“Um . . .” Some quick internal editing, here . . . ”It was on an ImpSec mission. I can't talk about it. But she was a musician, of all things. Played the hammer dulcimer with all four arms.” His attempt to mime this remarkable sight resulted in his banging his elbow painfully on the cabin wall. “Her name was Nicol. You would have liked her. We got her out of a tight spot. I wonder if she ever made it home?” He rubbed his elbow and added hopefully, “I'll bet the quaddies' free fall gardening techniques would interest you.”
Ekaterin brightened. “Yes, indeed.”
Miles returned to his reports with the uncomfortable certainty that this was not going to be a good task to plunge into underprepared. He mentally added a review of quaddie history to his list of studies for the next few days.
CHAPTER TWO
“Is my collar straight?”
Ekaterin's cool fingers made businesslike work upon the back of Miles's neck; he concealed the shiver down his spine. “Now it is,” she said.
“Clothes make the Auditor,” he muttered. The little cabin lacked such amenities as a full-length mirror; he had to use his wife's eyes instead. This did not seem a disadvantage. She stepped back as far as she could, a half-pace to the bulkhead, and looked him up and down to check the effect of his Vorkosigan House uniform: brown tunic with his family crest in silver thread upon the high collar, silver-embroidered cuffs, brown trousers with silver side piping, tall brown riding boots. The Vor class had been cavalry soldiers, in their heyday. No horse within God knew how many light-years now, that was certain.
He touched his wrist com, mate in function to the one she wore, though hers was made Vor-lady-like with a decorative silver bracelet. “I'll give you a heads-up when I'm ready to come back and change.” He nodded toward the plain gray suit she'd already laid out on the bunk. A uniform for the military-minded, civvies for the civilians. And let the weight of Barrayaran history, eleven generations of Counts Vorkosigan at his back, make up for his lack of height, his faintly hunched stance. His less visible defects, he didn't need to mention.