Shireen Bruzio lay limp among her cushions staring blankly into total darkness. Her misery gnawed at her like physical pain but much less escapable. Estellan was lost. Her child, her masterwork, the incarnation of years of genetic dreams. Dead. Gone. Lost. They had promised her other children but what good was that? They wouldn't be Estellan.
A voice whispered in the darkness. "Haut Shireen? Haut Mikal Adiq asks you to receive him."
"Send him in." Shireen sat up switching off the light exclusion field. Her inner chamber sprang into focus all soft colors and exquisitely modulated spaces. Mikal must have been just outside the door for he entered on her word. She blinked.
He was wearing layers of cherry and scarlet instead of mourning white. His eyes were bright and a smile covered his face. He swooped down on her catching up her hands in a startlingly impetuous gesture. "They've found her, Shireen! Estellan's alive, she coming home!"
Shireen burst into tears.
….
The nightmare had begun weeks ago with an unexpected summons to Grandmadame's chambers. Shireen obeyed with curiousity but no concern - until she saw Grandmadame's face. The Consort of the Bruzio Constellation was paler than usual and was that red rimming her eyes? Grandmadame had been crying? Shireen tensed.
"Child.." for a moment it seemed Grandmadame couldn't continue then she pulled herself together. "My child, something dreadful has happened. The Consort's ship has been lost - and our children with it."
For a moment it didn't register then realization set in, "Estellan."
"I am so very sorry, Shireen," Grandmadame said earnestly. "This terrible event will not change your status. You are still a reproducer. With Estellan lost you have an unspent child-credit. You can start again -"
Shireen barely heard her. "Estellan…" all that work gone. Two years of study and experimentation before she settled on the final genome. All that artistry lost. Estellan, her precious first daughter, dead before she'd had the chance to live. "How… how could this happen?"
Grandmadame actually wrung her hands. "Nobody seems to know. The ship tumbled off course for some reason right into a sun -"
Burned. Her daughter had been burned alive. Had it been quick? Had Estellan suffered as the fluid in her capsule heated, boiled? Shireen heard her Grandmadame calling for assistance somewhere a long ways away. Cold. She was so cold but Estellan had burned! Voices floated past her and a prick on her arm brought blessed unconsciousness.
The nightmare went on and on. Shireen's brief periods of sleep were filled with visions of burning infants. Her waking time were dragging hours of misery. The Constellation grieved too, she knew, but it was not the same for her kin. They were saddened yes but their life work was not in ruins. Only one person could understand what she felt - Estellan's father.
Haut Mikal Adiq had been just a name on a genome chart, it was his genes that interested her and their artistic combination with her own in the creation of their daughter. She'd never met him, nor had she wanted to while Estellan lived.
Their acquaintance began, as most haut relationships did with a poem; a brief, agonizingly sincere cry of grief that had gone straight to Shireen's broken heart. Her answer had been inept but equally full of feeling. Painfully awkward and unliterary as the exchange had been it had brought them together. Shireen extended an invitation and Mikal had accepted.
They met in a tea house in the west garden of the Bruzio estate. Mikal's appearance was familiar to Shireen from genetic extraps, dark with the aquiline features that had become so fashionable since Fletchir Giaja's accession. The helpless, hopeless grief in his tawny eyes spoke to her own.
"Estellan was my reward for achieving the fourth rank," Mikal said accepting a bowl of green tea from Shireen's hand. He took the ritual sip before continuing. grief aching in his voice; "A daughter, a piece on the board of Empire. A potential Planetary Consort or even Imperial Mother. I was so happy. I had such dreams for her," he blinked back tears.
Shireen found herself smiling for the first time in days, though it was a small, sad smile. "Ambitious weren't you?"
"Of course. For us both," he answered frankly. "I know to a haut woman the creation of her child is the achievement. For us men it is her - or his - career. Estellan held not only my ambitions but my hopes in her small hands…." his voice broke.
"We women are not indifferent to the advancement of our children," Shireen managed to choke out before they both melted into tears.
That first visit was followed by many others. They talked and wept together and one night he stayed and they comforted each other in the oldest and most human way of all.
"She was going to have your eyes," Shireen whispered into the darkness, "and your cheekbones, but my coloring in skin and hair. And I gave her my favorite demi-sister's mouth and jawline. She would have been so very beautiful."
"I know," he answered as softly, "I saw the extraps."
That night Shireen didn't dream of burning babies.
