Editor's Note: Instead of the traditional method of listing the books and novellas in their first published order, we have chosen to arrange them in chronological order as events unfold in the Vorkosigan universe.
"Dreamweaver's Dilemma"
First published in Dreamweaver's Dilemma, 1996
Approximately six hundred years before Miles Vorkosigan's birth, Anias Ruey, a "feelie-dream" composer, uses a device called a dream synthesizer to create artificial dreams that people can experience as if they were actually dreaming themselves, a sort of virtual reality. She is late providing a sequel to her most successful feelie-dream, a romance called Triad, mostly because the idea bores her, and takes a new commission from a mysterious man named Rudolph Kinsey, who makes her uneasy, but the price he offers is too good to pass up. To recharge herself, she travels to the secluded home of her friend Chalmys DuBauer, a spaceship pilot who spent more than a century traveling between Earth and its first off-planet habitat, Beta Colony, and who was rendered obsolete by the technological developments made during that time. She completes the commission, a dark and violent scenario, and gives it to Rudolph in exchange for a bonded check. Before he leaves, he requests a brief feelie-dream for his aunt. When Anias goes to set up her dream synthesizer, she finds it has been sabotaged, and would have killed her if she had used it. Suspecting that Kinsey had tried to kill her, she lures him to DuBauer's Ohio home, which is surrounded by a forest full of lethal creatures. After taking him out to the woods and threatening to leave him there, DuBauer learns that Kinsey's real name is Carlos Diaz, and that he was hired as a middleman by a man he knows as Doctor Bianca to get the feelie-dream made. Anias realizes that, if used on a sleeping person without their knowledge, the disturbing vision could drive them to suicide. With the help of Lieutenant Mendez, who had been investigating the synthesizer accident, she confronts Doctor Bianca and recovers the master cassette for the feelie-dream, returning the payment in the process, and thwarting a would-be murderer.
Falling Free (1988)
Winner of the 1988 Nebula Award for Best Novel
Leo Graf, an efficient, by-the-book engineer for GalacTech, a galaxy-wide corporation, is sent to the mysterious Cay Project Habitat on a space station orbiting the planet Rodeo. Upon arrival, he learns he will be training a group of genetically engineered humans who have a second pair of arms instead of legs, for increased agility in freefall, as well as other modifications to adapt them to living permanently in space. GalacTech's plan is to train them and hire them out as deep-space labor to other companies. The project is run by Bruce Van Atta, a former subordinate of Leo's who moved into management, who is also the epitome of the soulless, profit-minded, middle-management corporate executive. After getting used to his trainees' appearance, Leo begins teaching space engineering, and over the next few months finds the "quaddies," as they are nicknamed, intelligent, quick to learn, and very capable. However, that intelligence is also creating problems. Treated as property by the corporation, the quaddies have begun forming attachments to each other, especially during the breeding process. This leads to a near-disaster when Tony and Claire, who have a baby, are told that they won't be allowed to stay together, and try to escape the station and flee the system. Van Atta alerts planetside security, and an overzealous security guard shoots Tony, foiling their escape. After the incident, Leo learns that if the Cay Project fails, the quaddies would be sterilized and left on Rodeo, suffering under the planet's gravity every day, until they died. Not long after the incident, his worst fears come true. When Beta Colony announces the development of a prototype artificial gravity system, the quaddies become expendable, and Van Atta is ordered to scuttle the project, dump them all on Rodeo, and get out as soon as possible. Knowing he cannot abandon the quaddies to the fate the corporation is planning for them, Leo comes up with a desperate plan—he'll enlist them to hijack the entire space station, disassemble it, and move it through the nearby wormhole to deep space, where the quaddies can live free. He enlists several quaddies as ringleaders and rigs a simulated accident to evacuate the human personnel off the station. However, there are several obstacles hindering their escape. Tony is stuck in the hospital on Rodeo, and must be rescued. An accident breaks a critical component of the jump mechanism, forcing a jury-rigged replacement in space. Not to mention the thousand-and-one other things that need to be done to make the station as self-sufficient as possible. And all the while, Leo knows Van Atta will be coming after them to take back what was his, even if only to see it destroyed. Working frantically, Leo and his cobbled-together crew manage the nearly impossible, and get the space station through the wormhole, and into space controlled by a friendly government—and find freedom for the quaddies, for the first time in their young lives.
Shards of Honor (1986)
On what should have been a routine surveying mission, Commander Cordelia Naismith of the Betan Astronomical Survey Department returns to her base camp to find it in ruins, with evidence of a hostile force having driven off the rest of her team. She contacts her lieutenant, who has escaped to their ship in orbit, and learns the camp was attacked by Barrayarans, a militaristic culture currently plotting to launch a war through the newly discovered wormhole. After ordering the lieutenant to break orbit to avoid capture and to let Beta Colony know what has happened, Cordelia, along with her survey partner Ensign Dubauer, are taken by surprise by a Barrayaran soldier, later identified as Sergeant Bothari, who shoots Dubauer with a nerve disruptor and knocks Cordelia unconscious. She awakens to find herself a prisoner of Aral Vorkosigan, known as "The Butcher of Komarr" for supposed previous wartime atrocities. Bargaining for Dubauer's life—although injured by the disruptor blast, he is still alive, but severely impaired—she agrees to go with Aral as his prisoner to a cache of equipment and weapons. Along the way, Cordelia realizes Aral had been left for dead here in a mutiny by his men. They set out for the cache, fending off assorted wildlife and getting to know each other along the way. Cordelia realizes that Aral is not a coldhearted killer, but a man with deep principles and honor who does what he feels he must for his homeland. After reaching the cache, Aral regains control of the men loyal to him, including Bothari, and ends the mutiny, although two ringleaders escape capture on the planet. He takes Cordelia back to his ship, where he proposes a most surprising idea—marriage. Cordelia asks to think about it, but before she can give an answer, learns some of her ship's crew have boarded the Barrayaran ship to rescue her, bringing some of the mutineers back with them. Before she can do anything, the mutineers commandeer the engineering room, demanding the surrender of the bridge officers, or they will turn life-support off. Cordelia sneaks down and stuns the ringleaders with the help of a former turncoat who switches sides again. She then frees her crew and they steal a shuttle to escape. Several months later, Cordelia is in charge of creating a diversion to let Betan cargo ships travel to Escobar through the Barrayaran blockade, using a holographic image of a capital ship as her bait. It works, but she and her crew are captured, and she comes very close to being tortured and raped by Admiral Ges Vorrutyer, who first orders Sergeant Bothari to do it. He refuses, claiming she is Vorkosigan's prisoner. Vorrutyer is about to force himself on her when Bothari kills the admiral. Discovered by Aral, Cordelia and the psychologically disintegrating Bothari are hidden in his quarters while Aral and his personal security officer, Simon Illyan, deal with the aftermath of the murder. Prince Serg Vorbarra comes aboard to let Aral know he's going to lead the Barrayaran fleet against the Escobarans. Aral protests, but he knows better, or worse—the Escobarans will counterattack at the right time, and although he hates the sacrifice of so many Barrayaran soldiers, he has no say in the matter. When the Escobarans do counter attack, they use a new weapon brought by Cordelia's convoy called a plasma field mirror, which turns an attacking ship's blast back upon itself. The resulting carnage destroys the ship that Prince Serg was on, along with much of the attacking fleet. Cordelia is told that Aral had extracted the information about the weapon from her while she was under sedation, but apparently didn't let the rest of the command staff, or Prince Serg, know about it. She later realizes that Aral actually had prior intelligence on the plasma mirrors, but was ordered not to reveal his knowledge so the Emperor of Barrayar could be rid of Prince Serg, a venal, deviant sadist—and his own son. Cordelia is transferred to a prisoner-of-war camp to be held for a future exchange, where the rest of the prisoners think she killed Admiral Vorrutyer, making her a hero, the last thing she wanted. Back on Beta Colony, she is feted as such, and the stress of keeping secret what she knows and living up to the propaganda her own government has created about her brings Cordelia to the breaking point. When military representatives believe that she has been programmed to be a spy for Barrayar, she escapes and travels there, where she takes Aral up on his proposal of marriage. Afterward, they take care of unfinished business, including seventeen uterine replicators that were bestowed upon the withdrawing forces by Escobar, containing fetuses formerly engendered upon female Escobaran prisoners by Barrayarans. Sergeant Bothari's daughter, Elena, the product of a rape he was ordered to do by Vorrutyer, is born from one, and he vows to raise her as best as he can. Aral and Cordelia are summoned to an audience with the dying Emperor Ezar, where Aral is made Regent of Barrayar, to assist in keeping the planet safe for when Ezar's grandson and heir, Gregor, currently five years old, takes the throne. In an epilogue, an Escobaran Personnel Retrieval Team moves through the former battlefield in space, recovering bodies and cleaning up the leftover debris, and a mother says good-bye to her daughter for the last time.
