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of the local founder populations. He was dressed in a shirt too large for him, the sleeves rolled up and the shirttail trailing down over a pair of baggy shorts. Worn sport shoes without socks slopped on his feet. "Would you like breakfast?" Jin asked. "I have fresh eggs this morning—three of 'em!"
    A proud young farmer; Miles could see that eggs loomed in his near future. "In a bit. I'd like to wash up first."
    "Wash?" said Jin, as if this were a novel notion.
    "Do you have any soap?" Miles went on. "I don't expect you have any depilatory."
    Jin shook his head at this last, but jumped up to rummage on his crowded shelves and came up with a bar of rather dry soap, a plastic basin, and a grayish towel. Miles had to ask for Jin's help un-knotting the safety line, then accepted the soap and supplies with thanks and shuffled around the exchanger tower to the working water tap, where he stripped off his clothes, what was left of them, knelt, and managed a wash and rinse not only of his face, but head and whole body, including a good soaping of his sore feet and knees. The latter were contused and scabbed this morning, but showed no sign of infection, good. Jin tagged along to watch, frowning curiously at the pale scars lacing his torso. Miles slid back into his ragged and somewhat smelly garb, combed his hair with his fingers, and shuffled back to sink gratefully into the lone chair, toward which his young host gestured him.
    Jin set a metal pot of water to boil on an ordinary, if battered, rechargeable camp heater. The boy's rooftop realm was clearly furnished out of back-alley scavenges, but some fruitful ones. The water heated quickly, and Jin slipped his three eggs, precious treasures, gently in. "Twig laid the brown one," Jin informed Miles, "and Galli the other two. They're fresh last night. And I have salt!"
    Jin bustled about and produced a couple of plastic plates, the bottle of water refilled and ready for sharing between them, and half a loaf of what proved to be surprisingly excellent bread, if a trifle dry. With an air of confession, Jin lowered his voice. "Eggs come out of chickens' butts, you know."
    "Yes, I knew that," Miles returned gravely. "We have Earth chickens, and other birds, where I come from, too."
    Jin relaxed. "Oh, good. Some people get upset when they first find that out."
    "Some people think Barrayar is a primitive world," Miles offered.
    Jin brightened. "Does it have many animals?"
    "Yes, the usual Earth imports, atop its own native ecosystem. The native animals are mostly small, like bugs, though. There are larger creatures in the seas."
    "Do people fish?"
    "Not in the seas. In stocked lakes, yes. The Barrayaran plants and animals are mostly toxic to humans."
    Jin nodded wisely. "Around here, the native stuff they first found on the equator was mostly microorganisms. They figure that's where the oxygen came from, before the last big freeze. They set up a lot of Earth plants to follow the melting glaciers, north and south. But not many animals."
    "Kibou-daini is a lot like Komarr—that's the second planet of my Empire," Miles said. "A cold world, being slowly terraformed. Sergyar—that's the third world—you'd probably like it. It has a fully-developed native ecosystem, and lots of amazing animals, or so my mother tells me. It's only been colonized in the last generation, so scientists are still finding out new things about the biota."
    Jin looked at Miles more warmly. It seemed he had just risen in the boy's estimation—were adults who could make sensible conversation rare in Jin's world, perhaps? For a certain value of sensible equating to zoological, apparently.
    "I don't suppose you have any coffee. Or tea," Miles said, without much hope.
    Jin shook his head. "I have a couple of cola bulbs, though." He darted back to his shelves to return with a pair of bright plastic drink bulbs. "Except they're warm."
    Miles took one up and squinted at the ingredients label, a vile concoction of cheap