"Well, not invariably. It's much better now than it was before Dorca banned private armies and Ezar banned dueling. But if you go back a hundred years, yeah, my people's ancestors were really enthusiastic about killing each other for petty reasons."

"A respect in which we tell ourselves we are very different from you."

"I don't know if there's a difference in kind but there is certainly one of degree. Anyway."

Where was he? Ah, right. On his way out of Tau Verde local space; just a few loose ends left to tie up...

"As part of Admiral Oser's surrender, he actually joined the Dendarii himself along with the remainder of his army. I left Ky, Baz, and Elena in charge while I hurried home to try to make my appointment with the Council. Oh, yeah, and Baz and Elena got married. I was desperately disappointed at the time, having been in love with Elena myself, but I got myself straightened out about it."

Did he really forget to mention being in love with Elena? At the time it would have been inconceivable to go five minutes without remembering it anew. How the times do change.

"And one of my Dendarii had had her face burned off by a plasma arc in one of the early battles, so I offered to buy her a new one with whatever I had left over from our payment once I cleared Arde's debts. Me, Ivan, and Elli therefore headed back to Beta Colony, where I found the man I owed all that money to and, uh, ended up leaving him tied up in a closet with his pockets stuffed full of cash because otherwise he would've wanted to introduce an unacceptable delay into my schedule by bringing me up on Betan charges out of spite that it took me so long to get him his money. But in the end I got home just in time to walk into Vorhartung Castle and respond to someone's rhetorical question of 'if he's innocent, where is he?' with 'right here, no thanks to you'. It was a lovely moment."

"That settled the charges of having a private army?"

"Well, no. But luckily for me, the conspirators had decided to go after me for the flashier crime of usurpation, of which I happened to be innocent. I suppose if they didn't think I was going to show up to testify on my own behalf, it didn't matter whether I'd actually done anything resembling their accusations or not. Anyway, I pried apart their alliance with a few choice words and one man drew a deadly weapon on the other, not a healthy thing to do in the presence of the Emperor of Barrayar. He got mobbed by concerned citizens. Very Barrayaran. On most planets, if you pull out a weapon in a crowded room, people will run away. This still left me with the problem of what to do about my private army, but I managed to talk myself into a private audience with Gregor - well, Gregor, Da, Simon, and Count Vorhalas - where I could just say, 'I didn't mean to and I'm very sorry, now what the hell do I do with them?'"

...He has forgotten to explain Simon.

"I've forgotten to explain Simon. How did I forget to explain Simon. I can just see him giving me one of his faintly mocking looks... Simon Illyan is the head of Barrayaran Imperial Security and an old family friend. He has a perfect memory, a brilliant mind, and an exquisite grasp of sarcasm. You'd probably get along."

"I imagine so. Is there a reason you can't introduce the other players in this drama? Is the flying thing you used to rescue me broken?"

"Well, it's currently not flying, but that's a solvable problem and very nearly solved. Several issues remain. One, it doesn't have a jump drive and I don't have a jump pilot, so even if I could find a wormhole I wouldn't be able to cross one - wouldn't be able to tell it was there, actually, I don't have any wormhole detection equipment or the knowledge of how to build it, nor do I have a good reason to assume that jump pilot potential exists in any local population. Two, I have no idea how I got here but the normal operation of a wormhole jump definitely wasn't it, so there's no guarantee that there actually are any wormholes nearby, or that they form a path leading home if there are. And three, even if I reconstructed enough technology to start exploring, crossing a wormhole no one has crossed before is difficult and dangerous and historical precedent suggests that the first time a civilization tries it they're going to lose their first several jumpships. I'm not going to push for that just because I miss my family."

Ugh, he hasn't thought through the obstacles properly before. He might have to cross getting home off his long-term list unless he can find really enthusiastic local volunteers for a hypothetical Noldorin Astronomical Survey Corps. (The thought trails memories of his mother.) Either that or a completely different approach, but that just replaces the known dangers with unknown ones, it's not really better. Or maybe he could put off going home until after he solves death...? No, if he can get home there's massive strategic advantages in the war against the Enemy, it wouldn't be right to discard those out of hand. Keep it on the list, explain all the problems in depth when he gets there, let the locals make their decision, offer all possible aid if they ask for it.

"Are there large known populations in which no one has jump pilot potential?"

"Jump pilot potential exists in humans at a frequency of about one in a hundred thousand. I don't think you even have a hundred thousand humans. I haven't seen any other than myself, and I'm not a jump pilot. And I have no idea what the frequency is among Elves. Maybe you all have it, maybe none of you have it. Maybe you can give yourselves jump pilot potential the same way you can change your own metabolism and body temperature, except that I have no idea what jump pilot potential looks like on a biological level, all I know is that it's something about brains."

"It is said that there are Men somewhere in the world. I do not know their numbers, but one of the most persistent traits of Men in the legends of our people is that they bear children while still children and grow rapidly provided their children don't war or starve."

