Half dressed, Miles wandered
across the spacious bedchamber-sitting room the Barrayaran
embassy had assigned to him, turning the glittering rod in his
hand. "So if I'm meant to have this, am I meant to stash it
here, or am I meant to carry it on my person?"
Ivan, neat and complete in
the high collared tunic, side piped trousers, and half boots of
fresh undress greens, rolled his eyes ceilingward. "Will you
quit fooling with that thing and get dressed, before you make us
late? Maybe it's a fancy curtain weight, and it's meant to
drive you crazy trying to assign it some deep and sinister
significance. Or drive me crazy, listening to you. Some
ghem-lord's practical joke."
"A particularly subtle
practical joke, if so."
"Doesn't rule it
out," Ivan shrugged.
"No." Miles
frowned, and limped to the comconsole desk. He opened the top
drawer, and found a stylus and a pad of plastic flimsies embossed
with the embassy seal. He tore off a flimsy and pressed it
against the bird figure on the rod's caplock, then traced the
indentations with the stylus, a quick, accurate, and to scale
sketch. After a moment's hesitation, he left the rod in the
drawer with the pad of flimsies, and closed it again.
"Not much of a hiding
place," Ivan commented. "If it's a bomb, maybe you
ought to hang it out the window. For the rest of our sakes, if
not your own."
"It's not a bomb,
dammit. And I've thought of a hundred hiding places, but none of
them are scanner proof, so there's no point. This should be in a
lead lined blackbox, which I don't happen to have."
"I bet they have one
downstairs," Ivan said. "Weren't you going to
confess?"
"Yes, but unfortunately
Lord Vorreedi is out of the city. Don't look at me like that, I
had nothing to do with it. Vorob'yev told me the haut-lord in
charge of one of the Eta Cetan Jumppoint stations has impounded a
Barrayaran registered merchant ship, and its captain. For
importation infractions."
"Smuggling?" said
Ivan, growing interested.
"No, some complicated
cockeyed Cetagandan regulations. With fees. And taxes. And fines.
And a level of acrimony that's going asymptotic. Since
normalizing trade relations is a current goal of our government,
and since Vorreedi is apparently good at sorting out haut-lords
and ghem-lords, Vorob'yev detailed him to take care of it while
he's stuck here with the ceremonial duties. Vorreedi will be back
tomorrow. Or the next day. Meanwhile, it won't hurt to see how
far I can get on my own. If nothing interesting turns up, I'll
bounce it over to the ImpSec office here anyway."
Ivan's eyes narrowed, as he
processed this. "Yeah? So what if something interesting does
turn up?"
"Well, then too, of
course."
"So did you tell
Vorob'yev?"
"Not exactly. No. Look,
Illyan said Vorreedi, so Vorreedi it is. I'll take care of it as
soon as the man gets back."
"In any case, it's time,"
Ivan reiterated.
"Yeah, yeah . . ."
Miles shuffled over to his bed, sat, and frowned at his leg
braces, laid out waiting. "I have to take the time to get my
leg bones replaced. I've given up on the organics, it's time to
go with plastic. Maybe I could persuade them to add a few
centimeters of length while they're at it. If only I'd known I
had all this dead time coming up, I could have scheduled surgery
and been recovering while we traveled and stood around being
decorative."
"Inconsiderate of the
dowager empress, not to send you a note and warn you she was
dropping dead," Ivan agreed. "Wear the damn things, or
Aunt Cordelia will hold me responsible if you trip over the
embassy cat and break your legs. Again."
Miles growled, not very
loudly. Ivan could read him entirely too well, too. He closed the
cool steel protection around his lumpy, discolored,
too-many-times smashed legs. At least the uniform trousers
concealed his weakness. He fastened his tunic, sealed the
polished short-boots, checked his hair in the mirror over his
dresser, and followed the impatient Ivan, already at the door. In
passing he slipped the folded flimsy into his trouser pocket, and
paused in the corridor to re-key the door lock to his own palm. A
somewhat futile gesture; as a trained ImpSec agent Lieutenant
Vorkosigan knew exactly how insecure palm locks could be.
