Lois Bujold - Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen

It was a good day on the military transfer station orbiting the planet Sergyar. The Vicereine was coming home.

As he entered the stations Command-and-Control room, Admiral Joles eye swept the main tactics display, humming and colorful above its holo-table. The map of his territoryalbeit presently set to the distorted scale of human interests within Sergyars system, and not the astrographic reality, which would leave everything invisible and put humans firmly in their place as a faint smear on the surface of a speck. A G-star burning tame and pleasant at this distance; its necklace of half-a-dozen planets and their circling moons; the colony world itself turning below the station. Of more critical strategic interest, the four wormhole jump points that were its gateways to the greater galactic nexus, and their attendant military and civilian stationstwo highly active with a stream of commercial traffic and scheduled tightbeam relays, leading to the jump routes back to the rest of the Barrayaran Empire and on to its nearest neighbor on this side, currently peaceful Escobar; one accessing a long and uneconomical backdoor route to the Nexus; the last leading, as far as forty years of exploration had found, nowhere.

Jole wondered at what point in the past double-handful of years hed started carrying the whole map and everything moving through it in his head at once. Hed used to consider his mentors ability to do so as something bordering on the supernatural, although the late Aral Vorkosigan had done it routinely for an entire three-system empire, and not just its smallest third. Time, it seemed, had gifted Jole easily with what earnest study had found hard. Good. Because time bloody owed him, for all that it had taken away.

It was quiet this morning in the C-and-C room, most of the techs bored at their stations, the ventilation laden with the usual scents of electronics, recycled air, and overcooked coffee. He moved to the one station that was brightly lit, letting his hand press the shoulder of the traffic controller, stay on task. The man nodded and returned his attention to the pair of ships coming in.

The Vicereines jump-pinnace was nearly identical to that of a fleet admiral, small and swift, bristling more with communications equipment than weapons. Its escort, a fast courier, could keep up, but was scarcely better armed; they traveled together more for safety in case of technical emergencies than any other sort. None this trip, thankfully. Jole watched with what he knew was perfectly pointless anxiety as they maneuvered into their docking clamps. No pilot would want to make a clumsy docking under those calm gray eyes.

His newest aide popped up at his elbow. The honor guard reports ready, sir.

Thank you, Lieutenant Vorinnis. Well go over now.

He motioned her into his wake as he exited C-and-C and made for the Vicereines docking bay. Kaya Vorinnis was far from the first of the techs, medtechs, and troops from the greatly expanded Imperial Service Womens Auxiliary to be assigned to Sergyar command, nor the first to be assigned directly to his office. But the Vicereine would approve, which was a charming thought, though Cordelia would doubtless also make some less-charming remark about how her natal Beta Colony and a like list of advanced planets had boasted fully-gender-integrated space services since forever. Personally, Jole was relieved that he only had to supervise the women during working hours, and that their off-duty arrangements here on-station and on the downside base were the direct responsibility of a rather maternal and very efficient ISWA colonel.

Ive never seen Vicereine Vorkosigan in person, Vorinnis confided to him. Only in vids. Jole was reminded not to let his long stride quicken unduly, though the lieutenants breathlessness might be as much due to incipient heroine-worship, not misplaced in Joles view.

Oh? I thought you were a relative of Count Vorinnis. Had you not spent much time in Vorbarr Sultana?

Not that closely related, sir. Ive only met the count twice. And most of my time in the capital was spent running around Ops. I was put on Admin track pretty directly. Her light sigh was easy to interpret, having the identical content to those of her male predecessors: Not ship duty, dammit.

Well, take heart. I was put through a seven-year rotation in the capital as a military secretary and aide, but I still caught three tours on trade fleet escort duty afterward. The most active and far-flung space-based duty an Imperial officer could aspire to during peacetime, culminating in his one and only ship captaincy, traded in due course for this Sergyar patch.

Yes, but that was aide to Regent Vorkosigan himself!

He was down to Prime Minister Vorkosigan, by then. Jole permitted himself a brief lip twitch. Im not that old. And just kept his mouth from adding, young lady! It wasnt merely Vorinniss height, or lack of it, that made her look twelve in his eyes, or her gender; her recent male counterparts were no better. Although, by whatever irony, my one stint in an active theater of war was as his secretary, when I followed him to the Hegen Hub. Not that we knew it was going to end up a shooting war when that trip started.

Were you ever under fire?

Well, yes. There is no rear echelon on a flagship. Since the Emperor was also aboard by that point, it was fortunate that our shields never failed. Two decades ago, now. And what a top-secret cockup that entire episode had been, which, glued throughout to Ex-Regent Prime Minister Admiral Count Vorkosigans shoulder, Jole had witnessed at the closest possible range from first to last. His Hegen Hub war stories had always had to be among his most thoroughly edited.

I guess youve known Vicereine Vorkosigan just as long, then?

Nearly exactly, yes. Its been He had to calculate it in his head, and the sum took him aback. Twenty-three years, almost.

Im almost twenty-three, Vorinnis offered, in a tone of earnest helpfulness.

Ah, Jole managed. He was rescued from any further fall into this surreal time warp by their arrival at Docking Bay Nine.

The dozen men of the honor guard braced, and Jole returned salutes punctiliously while running his eye over their turnout. Everything shipshape and shiny, good. He duly complimented the sergeant in charge and turned to take up a parade rest in strategic view of the personnel flex tube, just locking on under the competent and very attentive supervision of the bay tech. Exiting a null-gee flex tube into the grav field of a station or ship was seldom a graceful or dignified process, but the first three persons out were reasonably practiced: a ships officer, one of the Vicereines ImpSec guards, and Armsman Rykov, the only one of the new Count Vorkosigans personal retainers seconded to his mother, in her other hat as Dowager Countess. The first man attended to mechanics, the second made a visual and electronic scan of the docking bay for unscheduled human hazards, and the third turned to assist his liege lady. Vorinnis tried to stand on tiptoe and to attention simultaneously, which didnt quite work, but she dropped from Joles awareness as the last figure cleared the tube in a smooth swing and flowed to her feet with the aid of her armsmans proffered hands.

Everyone snapped to attention as the color sergeant piped her aboard. Admiral Jole saluted, and said formally, Vicereine Vorkosigan. Welcome back. I trust your journey was uneventful.

Thank you, Admiral, and so it was, she returned, equally formally. Its good to be back.

He made a quick initial assay of her. She looked a trifle jump-lagged, but nothing like the frightening dead-gray bleakness that had haunted her features when shed returned alone almost three years ago from her husbands state funeral. Not that Jole himself had been in much better form, at the time. The colonists of Sergyar had been entirely uncertain if they were going to get their Vicereine back at all, that trip, or if some stranger-lord would be appointed in her place. But she was wearing colors again now, if subdued ones, Komarran-style trousers and jacket, and her unmistakable smile had warmed to something better than room temperature. She was still keeping her tousled red-gray hair cut short; the fine bones of her face held out, like a rampart that had never fallen.