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Ivan and Miles lay in their bunks in their shared cabin on the way home from Beta. It was a mad rush to get back home before Gregor did something irretractable, but no amount of worrying could make the jump route go any faster.
“Can you hear the stars sing?” Ivan asked. He could just make out his cousin in the dimness, lying there, not quite tense, but with an odd, unfocused alertness, his eyes glittering.
“No,” Miles said, in that way that meant he was lying not so much to Ivan as to himself, and swallowing the lie whole.
“Neither can I,” Ivan said, “Could be just one of those stories.”
“Yeah,” Miles said, sounding relieved.
Could be, but wasn’t. If Miles was half as clever as he thought he was, he would catch that sort of thing.
Mamere went out sometimes, on calm, cool nights, and danced to the star music, twisting and twirling until Ivan, watching from his window, almost thought he could hear those cold, wild notes himself. They wanted you to follow them out into the black, Mamere said, out into the cold far reaches of space to burn with them, bright and fast.
“You wouldn’t go would you?” Ivan had asked when he was very small and uncertain of everything.
Mamere had laughed.
“Of course not,” she’d said, “I belong to Barrayar.”
Ivan watched his cousin listening to the stars, pretending it was all nonsense.
Damn sirens, Ivan thought at the stars, Don’t you dare take my cousin from me. He’s a hyperactive fool with too much brains and too little sense, but he’s mine. Mine and Barrayar’s.