Captain Vorpatril's alliance

“After four years?” Tej blinked in new dismay. In other words, the Simon Illyan was almost‑sort‑of Ivan’s stepfather and he hadn’t mentioned it till now? “Does he really have a cyborg brain?”

“What?”

“That was the rumor in the Whole. Illyan, the Barrayaran Imperial Security chief with the cyborg brain.” The whispers had suggested a sinister super‑humanity. Or super‑inhumanity.

“I wouldn’t call it that. When he was a young ImpSec lieutenant‑twenty‑seven, I think he said, good grief, that’s almost eight years younger than I am now…” Ivan Xav trailed off, then took up his thread again. “Anyway, then‑Emperor Ezar sent him all the way to Illyrica, a trip that took months, to be fitted with an experimental eidetic‑memory chip. Which was kind of a bust‑nine out of ten of the subjects came down with some sort of chip‑induced schizophrenia, and the project was canned. Illyan was a tenth man. So ever after that he had to cope with two memories, the perfect one off his chip, and his original organic one. Ezar, of course, died, and Illyan had to find his own way‑he became one of the Regent’s key men around the time of the Pretendership.”

“So, so he had a stroke, and…” Tej puzzled through all this spate of belated information. “It did something to this chip?”

Ivan Xav cleared his throat. “Actually, it was the other way around. The chip broke down. Had to be surgically removed. But Illyan’s brain had sort of, it’s hard to describe‑even harder to live through, I guess‑rerouted itself around the chip in the, what, almost thirty‑five years that he had it. When it was so abruptly yanked out, it was really hard for him to readjust.

“So the thing about Simon is,” Ivan Xav forged on, “the thing about Simon is, he used to have this terrifying total recall, but now he sometimes doesn’t track. He’s pretty quiet, so you’re not always sure what’s going on in his head, not that you ever were. So, um…make allowances, huh?”

He was‑Tej tried to sort it out‑he was anxious for his mother’s lover’s dignity, then? And not just for how it reflected on his mother, it seemed. He seemed anxious for Simon Illyan in his own right. That was…unexpected.

And Illyan was now her…stepfather‑in‑law? Or would he see her that way? It was unclear whether he and Ivan Xav were close. But it seemed that the legend was in some sort of medical eclipse. Well, old people. It was said Barrayarans aged faster than galactics.

It was all very curious. If the looming Christos were to offer them escape from their date with fate right now, she wasn’t sure that she would take him up on it.

They arrived at length at another tallish residential tower, this one high on the river ridge and so commanding an even better view. “Is this where you grew up?” Tej inquired, as they entered yet another underground garage.

“No, m’mother moved here recently. She has the top two floors. She used to live in an older building much closer to the Imperial Residence. That was where I grew up as much as anywhere, I guess.”

“Nice digs,” murmured Rish as they rose in a transparent lift tube through level after level of elegantly appointed foyers. “Are higher floors more expensive?”

“Dunno. She owns the building, so it’s not like she pays the rent.” He added after a moment, “She still owns t’old one, too.” And, after another, “And mine. Has a business manager to look after ’em all.”

Tej was beginning to wonder if Lady Alys Vorpatril qualified as a House Minor in her own right. And then they were crossing out of the tube into another foyer, and escorted by Christos through a pair of sleek doors clad in fine wood marquetry to a hushed hallway graced with mirrors and fresh flowers. And then into a broad living room backed by wide glass walls taking in a sweeping panorama of the capital, with the sun going down and the dusk rising to turn the city lights to jewels on velvet for as far as the eye could see, under a cloud‑banded sky.

In two comfortable‑looking armchairs angled close together at the room’s far corner sat a man and a woman; both rose and advanced as Christos announced, “Milady, sir; Lord Ivan Vorpatril, Lady Tej Vorpatril, Mademoiselle Lapis Lazuli,” and bowed himself out, delivering his captives and escaping in the same smooth movement.

Tej scrambled to recognize the couple from assorted vid scans she’d recently seen, although, as always, a person in person was subtly different from their graphic representations‑in scent, in sound, in sheer palpability. And these people were palpable.

Lady Alys was a woman past youth and into an indeterminate age one might dub dignified, but certainly not old; she moved with ease, and the streak of silver in her bound‑back hair seemed to rest there as mere tasteful decoration. Dark brown eyes like Ivan Xav’s, large in her pale, oval face; fine skin well‑cared‑for. A long‑sleeved, dark red dress with a hem at her mid‑calf was topped by a darker loose sleeveless vest of equal length, the colors appropriate to her skin tones, her surroundings, and the season.