Barrayar (1991)
Winner of the Hugo and Locus Awards for Best Novel
The day after Aral Vorkosigan is named Regent by Emperor Ezar Vorbarra, Cordelia and he travel to the Imperial Residence to meet the heir to the throne, Gregor, and his mother, Princess Kareen. The meeting goes well, with Cordelia being given one of the princess's personal guards, Ludmilla Droushnakova, as her bodyguard. Life settles into a routine, with Aral up to his neck in administrating the affairs of the Empire, and Cordelia attempting to navigate the confusing intricacies of Barrayaran social life. One bright spot in their lives is Cordelia's pregnancy, which has drawn her closer to Aral's father, Piotr. When Aral goes before the Council of Counts to be approved as Regent, Cordelia meets Evon Vorhalas under unpleasant circumstances when his brother insults Aral's secretary, Clement Koudelka. Aral is approved with little difficulty. Emperor Ezar dies a week later, and the job of running the Empire until Gregor comes of age begins in earnest. Cordelia gets her first idea that it might be dangerous when someone shoots a grenade at Aral's armored groundcar, narrowly missing it. She also learns of the long list of people and groups that might want to kill the Regent of Barrayar. At a celebration of the Emperor's Birthday, Cordelia meets Count Vidal Vordarian, who tries unsuccessfully to shock her by telling her that Aral is bisexual. Cordelia counters by obliquely threatening him, and has Simon Illyan keep closer tabs on him as well. She also has her own issues in running the household, dealing with Sergeant Bothari beginning to remember his time served under Admiral Vorrutyer, Koudelka depressed and suicidal over his physical handicap, Droushnakova in love with Kou, but him oblivious of her, and Aral having to make decisions that will slowly destroy him, such as ordering the execution of Evon Vorhalas's younger brother for dueling, which is strictly prohibited under Barrayaran law. In revenge, Evon attacks Aral with a soltoxin grenade that severely damages Cordelia's unborn child. The embryo is saved by transferring it to a uterine replicator and giving it experimental calcium treatments. This course of action, however, divides Cordelia and Piotr, who is aghast at the idea of a deformed heir to the Vorkosigan family being born. Piotr even tries to order the doctors in charge of the project to destroy the child that will be Miles Vorkosigan, but fails. He threatens to cut Aral and Cordelia out of his estate, but that doesn't faze them. His tirade is interrupted by a mortally wounded Captain Negri crash-landing on the country-house lawn with Gregor. Before he dies, Negri tells them Count Vordarian has launched a coup to take the throne. Cordelia takes Gregor into hiding, guided by Piotr into the mountains, where she uses a clever ruse to draw away the Imperial men looking for them. In time she is reunited with Aral, and they face the potential civil war together, up to the point when Vordarian declares himself Regent. But when Doctor Vaagen escapes and says that Vordarian has confiscated Miles's uterine replicator, Cordelia launches a secret rescue mission to recover it using Bothari, Droushnakova, and Koudelka when he stumbles on them leaving. The group is sidetracked by encountering the Vorpatrils, Aral's kin, hiding in the slums where they're planning to strike from, who are discovered by Vordarian's security. Padma is killed but the group rescues Alys, who goes into labor, forcing them to deliver the child immediately. Even with larger issues looming over them, Cordelia patches things up between Koudelka and Droushnakova, then sends Kou with Alys and her newborn son Ivan to escort her out of the city while they continue into the Emperor's Residence. They find what Cordelia thinks is the replicator, but it is a fake, set as a trap. Caught by Residence guards, Cordelia, Bothari, and Drou are captured and taken before Vordarian. But when Cordelia produces evidence that Gregor is alive, not dead as Vordarian told Kareen, the princess tries to kill him, but is killed in the ensuing firefight. Taking Vordarian hostage, Bothari has Cordelia set the Residence on fire, then she orders him to behead the pretender. Taking the real replicator, the three escape the Residence through the secret tunnels underneath, presenting Vordarian's head to Aral and the rest of the loyal counts. The coup collapses, and Miles is born, although it's obvious he will have his own difficulties. Koudelka and Droushnakova get married, and the book ends with an epilogue five years later, with a precocious Miles already getting into trouble, and winning Piotr over in spite of himself.
The Warrior's Apprentice (1986)
Miles Naismith Vorkosigan, son of Aral and Cordelia Vorkosigan, is seventeen years old, and at loose ends. His brittle bones forced him out of the military academy entrance exams after he broke both legs while trying to complete an obstacle course. Feeling guilty over breaking his grandfather's heart by washing out, and believing he inadvertently hastened Piotr's death, Miles takes Elena Bothari, on whom he has a crush, to Beta Colony to visit his grandmother Naismith. In reality, he is taking her to research her mother's side of the family, since her taciturn father hasn't told her very much about her relatives. At Beta Colony, Miles helps a down-on-his-luck pilot named Arde Mayhew, and also finds a Barrayaran deserter named Baz Jesek hiding out in a recycling station. Taking them both on as sworn armsmen, Miles quickly gets in over his head. Forced to take a quick shipping job to pay off the outstanding lien on Arde's ship, which Miles now owns, he finds one that would pay off everything, with even a bit of profit left over. However, the job is a risky weapons-smuggling run to the nation of Felice, on Tau Verde IV, currently in the middle of a planetary war. Camouflaging the weapons to resemble farm equipment, the freighter is stopped by mercenaries working for the enemy Pelians. When they decide to take Elena as their hostage instead of the usual jump pilot, Miles captures them, then takes over their ship as well, leaving him with two spacecraft. Miles convinces the soldiers of fortune to join his Dendarii Mercenaries, an outfit that exists only in his mind. From there, they take over an ore refinery after they discover that their employer's in-system contact has been captured. More mercenaries join the nascent Dendarii group, among them a woman named Elena Visconti, whom Miles recognizes as Elena Bothari's mother. However, his plan for reuniting the family goes horribly wrong when the elder Elena kills Bothari in front of her daughter. That, along with the strain of putting together a working mercenary group completely on the fly, pushes Miles to the breaking point physically and mentally. He confesses his love to Elena, but she turns him down, citing the impossibility of their different castes on Barrayar, and besides, she is already falling for Baz Jesek. After coming up with a plan to break the blockade by setting the Pelians and their mercenary employees at each other's throats by hijacking payrolls, Miles ends up in the infirmary with a bleeding ulcer just before they are about to embark on their most hazardous mission yet. With Elena in charge, working alongside a hired space captain named Ky Tung, also formerly of the enemy mercenaries, they take the payroll. Miles finds out about this when he awakens after his emergency surgery, and also finds his cousin Ivan Vorpatril sitting next to his infirmary bed. Ivan had been ordered to find Miles, as rumors of his raising a mercenary army—expressly forbidden on Barrayar—have caused enemies of his father to attempt to accuse Miles of treason. Ivan was to have been killed in a jump accident, but when he missed his ship, he stuck to his original mission, and found Miles at Tau Verde IV. Miles figures out the plan, but before he can get back home, he is contacted by Admiral Oser, the leader of the mercenaries hired by the Pelians, who wants to join the Dendarii. After working out the details of his rapidly expanding mercenary army, and a quick stop to drop mercenary Elli Quinn off at Beta Colony for reconstructive facial surgery, he gets back to Barrayar just in time to expose the plot against his father, and see the conspirators arrested. Miles gently nudges Emperor Gregor Vorbarra to bring the Dendarii Free Mercenary Fleet under the control of Barrayaran Internal Security, and then, as "punishment" for his escapades, Miles is sent to the Imperial Service Academy for officer training.
