He almost offered her his arm, but hesitated too long; she was already striding off. He followed.
I have to find a boat. Somehow.
As they walked back toward the building housing the officers’ mess, Cordelia suppressed a scowl. She had been very nearly certain Oliver had been about to kiss her. And she had been very nearly certain that she would like it. She had before, on certain special occasions…
Don’t be stupid, woman. You know he prefers men. She’d known that for decades.
Do I? In that case, why hadn’t he found himself one, in the past three years? Not in those first few shell-shocked months, no. But she knew that he collected passes from both sexes—and the rare visiting herm—she’d seen that both back in their Vorbarr Sultana period, and since he’d been assigned to Sergyar Command. Oliver had been awkward at ducking them in his first days, absorbed in learning his new tasks as the overworked aide to one of the most high-powered men on the planet, and then there had followed that amusing period when he’d been so caught up in Aral that barely anyone else seemed to register. But in time, he’d become as deft at giving off silent don’t try me vibes as any virtuously faithful Vor matron. As had she, she supposed, but given that she was Aral’s wife, very few men who weren’t obviously insane had ever bothered her with unwanted advances. Although her own social obliviousness had doubtless also helped smooth things over. Any whose futile hopes she could not depress herself, she could send ImpSec to hand on a clue to. Word like that got around.
Which suggested that she, too, might be out of practice at this sort of thing, except that she had never been in practice in the first place. She’d been thirty-three years old, a Betan Astronomical Survey commander, in a situation as unconducive to romance as any she could imagine, when Aral had, ha, fallen in love on her—her lips curved up again at the memory of Oliver’s extremely apt turn of phrase, melting her urge to scowl—and her life had never been the same again.
She considered Oliver’s confidence—the real one, not the Plas-Dan smokescreen. He was, she realized belatedly, trying to process a sort of technological miscarriage, without the words or even the concepts for it. No way to package the experience for himself at all. Would it help if she suggested he name the lost zygote? Volunteer to aid him in burning a Barrayaran death-offering? Or would that be too intrusive? Offensive? Or just incomprehensible? No, not that—she had not mistaken the bewildered pain in his voice. Maybe just being his good listener was enough. The one friend he could talk to. Damn. I meant to give you a gift of joy, not…this.
The base officers’ mess was divided into two sections, an efficient cafeteria downstairs for the people in a hurry, and a somewhat less utilitarian dining room upstairs, with wide windows looking out over the shuttleport. The food all came out of the same kitchen, merely being plated and served more nicely up here. She and Aral had eaten many working meals with the military staff in this mess, when colony concerns had taken them onto the base, usually in one of the smaller private rooms off either end of the main one. Today Oliver simply guided her to a table by the windows. Heads turned as they passed. The service was instantly attentive, certainly. Happily, the enlisted server was one of the older hands, undaunted by his Admiral and the Vicereine.
Discussions of what were, Cordelia suspected, only going to be the first of several thousand other practical issues involving the impact of the new base carried them through the salad and the main course. Oliver was clearly amused by her not-at-all secret hope that the boost to the Gridgrad settlement by this huge infusion of military money and construction people would shift the center of colonization away from Kareenburg’s why-for-the-love-of-logic semi-desert ecosystem—not to mention the active tectonic boundary and not-actually-dead volcanoes—to the much more salubrious, well-watered, and geologically stable zone around Gridgrad.
“This place was never picked for a colony site in the first place,” she argued. “It was picked because the caves in what is now Mount Thera made a dandy cache to hide an invasion fleet’s worth of supplies from people like, well, passing Betan Astronomical Survey vessels, while the old war party scraped together that insanely stupid Escobar conquest scheme. Grant you, the caves did work exactly as hoped, I’ll give old Emperor Ezar’s bloodthirsty cutthroats that much credit.”
Oliver held up his hands palm-out in nondisagreement—he’d heard this rant from her before. A motion by the table that was not their server bearing dessert caught her eye, and she stopped in mid-spate to look around. Oliver’s aide, Lieutenant Vorinnis, presented herself, and Cordelia’s heart caught with the fear that it might be some crisis, soothed when the girl offered a hesitant, even hangdog, salute.
“Admiral Jole, sir. Good evening, Your Excellency.” A respectful motion in Cordelia’s direction that was neither salute nor bow nor curtsey—more of a bob. “My apologies for interrupting”—a glance at their empty plates indicated hope that she was not too ill-timed—“but I received this…this thing, and I didn’t know what to do with it. I showed it to Colonel Martin, but she didn’t know either, so she said I should ask you, sir, because you’d probably know all about this kind of stuff. And someone said they saw you come up here, and—well, here.”
She thrust out her hand, holding a stiff, colored-paper envelope in a style Cordelia recognized, but hadn’t expected to see in this place. Oliver, too, recognized it, his brows rising as he took it for closer examination. “Well, well. What have we here, Lieutenant?”
“I think it says it’s an invitation to a party at the Cetagandan consulate. Although the wording’s a little…oblique. From Lord ghem Soren. Supposedly.” She said this in a voice of gruff suspicion.
“Well, that it is. Addressed to you personally, I see, no mistake there. Hand calligraphed, too, as is right and proper for a rising young ghem. Someone made him practice, once. Assuming he didn’t panic and pay someone more expert to do the task for him, which would be considered terribly déclassé if he were caught at it. Paper hand-made, good touch, though doubtless purchased.” He ran the card extracted from within delicately under his nose, and sniffed.
Cordelia sat back, beginning to be amused. “What else can you determine?”
“Cinnamon, rose, and gardenia, I think. Not terribly subtle, but perhaps he was making allowances for the recipient, which suggests a certain effort at diplomatic courtesy. Or perhaps even straightforwardness, perish the thought. See what you make of it, Cordelia.” He handed the card and its envelope across to her.
“A fellow shouldn’t be drenching letters in perfume, should he?” asked Vorinnis uneasily. “Or are all their consulate invitations like that?”
“You’ve heard of the language of flowers, Lieutenant?” asked Cordelia.
The girl’s rather straight and thick eyebrows lowered. “Wasn’t that some Time of Isolation custom? Different flowers would have different meanings. Red roses for love, white lilies for grief, that sort of cra—thing?”
“That’s right,” said Oliver. “Well, Cetagandan ghem culture, when it’s at home, doesn’t just stop at flowers. Objects, artistic choices and their juxtapositions, flowers—naturally—scents, you name it. All convey coded messages.”