Despite, or perhaps because
of, Ivan's prodding, they arrived in the foyer at almost the same
moment as Ambassador Vorob'yev. Vorob'yev was wearing his red and
black House uniform again. Not a man who liked making a lot of
decisions about clothing, Miles sensed. He shepherded the two
younger men into the embassy's waiting groundcar, where they sank
into soft upholstery. Vorob'yev politely took the rear-facing
seat across from his official guests. A driver and a guard
occupied the front compartment. The car ran on the city net's
computer control, but the alert driver sat ready to hit the
manual override in case of some non-natural emergency. The
silvered canopies closed, and they oozed out into the street.
"You may regard the
Marilacan embassy as neutral but non-secured territory tonight,
gentlemen," Vorob'yev advised them. "Enjoy yourselves,
but not too much."
"Will there be many
Cetagandans present," Miles asked, "or is this party
strictly for us off-worlders?"
"No haut-lords, of
course," said Vorob'yev. "They're all at one of the
late empress's more private obsequies tonight, along with some of
the highest ranking ghem-clan heads. The lower ranking ghem-lords
are at loose ends, and may be out in force, as the month of
official mourning has reduced their usual social opportunities.
The Marilacans have been accepting a great deal of Cetagandan
'aid' in the past few years, a greediness I predict they will
come to regret. They think Cetaganda won't attack an ally."
The groundcar climbed a ramp,
and swung around a corner offering a brief vista down a
glittering canyon of high buildings, strung together with
tubeways and transparent walks glowing in the dusk. The city
seemed to go on forever, and this wasn't even the main center.
"The Marilacans aren't
paying sufficient attention to their own wormhole nexus
maps," Vorob'yev went on. "They imagine they are at a
natural border. But if Marilac were directly held by Cetaganda,
the next jump would bring them to Zoave Twilight, with all its
cross routes, and a whole new region for Cetagandan expansion.
Marilac is in exactly the same relationship to the Zoave Twilight
crossings as Vervain is to the Hegen Hub, and we all know what
happened there ." Vorob'yev's lips twisted in irony.
"But Marilac has no interested neighbor to mount a rescue as
your father did for Vervain, Lord Vorkosigan. And provocative
incidents can be manufactured so easily."
The alert rush in Miles's
chest faded. There was no personal, secret meaning in Vorob'yev's
remarks. Everyone knew of Admiral Count Aral Vorkosigan's
political and military role in creating the swift alliance and
counter attack that had driven off the attempted Cetagandan
capture of its neighbor Vervain's wormhole jumps to the Hegen
Hub. No one knew of the role ImpSec agent Miles Vorkosigan had
played in bringing the Admiral to the Hegen Hub in so timely a
fashion. And what no one knew, no one got credit for. Hi, I'm
a hero, but I can't tell you why. It's classified. From
Vorob'yev's and practically everybody else's point of view,
Lieutenant Miles Vorkosigan was a low ranking ImpSec courier
officer, a nepotistic sinecure that shuffled him off into routine
duties that took him out of the way. Mutant.
"I thought the Hegen
Alliance gave the ghem-lords a bloody enough nose at Vervain to
keep them subdued for a while," said Miles. "All the
expansionist party ghem-officers in deep eclipse, ghem-General
Estanis committing suicideit was suicide, wasn't it?"
"In an involuntary sort
of way," said Vorob'yev. "These Cetagandan political
suicides can get awfully messy, when the principal won't
cooperate."
"Thirty two stab wounds
in the back, worst case of suicide they ever saw?" murmured
Ivan, clearly fascinated by the gossip.
"Exactly, my lord."
Vorob'yev's eyes narrowed in dry amusement. "But the
ghem-commanders' loose and shifting relationship to the assorted
secret haut-lord factions lends an unusual degree of deniability
to their operations. The Vervain invasion is now officially
described as an unauthorized misadventure. The erring officers
have been corrected, thank you."
"What do they call the
Cetagandan invasion of Barrayar in my grandfather's time?"
Miles asked. "A reconnaissance in force?"
"When they mention it at
all, yes."
"All twenty years
of it?" asked Ivan, half laughing.
"They tend not to go
into the embarrassing details."
"Have you shared your
views on Cetagandan ambitions toward Marilac with Illyan?"
Miles asked.
"Yes, we keep your chief
fully informed. But there are no material movements at present to
support my theory. I'm just reasoning on principle, so far.
ImpSec is watching some key indicators for us."
"I'm . . . not in that
loop," said Miles. "Need-to-know and all that."
"But I trust you grasp
the larger strategic picture."
"Oh, yes."