"The Mountains of Mourning" (1989)
Winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards for Best Novella
A ragged, wild-eyed woman named Harra Csurik comes to Vorkosigan Surleau, demanding to see the count for justice for her murdered baby, Raina. After hearing her story, Miles decides to take her in to see his father as a lark. After breakfast, however, Aral sends Miles to the small village of Silvy Vale to find out if the woman's husband did kill her baby, which had been born with a harelip, something the backwoods people often take for a sign of mutancy. After a two-day horseback ride into the Dendarii Mountains, Miles, his armsman Pym, and an Imperial military surgeon, Doctor Dea, arrive at the backwoods hamlet. Cutting through feeble resistance by the village's Speaker, Serg Karal, Miles begins his investigation in earnest, exhuming the baby's body, and having Dea perform an autopsy, which reveals the child was killed by having its neck broken. They take a look at the couple's cabin, and Miles has Harra recount her actions the day she found her baby dead. He sends the Speaker to bring Lem Csurik in for questioning under fast-penta, to determine his guilt or innocence. The men return, and say he's fled. That night, the village honors Miles with a feast and music, and he meets both mothers-in-law, Csurik's, who protests her son's innocence, and Harra's mother, Ma Mattulich, who is a dark, angry woman, and who refers to Miles as "mutie lord." There are two attempted assaults that night; first on Miles's Service-issue tent, which he had let the Speaker's children sleep in, and which is fortunately fireproof, and later on his horse, Fat Ninny, which could have killed the animal if they hadn't chased off the attacker. Early the next morning, Miles sees Lem, who has come out of the mountains to clear his name, but he insists on not naming any one else in the incident, although he clearly knows more than he's saying. Miles agrees, and has the doctor fast-penta him for the interrogation, which proves his innocence. Miles now knows who killed the child, and summons the suspects and witnesses. He clears up the matter of the burning torch thrown on the tent, finding out it was Dono Csurik, Lem's younger brother, trying to scare Miles. Miles leaves his punishment up to the family. He has Doctor Dea fast-penta Ma Mattulich, who reveals not only that she killed Raina, suspecting she was a mutant, but had killed two of her other deformed children, born twenty years earlier. Faced with handing down a proper sentence, but not really wanting to order her execution, Miles sentences her to death, but stays her execution indefinitely. Instead, he strips her of all legal rights, remanding her to her daughter's care for the rest of her life. He also offers Harra and Lem the chance to attend teacher's school and work in Hassadar, and promises to get comm units to the village, along with a lowlander to teach the children until Harra and Lem return. Miles rides away from the village with a deeper understanding of not only himself, but also the people whom he must serve as Count Vorkosigan, and he swears to make good on his promises to them.
The Vor Game (1990)
Winner of the Hugo Award for Best Novel
Having graduated from Barrayaran Imperial Academy, Miles is ready to begin his first assignment as an ensign, but is disappointed when he is stationed to be Meteorological Officer at the remote Lazkowski Base on bleak Kyril Island. Before he leaves, he learns that if he can keep his nose clean for six months there, he will be assigned to the Prince Serg, the newest dreadnought in the Barrayaran space navy. Miles ships out to Camp Permafrost, as the base is colloquially known, and finds his superior officer a drunk, the base commander a humorless martinet, and the rest of the camp treating him with the usual mixture of disdain and insubordination. After nearly being killed when a practical joke almost drowns him in mud, Miles settles down to the job at hand. He solves a brief mystery of a dead cadet found in the sewers, and thinks he's about to get through his tour unimpeded when what starts as a routine accident turns into a near-mutiny. When ordered to clean up a fetaine spill, the cadets refuse to go near the virulent poison, leading the base commander to threaten them all with being shot if they don't obey. Miles joins his lieutenant in resisting the order, resulting in their arrest, and him being shipped back to the capital, Vorbarr Sultana. Miles offers to resign in exchange for the charges being dropped against the other men. After being held more or less incommunicado for a few months, with visits only from his mother and Emperor Gregor himself, Miles is instead brought out of involuntary confinement and given an assignment to dust off his Admiral Naismith persona and investigate the sudden heavy military activity on the various planets surrounding the Hegen Hub, a system with four wormhole jump points that is a nexus linking routes to several planets. Miles also learns that the Dendarii Free Mercenary Fleet has been hired by one of the sides. Posing as an arms dealer, Miles is recognized by one of his former mercenaries, nearly blowing his cover. Meeting with the man later, Miles finds out Admiral Oser has taken back command of the Dendarii, demoting Baz Jesek and Ky Tung, but keeping them on staff. Still playing the weapons dealer, Miles has another meeting with a potential buyer, only to find his target has been replaced by a blond woman named Livia Nu, who is interested in the single-person nerve disruptor shield net he's selling, and also in seducing Miles, which he resists, thinking it might be an assassination attempt. Later, however, there is a charge of murder against Miles's cover identity, forcing him and his superior officer to flee from the Pol Six station to Jackson's Whole jump-point station, where Miles is found and captured by hired thugs executing a bid arrest by a person named Cavilo. Miles is thrown in the local jail, where he is astonished to meet Emperor Gregor, who has fled the stifling realm of politics and planetary rule and is off on his own. Switching identification with engineers press-ganged into building Aslund's new space station, Miles and Gregor get aboard, partly to escape prison, and also to learn what's really happening in the region. However, Miles gets captured by the Dendarii first, and brought before Admiral Oser, who is none too pleased to see him, and who responds to Miles's suggestion of allying again by ordering him thrown out the nearest airlock. Saved by Elena, Miles contacts Ky Tung for help smuggling Gregor off the station to safety. Unfortunately, the shuttle pilot is a double agent, and delivers Miles and Gregor into the hands of the mysterious Cavilo, who, it turns out, is also Livia Nu. She is the leader of Randall's Rangers, a mercenary outfit hired by Vervain for protection. Cavilo is clever, ruthless, sociopathic, casually homicidal, and makes new friends quickly, her latest being Stanis Metzov, the former Lazkowski Base commander whose career Miles helped end on Barrayar. She sends Miles on a mission to subvert the Dendarii from within, thereby allowing her mercenaries to raid Vervain in the chaos of allowing an invading Cetagandan fleet through the wormhole to "rescue" Vervain from the mercenaries, and seal an alliance with the planet, ensuring that Empire more direct access to the Hegen Hub—and getting closer to Barrayar too. However, Gregor in the mix changes everything, and Miles figures Cavilo will now reach even higher—for an empress's crown, gained by marrying Gregor. Miles retakes the Dendarii, frees Gregor from Cavilo's grasp, and sends his outmatched fleet to hold off the Cetagandan invasion force until reinforcements arrive. They do, in the form of the dreadnought Prince Serg and a Barrayaran fleet. Admiral Oser escapes during the fighting, and is killed when his shuttle is blown out of space. The Cetagandans are routed, and Cavilo, who had escaped from the brig in the confusion, kills Metzov when he tries to kill Miles, and is granted safe passage out of the area. Miles is reunited with his father, and is assigned to be the Barrayaran liaison to the Dendarii Free Mercenary Fleet—as "Admiral Naismith," with an accompanying promotion to lieutenant in the Barrayaran military as well.
