They jumped him both together, telegraphing every move. The purely defensive katas continued to work charmingly; they flowed into, and out of, his momentum-gate to end up both on the ground, shaking their heads dizzily, victims of their own aggression. Mark wriggled his jaw, which had taken a clumsy blow, hard enough to sting and wake him up. The next round was not so successful; he ended up rolling out of reach, finally losing his grip on the bakery bag, which promptly got stomped. And then one of them caught up with him in a grapple, and they took some of their own back, pounding unscientific blows of clenched fists. He was getting seriously out of breath. He planned an arm-bar and a sprint to the street. It might have ended there, a good time having been had by all, if one of the idiot punks, crouching, hadn’t pulled out a battered old shock-stick and jabbed it toward him.

Mark almost killed him instantly with a kick to the neck; he pulled his punch barely in time, and the blow landed slightly off-center. Even through his boot he could feel the tissues crush, a sickening sensation richoceting up through his body. Mark recoiled in horror as the kid lay gurgling on the ground. No, I wasn’t trained to fight. I was trained to kill. Oh, shit. He’d managed not to quite smash the larynx. He prayed the kick hadn’t snapped a major internal blood vessel. The other two assailants paused in shock.

Ivan pounded around the corner. “What the hell are you doing?” he cried hoarsely.

“I don’t know,” Mark gasped, bent over with his hands on his knees. His nose was bleeding all over his new shirt. In delayed reaction, he was beginning to shake. “They jumped me.” I baited them. Why the hell was he doing this? It had all happened so fast… .

“Is the mutie with you, soldier?” the skinny lad demanded in a mixture of surprise and dread.

Mark could see the struggle in Ivan’s face with the urge to disavow all connection with him. “Yes,” Ivan choked out at last. The big punk who was still on his feet faded backward, turned, and ran. The skinny kid was glued to the scene by the presence of the injured man and the old woman, though he looked like he wanted to run too. The hag, who had risen and hobbled over to her downed champion, screamed accusations and threats at Mark. She was the only one present who seemed undismayed by the sight of Ivan’s officer’s greens. Then the municipal guards arrived.

Once he was sure the injured punk was going to be taken care of, Mark shut up and let Ivan handle it. Ivan lied like a … trooper, to keep the name of Vorkosigan from ever coming up; the municipal guards in turn, realizing who Ivan was, dampened the old woman’s hysteria and extricated them with speed. Mark declined to press assault charges even without Ivan’s urgent advice to that effect. Thirty minutes later they were back in Ivan’s ground car. This time Ivan drove much more slowly; residual terror, Mark judged, from having almost lost his charge.

“Where the hell was that outer perimeter guy who was supposed to be my guardian angel?” Mark asked, gingerly probing the contusions on his face. His nose had finally stopped bleeding. Ivan hadn’t let him in his ground car until it had, and he’d made sure Mark wasn’t going to throw up.

“Who d’you think called the municipal guards? The outer perimeter’s supposed to be discreet.”

“Oh.” His ribs hurt, but nothing was broken, Mark decided. Unlike his progenitor, he’d never had a broken bone. Mutie. “Was … did Miles have to deal with this kind of crap?” All he’d done to those people was walk past them. If Miles had been dressed as he was, been alone as he was, would they have attacked him?

“Miles wouldn’t have been stupid enough to wander in there by himself in the first place!”

Mark frowned. He’d gained the impression from Galen that Miles’s rank made him immune to Barrayar’s mutagenic prejudices. Did Miles actually have to run a constant safety-calculation in his head, editing where he could go, what he could do?

“And if he had,” Ivan continued, “he’d have talked his way out of it. Slid on by. Why the hell did you mix in with three guys? If you just want somebody to beat the shit out of you, come to me. I’d be glad to.”

Mark shrugged uncomfortably. Is that what he’d been secretly seeking? Punishment? Was that why things went so bad, so fast? “I thought you all were the great Vor. Why should you have to slide on by? Can’t you just stomp the scum?”

Ivan groaned. “No. And am I ever glad I’m not going to be your permanent bodyguard.”

“I’m glad too, if this is a sample of your work,” Mark snarled in return. He checked his left canine tooth; his gum and lips were puffy, but it wasn’t actually loose.

Ivan merely growled. Mark settled back, wondering how the kid with the damaged throat was doing. The municipal guards had taken him away for treatment. Mark should not have fought him; he’d come within a centimeter of killing him. He might have killed all three. The punks were only little cannibals, after all. Which was why, Mark realized, Miles would have talked and slid away; not fear, and not noblesse oblige, but because those people weren’t up to his … weight class. Mark felt ill. Barrayarans. God help me.

Ivan swung by his apartment, which was in a tower in one of the city’s better districts, not far from the entirely modern government buildings housing the Imperial Service Command headquarters. There he allowed Mark to wash up and remove the bloodstains from his clothing before his return to Vorkosigan House. Tossing Mark’s shirt back to him from the dryer, Ivan remarked, “Your torso is going to be piebald, tomorrow. Miles would have been in hospital for the next three weeks over that. I’d have had to cart him out of there on a board.”

Mark glanced down at the red blotches, just starting to turn purple. He was stiffening up all over. Half a dozen pulled muscles protested their abuse. All that, he could conceal, but his face bore marks that were going to have to be explained. Telling the Count and Countess that he’d been in a ground-car wreck with Ivan would be perfectly believable, but he doubted they’d get away with the lie for long.

In the event, Ivan did the talking again, delivering him back to the Countess with a true but absolutely minimized account of Mark’s adventure: “Aw, he wandered off and got pushed around a little by the local residents, but I caught up with him before anything much could happen. ’Bye, Aunt Cordelia …” Mark let him escape without impediment.

The whole report had certainly caught up with the Count and Countess by dinner. Mark sensed the cool faint tension even as he slid into his place at the table opposite Elena Bothari-Jesek, who was back at last from her lengthy and presumably grueling debriefing at ImpSec HQ.

The Count waited until the first course had been served and the human servant had departed the dining room before remarking, “I’m glad your learning experience today was not lethal, Mark.”

Mark managed to swallow without gagging, and said in a subdued voice, “For him, or me?”

“Either. Do you wish a report on your, ah, victim?”

No. “Yes. Please.”

“The physicians at the municipal hospital expect to release him in two days. He will be on a liquid diet for a week. He will recover his voice.”

“Oh. Good.” I didn’t mean to … What was the point of excuses, apologies, protests? None, surely.

“I looked into picking up his medical bill, privately, only to discover that Ivan had been in ahead of me. Upon reflection, I decided to let him stand for it.”

“Oh.” Ought he to offer to repay Ivan, then? Did he have any money, or any right to any? Legally? Morally?

“Tomorrow,” stated the Countess, “Elena will be your native guide. And Pym will accompany you.”