"And upper class gossip
is not always as guarded as it should be. You two will be in a
position to encounter some. Plan to report it all to my chief of
protocol, Colonel Vorreedi. He will be giving you daily
briefings, as soon as he returns. Let him sort out which tidbits
are important."
Check . Miles nodded
to Ivan, who shrugged acquiescence.
"And, ah . . . try not
to give away more than you gain?"
"Well, I'm
safe," said Ivan. "I don't know anything." He
smiled cheerily. Miles tried not to wince, nor mutter We know,
Ivan, under his breath loud enough to be heard.
Since the off planet
legations were concentrated in one section of Eta Ceta's capital
city, the drive was short. The groundcar descended a street
level, and slowed. It entered the Marilacan embassy building's
garage and pulled into a brightly lit entry foyer made less
subterranean by marble surfaces and decorative plants trailing
from tiers of tubs. The car's canopy rose. Marilacan embassy
guards bowed the Barrayaran party into the lift tubes. Doubtless
they also discreetly scanned their guests. It seemed Ivan had
mustered the good sense to leave that nerve disruptor in his desk
drawer, too.
They exited the lift tube
into a wide lobby, opening in turn onto several levels of
connected public areas, already well populated with guests, the
volume of their babble invitingly high. The center of the lobby
was occupied by a large multi-media sculpture, real, not a
projection. Trickling water cascaded down a fountain reminiscent
of a little mountain, complete with impressionistic mountain
paths one could actually walk upon. Colored flakes swirled in the
air around the mini maze, making delicate tunnels. From their
green color Miles guessed they were meant to represent Earth tree
leaves even before he drew close enough to make out the realistic
details of their shapes. The colors slowly began to change, from
twenty different greens to brilliant yellows, golds, reds and
black-reds. As they swirled they almost seemed to form fleeting
patterns, like human faces and bodies, to a background of
tinkling like wind chimes. So was it meant to be faces and music,
or was it just tricking his brain into projecting meaningful
patterns onto randomness? The subtle uncertainty attracted him.
"That's
new," commented Vorob'yev, his eye also caught. "Pretty
. . . ah, good evening, Ambassador Bernaux."
"Good evening, Lord
Vorob'yev." Their silver haired Marilacan host exchanged a
familiar nod with his Barrayaran counterpart. "Yes, we think
it's rather fine. It's a gift from a local ghem-lord. Quite an
honor. It's titled 'Autumn Leaves.' My cipher staff puzzled over
the name for half a day, and finally decided it meant 'Autumn
Leaves.' ~ "
The two men laughed. Ivan
smiled uncertainly, not quite following the in-joke. Vorob'yev
formally introduced them to Ambassador Bernaux, who responded to
their rank with elaborate courtesy, and to their age by telling
them where to find the food and pointedly turning them loose. It
was the Ivan effect, Miles decided glumly. They mounted stairs
toward a buffet, cut off from getting to hear whatever private
comments the two older men went on to exchange. Probably just
social pleasantries, but still . . .
Miles and Ivan sampled the
hors d'oeuvres, which were dainty but abundant, and selected
drinks. Ivan chose a famous Marilacan wine. Miles, conscious of
the flimsy in his pocket, chose black coffee. They abandoned each
other with a silent wave, each to circulate after his own
fashion. Miles leaned on the railing overlooking the lift tube
lobby. He sipped from the fragile cup and wondered where its stay
warm circuit was concealed, ah, there on the bottom, woven into
the metallic glitter of the Marilacan embassy seal. "Autumn
Leaves" was chilling down to the end of its cycle. The water
in the trickling fountains froze, or appeared to, stilled to
silent black ice. The swirling colors faded to the sere yellow
and silver-gray of a winter sunset, the figures, if figures they
were, now suggesting skeletal despair. The chime/music faded to
discordant, broken whispers. It was not a winter of snow and
celebration. It was a winter of death. Miles shivered
involuntarily. Damned effective.
So, how to begin asking
questions without revealing anything in return? He pictured
himself buttonholing some ghem-lord, Say, did one of your
minions lose a code key with a seal like this . . . ? No. By
far the best approach was to let his . . . adversaries, find him,
but they were being tediously slow about it. Miles's eye swept
the throng for men without eyebrows, without success.