It was better when Mikal was there. When he wasn't Shireen sank back into the blackest depression. Grandmadame encouraged him to come often. They struggled on together, waiting for the pain to fade.
…..
"How?" Shireen gasped through her tears, "How can Estellan be alive? Was it all a mistake?"
Mikal settled himself next to her on the cushioned dais and put an arm around her. "It's the maddest story I've ever heard. There was a traitor on the child ship, from inside the Star Creche itself. Who it was they won't say, but the Consort Rhoyna Elleu, her retinue and the crew of the ship were all murdered before it was sent into the sun, and our children unloaded into another ship." He paused, collecting his thoughts. "Then the story gets even stranger. Somehow our Estellan and the other children ended up on a Komarran freighter at the far end of the Nexus where they were discovered by a Lord Vorkosigan -"
Shireen jerked away from his side to stare. "A Barrayaran? A Vor!"
Mikal nodded. "The traitor was trying to cast the blame on Barrayar. He or she could have started a war -"
"Sounds like a ghem," Shireen remarked.
"A very stupid ghem!" Mikal agreed. "Happily the Vorkosigan wanted war no more than we do. He loaded our children on one of his own ships and brought them home to us."
"Estellan," Shireen breathed happily.
….
Shireen watched the red and golden light of sunset turn the waters of the lake that lay between the gubernatorial palace and the city proper to liquid fire and tinted the bubbles of the haut-lady reproducers rose and gold. Her float chair hovered among a handful of others low on the grassy slope that enclosed the Place of Child Hopes, this seasons' mothers of Constellation Adiq. Mikal stood beside her chair, dressed again in mourning white. Shireen's bubble was tuned to white but inside she wore a blazing array of brilliantly colored robes reflecting her piercing joy. 'Estellan, Estellan!" her heart sang.
Sunset faded into twilight which deepened into night. Stars danced in reflection on the silky black ripples of the lake. Shireen breathed the mingled perfumes of the waiting haut and savored in anticipation the happiness of holding her daughter in her arms.
Mikal stood beside her chair. Around them four of his cousin-sibs attended their own reproductive partners. The night passed in desultory conversation broken by long silences and mostly concerned with the strange odyssey of their children. The men speculated on the motives and identity of theoretical ghem traitor. The women spoke softly, guardedly among themselves of the true traitor - a ba of the Star Creche. But all that really mattered was that their children were safe, secure in the keeping of the Consort of Eta Ceta and that soon they would here.
Towards dawn a lift van sailed overhead, banked a turn above the lake and settled onto the grass. Mikal, murmured an apology to Shireen and hurried to take his place in the Governor's retinue.
Assorted odd, alien figures disembarked, three of them in floaters attended by a ghem-General of Security, a short woman in gray and black layerings and a bulky figure in an unfamiliar uniform. They moved towards the official party.
Shireen was close enough to make out faces and features. "Which one is Lord Vorkosigan?" she wondered aloud.
"The man in the lead floater," one of Mikal's sibs answered. "The others are a Betan hermaphrodite and his quaddie lover." he paused as all took a moment to reflect upon the strangeness of that pairing. "The woman is Lady Vorkosigan and the male following them their bodyguard."
The offworld visitors and the Governor's party exchanged small talk. The reproducers watched the sky eagerly. Shuttle lights appeared but turned disappointingly towards the city. A second set of lights appeared, grew larger, resolved into a Star Creche vessel signed with the screaming phoenix. Shireen gripped her hands tightly together, her held breath sighing out. Similar sighs echoed over the sound system from her fellow haut ladies. The men accompanying them went very still, eyes wide, reflecting the lights of the shuttle.
An empty float chair, a silent tribute to the murdered consort emerged first. Shireen ducked her head respectfully, the men among them bowed deeply. The empty chair was followed by the Consort of Eta Ceta and her retinue of handmaidens, ghem-ladies in waiting and ba servitors.
The Consort Pel directed her bubble to the official party then switched off her field to publicly and personally address the Security officer: "Ghem-General Benin, as you are charged, please now convey the thanks of Emperor the haut Fletchir Giaja to these Outlanders who have brought our Constellations' hopes home to us." Her words, transmitted by the sound system of her float chair, were clearly audible not only to Shireen, in easy earshot, but to the most remote fringes of the crowd.
Warrants of the Celestial House, third highest of the honors granted by the Emperor, were presented to the honorable herm Bel Thorne and to the Lady Vorkosigan. Then Lord Vorkosigan, startlingly and disproportionately short on his own two feet, was called forward.