Cetaganda (1996)
Lieutenant Lord Miles Vorkosigan and Lieutenant Lord Ivan Vorpatril have been assigned to attend the funeral of the late Cetagandan Empress Lisbet Degtiar, and to observe the Cetagandans in their native habitat. The trip gets off to a surprising start when a strange-looking person bursts into their ship upon landing. Thinking he's an assassin, Miles and Ivan try to subdue him, but he gets away, leaving a nerve disruptor and a short, unusual rod behind. Miles decides not to tell their commanding ImpSec officer about the incident right away, as he wants to figure out why it happened in the first place. They attend a welcoming party that same evening, where Miles meets Lord Yenaro, a Cetagandan lord and perfume maker who has supplied a large, walk-through sculpture for the Marilacan Embassy. Invited inside, Miles suffers an accident when a power field heats his leg braces, causing painful burns. Miles is now even more suspicious that something is going on, and his instincts are confirmed when, during a gift presentation and viewing of the Empress lying in state, a Cetagandan haut-lady named Rian Degtiar contacts him, demanding the return of the strange rod. Miles arranges to meet with her again, then takes his place back in the viewing procession just in time to see the same strange person who had invaded their ship, member of a Cetagandan servant neuter caste known as ba, lying dead behind the funeral dais, its throat slit. Continuing his investigation, Miles discovers the short rod is the Great Key of the Star Crèche, a security device that stores all of the information on the Cetagandan genetic lines kept for reproduction purposes and to maintain the lines of descent for the ghem and haut-lords. Invited to a party at Lord Yenaro's estate, Miles makes contact with Rian again, and returns the Great Key, which is revealed to be a fake. Miles demands to continue his investigation, feeling he was set up for this, with Barrayar to take the fall, provoking an interstellar war with Cetaganda. To make matters worse, he has less than nine days—the mourning period for the Empress, after which a new one will be chosen—to uncover the plot before it happens. Pressing Rian for more information, he learns the Empress had made eight copies of the haut gene bank, feeling that Cetaganda was growing stagnant, and hoping that dispersing the gene bank to the governors of eight satrapy planets would revitalize the Empire. Miles sees the move as insanity, creating eight smaller, aggressive empires out of one large one. He figures out that the ba was played, and was supposed to give Miles the fake key to jump-start the conflict. However, since Miles hadn't reported the incident, and with the ba dead, the person behind the plot, whom Miles christens Lord X, hasn't been able to put it into action yet, except behind the scenes. He goes back to the party to find Ivan there, upset at being seduced by two beautiful ghem-ladies, only to find he couldn't rise to the occasion because he had been slipped an anti-aphrodisiac, confirming Miles's suspicion that Lord Yenaro is involved in the plot. The next day, he is interrogated by Dag Benin, a Cetagandan security colonel, about his unauthorized viewing of the ba's body. That afternoon they attend a poetry reading in the Empress's honor, and at the following reception Rian meets with Miles again, telling him she suspects that one of the governors, Slyke Giaja, is the traitor plotting to create a Barrayar-Cetaganda war. Miles makes plans to board Giaja's ship and search for the real Great Key, and plans to meet Rian's handmaiden at a genetic-engineering exhibition to plan the infiltration. However, Lord Vorreedi, the head of ImpSec security on Cetaganda, accompanies them, so Miles has to ditch him first. They stumble across Lord Yenaro, who almost unknowingly attempts to assassinate them with asterzine, an explosive, malleable chemical that reacts violently with the proper catalyst. Caught, Yenaro tells them that Governor Ilsum Kety is behind the whole scheme. While elated at the news, Miles can't make his meeting with Rian's representative, as Vorreedi sticks with him until they leave. The next day, Vorreedi interrogates Miles first, then Colonel Benin questions Miles and Ivan about what happened since they first landed on Cetaganda. Miles tells a heavily edited version of events, leaving out the Great Key and his meetings with Rian. Invited to a garden party by another haut-lady, both Miles and Ivan attend, and Miles is taken to confer with the Star Crèche—all the haut-consorts of the governors plus Rian—to plan their next move. Off a casual suggestion from Ivan, Miles suggests recalling the copies of the gene pools from each governor's ship, with Rian claiming they are defective. While the haut-ladies put this plan into action, Miles and Ivan attend yet another ceremony, where Ivan is captured by one of Kety's people. The float-bubble with the lady and Ivan inside is captured, and Miles uses it to infiltrate Kety's ship and find the missing consort, whose float-chair was stolen, and the Great Key. Caught by Kety's security, Miles has the contents of the Key downloaded to a transfer station, where it would be picked up by thousands of people; then Pel locks the key inside the float bubble, effectively putting it out of Kety's grasp. As the governor tries to open the field, Colonel Benin, Ivan, and reinforcements arrive to save them and arrest Kety for treason. Miles has a private audience with the Cetagandan Emperor, Rian, and two of the other haut-consorts, to wrap up the matter, and the Emperor awards Miles the Order of Merit, the highest honor on Cetaganda, and has him walk to the cremation of the Empress's body at the Emperor's left hand. Miles is left with clashing thoughts; he did perform his duty to Barrayar, preventing a terrible war, and also assisted Cetaganda, but the award he received would be viewed with suspicion at home, particularly since the events surrounding it could never be brought to light. He ponders his motivations for putting himself into that much danger on the trip back to Barrayar—was it to be a hero, to prove himself to his superiors, or something else entirely?
Ethan of Athos (1986)
Doctor Ethan Urquhart, Chief of Reproductive Medicine, lives and works on the planet Athos, an out-of-the-way world where women are prohibited from living. They reproduce male children by uterine replicator, and face a drastic problem: their stock of ovarian cultures, brought to Athos by its founders more than two centuries earlier, has reached the end of its life span, and the planet needs new material to continue. When a replacement order from Jackson's Whole arrives, Ethan discovers it is filled with nonviable ovaries. At the Population Council meeting afterward, it is decided that a representative from Athos will go off-planet to procure viable stock for the planet. The council also decides that Ethan is the right man for the job. Unceremoniously sent to Kline Station, Ethan encounters the opposite sex for the first time in his life. Elli Quinn, a commander in the Dendarii Free Mercenary Fleet, takes a particular interest in him, saving him from a nasty beating at the hands of several station techs. She escorts him back to his room, where he is immediately kidnapped and harshly interrogated by a Colonel Millisor. Ethan tells everything he knows—which isn't much—and is taken out to be killed by one of Millisor's men. Just before he is about to die, Ethan is saved by Elli, who kills the assassin in the process. Wanting some answers, Ethan helps her dispose of the body, a difficult task, given the space station's efficiency in tracking its resources. Afterward, she and Ethan exchange information, and he learns that the shipment destined for Athos came from House Bharaputra, but that Colonel Millisor and his team have been chasing it for months, killing anyone who gets in their way or is associated with it. After accidentally running into Colonel Millisor again, Ethan escapes by virtue of being disguised as a maintenance engineer. He is then approached by Terrence Cee, the man that Colonel Millisor is really after, and who began this entire mess. Terrence is a telepath, specially bred on Cetaganda for use as a military weapon. Along with another female telepath, Janine, he tried to escape with her and four telepathic children, but everyone else was killed during the flight from Cetaganda, leaving Terrence alone and on the run. He inserted an ovarian culture made from Janine's remains into the shipment, in hopes of somehow bringing her back to life. However, the shipment is still missing, and Terrence doesn't know where it is. Showing up at Terrence's doorstep, Elli tries to get him to join the Dendarii Free Mercenaries. Terrence, however, won't do anything until he is able to probe both Ethan's and Elli's minds, to ascertain that they are who they say they are. After proving their identities, the three try to deduce the possibilities of who might have the missing shipment, but there are simply too many suspects to narrow their search. Quinn then gets a message that a relative of hers, Teki, whom they used earlier to expose one of Millisor's surveillance teams, has gone missing, and they figure he was taken by Millisor for interrogation. Elli calls Biocontrol on Millisor's suite, pretending that the colonel is carrying a nasty STD. They find Teki, and in the ensuing chaos afterward, learn that the head of Biocontrol was the one who intercepted the tissue cultures meant for Athos, in a vain attempt to force her son to come back from the planet. Millisor and his second-in-command are taken to Quarantine, but both escape with the aid of his third man on the station, and capture Ethan, Elli, and Terrence, intending to kill the first two to keep the telepathy project a secret, then take Terrence back to Cetaganda. There seems to be no way out, until Ethan remembers an electronic message device given to him by an unnamed man in a pink suit to deliver to Millisor. Realizing it's a boobytrap, Elli uses it to create a diversion, then shuts off the gravity in the spacedock to try and stop Millisor from killing all of them. Millisor and his henchmen are killed by two men from House Bharaputra, who then capture Elli and try to get back the money they paid her to assassinate Millisor. However, she negotiates a deal with them that costs her only a dislocated elbow. Ethan is about to resume his quest for ovarian cultures, but first convinces Elli to donate one of hers to the Athosian cause. As Ethan is about to leave, Terrence and he locate the lost shipment of original ovarian cultures, and he brings both it and Terrence back to Athos, securing his planet's future, and perhaps a new life for himself as well.