But Ivan had found a
beautiful woman already. Miles blinked, as he registered just how
beautiful. She was tall and slim, the skin of her face and hands
as delicately smooth as porcelain. Jeweled bands bound her
blond-white hair loosely at the nape of her neck, and again at
her waist. The hair did not trail to its silky end until halfway
to her knees. Her dress concealed rather than revealed, with
layers of underslips, split sleeves, and vests sweeping to her
ankles. The dark hues of the over garments set off the pallor of
her complexion, and a flash of cerulean silk underneath echoed
her blue eyes. She was a Cetagandan ghem-lady, without question
she had that attenuated elf look that suggested more than a tinge
of haut-lord genes in her family tree. True, the look could be
mimicked with surgeries and other therapies, but the arrogant
arch to her brow had to be genuine.
Miles sensed the pheromones
in her perfume while still spiraling in from three meters away.
It seemed redundant; Ivan was already on overdrive, his dark eyes
sparkling as he decanted some story featuring himself as hero, or
at least protagonist. Something about training exercises, ah, of
course, emphasizing his Barrayaran martial style. Venus and Mars,
right. But she was actually smiling at something Ivan had said.
It wasn't that Miles
enviously sought to deny Ivan his luck with women; it would
simply be nice if some of the overflow would trickle down his
way. Though Ivan claimed you had to make your own luck. Ivan's
resilient ego could absorb a dozen rejections tonight for some
smiling thirteenth payoff. Miles thought he would be dead of
mortification by Attempt Three. Maybe he was naturally
monogamous.
Hell, you had to at least
achieve monogamy before you could go on to larger ambitions. So
far he had failed to attach even one woman to his sawed-off
person. Of course, nearly three years in covert ops, and the
period before that in the all male environs of the military
academy, had limited his opportunities.
Nice theory. So why hadn't
similar conditions stopped Ivan?
Elena . . . Was he
still holding out for the impossible, on some level? Miles swore
he wasn't nearly as choosy as Ivan. He could hardly afford to be.
Yet even this lovely ghem-blonde lacked . . . what? The
intelligence, the reserve, the pilgrim soul . . . ? But Elena had
chosen another, and probably wisely. Time and past time for Miles
to move on too, and carve out some luck of his own. He just
wished the prospect didn't feel so bleak.
Spiraling in from the other
side a moment or two after Miles came a Cetagandan ghem-lord,
tall and lean. The face rising up out of his dark and flowing
robes was young; the fellow was not much older than Ivan and
himself, Miles guessed. He was square skulled, with prominent
round cheekbones. One cheekbone was decorated with a circular
patch, a decal, Miles realized, a stylized swirl of color
identifying the man's rank and clan. It was a shrunken version of
the full face paint a few other Cetagandans present wore, an
avant garde youth fashion currently being disapproved of by the
older generation. Was he come to rescue his lady from Ivan's
attentions?
"Lady Gelle," he
bowed slightly, and "Lord Yenaro," she responded with a
precisely graded inclination of her head, by which Miles gathered
that 1) she had a higher status in the ghem-community than the
man, and 2) he was not her husband or brother. Ivan was probably
safe.
"I see you have found
some of the galactic exotics you were longing for," said
Lord Yenaro to her.
She smiled back at him. The
effect was downright blinding, and Miles found himself wishing
she'd smile at him even though he knew better. Lord Yenaro,
doubtless inoculated by a lifetime of exposure to ghem-ladies,
seemed immune. "Lord Yenaro, this is Lieutenant Lord Ivan
Vorpatril of Barrayar, and, ah?" Her lashes swept down over
her eyes, indicating Ivan should introduce Miles, a gesture as
sharp and evocative as if she'd tapped Ivan's wrist with a fan.
"My cousin, Lieutenant
Lord Miles Vorkosigan," Ivan supplied smoothly, on cue.
"Ah, the Barrayaran
envoys!" Lord Yenaro bowed more deeply. "What luck to
meet you."
Miles and Ivan both returned
decent nods; Miles made sure the inclination of his head was
slightly shallower than his cousin's, a fine gradation alas
probably spoiled by the angle of view.
"We have an historical
connection, Lord Vorkosigan," Yenaro went on. "Famous
ancestors."
Miles's adrenaline level shot
up. Oh, damn, this is some relative of the late ghem-General
Estanis, and he's out to get the son of Aral Vorkosigan. . . .
"You are the
grandson of General Count Piotr Vorkosigan, are you not?"
Ah. Ancient history,
not recent. Miles relaxed slightly. "Indeed."
"I am in a sense your
opposite number, then. My grandfather was ghem-General
Yenaro."
