Free Miles in Love by Lois McMaster Bujold

really don't know where she is. She left, you see. Very suddenly, only a day's notice. It put a hole in my staffing at what has proved to be a difficult time. I wasn't too pleased."
    "So Farr said. I just thought it was odd about the cats. One of my daughters keeps cats. Dreadful little parasites, but she's very fond of them."
    "Cats?" said Soudha, looking increasingly mystified.
    "Trogir apparently left her cats in the keeping of Farr."
    Soudha blinked, but said, "I've always considered it out of line to intrude on my subordinate's personal lives. Men or pets, it was Trogir's business, not mine. As long as they're kept off project time. I . . . was there anything else?"
    "Not really," said Vorthys.
    "Then if you will excuse me, my Lord Auditor." Soudha smiled again, and ducked away.
    "What was that all about?" Miles asked Vorthys as they turned down the corridor in the opposite direction.
    Vorsoisson answered. "A minor office scandal, unfortunately. One of Soudha's techs—female—ran off with one of his engineers, male. Completely blindsided him, apparently. He's fairly embarrassed about it. However did you run across it?"
    "Young Farr accosted Ekaterin in a restaurant," said Vorthys.
    "He really has been a pest." Vorsoisson sighed. "I don't blame Soudha for avoiding him."
    "I always thought Komarrans were more casual about such things," said Miles. "In the galactic style and all that. Not as casual as the Betans, but still. It sounds like a Barrayaran backcountry elopement." Without, surely, the need to avoid backcountry social pressures, such as homicidal relatives out to defend the clan honor.
    Vorsoisson shrugged. "The cultural contamination between the worlds can't run one way all the time, I suppose."
    The little party continued to the underground garage, where the aircar Vorsoisson had requisitioned was not in evidence. "Wait here, Venier." Swearing under his breath, Vorsoisson went off to see what had happened to it; Vorthys accompanied him.
    The opportunity to interview a Komarran in apparently-casual mode was not to be missed. What kind of Komarran was Venier? Miles turned to him, only to find him speaking first: "Is this your first visit to Komarr, Lord Vorkosigan?"
    "By no means. I've passed through the topside stations many times. I haven't got downside too often, I admit. This is the first time I've been to Serifosa."
    "Have you ever visited Solstice?"
    The planetary capital. "Of course."
    Venier stared at the middle distance, past the concrete pillars and dim lighting, and smiled faintly. "Have you ever visited the Massacre Shrine there?"
    A cheeky damned Komarran, that's what kind. The Solstice Massacre was infamous as the ugliest incident of the Barrayaran conquest. The two hundred Komarran Counselors, the then-ruling senate, had surrendered on terms—and subsequently been gunned down in a gymnasium by Barrayaran security forces. The political consequences had run a short range from dire to disastrous. Miles's smile became a little fixed. "Of course. How could I not?"
    "All Barrayarans should make that pilgrimage. In my opinion."
    "I went with a close friend. To help him burn a death offering for his aunt."
    "A relative of a Martyr is a friend of yours?" Venier's eyes widened in a moment of genuine surprise, in what otherwise felt to Miles to be a highly choreographed conversation. How long had Venier been rehearsing his lines in his head, itching for a chance to try them out?
    "Yes." Miles let his gaze become more directly challenging.
    Venier apparently felt the weight of it, because he shifted uneasily, and said, "As you are your father's son, I'm just a little surprised, is all."
    By what, that I have any Komarran friends? "Especially as I am my father's son, you should not be."
    Venier's brows tweaked up. "Well . . . there is a theory that the massacre was ordered by Emperor Ezar without the knowledge of Admiral Vorkosigan. Ezar was certainly ruthless enough."
    "Ruthless enough, yes. Stupid