"Labyrinth" (1989)
Miles goes to Jackson's Whole to pick up a defecting genetic scientist for Barrayar, under cover of buying munitions on the criminal planet. The mission gets off to a rocky start when Bel Thorne insults one of the ruling barons at a party while defending the honor of a quaddie musician. Then the quaddie finds them later, wanting to hire them to smuggle her off-planet. Also, the scientist they're liberating needs several valuable genetic samples that happen to be injected into another of his bioengineered creations, which is held by House Ryoval. He wants Miles to kill the creature and bring back the samples. Miles and his team try to break into the laboratory to retrieve it, but his men are caught and escorted out, leaving Miles behind. He finds a guard and interrogates him under fast-penta, but the man turns out to be the head of security. Captured, Miles is thrown into a basement room where they're keeping the creature. She turns out to be an intelligent, eight-foot-tall, bioengineered super-soldier, whom Miles befriends in an unusual way, even giving her a real name, Taura. During an attempt to escape, Miles stumbles across Ryoval's genetic library, which he destroys. He almost finds his way out, but the guards come for them, planning on trading Miles to Baron Fell in exchange for the quaddie. Out of options, Miles attacks the guards with Taura, Nicol, and Bel, succeeding in escaping in a float-truck. They are about to be forced down by the chasing security forces, but Dendarii reinforcements arrive in a combat shuttle, driving the House Ryoval forces off and evacuating Miles and his group. Taura joins the Dendarii, and Miles and his team, with the scientist safe under their protection, escape from Jackson's Whole by the skin of their teeth, leaving a furious Baron Ryoval behind.
"The Borders of Infinity" (1989)
The expected invasion of the planet Marilac by the Cetagandan Empire has happened, and Miles Vorkosigan finds himself in a force-field prison camp filled with ten thousand Marilacan soldiers. Beaten and stripped naked within five minutes of his arrival, he nevertheless sets about his mission—to find Colonel Guy Tremont and rescue him to form the nucleus of a new Marilacan guerrilla army. His only ally at first is a man named Suegar, who refers to Miles as "The One" that will save them all, and who just might be mad—or might not be. But Tremont is catatonic and dying, and Miles realizes his mission is now not to save just one man, but to save ten thousand. He slowly gains control of the camp, first by uniting the disparate factions inside, then by transforming the riots for the ration dispersal into an orderly food distribution. His organization of the camp serves a vital secondary purpose as well—to prepare the prisoners for the rescue they don't even know is coming. When the force shield drops due to the Dendarii's attack, Miles now faces the logistical problem of organizing and loading ten thousand people—and finding room for all of them on his ships—before Cetagandan reinforcements arrive. Using the food distribution plan as the blueprint for loading the prisoners, he manages it, although they lose two shuttles, one empty, one full, to a Cetagandan fighter in orbit. Also, Beatrice, one of the leaders Miles had relied on to maintain order in the camp, is lost due to a ramp malfunction on the last shuttle to lift off, which haunts Miles, as he risked his own life to save her, and failed.
Brothers in Arms (1989)
After the prisoner rescue on Dagoola IV, Miles and the Dendarii head to Earth to rest and repair the fleet, having been chased halfway across the galaxy by the vengeful Cetagandans. Also, they need to get paid by the Barrayaran government for their efforts—and badly, as the Dendarii are literally broke. Still juggling his Admiral Naismith persona alongside Lieutenant Vorkosigan, Miles goes to meet his superior officer, a Komarran named Duv Galeni, at the Barrayaran Embassy. Miles's cousin Ivan is assigned to orient him at the embassy, and soon Miles is doing mind-numbing data analysis and providing escort duty for social events. However, his first task, an afternoon reception, is interrupted by Miles getting an urgent message to save three Dendarii troopers who have busted up a wine shop and are threatening to blow it up, creating a standoff with the local police. Miles heads over and saves his men and the clerk, but not before the shop goes up in flames, earning him a spot on the local news for his bravery in carrying the clerk out through the fire. Taken back to the Dendarii, Miles learns that since the expected payment hasn't arrived from Barrayar yet, the fleet is in real financial trouble, forcing them to take out a short-term loan, using one of their ships as collateral, to cover expenses. Adding to Miles's complications, he gets romantically involved with Elli Quinn, who's had a long-term crush on him. After a dressing-down from Captain Galeni for the wine shop incident, Miles attends another embassy function, where he stumbles on the same reporter that interviewed him earlier, and comes up with the story that Admiral Naismith is his cloned brother. Granted leave to attend to the Dendarii, Miles is nearly killed on the way by hired assassins. After a mutually satisfying liaison with Elli—despite the fact that she turns down his marriage proposal—and coming up with the idea to hire out the Dendarii for any job that needs doing, dangerous or not, Miles returns to the embassy to find that Duv Galeni has disappeared, strengthening his theory that the captain has stolen the Dendarii payment and vanished. While searching Galeni's private personnel file, Miles learns that his father and mother were involved in Komarr's government when Barrayar took over, during Miles's father's time in the military, when he acquired the sobriquet "The Butcher of Komarr." Galeni's aunt was killed in the Solstice Massacre, and his father, who had joined the resistance, was blown up by a homemade bomb. Against Simon Illyan's wishes, Aral had let Duv join ImpSec, which was how he came to be at the embassy on Earth. Meanwhile, Elli has scared up some work—a mysterious party wants the Dendarii to kidnap Lieutenant Vorkosigan from the embassy. Going to a preliminary meeting, Miles is stunned and replaced with an exact duplicate of himself—his wild story to the press has come nightmarishly true. Held prisoner along with Duv, Miles discovers that Duv's father, Ser Galen, is very much alive, and has hatched a plot to insert Miles's double back into Barrayar to kill Aral and sow political chaos. The clone believes he is going to take the throne, but Miles, who views him as his flesh-and-blood brother, dubbing him Mark, tries to convince him that it will never happen, and that he should be his own man, not Galeni's puppet. Just before he can convince Mark, Galen bursts in and separates them. Miles tries to overpower the guards, but is stunned, and has a terrible dream combining the events of the Dagoola prison break with what's currently happening. About to be stunned and killed by Galen's guards, Miles and Galeni are rescued by Elli, who has been staking out the building they've been held in, searching for Galeni. They all go back to the Barrayaran Embassy, where they find that Mark has been arrested on suspicion of putting out the hit on Admiral Naismith. Going to the police, they find that Galen has beaten them there and sprung Mark first. Back at the embassy, Galeni investigates the suspected corrupt courier officer who had not been passing along the messages to and from Barrayar as he was supposed to, and finds he has been subverted. The officer in charge of the investigation, Commodore Destang, has brought a clean-up squad to eliminate Mark and the Komarran rebel cell if possible, and also gets Miles the payment the Dendarii have been sorely missing. Through a loophole in procedure, Galeni gives Miles tacit permission to use the Dendarii to find Mark and Galen. Heading back to his fleet, Miles sets his intelligence department on it, planning to buy Mark from Galen. While he's setting up his plan, Galen contacts him first—he's kidnapped Ivan, who was escorting a society matron to a flower show, and demands a meeting at the Thames Tidal Barrier. Miles takes Galeni and Elli and goes to meet Galen and Mark, where he makes his pitch: Mark and Ivan in exchange for half a million Imperial marks and Galen's promise to retire from the rebellion. Galen double-crosses them and orders Mark to kill Miles and Galeni. Mark hesitates, and when Galen grabs for his nerve disruptor, Mark shoots him instead. Before they can escape, however, they have to elude not only the Barrayaran hit squad, but a team of Cetagandans that are also after Admiral Naismith, and the local police, who have been called to investigate the disturbance in the area. In the end, Miles, Mark, Ivan, Elli, and Galeni all make it out in one piece. Miles upholds the bargain he made to Mark, giving him the half-million marks in exchange for Mark helping him to free Ivan, and sets Mark free as well. Miles gets one last surprise as the Dendarii receive orders to stop a hostage situation involving Barrayarans—Ky Tung is retiring from the mercenary trade and getting married, leaving the Dendarii with a loss of one of their best commanding officers.
