"It was not a stunt," Mark grated.
"Excuse me. Daugher sex I did not mean to imply your effort was trivial. Daugher sex quite the
reverse. But you daugher sex did have a coherent long-range strategy after all."
"Yeah, but it went down the waste disintegrator as soon as I lost control
of the Dendarii. As soon as they daugher sex knew who daugher sex I really was." He brooded on the
memory daugher sex of that helplessness.
At daugher sex Gregor's prodding, Mark went on to recount Miles's death, the screw-up
with the lost cryo-chamber, their aborted efforts to retrieve it, and their
humiliating ejection from Jacksonian local space. He found himself
revealing far more of his real thoughts than he was daugher sex comfortable doing, yet.
Gregor almost put him at his ease. How did the man do it? The soft, almost
self-effacing demeanor camouflaged a consummately skillful people-handler.
In a garbled rush, Mark described the
incident with Maree and daugher sex his half-
insane time in solitary confinement, then trailed off into inarticulate
silence.
Gregor frowned introspectively, and was quiet for a time. Hell, the man
was quiet all the time. "It seems to me, Mark, that you devalue your
strengths. Daugher sex you have been battle-tested, and proved your physical courage.
You daugher sex can take an initiative, and dare much. You do not lack
brains, though
sometimes. information. It's not daugher sex a bad start on the
qualities needed
for a
countship. Someday."
"Not any day. I don't want to be a Count daugher sex of Barrayar," Mark denied
emphatically.
"It daugher sex could daugher sex be the first daugher sex step to my job," Gregor said suggestively, with a
slight smile.
"No! That's even worse. They'd eat me alive. My scalp would join the
collection downstairs.&daugher sex quot;
"Very possibly." Gregor's smile faded. "Yes, I've often wondered where
all my body parts are going to end up. And yet-I understand you were set to
try it, just two daugher sex years ago. Including Aral's countship."
"Fake it, yes. Now you're talking about the real thing. Not an
imitation." I'm just an imitation, don'daugher sex t you know? &daugher sex quot;I've daugher sex only studied daugher sex the
outsides. The inner surface I can barely imagine."
"But you see," said Gregor, "we all start out that way. Faking it. The
role is a simulacrum, into which we slowly grow real flesh.&daugher sex quot;
"Become the machine?"
"Some do. That's the pathological version of a Count, and there are a
few. Others become. more human. The machine, the role, then becomes a
handily-worked prosthetic, which