"My Imperial Master, the Emperor the haut Fletchir Giaja, reminds me that true delicacy in the giving of gifts considers the tastes of the recipient. He therefore charges me only to convey to you his personal thanks, in his own Breath and Voice."
"I don't understand," one of the other Adiq mothers murmured.
"Barayarans value the given word even more than our own ghem," her mate answered as softly. "The Emperor is quite right, the Vorkosigan will value those words far more than any of our customary rewards."
Ghem-General Benin went on to thank Lord Vorkosigan in the name of the Celestial Lady, the Imperial Mother and Empress Rian with the same formula, which seemed to please the odd little manikin far more than the Emperor's thanks.
He bowed deeply and his words: "I am at her service in this," carried clearly to Shireen's party.
Benin gave way to haut Pel. "Indeed," she said, "Lord Miles Naismith Vorkosigan of Barrayar, the Star Creche calls you up."
Shireen gasped. That was the first honor of the Empire, the assumption of one's genome into the haut. Such a tribute to a damaged, malformed creature like that! What was the Star Creche thinking?
"It's not as bad as it looks," Another of the Adiq mothers reassured them softly. "His damage is purely teratogenic. And think of his ancestors; General Count Piotr Vorkosigan, Admiral Count Aral Vorkosigan, he could be carrying some valuable traits."
One of these days Shireen was like to be assigned a son. It might be interesting to see what the little Vorling had to offer at that.
The eastern horizon was paling to sunrise, the lake waters shimmering gray in the growing light. Ghem ladies and ba guided the first rack of replicators down the ramp from the shuttle, followed by another, and another, and another.
The Consort Pel, standing in for the lost Consort Royna, called forth the fathers among the assembled reproducers to receive their children. Mikal returned among his sibs guiding a rack holding five replicators. Carefully he detached Estellan's capsule and cradling it in his arms moved to Shireen's side. She flicked a switch on her controls and her bubble bloomed into brilliant color along with those of the other Adiq mothers. Side by side she and Mikal climbed the slope of the Place of Child Hopes passing over the ridge to the field where their car awaited them as the sky turned rose-gold behind them.
Shireen switched off her field as soon as they were safe inside. "Give her to me," she pleaded, holding out her arms. Mikal passed their daughter over with a smile then began divesting himself of his mourning robes.
Shireen hugged the replicator capsule close, stroking the reassuringly green indicator panels, tears spangling her cheeks. "Oh, my Estellan!"
"Our Estellan," Mikal corrected, shrugging on his scarlet and plum layerings. "The haut Estellan Adiq d'Bruzio!"
"Future Consort or Empress," Shireen laughed through her tears.
"Why not both at once?" Mikal asked wickedly, making her laugh harder.
…..
The Creche Mistress of Constellation Adiq laid Estellan in her mother's arms. The infant opened her tiny mouth emitting a short of chirp, her small, sturdy arms and legs waving aimlessly but strongly.
"Oh my daughter," Shireen said, her voice fraught with emotion, "how we have suffered for you, your father and I!"
"Indeed," Mikal agreed, turning the little face towards himself with one long finger. "How close we came to losing you!"
"She is home and safe now," the Creche Mistress soothed, "You must try to forget."
Shireen shook her head. "No, haut Mistress, we must remember always so we may treasure this child the more."
The older woman thought that over, nodded, "You are right, haut Shireen." She held out her arms for Estellan and Shireen reluctantly gave her daughter up. "The Lady Adiq bids me say she grants you freedom of the creche, you may visit haut Estellan at will."
"Thank you," Shireen said gratefully.
Mikal looked mildly surprised at the unusual concession moving the Creche Mistress to explain; "This year's mothers have undergone a terrible trauma, it is natural that they will feel an extra attachment to these children and desire more involvement in their rearing."
"The fathers too," said Mikal.
"Of course," the Creche Mistress agreed.
Mikal escorted Shireen through the galleries and courtyards of the Adiq compound back to the car waiting to take her home. "In a few more years," he said, "I will be old enough to establish my own household. Grandmadame has promised that I may take Estellan with me providing I can persuade suitable haut ladies to undertake her charge. I believe, haut Shireen, that she would regard you as very suitable. I consider you singularly so."
Shireen smiled at him, "I shall be most willing to live under your protection, haut Mikal, when the time comes.
He smiled back.