Mirror Dance (1994)
Winner of the Hugo and Locus Awards for Best Novel
The first Vorkosigan novel to be told from two viewpoints, it begins two years later, with Mark Vorkosigan posing as Miles to take command of the Dendarii Free Mercenary Fleet. He leads the Ariel and a team of commandos to Jackson's Whole to free the clones raised by House Bharaputra for its brain-transplant operations. Although he gets them there, the operation falls apart against fiercer-than-expected resistance, leaving him, the Dendarii, and the clones trapped planetside. Meanwhile, Miles, coming back from an assignment with Elli, learns what happened, and heads to Jackson's Whole to save Mark and his mercenaries. When negotiations with Vasa Luigi, the baron of House Bharaputra, break down, Miles goes down to get his brother and men back himself. It is a fatal decision, as Miles is shot with a needle grenade and killed. He is put into a cryo-chamber for later resuscitation, but Mark and the medic get cut off from the rest of their squad, and Mark gives him directions through an underground tunnel system to escape, then heads back to help the others get out. He makes it back to the rescue shuttle, only to discover on the ship that they don't have Miles's cryo-chamber. They negotiate with Baron Fell for the return of the chamber, but the baron's men cannot locate it either. Mark discovers that before getting killed, the medic had shipped the chamber to an unknown address through an automated cargo dock, leaving Mark and the Dendarii with no way of finding him. Taken back to Barrayar, Mark is introduced to his parents, as well as life on Barrayar, including his role as the potential Vorkosigan heir, should Miles not be recovered. During this time, Aral suffers an arterial aneurism, which incapacitates him. Fully aware of his potential role in House Vorkosigan and on Barrayar, and wanting no part of it, Mark gets permission to review the ImpSec files for Miles's whereabouts, believing him to still be somewhere on Jackson's Whole. When he finds evidence of where his brother's remains were shipped, he gets Cordelia's approval to mount a rescue mission. Meanwhile, Miles begins his slow recovery in the hands of the Durona family, a cloned group of doctors created by House Ryoval, but which escaped to House Fell, and who now serve as the physicians for the upper echelons of the House. Miles's recovery is slow and painful, hampered by the fact that he has lost his memory, but is helped when he falls for one of his doctors, Rowan Durona. Mark, Elli, and Bel Thorne arrive on the planet to recover Miles, but the price is getting the Durona clan off Jackson's Whole, away from the barons completely. Before they can negotiate the Deal, security from House Ryoval break in and kidnap Mark. Miles and Rowan are taken by security from House Bharaputra. Mark is tortured by Baron Ryoval, who thinks he is Miles at first, and Mark's personality splits into five parts during his captivity. Miles and Rowan are held by Baron Luigi, who tries to figure out the best way to profit from the whole mess. With the help of a Durona clone girl who had been rescued by Mark, but who had chosen to return to captivity, Rowan escapes, and so does the clone girl Lilly, before Ryoval's men come for Miles, part of a Deal Baron Luigi had made with the other baron. After repeated torture sessions, Mark kills Baron Ryoval and escapes his hidden compound, which falls apart with the baron's death. Miles is taken there, escapes his guards, and calls for help. Fell, as half brother and next of kin, comes to collect Ryoval's body, and they are all contacted by Mark, who wants a meeting with Fell to make a Deal. He arranges for Fell to take over House Ryoval, the Duronas to leave Jackson's Whole for good, and a hefty profit, enough to set up the clones with an excellent education, and some money left over for himself as well. Mark and Miles head back to Barrayar and the Winterfair celebration, where Mark keeps a promise he made to Kareen Koudelka at the Emperor's Birthday before he left to save his brother—a dance with her, as Mark Pierre Vorkosigan.
Memory (1996)
Miles Vorkosigan's life grows even more complicated, beginning with his accidental maiming of the ImpSec courier he and the Dendarii had been sent to rescue, due to the unusual seizures he has been suffering from since his resuscitation from cryo-stasis. Convinced this isn't a permanent problem, Miles leaves the cause of the accident out of his report to Simon Illyan, but gets into a heated argument with Elli Quinn over it, as he hadn't told her about his problem before the mission either. He promotes her to commodore, but their argument leaves them both tense and rattled. Another surprise is the requested resignation of Baz Jesek and Elena Bothari-Jesek, who want to settle down and start a family. They ask to be released from their armsman's oath, which Miles grants. Recalled to Barrayar, Miles spends the weeklong trip with Sergeant Taura, and realizes that she is growing old fast, owing to her accelerated metabolism, and may die in the next couple of years. He is greeted with disastrous news on Barrayar, after cooling his heels at Vorkosigan House and getting the place in order while his parents are away during Aral's appointment as the viceroy of Sergyar. Simon Illyan knows all about Miles's medical condition, and even worse, knows he falsified his mission report to ImpSec. He requests Miles's resignation immediately, leaving him adrift without the Dendarii or his military career to anchor him. After literally being washed out of his depression by Ivan and Duv Galeni, Miles spends the next few weeks soul- searching, including going up to the Dendarii Mountains to visit the village where he had solved Raina Csurik's murder a decade ago. He finds some peace there, and begins to rebuild his life. His attempt to help Duv win the heart of a Komarran heiress, Laisa Toscane, goes disastrously awry when she catches the eye of the Emperor instead, leaving Duv, who was moving too slowly for his own good, brokenhearted. Despite Duv's animosity toward Miles, he comes to him with the next pressing matter—Simon Illyan has been having memory problems, reliving events that happened months or even years ago. With Illyan placed incommunicado in the clinic at ImpSec headquarters, Miles is stonewalled by Simon's replacement, General Lucas Haroche, leading him to request Gregor's intercession. The Emperor makes Miles an Imperial Auditor, one of the Emperor's own high investigators, with broad, undefined powers. The circumstances around Simon's health failure grow more troublesome, as the doctors discover that the eidetic memory chip implanted in his brain is failing. They remove it in a successful operation that leaves Simon more or less intact, but somewhat less than the man he used to be. During his recovery, first at Vorkosigan House, then at Vorkosigan Surleau, Miles comes to know a different side of the ultra-competent former chief of ImpSec. He also finally gets a diagnosis of his seizures, which have been caused by overproduction of neurotransmitters, which build up in his brain until their release in stressful situations, causing the seizure in a biochemical form of epilepsy. It can be treated, but not cured, with a brain implant. Somewhat leery of the idea, Miles puts it off until his investigation is finished. Returning to Vorbarr Sultana, he brings his new powers into play as he plunges headlong into determining what exactly happened to Simon. The doctors reveal that the damage to the memory chip was intentionally done, and unfortunately, the evidence points to Duv Galeni. Convinced the Komarran is innocent, Miles keeps digging, resulting in an offer by Haroche to reinstate him in the military as a captain, and go on being the liaison with the Dendarii as if nothing had ever happened. Miles sees this offer for the bribe that it is, and realizes Haroche was behind the sabotage of Simon's chip, and the destruction of his career. He figures out a way to not only find the evidence of the plot, but also to catch Haroche red-handed in the act of destroying evidence that would convict him. Haroche is arrested, Galeni is cleared of all charges, and Miles's position as Imperial Auditor is made permanent, with the approval of the other current auditors. Miles is given retirement from the military with the rank of captain by Gregor as a favor to him. Galeni recovers from the ordeal of almost having his career ruined, and picks up with Delia Koudelka, to the chagrin of Ivan, who asked her to marry him too late. The Emperor also announces his official betrothal to Laisa Toscane, and Barrayaran society shifts into high gear for the upcoming wedding, led by Alys Vorpatril, who has also started a romance with Simon, which amuses Miles and horrifies Ivan. Miles has the operation to implant the device to control his seizures, and makes peace with who he is at last. After one final, futile attempt to win Elli's hand in marriage, he promotes her to admiral of the Dendarii Free Mercenary Fleet, to continue in his place, as he heads back to Barrayar to assume his new position as Imperial Auditor.
