five thousand dried beans in neat little rows on top of his freshly made bed."

"Five thousand. Wow."

"Abject puzzlement radiated from the description."

"I'll bet," snickers Miles. "Oh my God, Mark."

"And these were perfectly ordinary dried beans?"

"Completely. No dangerous articles of any kind were introduced to the room, nor any of his belongings removed from it. He checked. Several times."

"How restrained."

"Yes. It's interesting."

"Yeah," Miles agrees. "I mean, I could imagine myself playing pranks on somebody who was following me—God, could I—but nothing that... I don't know, psychological? Maybe that's not the right word. Maybe there isn't a right word. Dried beans."

"Why, what would you do instead?"

"I'm not sure. Little opportunistic things, it'd depend what I had to work with. I also don't think I'd be crazy enough to try breaking into his hotel room, unless—this guy was decently competent, wasn't he?"

"More than. And yet, he could find no trace of how Mark got in or out. Not so much as a single dropped bean."

"Maybe you should be offering Mark a job."

"Ha."

"Has it been readily doable to keep Mark on radar, or does he keep losing them?"

"He loses them fairly regularly, but they pick him up again."

"And then there are little presents."

"Yes. I restrained myself from suggesting that he make bean stew."

Miles snickers.

Linya chuckles. "I did recommend that you not have him followed, but at least he's expressing his displeasure gently."

"You did make that suggestion."

"But you were too paranoid to seriously consider it."

"Just so."

"I am a little worried that the beans are not necessarily the extent of his modus operandi. If he escalates in the hope that it will get him left alone... or possibly in the hope that it will get him killed..."

"The beans seem calibrated to imply an... eccentric kind of harmlessness. He at least would not like me to think the scenario you describe is likely."

"I think... hmm, how do I put this," says Miles. "He seemed to exhibit a certain very specialized kind of honesty, during that escapade on Earth. I mean, yes, he tried to impersonate me - pulled it off unsettlingly well, too - but he apologized before he shot Linya, he practically begged me to psychoanalyze him while he had me tied to a chair, when we met up with Linya under the seawall he pointed at me and said 'that one's your husband', and when he picked my pocket for the money I was going to give him he gave me back my grandfather's knife. I'd interpret the beans incident in the same vein. He's telling us 'no hard feelings, but kindly fuck off'. I don't think he'll escalate quickly after a message like that."

"Yet he does seem inclined to communicate that if things did escalate, he has the sort of people following him thoroughly outclassed."

"True. I don't know, though."

"What do you think, Cordelia?"

"I think Mark sounds like a deeply confused individual," she says. "But one who possesses... call it a sense of fairness. If he outclasses these agents so badly, all the more reason he won't try to harm them."

"Which would be an argument against sending a variety of agent he's less likely to shake."

"What a conundrum," Simon says dryly.

"I suppose ceasing to follow him is totally out of the question."

"Then," he says reasonably, "I wouldn't know where he was."

"You don't know where he is half the time anyway."

"I usually have a good idea of how far away."

"I don't know how this works - does the same person find him again after losing him or does the trail get picked up by other people on other planets?"

"The latter more than the former, but both have happened."

"How many times has he been lost and relocated since Earth?"

"Fourteen, counting only times when he dropped off the radar for a solid week or more. Many more than that if you count him losing a tail or disposing of a tracking device only to be spotted again some number of hours later, which seems to be a daily occurence when someone does have him in their sights."

"He's apparently being calmer about it than I would if someone I objected to following me were doing it anyway and they kept re-finding me that frequently. I'm impressed."

"All things considered, so am I."

"Me three. Slightly jealous, even."

Linya kisses the top of her husband's head. 'Cause he's cute and right there.

He grins at her.

"...I'll consider it."

Linya smiles.

"...Expect him to apply his sense of humour to the situation," volunteers Miles, "even if he agrees. I can't be any more specific, I just - have a feeling."

"I have a similar feeling, yes. Bean stew," says Simon.

"I can vividly picture the look on his face - I don't know if it's accurate, but it's very vivid - if he got lunch with the bean recipient. There would be beans in the lunch."

"Likewise," says Miles. "Definitely beans."

"And I imagine he'd be disappointed if this somehow went unnoticed."

"He has a surprising amount of personality. For someone who also manages to contain all of mine, I mean."

"A heartening amount," says Cordelia.

"With any luck, enough to construct a fully functional non-Miles self out of."

"I... believe it is. But time will tell, I guess."

"If he isn't so thoroughly exasperated as to figure out how to permanently lose his tails and never update us on his progress, anyway."

"I doubt that would be possible. ImpSec has more resources than he does."

"I'm not prepared to entirely rule it out, but the balance of probability is likely with you, yes."

"I can imagine farfetched solutions like moving to a hermitage on some backwater planet and eschewing any activity that might leave a data trail. But I can't quite imagine Mark taking them. Not permanently."

"But long enough that by the time he's findable again he could have gotten to anywhere in the nexus?"

"In order to get to anywhere in the nexus, he has to travel from place to place in jumpships. That's usually how we find him again after the long silences. Someone catches sight of him at a spaceport or station."

"If I were trying to hide, I would try, very quietly and very covertly, to make a friend. A staggeringly unlikely friend who could smuggle me from place to place."

"So far, he seems not to have chosen that option."

"Maybe he had trouble with the 'make a friend' step."

"Or the 'unlikely' one. I'm trying to think of someone whose company I couldn't believe Mark would enjoy, and I'm only coming up with a specific and dead individual."

"...That too," Miles admits. "He likes Ivan, after all."

"Ivan's not that bad."

"Many people like Ivan. It's just I don't think many of them like him as much as Mark does."

"No? Not even his string of girlfriends?"

"Yes, and how long do those last? Longer than Mark knew him for, some of them, but - still."

"I haven't decided."

"Silver, fountain option, engraved with an eye," Miles suggests cheerfully.

"Ha," says Simon. "No. The fountain option is tempting, but I prefer the simplicity of the original style. And I do think I want a custom engraving, but that custom engraving seems a bit much."

"I think it would be very charming. Initials are popular. And little abstract designs wrapping around the casing."

"I'm considering initials."

"Then you are unlikely to cause any interesting anecdotes among the fabrication staff when they read your order form."

"I still say go for the eye," says Miles.

"It's an amusing thought," he acknowledges.

"I don't think it's been done, though I'd have to check to be sure."

"I haven't seen any."

"Are pens of any engraving status popular around the office? I haven't extracted statistics on what professions are likely to buy. Mostly I'm tracking the increased popularity of the fountain version among Vor for my own amusement."

"Somehow, despite regulations, they keep creeping in. In fact, ImpSec analysts are the source of more than half of the pseudonymously published clever tricks for disabling network features or irrecoverably wiping data storage."

Linya laughs. "Well, that's just cute."

"Yes."

"I don't suppose they could be brought up to a standard that would eliminate the need for creeping, when you've sent in your opinions?"

"It's possible that they could. When I send in my opinions, I'll let you know."

Linya smiles.