unmarred | slipped along the way

"Okay," says Stalas. "So what are they?"

"It all goes back... more than six hundred years, if you really want to start at the beginning," he says. "When humanity first discovered they could transit the horrifying void - I love that phrase, by the way - fast enough and far enough to get to other livable planets and back. The definition of 'livable' was pretty broad, as broad as they could make it, because it was hard to find any planets so they had to work with what they could get. That's when humans first came to Barrayar. Fifty thousand of them. And pretty soon after, the wormhole linking Barrayar to the rest of humanity collapsed. A collapsed wormhole isn't like a collapsed tunnel; you can't dig it back out. Gone for good. Rare as hell, but devastating when it's the wrong one. Barrayar lost touch with everyone else, lost hold of technology, government, social structure, everything. The Time of Isolation was hell in a lot of ways. They had to build themselves back up."

"I've heard it alluded to," he says. "Go on."

"Right, so then another wormhole opened up, through Komarr. Komarr's another broadly livable planet, even farther from ideal than Barrayar - Barrayar has breathable air. Komarr not so much. Everybody has to live under huge domes that rebalance the air for them so there's enough of the parts people need to breathe. Their main resource is a lot of wormhole connections through the system, so they can make people pay to come through. And a little while after Barrayar was rediscovered, the Cetagandan Empire made the kind of stupid decision to invade 'em, and Komarr made the even stupider decision to let the Cetagandans bribe their way past. I mean, I'm sure everyone thought Barrayar would be easy pickings, but they should've thought about it harder first."

"They didn't go down easy," Stalas guesses.

"Occupied for twenty years, resisting the whole time, and then they finally kicked the Cetagandans out. And the first thing they did afterward was invade Komarr. Right? Because there's nothing else they could have fucking done. It was easy pickings - Miles's father wrote a book on it. Didn't have to fire a shot, just show up in force and offer good terms of surrender, because those domes are a huge vulnerability and everybody knew it."

"Something went wrong," he says. It's not hard to pick up on the rhythm of Mark's storytelling.

"Straight to hell. One of Aral's underlings had two hundred people killed, nobody's ever gonna find out exactly why, revenge is likeliest, but of course Aral took the heat for it because he was in charge. Suddenly instead of the most peaceful conquest you could ask for, it was... not that. Komarrans are very, very bitter about the name Vorkosigan. I'm sure you can see where I'm going with this."

"A Komarran decided to make... you?"

"Yeah. Not as a first resort, he blew up some buildings first. But eventually he decided he was going to replace Aral Vorkosigan's son with an indistinguishable copy who was loyal to the cause, fill my head with stupid ideas about becoming Emperor of Barrayar, and have me kill Aral, the Emperor, and anyone else who got in my way, to wreck 'em badly enough that he could lead a successful revolt on Komarr while Barrayar was dealing with me. Except that the person he decided to clone was Miles Vorkosigan. Incredibly smart, high-energy, twisty, intuitive, pathologically determined Miles Vorkosigan. And he had to get me as much real information about my original as possible, so I could impersonate him. I did nnnot grow up as loyal to the cause as Galen hoped. It was pretty clear to me who was the better role model."

"I can't imagine that went well."

"Ha," he says darkly. "When I got anything wrong about being Miles, he'd punish me. When I got everything right, he'd tell me what a good boy I was and then punish me anyway because it was the closest he could get to hurting Aral. When I showed the least little sign of not agreeing with him perfectly about everything, he'd punish me. When I sounded too much like I was just reciting the party line to save my skin, he'd punish me. When I did anything unauthorized - midnight snack, trip to a museum... I'm sure you get the picture."

"Wow. Yes. Vividly."

Stalas hesitates, then wraps Mark up in a gentle hug.

He smiles and hugs back, nestling his face against Stalas's shoulder.

"Thanks," he murmurs. "I... thanks."

"I'm getting all upset and protective," Stalas says wryly. "As predicted."

"There's plenty of horrifying details. I'd have to explain what a shock-stick is... it doesn't matter that much. He hurt me, a lot, until I was so fucking terrified of him that if I did anything I expected to piss him off I'd be too scared to think or move. Learned to work around that as well as I could. And then, oh happy day, he had me and Miles and a deadly weapon all together close by and he handed me the nerve disruptor with obvious intentions and I shot him before I could freeze up. Thus ends Galen."

"Good riddance. I think I might hate him more than I hate my brother Bhelen, and that is saying something."

"Story you want to share? I've heard some pieces, I think."

"So, King Endrin Aeducan has three sons by two mothers. Trian, Stalas, and Bhelen. I'm the odd one out, mother-wise. Trian was a fucking clod, nothing in his head but propriety, tradition, and the joy of exercising power. He would have made a shit king. Bhelen... Bhelen was always a little quiet. Good long-term planner. Smart. Knew how to avoid offending anybody. And me, well, you know me. So one day, not too long ago, our father made me a commander. I was excited about my first mission, even though all I got to command was my own second and a couple of scouts, heading into the old Aeducan Thaig to retrieve Aeducan's shield from his tomb. Bhelen took me aside the night before and we had a little talk. I asked him if he'd ever thought of petitioning Father to make him heir, told him I'd back him in a hot second given that the other options were Trian and me and even if Father could ram it past the Assembly I'd hate to have to rule Orzammar one day. Rather command armies. We joked around a little. I thought, you know... he was my brother. We were never close, but I was glad we were getting along. And then he warned me that he thought Trian might be making a move against me."

"Which Trian wasn't."

"Ha. There were some mercenaries between me and the shield - had to kill 'em all, I hated that, I hate killing people - and then when we headed back to the rendezvous we found Trian's body. And I knew. I knew instantly. I didn't want to know. But I knew exactly what had happened. And Bhelen burst in, dragging Father behind him... he'd bribed both the scouts to lie and say they'd seen me kill my brother in cold blood. I have never been so angry in my life."

Mark hugs him.

"I definitely did not expect this much of us crying on each other," Stalas mumbles.

"It's okay. It's good. It's okay."

"Yeah," he sighs. "Yeah."

Cuddles.

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