Komarr (1998)
Miles's first off-planet assignment as Imperial Auditor is to assist another Auditor, Georg Vorthys, with his investigation of what first appears to be the accidental collision of an ore freighter with the soletta mirror array that orbits Komarr, providing vital solar energy to the planet's millennium-long terraforming project. Miles meets Vorthys's niece, Ekaterin Nile Vorvayne Vorsoisson, currently trapped in an unhappy marriage to Etienne (Tien) Vorsoisson, an administrator at the Serifosa Dome. Their initial appraisal of the situation indicates a worse-than-feared scenario—if the array isn't repaired, within the next twenty-four months the terraforming progress made on Komarr will stop, as there will not be enough heat in the atmosphere to keep the environment going. This would seem to indicate that sabotage may have been the goal, but by whom? While Auditor Vorthys dives into the technical engineering aspects of the accident, Miles gets to know Ekaterin and her son, Nikolai. He inadvertently discovers that the boy has Vorzohn's Dystrophy, a hereditary, degenerative disease. Tien, fearing backlash among the sensitive Barrayarans, has kept his knowledge of this a tight secret, even preventing his son from getting the treatment that could cure him until Tien can receive it first. When Ekaterin learns of a mysterious disappearance of an engineering tech in Waste Heat Management, she dismisses it at first. However, when the body of another technician in the same department turns up in the wreckage of the accident, it is not a simple coincidence. Eavesdropping on a conversation between her husband and another administrator, Soudha, Ekaterin believes Tien has been taking bribes, which he then lost by buying shares in a failed Komarran jump-ship expedition, which has left the family deep in debt. This, along with Tien's many other failings, including his inability to understand her sense of honor or how life with him has crippled her, causes Ekaterin to make up her mind to leave him. When she tells him her decision, Tien collects Miles from the Administration Building, where he has been reviewing records, and takes him out to the Waste Heat experiment station, a large building in the middle of nowhere, supposedly constructed to conduct experiments with the terraforming process, but which Tien now tells Miles has been used by Soudha for graft, creating phantom employees to draw payroll, ordering fictitious equipment, and pocketing the difference. Investigating the supposedly empty building, they are surprised to find activity there, as Soudha and other employees of the Waste Heat division are busy loading something large into lift trucks. Soudha stuns both men and chains them to a railing outside, in the non-breathable atmosphere. Although the conspirators have sent for help to free the men, Tien's breath mask was not full when they left, and he panics and dies of asphyxiation while Miles can do nothing but watch. Miles is rescued by Ekaterin, who must now deal with her husband's death, get Nikolai the treatment he needs before Tien's health benefits run out, leave Komarr to go back to Barrayar, and figure out what to do with the life that has suddenly been given back to her at the expense of her husband's. While assisting with treating Nikolai, Miles realizes he is falling in love with Ekaterin at the worst possible time. Tackling the expanded problem of what the engineers had been ordering and working on at the experiment station, Miles, Vorthys, and other engineers figure out that the group had been working on a wormhole destroyer, and were planning to permanently close the wormhole between Barrayar and Komarr, cutting Barrayar off from the rest of the galaxy forever. However, there is a fifty-fifty chance that the device will actually release the wormhole energy in a destructive wave that would destroy the device and anything nearby, such as a ship—or a space station. At the same time, Ekaterin had been sent up to the jump station to meet her arriving aunt, Helen Vorthys, where they both stumble into one of the plotters, forcing him to capture them and hold them hostage until the device can be utilized. After attempting to foil them once by pulling a fire alarm, Ekaterin manages to get her hands on a remote control for a float cradle holding the device, and smash it, foiling the Komarrans' plan. However, they still have their two hostages, and it takes all of Miles's wits and determination to negotiate their release, and the surrender of the terrorists. Miles has to head back to Barrayar to report, but he is secure in the knowledge that Ekaterin will be following, and he intends to do whatever is necessary to make her his—the first step being to make her even consider another marriage.
A Civil Campaign (1999)
Winner, Sapphire Award
With Emperor Gregor's wedding fast approaching, Miles, Mark, and others arrive on Barrayar to add their own unpredictable chaos to the social event of their generation. Fresh from preventing either the destruction of a jump station or the collapse of Barrayar's wormhole, Miles returns to Vorkosigan House to prepare for his role as Gregor's Second in the upcoming nuptial ceremony. Head-over-heels about Ekaterin Vorsoisson, who is still in her traditional year of mourning, he plots to stay close to her by offering her a commission to create a garden on a bare spot of ground near Vorkosigan House. Meanwhile, Mark has returned from Beta Colony after a year of university and therapy, and has brought with him Doctor Enrique Borgos, a scientist from Escobar who has created "butter bugs," bioengineered insects that he thinks can be modified to eat Barrayaran pest plants, and which secrete a nutritious paste as a product that they plan to market. Mark's burgeoning relationship with Kareen Koudelka, however, has hit a snag, as she is having a bit of an identity crisis, feeling pressured returning to Barrayar and her family, whom she hasn't told about her relationship with Mark, and also worrying about how she will afford her next year at the Betan university. At the same time, Ivan Vorpatril is having his own problems; besides being drafted to help his mother Alys with any of the thousand and one jobs that need doing in preparation for the Emperor's wedding, he's also feeling the acute shortage of Barrayaran brides, courtesy of the previous generation's mania for male children, to the extent that choosing their babies' sexes has created a serious gender imbalance. Working with Ekaterin almost every day, Miles manages to keep his true feelings from her, but can't keep quiet to anyone else, extracting a promise from Ivan to stay away from her, and telling everyone in earshot about his cunning plan. Miffed, Ivan keeps his promise, but sets another man, Lieutenant Alexi Vormoncrief, to woo her instead, figuring his lack of personality won't make him a serious threat, but will shake up Miles a bit. It does shake Miles, for when he next sees Ekaterin, she is tensely entertaining not one, but three gentlemen, Alexi, a ne'er-do-well named Byerly Vorrutyer, and a Major Zamori. Miles immediately puts his plans for a dinner party into high gear. Meanwhile, Ivan is entangled in even more problems of his own; first, Vormoncrief becomes quite taken with Ekaterin, to the point of proposing marriage, which was not what Ivan had in mind at all. Second, one of his former paramours, Lady Donna Vorrutyer, is contesting her late brother's estate passing to his brother Richars, a cold, cruel man. To stop it, she has gone to Beta Colony and has changed herself into a man—completely. Ivan introduces the new Lord Dono to Gregor, who lets him press his claim to the estate. Meanwhile, Mark, Enrique, Kareen, and Ekaterin have been choosing sites for their expanding butter bug business. Miles's carefully planned dinner party disintegrates into a shambles, from the unexpected Lord Dono making an appearance, to the use of bug butter as a last-minute ingredient in several dishes, to Enrique engineering the Vorkosigan House crest on the backs of his latest batch of butter bugs—and then accidentally releasing them throughout the household. The evening comes to a sudden and terrible end when Simon Illyan lets the cat out of the bag by asking Ekaterin how Miles's courtship is progressing. Since Miles hadn't even hinted of pressing his suit to her, she feels that he has lied to her about the garden commission, and was just using it to get close to her. Storming out, she runs smack into Aral Vorkosigan, followed by his wife, both of whom have just come back from Sergyar in time to see a distraught young woman fleeing their house, with Miles in desperate pursuit. Crushed, Miles retreats into the house to take advice from his parents, who advise making his true feelings known, and the sooner the better. Mark also had an inadvertent revelation come out at the dinner party which let Kareen's parents know of their relationship, and not in the tamest way either. Forbidden from seeing her, Mark is also not at his best. Ivan is still tied up with wedding preparations, and now has to juggle his involvement with the Lord Dono estate claim, which will be going to the Council of Counts in the next few days. Miles teams Dono with René Vorbretten, another lord who is suffering a challenge to his own right to rule, owing to the discovery that he is one-eighth Cetagandan, as a result of one of his ancestors' actions during the Cetagandan invasion, to work together, and strengthen each other's claims. Meanwhile, the events of the dinner party have spread throughout Vorbarr Sultana, and some of the conservative Vor lords, who have also been talking about what happened on Komarr, are spreading the rumor that Miles killed Tien to get Ekaterin. Threatened by Richars with a murder charge unless Miles votes for his confirmation as count, Miles decides to ensure that Richars doesn't claim the title. Lieutenant Vormoncrief, meanwhile, has been trying to gather support after Ekaterin turned down his marriage proposal, writing a letter to her brother and in-laws warning them that Miles was coming after her, and even interrogating Nikolai about the events on Komarr, causing Miles to arrange for Nikolai to meet with Gregor himself to explain how his father had died. Ekaterin is drawn more and more to Miles, particularly after the elegant and heartfelt letter of apology she received from him after the dinner party. Matters come to a head the night before the vote on both Lord Dono's and Count René's claims to their districts. When hired thugs attempt to neuter Dono—literally—Ivan and Olivia Koudelka foil the plan, and gather enough evidence to present Richars's involvement in the plot to several other conservative counts, who are furious not that he tried, but that the plan failed, and he was publicly implicated. At the same time, Ekaterin's brother and brother-in-law arrive at the Vorthys home, and attempt to take Nikolai with them, protesting that he isn't safe in the capital city. Nikolai calls Gregor for help, resulting in everyone being taken to Vorhartung Castle, where the Council of Counts is in session. Gregor clears up the misunderstanding regarding Miles and lets Ekaterin, Nikolai, and her relatives watch the rest of the proceedings. With several counts switching sides, Lord Dono is confirmed, and Richars is arrested, but not before he tries to goad Ekaterin into renouncing Miles. Stunned by his audacity, Ekaterin asks Miles to marry her instead, undermining Richars's plans completely. By the narrowest of margins, René Vorbretten is also upheld as the count for his district. While this is all going on, parole officers from Escobar come into Vorkosigan House to arrest Enrique on charges of fraud and grand theft, as it seems the butter bugs weren't quite his property, having been confiscated by his investors, and liberated, along with Enrique, by Mark. The two officers face the determined wrath of Kareen and Martya Koudelka, however, who pelt them with tubs of bug butter until they can get Enrique back and lock and barricade the laboratory door from the officers. Miles arrives home to find Enrique about to be hauled off to Escobaran jail, and frees him using another loophole in the Barrayaran bureaucracy maze. With all obstacles cleared, Emperor Gregor's wedding goes off without a hitch, the first commercial butter bug product, maple ambrosia, is a smash hit at the reception, and the recolored butter bugs themselves, styled by Ekaterin and renamed Glorious Bugs, are also a success. After initial reluctance, the Koudelka parents, with help from Countess Vorkosigan, come to an arrangement with Mark and Kareen. Ivan, unfortunately, still hasn't found anyone to settle down with, as one of his last hopes, Olivia Koudelka, is engaged to Lord Dono. And Miles has won the heart of Ekaterin, but now has to leap from the wedding ceremony of his foster brother Gregor into a mission perhaps even more dire—planning his own.
