Captain Vorpatril's alliance

“My, um, mother might be able to put you in touch with a good one,” Ivan suggested. Not that he necessarily wanted their stay extended. With one exception.

“Lady Alys has already made that offer,” said Udine brightly. “So helpful, your mother.”

“What will you all do if the extension is‑” he started to say, denied, but switched on the fly to, “granted? You wouldn’t be planning to stay permanently, would you? Apply for immigration status, take oath as Barrayaran subjects? I should probably warn you, they take oaths pretty seriously around here.”

Udine smiled slightly. “I am aware.”

“It wouldn’t be my first choice,” said Shiv, gem‑black eyes narrowing in his dark face in some unreadable emotion, “but if there is one thing my life has taught me, it’s the need to stay flexible. Barrayar is not a place I would ever have gone voluntarily, but I must say I’ve been agreeably surprised by what I’ve seen here. They do say travel broadens the mind. If none of our first‑choice plans work out, we may simply have to develop some new…enterprise.” His carved lips drew back in a smile‑like expression.

Ivan tried to imagine how a Jacksonian who had already once fought his way to the top of a major House defined that last term. Plus wife, don’t forget – they did seem to be a team. The only comparison he had was Miles’s Jacksonian‑raised and relentlessly entrepreneurial clone‑brother Mark, which was…not especially reassuring.

Ivan wondered if it was better to lay his cards right on the table‑ Just what are you people after under that park in front of ImpSec? Or let them assume him oblivious? Presumed obliviousness had served Ivan well many times in the past, after all. Perhaps he should split the difference. Just how close to tapped out were the Arquas, anyway? Could he ask Raudsepp? Morozov?

Hell, why not ask Shiv?

He leaned back and tented his hands, remembered where that gesture came from, almost put them down, but then left them up. “So…just how close are you folks to being tapped out, anyway? It’s been a pretty long run for you to get this far.” He just barely stopped his mouth from going on and apologizing for such a rude question, as Udine, at least, was nodding in rare approval.

Shiv’s eye‑flick caught it, too. His thick shoulders gave a little shrug. “How much is enough depends on what you want to do with it. Venture capital‑I believe you planetary agriculturalists would call it seed corn, ah, yes, that’s the term‑if a man is reduced to consuming his startup stake, he has nothing to hazard for the next round. What do you people call your currency, marks – well, Barrayaran marks, Betan dollars, Cetagandan reyuls, doesn’t matter, the principle’s the same. There’s a saying in the Whole: it’s easier to turn one million into two million than it is to turn one into two.”

“The effective break‑point for us,” put in Udine, “is enough to fund a credible attempt to retake House Cordonah. We are, shall we say, not without hidden resources and potential allies back in the Whole, but not if we arrive appearing to be disarmed, destitute, and desperate.”

“Whether you can climb up to success or are forced down to grubberdom depends on making your break‑point,” said Shiv. “Both success and failure are feedback loops, that way. Me, I started as a gutter grubber. I don’t plan on going back down to that gutter again alive.”

Jacksonian determination glinted in Shiv’s eye, reminding Ivan, for a weird moment, of his cousin Miles. People for whom failure was psychologically tantamount to death, yeah.

Ivan had a few clues as to what forces had shaped Miles that way, putative child of privilege though he was. The chief of whom had been named General Count Piotr Vorkosigan, though Barrayar’s endemic hostility toward perceived mutations had certainly provided an on‑going chorus to that appalling old man, whose every grudging grain of approval had been won by his mutie grandson by an equally appalling achievement, or at least some bone‑cracking attempt at it. On Ivan’s personal youthful list of people to avoid, Great‑uncle Piotr had been at the top. Not a ploy available to Miles, poor sawed‑off sod.

So what had shaped and wound that same tight spring in Shiv? And Udine as well? Ivan wasn’t sure he wanted the tour.

“Isn’t enough to fund a small war also enough to, say, buy a nice tropical island and retire?” Ivan couldn’t help asking.

“Not while those Prestene bastards hold two of my children hostage,” said Shiv grimly.

“Not to mention my hair,” said Udine, plucking at her fringe. Shiv caught the nervous hand and kissed it, looking sideways at his wife, and for the first time Ivan wondered, What else besides the hair? Yet whatever had been done to her, in the unsavory hands of her enemies, Ivan was pretty sure the hair was going to be the only part ever mentioned aloud.

“Ah. Yeah,” said Ivan. No, it wasn’t just about money; there was blood on the line as well. Ivan understood blood, well enough.