Why not? Everyone else does. “My mother likes you,” he offered.

“And I admire her. I’ve met her, what, four times now, and every time I’m more impressed. And yet … the more impressed, the more outraged I am at the criminal waste Barrayar makes of her talents. She’d be Surveyor-General of the Betan Astronomical Survey by now, if she’d stayed on Beta Colony. Or any other thing she pleased.”

“She pleased to be Countess Vorkosigan.”

“She pleased to be stunned by your Da, whom I admit is pretty stunning. She doesn’t give squat for the rest of the Vor caste.” Quinn paused, before they came into the hearing of the Escobaran customs inspectors, and Miles stood with her. They both gazed down the chamber, and not at each other. “For all her flair, she’s a tired woman underneath. Barrayar has sucked so much out of her. Barrayar is her cancer. Killing her slowly.”

Mutely, Miles shook his head.

“Yours too. Lord Vorkosigan,” Quinn added somberly. This time it was his turn to flinch.

She sensed it, and tossed her head. “Anyway, Admiral Naismith is my kind of maniac. Lord Vorkosigan is a dull and dutiful stick by contrast. I’ve seen you at home on Barrayar, Miles. You’re like half yourself there. Damped down, muted somehow. Even your voice is lower. It’s extremely weird.”

“I can’t … I have to fit in, there. Scarcely a generation ago, someone with a body as strange as mine would have been killed outright as a suspected mutant. I can’t push things too far, too fast. I’m too easy to target.”

“Is that why Barrayaran Imperial Security sends you on so many off-planet missions?”

“For my development as an officer. To widen my background, deepen my experience.”

“And someday, they’re going to hook you out of here permanently, and take you home, and squeeze all that experience back out of you in their service. Like a sponge.”