Our hero is a quiet, upstanding citizen of Athos, an obstetrician in a world in which reproduction is carried out entirely via uterine replicator, without the aid of living women. He faces a problem: the 200-year-old cultures are not providing eggs the way they used to, and attempts to order replacements by mail have failed catastrophically.

While being a space-faring empire, Barrayar still harbors deep-rooted prejudices and superstitions, including those against "mutants." *** When a Dendarii hill-woman comes before Aral Vorkosigan seeking justice for the murder of her infant baby who has been killed because of her physical defects, the Barrayaran Lord sends his son Miles to a remote mountain village to discover the truth and carry out Imperial justice and at the same time attack these long-held barbaric beliefs. *** And who better than Miles Vorkosigan, who has himself struggled with these prejudices all his life because of his...