"Oh, the unfortunate
commander of the, uh, what do you folks call it? The Barrayaran
Expedition? The Barrayaran Reconnaissance?" Ivan put in.
"The ghem-general who
lost the Barrayaran War," Yenaro said bluntly.
"Really, Yenaro, must
you bring him up?" said Lady Gelle. Did she actually want to
hear the end of Ivan's story? Miles could have told her a much
funnier one, about the time on training maneuvers when Ivan had
led his patrol into gluey waist deep mud, and they'd all had to
be winched out by hovercar. . . .
"I am not a proponent of
the hero theory of disaster," Miles said diplomatically.
"General Yenaro had the misfortune to be the last of five
successive ghem-generals who lost the Barrayaran War, and thus
the sole inheritor of a, as it were, tontine of blame."
"Oh, well put,"
murmured Ivan. Yenaro too smiled.
"Do I understand that
thing in the lobby is yours, Yenaro?" the girl inquired,
clearly hoping to steer the conversation away from a fast
downslide into military history. "A trifle banal for your
crowd, isn't it? My mother liked it."
"It is but a practice
piece." A slightly ironic bow acknowledged this mixed
review. "The Marilacans were delighted with it. True
courtesy considers the tastes of the recipient. It has some
levels of subtlety only apparent when you walk through it."
"I thought you were
specializing in the incense contests."
"I'm branching out into
other media. Though I still maintain scent is a subtler sense
than sight. You must let me mix for you sometime. That
civet-jasmine blend you're wearing tonight absolutely clashes
with the third level formal style of your dress, you know."
Her smile went thin.
"Does it."
Miles's imagination supplied
background music, a scrape of rapiers, and a Take that,
varlet! He tamped down a grin.
"Beautiful dress,"
Ivan put in earnestly. "You smell great."
"Mm, yes, speaking of
your craving for the exotic," Lord Yenaro said to Lady
Gelle, "did you know that Lord Vorpatril here is a
biological birth?"
The girl's feather faint
brows drew in, making a tiny crease in her flawless forehead.
"All births are biological, Yenaro."
"Ah, but no. The
original sort of biology. From his mother's body."
"Eeeuu. "
Her nose wrinkled in horror. "Really, Yenaro. You are
so obnoxious tonight. Mother is right, you and your retro-avant
crowd are going to go too far one of these days. You are in
danger of becoming someone not to know, instead of someone
famous." Her distaste was directed at Yenaro, but she
shifted farther from Ivan, Miles noticed.
"When fame eludes,
notoriety may serve," said Yenaro, shrugging.
I was a replicator birth,
Miles thought of putting in brightly, but didn't. Just goes to
show, you can never tell. Except for the brain damage, Ivan had
better luck than I. . . .
"Good evening,
Lord Yenaro." She tossed her head and moved off. Ivan looked
dismayed.
"Pretty girl, but her
mind is so unformed," murmured Yenaro, as if to explain why
they were better off without her company. But he looked
uncomfortable.
"So, uh . . . you chose
an artistic career over a military one, did you, Lord
Yenaro?" Miles tried to fill the breach.
"Career?" Lord
Yenaro's mouth quirked. "No, I am an amateur, of course.
Commercial considerations are the death of true taste. But I hope
to achieve some small stature, in my own way."
Miles trusted that last
wasn't a double entendre of some sort. They followed Lord
Yenaro's gaze over the rail and down into the lobby, at his
fountain thing gurgling there. "You absolutely should come
see it from the inside, you know. The view is entirely
altered."
Yenaro was really a rather
awkward man, Miles decided, his prickly exterior barely shielding
a quiveringly vulnerable artiste 's ego. "Sure,"
he found himself saying. Yenaro needed no further encouragement,
and, smiling anxiously, led them toward the stairs, beginning to
explain some thematic theory the sculpture was supposed to be
displaying. Miles sighted Ambassador Vorob'yev, beckoning to him
from the far side of the balcony. "Excuse me, Lord Yenaro.
Ivan, you go on, I'll catch up with you."
"Oh . . ." Yenaro
looked momentarily crushed. Ivan watched Miles escape with a
light of ire in his eye that promised later retribution.
Vorob'yev was standing with a
woman, her hand familiarly upon his arm. She was about forty
standard, Miles guessed, with naturally attractive features free
of artificial sculptural enhancement. Her long dress and robes
were styled after the Cetagandan fashion, though much simpler in
detail than Lady Gelle's. She was no Cetagandan, but the dark red
and cream colors and green accents of her garments worked as
cleverly with her olive skin and dark curls.