"Winterfair Gifts"
Published in Irresistible Forces, 2004
In the hectic days leading up to Miles and Ekaterin's wedding, Armsman Roic is still trying to get over his mortal embarrassment at meeting his lord's future bride in less-than-flattering circumstances—wearing nothing but his boots, briefs, and about five pounds of bug butter. That had been courtesy of the scuffle he had gotten into several months earlier, protecting Doctor Borgos from Escobaran bounty hunters. Still feeling guilty over his role in the debacle, he attends to his duties as a stream of important visitors arrive at Vorkosigan House for the upcoming wedding. Among them is the genetically modified Sergeant Taura, whom Roic is assigned to accompany during an appointment to get her properly attired for the ceremony, courtesy of Alys Vorpatril. Despite a minor incident with a child at tea afterward, the day goes well, but Roic's inadvertent disparagement of the genetically modified butter bugs falls harshly upon Taura's ears. Also, the bride has been ill for the several days leading up to the wedding, and Roic isn't sure if it is pre-wedding nerves or something worse. When he spots Taura looking through the wedding gifts late one night, and pocketing an elegant strand of pearls that supposedly had been sent by Admiral Quinn, he tries to intervene, hating to think she might be just a thief after all. But Taura's modified eyesight has spotted something on the pearls, and Roic convinces her to let him take them to Imperial Security for a more detailed examination. Her suspicion proves correct; the necklace is poisoned with a deadly neurotoxin cunningly designed to pass a cursory inspection. Ekaterin's wearing it for only a few minutes when she first tried it on was enough to make her quite ill, and prolonged exposure would have killed her for sure. The culprit behind the plan is revealed to be Lord Vorbataille, a minor noble who had gotten caught up in a Jackson's Whole criminal ring, and had been arrested a few days earlier trying to flee off-planet. Taura and Roic are the heroes of the wedding for foiling the plot, with Taura becoming Ekaterin's Second during the ceremony. After seeing Lord and Lady Vorkosigan off on their honeymoon, Taura and Roic reach a new mutual understanding, one that leads to some romantic fireworks of their very own.
Diplomatic Immunity (2001)
More than a year after their marriage, Miles and Ekaterin have enjoyed a well-deserved two-month galactic honeymoon, and are returning to Barrayar for the births of their children when an Imperial courier ship brings a message from Emperor Gregor. Miles is assigned to investigate an incident at Graf Station, in the Union of Free Habitats, located in an area known as Quaddiespace. Members of a Barrayaran military escort, guarding a Komarran trade fleet, got into an incident that resulted in the Barrayarans shooting up a local police station to try and free some of their men. Graf Station responded by locking down the entire merchant fleet in the docks, and holding all the passengers until the mess can be sorted out, hence Gregor's request that Miles see to the matter, as he is the closest to Quaddiespace. Taking Ekaterin with him, Miles is acutely aware of time ticking away before the births of their children, gestating in uterine replicators back on Barrayar, and wants to wrap things up as quickly as possible. However, his initial impression of the station only reveals more problems. Although a Barrayaran ensign, Dmitri Corbeau, who seems to have fallen in love with a quaddie ballet dancer, was the initial cause of the ruckus, Lieutenant Solian, the Komarran-born Barrayaran security liaison with the merchant fleet, has gone missing in the station, leaving only several liters of blood in an airlock, suggesting something dire has happened to him. Miles also finds another surprise—Bel Thorne, the Betan hermaphrodite who resigned its commission from the Dendarii at Miles's request several years ago after the second Jackson's Whole mission, is working at Graf Station as Portmaster, and is also on the Barrayaran Imperial Security payroll as an informer. Miles investigates the station brawl as well as the missing security officer, and finds more questions than answers. Ensign Corbeau is seeking asylum at Graf Station, which would make him a deserter from the Barrayaran military, and have serious repercussions for relations between the two cultures. Even more unusual, Lieutenant Solian seems to have completely disappeared. Initial suspects include a strange-looking, genetically modified man anxious to leave the station, as well as another Betan hermaphrodite, Ker Dubauer, who is worried about a cargo of uterine replicators. After someone tries to kill Miles, Bel, or Ker with a rivet gun, Miles is inclined to view the new herm as the real target, until he inspects the Betan's cargo, and finds it to be human fetuses, not bioengineered animals as Dubauer claimed. He also figures out that Dubauer isn't a hermaphrodite, but is a Cetagandan ba, the neuter class that the haut-ladies practice their genetic engineering on before releasing the changes into their future generations. Before he can find Dubauer again, Bel disappears as well, increasing Miles's suspicion that something bigger is going on. When the strange man who assaulted Bel and its partner, Nicol, is caught by the quaddies at the docks, Miles gets a large part of the story. Dubauer had hired Russo Gupta and his smuggler friends to off-load the replicators from a Cetagandan transport ship, then tried to kill all of them with a virulent biotoxin. Gupta survived, and tracked Dubauer down to try and kill him, but failed. When Miles received word that Dubauer and Bel Thorne accessed the ship where the replicators are being held the night before, he knows where the criminal went, but still has to catch him. Going onto the ship that's carrying the replicators, Miles finds that genetic samples have been taken from the embryos. He also finds Bel Thorne there, ill from what appears to be the same toxin that killed Gupta's companions. Miles locks down the ship, and during the search for Dubauer, infects himself when he stumbles upon a trap left by the ba. Dubauer has also never left the ship, as they discover when the ba seals all of the compartment doors and demands a jump pilot to take it away from Quaddiespace, claiming to have left a bomb on the station somewhere. The volunteer pilot is Ensign Corbeau. Miles must fight the poison coursing through him to stop Dubauer and regain control of the ship, which he does right before passing out. Ekaterin must race against time to get both Miles and the recaptured fetuses to Cetaganda in time to save Miles's life and prevent a war-by-mistake. Miles awakens on a Cetagandan space station, weak but cured of the toxin's effects. Haut-lady Pel is there, and Miles explains the plan as he saw it: Dubauer had stolen the haut-fetuses to create a new empire, where it would rule over all as both Empress and Emperor. To cover its tracks, it had planted empty Cetagandan replicators in Vorbarr Sultana on Barrayar to create conflict between the two empires. Having averted yet another war, Ekaterin, Bel, and Miles are honored by the Cetagandans, with Miles giving a sample of his genetic structure to the haut-ladies, so that in the future, a bit of him might become part of the Cetagandan whole. For Miles and Ekaterin, however, that pales next to getting home in time to watch their children, a son and daughter, be born, and to see the next generation of Vorkosigans take their first breaths.