"Well, if I find any, maybe some of them will be jump pilots. And then I'll have to reinvent neurosurgery."

"I see why the prospect is daunting."

"Yeah." He shrugs. "Still, accomplishing the impossible is kind of my niche."

"So I have gathered."

He smiles.

"Where was I...? Right. In a room with Gregor, Da, Simon, and Count Vorhalas. Gregor was... in a bad place, just then. I probably shouldn't have left him alone for so long - well, all right, it's not entirely my fault, I didn't mean to go off and fight a war. But my father had only just stepped down as Regent, and Gregor was new to power and very lonely, and I'm sure having me gone didn't help. The conspirators had managed to sow enough paranoia that he actually doubted my loyalty for a while, which hasn't happened before or since. I wasn't worried about convincing him - I was perfectly innocent of the crime of which I stood accused. But."

He remembers the scene: finishing the tangled tale of acquiring his now rather frighteningly real mercenary army, and then...

"Count Vorhalas is known as a man of absolute integrity. It's why he accompanied that little gathering, so no one could complain that it hadn't been overseen by a fair judge. But he had an old grudge against my father, and he saw an opportunity here. Technically, you see, I had committed the crime of amassing a private army, and therefore, technically, if someone decided to bring the charge, the law would clearly dictate that I ought to die, nothing to be done about it unless Gregor issued a nepotistic Imperial pardon, which would demonstrate to the whole planet that he cared more about his personal friends than the rule of law. Vorhalas looked at my father, and said he was going to do it. Da didn't even seem surprised, though he was hurt. Vorhalas told Da to beg him not to, and Da did, and Vorhalas said he didn't care and was going to do it anyway. He looked like a man lost in the darkest depths of his own revenge fantasies. Well, and he had reason to be. Da had both his sons executed, very early in the Regency, one for dueling, the other for attempted assassination in vengeance for the first. The same assassination attempt that fucked up my bones. Our families have not been kind to one another."

"Oh my."

"And then I reminded Vorhalas of my existence as a thing separate from his ambitions to cause my father pain. I think my exact words were," he quotes the English and glosses it in his thoughts, "Be satisfied. For if you carry this through, at some point you're going to have to look my mother in the eye and repeat that. Dare you?" He smiles faintly, remembering. "He did not so dare."

"So you were absolved of having a private army?"

"He agreed to not formally raise the accusation. We were left with the problem of how I was going to cease possessing an illegal private army. I suggested to Gregor that I could give them to him. Not openly, but secretly. There are a lot of situations in which it would be useful to have a small army not officially affiliated with the Barrayaran Empire. As long as I held them in his name, it'd be all right by Barrayaran law. So that's what we did. Tucked them in under Simon's department, hence his involvement in..."

He pauses - reviews his memory - winces. "Wait, fuck, Simon was still in prison at that point. I feel very bad about making that mistake. Don't know my own life story as well as I think I do. Well, the rest of it stands. Uh, the conspirators had accused him of, well, conspiring with me, and they'd got as far as actually having him thrown in his own dungeons for it. He wasn't present for that conversation, but he was pretty pleased about getting a secret army out of it, although to this day he still finds time every so often to dryly remind me about that time he was imprisoned on my account. It's not like it was even my fault! Plenty of things that happened during this time in my life were very much my fault, but not that one!"

"And that was it? Everyone forgot their grievances and their effort to execute you and...went on?"

"The two fellows who'd been trying to get me and Ivan killed, having just yelled at each other about their failed conspiracy in front of the entire Council of Counts, got pinned down for it. Vorhalas backed down ungraciously, but he didn't try again afterward, or anything. I think I managed to wake him to the fact that killing me to spite my father would be a petty thing to do and not at all in keeping with his principles. But yes. That is what happened. Oh, and since I had demonstrated military aptitude on the most crucial of all testing grounds, and since they were all a little afraid of what I'd get into next if I wasn't kept occupied, they dismissed my failed examination results and got me into the Service Academy after all, where I spent three years getting a thorough education in everything you need to know to be an officer in the Barrayaran military. I was more than a little floored, at the time, I hadn't dared hope for anything better than my continued survival."

"What sort of things are covered in a Barrayaran military academy?"

"Basic piloting of assorted vehicles, basic operation of assorted weapons, relevant laws both local and galactic, military history - I adore military history - tactics, strategy, logistics, optional modules on things like engineering or jumpship piloting that may or may not be applicable to your talents and interests, and then of course my father's terrifyingly memorable mandatory lecture on illegal orders."

"Illegal orders?"

"In the normal operation of a well-functioning military force, any given individual can trust that when someone with relevant authority orders them to do something, they should do it. In fact, the punishments for not obeying orders can be pretty severe. But sometimes, someone gives an order that they have no right to be giving. Something that contravenes local or galactic law, something for which 'well, we're at war' is no excuse. When that happens, it's a soldier's duty to recognize the problem and disobey the order."

He wishes very much that his father were here. His father can deliver this explanation like no one else can.