"There you are, Lord
Vorkosigan," said Vorob'yev. "I've promised to
introduce you. This is Mia Maz, who works for our good friends at
the Vervani Embassy, and who has helped us out from time to time.
I recommend her to you."
Miles snapped to attention at
the key phrase, smiled, and bowed to the Vervani woman.
"Pleased to meet you. And what do you do at the Vervani
Embassy, ma'am?"
"I'm assistant chief of
protocol. I specialize in women's etiquette."
"That's a separate
specialty?"
"It is here, or should
be. I've been telling Ambassador Vorob'yev for years that he
ought to add a woman to his staff for that purpose."
"But we haven't any with
the necessary experience," sighed Vorob'yev, "and you
won't let me hire you away. Though I have tried."
"So start one without
experience, and let her gain it," Miles suggested.
"Would Milady Maz consider taking on an apprentice?"
"Now there's an idea. .
. ." Vorob'yev looked much struck. Maz's brows rose
approvingly. "Maz, we should discuss this, but I must speak
to Wilstar, whom I see just hitting the buffet over there. If I'm
lucky, I can catch him with his mouth full. Excuse me. . .
." His mission of introduction accomplished, Vorob'yev
faded, how else? diplomatically away.
Maz turned her whole
attention gratefully upon Miles. "Anyway, Lord Vorkosigan, I
wanted to let you know that if there's anything we at the Vervani
Embassy can do for the son or the nephew of Admiral Aral
Vorkosigan during your visit to Eta Ceta, well . . . all that we
have is at your disposal."
Miles smiled. "Don't
make that offer to Ivan; he might take you up on it
personally."
The woman followed his glance
down over the railing, to where his tall cousin was now being
guided through the sculpture by Lord Yenaro. She grinned
impishly, making a dimple wink in her cheek. "Not a
problem."
"So, are, uh . . .
ghem-ladies really so different from ghem-lords as to make a full
time study? I admit, most Barrayarans' views of the ghem-lords
have been through range finders."
"Two years ago, I would
have scorned that militaristic view. Since the Cetagandan
invasion attempt we've come to appreciate it. Actually, the
ghem-lords are so much like the Vor, I'd think you'd find them
more comprehensible than we Vervani do. The haut-lords are . . .
something else. And the haut-ladies are even more something else,
I've begun to realize."
"The haut-lords' women
are so thoroughly sequestered . . . do they ever do anything? I
mean, nobody ever sees them, do they? They have no power."
"They have their own
sort of power. Their own areas of control. Parallel, not
competing with their men. It all makes sense, they just never
bother explaining it to outsiders."
"To inferiors."
"That, too." Her
dimple flashed again.
"So . . . are you well
up on ghem- and haut-lord seals, crests, marks, that sort of
thing? I can recognize about fifty clan marks by sight, and all
the military insignia and corps crests, of course, but I know
that just scratches the surface."
"I'm fairly well up.
They have layers within layers; I can't claim to know them all by
any means."
Miles frowned thoughtfully,
then decided to seize the moment. There was nothing else going on
here tonight, that was certain. He drew the flimsy from his
pocket and flattened it out against the railing. "Do you
know this icon? I ran across it . . . well, in an odd place. But
it smelled ghemish, or hautish, if you know what I mean."
She gazed with interest at
the screaming bird outline. "I don't recognize it right off.
But you're correct, it's definitely in the Cetagandan style. It's
old, though."
"How can you tell?"
"Well, it's clearly a
personal seal, not a clan mark, but it doesn't have an outline
around it. For the last three generations people have been
putting their personal marks in cartouches, with more and more
elaborate borders. You can practically tell the decade by the
border design."
"Huh."
"If you like, I can try
to look it up in my resource materials."
"Would you? I'd like
that very much." He folded the flimsy back up and handed it
to her. "Uh . . . I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't show it
to anyone else, though."
"Oh?" She let the
syllable hang there, Oh . . . ?
"Excuse me. Professional
paranoia. I, uh . . ." He was getting in deeper and deeper.
"It's a habit."
