“My usual, thank you, Frieda.” The servant nodded and went off. At Cordelia’s raised brows he added, “Still on duty tonight. Or I’d like nothing better than to sit here with you and get sotted till midnight. Unfortunately, that only gives the illusion of solving one’s problems.”
She said apologetically, “Didn’t mean to give you a problem, Oliver. Meant to give you a gift.”
He snorted. “You knew precisely what you were doing.”
She scratched her neck and grimaced. “Which actually does bring me to the next thing. If you tell Tan to go ahead with the fertilizations, next thing you do, before you so much as set foot in a shuttle again for your next upside rotation, is sit down and do the next-of-kin directive. Or destruction directive. Tan will give you the right forms—the clinic keeps them on file for every zygote in their possession.”
“The…what directive?”
“Zygotes are different legal entities than gametes. Gametes are property, part of your own body that happens to no longer be in it. Zygotes are a lawsuit waiting to happen. Inheritance issues, you know. From the moment of fertilization, even if you choose to freeze them all but especially if you choose to start one in a replicator, somebody needs to know where your kids, or potential kids, will end up if you go up in a ball of light, or, or slip in the shower, or whatever.”
Oliver frowned. “That’s right. You told me once that your own father died in a shuttle accident. Not an example chosen at random, Cordelia?”
She shrugged. “I still ride shuttles.
“I…um. No, I hadn’t got that far in my thinking, I confess. Whom did you select? Miles, I expect?”
“By default, yes. But also by design. I’m not totally happy with it—if I’d wanted my girls to be raised on Barrayar, I’d be doing this there, not here. I should add—if you were to fail to make a proper directive, their default guardian would be whoever is your next-of-kin. Which is who?”
He looked rather taken aback. “My mother, I suppose. Or my eldest brother.”
“Can you picture them raising your orphaned children?”
“Mine? Maybe. At a stretch. Aral’s…” His face twisted up in a hard-to-interpret grimace. “If I’d had a traditional Barrayaran marriage, with children, I suppose I must have—well, wait, no. There might have been my hypothetical wife’s family to fall back on. Um.”
Cordelia rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands. “Let me ask you another question, then. Where do—did you—think your career is going in the next ten years? Where are you going?”
His brows flicked up. He said in a cautious voice, “Do I take from all this that you mean to retire on Sergyar? Stay here as a permanent colonist?”
“It is my planet…You understand, all of this is new thinking, since my life was cleaved in half three years ago. Before…before, I’d planned to go back to Barrayar, to the Vorkosigan’s District with Aral when he retired at last, to a medically supported, galactic-style very old age. His father, leathery old bastard that he was, lived into his late nineties with less help. Somehow in my head I thought Aral, with his new heart and all, would certainly do better. A hundred and ten at least. And then, one goddamn burst intracranial artery later, I was twenty-six years ahead of myself.” She shrugged sharply. “Plans. Never any good.”
His hand went out to her, but fell back. “Yeah.”
He was quiet for a long time; Frieda came back, distributed the drinks, and left them again, glancing curiously over her shoulder.
“My twice-twenty years is coming up in a decade,” he began again at last. “I’d never planned to go for a three-times-twenty. I was going to start to think about my retirement, my second career, whatever, in, oh, another six or seven years, maybe. Where I would be, then…well, I’m in the Service. It’s not all up to me. As you have just pointed out, even being alive tomorrow is not up to me.”
She looked away. “Aral once spoke of offering you a job in his district, after we went home. Actually, your pick of several. He had plans, you see.”
“Ah.” Oliver took a swallow of his non-drink. “I expect I could have gone for that.” He continued after a moment, “I’ve no strong personal ties on Barrayar. My family and I were close enough before I left for the Academy at age eighteen, but since then we’ve all grown farther and farther apart. My home town was always enough for them. It…wasn’t, for me. My father died—you remember—just before I was assigned to Sergyar. My mother has lived with my sister for years. My district has developed—last time I was back, everything I remembered fondly from my childhood was changed, built over. Gone. Sergyar…is starting to look pretty good to me, really.” His clear glance flicked up to her. “Would you be willing to stand godmother to me in this? Because…at least they’d be with their half-siblings. Slightly more than half-siblings.”
“Entirely willing,” she assured him. “Note that the center’ll want a few more in-case-of options, in descending order of choice, so your family needn’t be excluded altogether.”
“Can one revise the directive, later?”
“Oh, yes. They suggest you review it yearly.”
“Hm. Sensible enough.”
She sipped more wine, put down her glass on the little table, drummed her fingers on the chaise arm. “If you were to—if you ever decide to—muster out on Sergyar, would you be willing to make that reciprocal?”
His eyes flashed up at her, startled. “What, before Miles?”
“Before Barrayar, at least.”
His lips pursed. “But…you’d be dead. I can’t—that’s not—I have trouble imagining that.” Except, by the troubled look on his face, he was. He blinked suddenly. “Wait. You’re not just talking frozen embryos here, are you.”
“Not after next week, no.”
He blew out his breath. “That is possibly the most terrifying responsibility anyone has ever offered me. Not excepting ship command or being the last man standing between the Prime Minister and anything coming at him.” He blinked some more. “Pretty damned flattering, Cordelia. Are you in your right mind?”
She smiled crookedly. “Who knows? That’s a hypothetical for now, note.”
“Noted. But still…” He didn’t say still what.
He did glance at his chrono, and scowled. “Blast. I have to get moving. I still have to go back to base and change. Who knew when I signed up for the space service that I would spend so much time arm-wrestling with contractors? Concrete by the kiloton. But my shuttles have to have somewhere to land.” He drained his drink and stood looking down at her, somewhat limply draped on the chaise. “Cordelia…” He hesitated.
“Hm?”
He seemed to swallow. Blurted, “Would you like to go sailing again sometime?”
She sat up, surprised. Aral had taught him to sail, back in his twenties, and to enjoy the sport. She had actually preferred sailing with Oliver, as she’d been less likely to end up having an unscheduled swim due to a certain person’s addiction to pushing his envelopes. The memory made her catch her breath, and blink rapidly. “I haven’t been out on the water since…forever. I’d love it. I think I could clear my schedule, yes.” She paused, confused. “Wait. Didn’t you say you’d sold your boat last year?”
“I’ll find something. If you can pry out the time.”
“For this, I’ll pry it out with a chisel. Sounds delightful. Excellent, in fact.” She wallowed around on the chaise and held out her hand. “Help me up,” she commanded.
A funny look crossed his face, but he leaned over, grabbed her hand, and civilly heaved. She found her feet, and her shoes, and walked him back to the house, where they parted company. You that way; we this way. But not for long, she reflected comfortably.