"I dunno really," says Aegis, "but I've heard of it before, sometimes my best friend comes here when he dreams."

"I just opened a door, though, I'm not dreaming. What about you?"

"Also a door. Why do you look like a cheap knockoff of my sister-in-law?"

"Ooh! Ooh, have you got a one of me for a sister-in-law? Sue's met some of those here before. One of 'em had wings, stuff like that."

"My sister-in-law does not have wings. She looks like you, only older and more genetically engineered."

"Yeah, only the one of 'em had wings." Aegis sways. "Genetically engineered for what?"

"The haut don't go in for publication, so you'd have to ask her for the details. She's very pretty and has absurdly long hair; I'm given to understand those are standard."

"Define 'mutie'," he says, studying her. "And 'they'."

"I mean, I have a genetic gift," she woggles her fingers dramatically, "that does a thing more complicated than give me two different colored eyes. And 'they' are the various people with the decorations on their uniforms who make up the International Fleet."

"What planet, what year, and what calendar?"

"Eros is an asteroid, 2120, Gregorian."

"Sol system, though?"

"Yeah. What about you? And what's your name? Call me Aegis."

"Mark," he says. "I decline to name my current location, but I was born on Jackson's Whole in 2979 and grew up mostly on Earth after that, and my family lives on Barrayar."

"Okay, so you're way into space colonization in your world, lightspeed's got to be a bitch or have you got a way around that?"

"Wormholes."

"Oooh, cool."

"If you say so."

"Hey, compared to getting in a ship aimed far enough away meaning you never contact your original civilization again..."

He shrugs. "Sounds downright restful."

"Is anybody saying you can't steer around the wormholes and just plain fly really fast? If that appeals? For some reason?"

"The ships aren't built for it. And I was joking. Mostly."