He was rescued from tripping
further over his tongue by the return of Ivan. Ivan's practiced
eye summed up the attractions of the Vervani woman instantly, and
he smiled attentively at her, as sincerely delighted as he had
been with the last girl, and would be with the next. And the
next. The ghem-lord artiste was still glued to his elbow; Miles
perforce introduced them both. Maz seemed not to have met Lord
Yenaro before. In front of the Cetagandan, Maz did not repeat to
Ivan her message of boundless Vervani gratitude to the Vorkosigan
clan, but she was definitely friendly.
"You really ought to let
Lord Yenaro take you on the tour of his sculpture, Miles,"
Ivan said ruthlessly. "It's quite a thing. An opportunity
not to be missed and all that."
I found her first, dammit.
"Yes, it's very fine."
"Would you be
interested, Lord Vorkosigan?" Yenaro looked earnest and
hopeful.
Ivan bent to Miles's ear to
whisper, "It was Lord Yenaro's gift to the Marilacan
embassy. Don't be a lout, Miles, you know how sensitive the
Cetagandans are about their artsy, uh, things."
Miles sighed, and mustered an
interested smile for Yenaro. "Certainly. Now?"
Miles excused himself with
unfeigned regrets to Maz the Vervani. The ghem-lordling led him
down the stairs to the lobby, and had him pause at the entrance
of the walk through sculpture to wait for the show cycle to begin
anew.
"I'm not really
qualified to judge aesthetics," Miles mentioned, hoping to
head off any conversation in that direction.
"So very few are,"
smiled Yenaro, "but that doesn't stop them."
"It does seem to me to
be a very considerable technical achievement. Do you drive the
motion with antigrav, then?"
"No, there's no antigrav
in it at all. The generators would be bulky and wasteful of
power. The same force drives the leaves' motion as drives their
color changes, or so my technicians explained it to me."
"Technicians? I somehow
pictured you putting all this together with your own hands."
Yenaro spread his hands,
pale, long fingered, and thin and stared at them as if surprised
to find them on the ends of his wrists. "Of course not.
Hands are to be hired. Design is the test of the intellect."
"I must disagree. In my
experience, hands are integral with brains, almost another lobe
for intelligence. What one does not know through one's hands, one
does not truly know."
"You are a man capable
of true conversation, I perceive. You must meet my friends, if
your schedule here permits. I'm hosting a reception at my home in
two evenings' time do you suppose?"
"Um, maybe . . ."
That evening was a blank as far as the funeral formalities went.
It could be quite interesting, a chance to observe how the
ghem-lordlings of his own generation operated without the
inhibitions of their elders; a glimpse into the future of
Cetaganda. "Yes, why not?"
"I'll send you
directions. Oh." Yenaro nodded toward the fountain, which
was starting up with its high-canopied summer greens again.
"Now we can go in."
Miles did not find the view
from inside the fountain maze all that much different from the
outside. In fact, it seemed less interesting, as at close range
the illusion of forms in the flitting leaves was reduced. The
music was clearer, though. It rose to a crescendo, as the colors
began to change.
"Now you'll see
something," said Yenaro, with evident satisfaction.
It was all sufficiently
distracting that it took another moment for Miles to realize that
he was feeling something tingling and heat, coming from
his leg braces lying against his skin. He schooled himself not to
react, till the heat began to rise.
Yenaro was babbling on with
artistic enthusiasm, pointing out effects, Now, watch this
Brilliant colors swirled before Miles's eyes. A distinct
sensation of scalding flesh crept up his legs.
Miles muffled his scream to a
less edged yell, and managed not to jump for the water. God knew,
he might be electrocuted. The few seconds it took him to pelt out
of the maze brought the steel of his braces to a temperature
sufficient to boil water. He gave up dignity, dove for the floor,
and yanked up his trouser legs. His first snatch at the clamps
burned his hands, too. He swore, eyes watering, and tried again.
He tore off his boots, snapped loose the braces, and flung them
aside with a clatter, and curled up momentarily in overwhelming
pain. The braces had left a pattern of rising white welts
surrounded by an angry red border of flesh on shin, knees, and
ankles.
Yenaro was flapping about in
distress, calling loudly for help. Miles looked up to find
himself the center of an audience of about fifty or so shocked
and bewildered people, witnessing his display. He stopped
writhing and swearing, and sat panting, his breath hissing
through clenched teeth.
Ivan and Vorob'yev shouldered
through the mob from different directions. "Lord Vorkosigan!
What has happened?" asked Vorob'yev urgently.
