He nods thoughtfully.

She doesn't add the part about how if it's replicable, she tells Occlus to pack up her artifacts, grab anyone loyal and sane, and come join this other, better empire. Then they'd both be free from its endless bullshit. No Jedi or Sith, no war, no Dark Council, no constant murder attempts.

And she likes Barrayar.

"I'll keep you updated, anyway. I can still - there are things called Force bonds, where two Force users become close enough to form an empathic bond. One member can usually tell when the other is in danger, for example. A Force bond between a teacher and student is not uncommon, and I have one with her. I can tell she's still alive, and vice versa, but sending thoughts gets harder the longer the distance, and - well. The distance is rather great."

"Yes, I imagine it is," says Gregor. "Thank you."

"Certainly. The preparation is somewhat time consuming, but straightforward enough."

"Anything we can do to help?"

She considers. "If you have any undamaged crystals lying around that you're not attached to, I might like to have a look at them, and perhaps borrow them for a little while."

"Any particular variety?"

"The crystals shouldn't be especially fragile, and they need to be without cracks or major impurities, but otherwise, no. I'd have to properly look at them to say whether or not they'd help."

"I'll see what I can do."

"Thank you. I'll be happy to return everything once I'm done with it."

"How about a half-ton of assorted synthetic gemstones?" says a voice from the other end of the dining room. Miles steps through the door and closes it behind him. "Guess who finally finished filing his reports and is now here to bother you all!"

"Congratulations," replies Callida, faintly amused. "They could certainly work, and if they're synthetic they would be without the major impurities that would disqualify them, but I'd have to look at the half-ton personally to really say."

"Be my guest, it's about time the damned things did somebody some good."

"That sounds like it has a story attached," muses the Sith Lord, sounding faintly curious, but she glances at Gregor and adds, "but perhaps now is not the time for it."

Gregor smiles.

"I have no objection if Miles wants to join us for our after-dinner conversation."

"As Gregor's foster-brother, I assure you there are much worse stories I could be telling," says Miles. "Actually that's a lie, he was a disgustingly responsible child."

"And yet somehow I suspect the reverse is not so true."

"It's like you've met me!"

Gregor laughs softly.

"Anyway, Demyan's diamonds," says Miles. "So, first of all, in an advanced society like the galaxy at large, synthetic gemstones are cheap. But in a society like Barrayar during the Time of Isolation where you have to dig all your rocks out of the ground, synthetic gemstones are nonexistent and gemstones as a whole are very expensive. So when contact was reestablished, my great-grandfather, who was Count Vorkosigan at the time, thought 'wow! Look at all those fantastically cheap gemstones!' and sank huge amounts of money into them to resell on Barrayar, with the result that he and a handful of like-minded idiots managed to completely crash the market and they all just about lost their shirts. And for the better part of a century, the remnants of his stock have been sitting in storage somewhere, doing nothing but remind us of our shame. Wasn't even worth the effort of selling them."

Callida smiles, clearly entertained.

"How impressively short-sighted of him."

"He had other virtues. Any knowledge of economics whatsoever was unfortunately not one of them."

She snorts.

"Unfortunately I don't think I could even put the entire half-ton to use, so he will not be entirely vindicated by history."

"Finding a use for any of them would be a vast improvement."

"You didn't try to use them as pretty paperweights? Find various excuses to put them in tactful places throughout your house?"