"I'm all right,"
said Miles. He was not all right, but this was not the time or
place to go into details. He pulled his trouser legs quickly back
down, concealing the burns.
Yenaro was yammering on in
dismay, "What happened? I had no idea are you all right,
Lord Vorkosigan? Oh dear . . ."
Ivan bent and prodded at a
cooling brace. "Yes, what the hell . . . ?"
Miles considered the sequence
of sensations, and their possible causes. Not antigrav, not
noticeable to anyone else, and it had slid right past Marilacan
embassy security. Hidden in plain sight? Right. "I think it
was some sort of electro-hysteresis effect. The color changes in
the display are apparently driven by a reversing magnetic field
at low level. No problem for most people. For me, well, it wasn't
quite as bad as shoving my leg braces into a microwave, but you
get the idea." Grinning, he got to his feet. Ivan, looking
very worried, had already collected his flung boots and the
offending braces. Miles let him keep them. He didn't want to
touch them just now. He blundered rather blindly closer to Ivan,
and muttered under his breath, "Get me out of here. . .
." He was shivering and shocky, as Ivan's hand on his
shoulder could sense. Ivan gave him a short, understanding nod,
and swiftly withdrew through the crowd of finely dressed men and
women, some of whom were already turning away.
Ambassador Bernaux hurried
up, and added his worried apologies to Yenaro's one man chorus.
"Do you wish to stop in to the embassy infirmary, Lord
Vorkosigan?" Bernaux offered.
"No. Thank you. I'll
wait till we get home, thanks." Soon, please .
Bernaux bit his lip, and
regarded the still apologizing Lord Yenaro. "Lord Yenaro,
I'm afraid"
"Yes, yes, turn it off
at once," said Yenaro. "I will send my servants
to remove it immediately. I had no idea everyone else seemed to
be enjoying it must be redesigned. Or destroyed, yes, destroyed
at once. I am so sorry this is so embarrassing"
Yes, isn't it? thought
Miles. A show of his physical weakness, displayed to a maximum
audience at the earliest possible moment . . .
"No, no, don't destroy
it," said Ambassador Bernaux, horrified. "But we
certainly must have it examined by a safety engineer, and
modified, or perhaps a warning posted. . . ."
Ivan reappeared at the edge
of the dispersing crowd, and gave Miles a thumbs up signal. After
a few more minutes of excruciating social niceties, Vorob'yev and
Ivan managed to get him escorted back down the lift tube to the
waiting Barrayaran embassy groundcar. Miles flung himself into
the upholstery and sat, grinning in pain, breath shallow. Ivan
eyed his shivering form, skinned out of his tunic, and tucked it
around Miles's shoulders. Miles let him.
"All right, let's see
the damages," demanded Ivan. He propped one of Miles's heels
on his knee and rolled back the trouser leg. "Damn, that's
got to hurt."
"Quite," agreed
Miles thinly.
"It could hardly have
been an assassination attempt, though," said Vorob'yev, his
lips compressed with calculation.
"No," agreed Miles.
"Bernaux told me he had
his own security people examine the sculpture before they
installed it. Looking for bombs and bugs, of course, but they
cleared it."
"I'm sure they did. This
could not have hurt anyone . . . but me."
Vorob'yev followed his
reasoning without effort. "A trap?"
"Awfully elaborate, if
so," noted Ivan.
"I'm . . . not
sure," said Miles. I'm meant to be not sure. That's the
beauty of it. "It had to have taken days, maybe weeks,
of preparation. We didn't even know we were coming here till two
weeks ago. When did it arrive at the Marilacan embassy?"
"Last night, according
to Bernaux," Vorob'yev said.
"Before we even
arrived." Before our little encounter with the man with
no eyebrows. It can't possibly be connected can it? "How
long have we been scheduled for that party?"
"The embassies arranged
the invitations about three days ago," said Vorob'yev.
"The timing is awfully
tight, for a conspiracy," Ivan observed.
Vorob'yev thought it over.
"I think I must agree with you, Lord Vorpatril. Shall we put
it down as an unfortunate accident, then?"
"Provisionally,"
said Miles. That was no accident. I was set up. Me,
personally. You know there's a war on when the opening salvo
arrives.
Except that, usually, one
knew why a war had been declared. It was all very well to
swear not to be blind-sided again, but who was the enemy here?
Lord Yenaro, I bet you
throw a fascinating party. I wouldn't miss it for worlds .