Cetaganda Part 12

"Do they... hm. Do they rotate every five years along with their governors? Or independently of them?"

"They are appointed for life, and removed only by the Celestial Lady's direct order."

The consorts seemed powerful allies in the heart of the enemy camp, if only Rian could activate them on her behalf. But she dared not do so, alas, if one of them was herself a traitor. Miles thought bad words to himself.

"The empire," he pointed out, "is the support of the haut. Hardly nothing, even from a genetic point of view. The, er, prey to predator ratio is quite high."

She did not smile at his weak zoological joke. He probably ought not to treat her to a recitation of his limericks, then, either. He tried again. "Surely the Empress Lisbet did not mean to instantly fragment the support of the haut."

"No. Not this fast. Maybe not even in this generation," admitted Rian.

Ah. That made more sense, a timing much more in an old haut-lady's style. "But now her plot has been hijacked to another's purpose. Someone with short-term, personal goals, someone she did not foresee." He moistened his lips, and forged on. "I believe your Celestial Lady's plans have fractured at their weak spot. The emperor protects the haut-women's control of the haut-genome; in turn you lend him legitimacy. A mutual support in both your interests. The satrap governors have no such motive. You can't give power away and keep it simultaneously."

Her exquisite lips thinned unhappily, but she did not deny the point.

Miles took a deep breath. "It's not in Barrayar's interests for Slyke Giaja to succeed in his power-grab. So far, I can serve you in this, milady. But it's not in Barrayar's interests for the Cetagandan Empire to be de-stabilized in the way your empress planned, either. I think I see how to foil Slyke. But in turn you must give up your attempt to carry out your mistress's posthumous vision." At her astonished look he added weakly, "At least for now."

"How... would you foil Prince Slyke?" she asked slowly.

"Penetrate his ship. Retrieve the real Great Key. Replace it again with the decoy, if possible. If we're lucky he might not even realize the subst.i.tution till he got home, and then what could he do about it? You hand over the real Great Key to your successor, and it all pa.s.ses away as smoothly as if it had never happened. Neither party can accuse the other without incriminating himself." Or herself. "I think it is, in all, the best outcome that can be humanly achieved. Any other scenario leads to disaster, of one sort or another. If we do nothing, the plot comes out in eight days regardless, and Barrayar gets framed. If I try and fail... at least I can't make it any worse." Are you sure of that?

"How could you get aboard Slyke's ship?"

"I have an idea or two. The governors' consorts-and their ghem-ladies, and their servitors-can they go up and down from orbit freely?"

One porcelain hand touched her throat. "More or less, yes."

"So you get a lady with legitimate access, preferably someone relatively inconspicuous, to take me up. Not as myself, of course, I'd have to be disguised somehow. Once I'm aboard, I can take it from there. This gives us a problem of trust. Who could you trust? I don't suppose you yourself could... ?"

"I haven't left the capital for... several years."

"You would not qualify as inconspicuous, then. Besides, Slyke Giaja has to be keeping a close eye on you. What about that ghem-lady you sent to meet me at Yenaro's party?"

Rian was looking decidedly unhappy. "Someone in the consort's train would be a better choice," she said reluctantly.

"The alternative," he pointed out coolly, "would be to let Cetagandan security do the job. Nailing Slyke would automatically clear Barrayar, and my problem would be solved."

Well... not quite. Slyke Giaja, if Lord X, was the man who'd somehow jiggered the orbital station's traffic control, and who'd known what security blind spot would hold Ba Lura's body. Slyke Giaja had more security access than he b.l.o.o.d.y ought to. Was it so certain that Cetagandan Security would be able to pull off a surprise raid on the Imperial prince's ship?

"How would you disguise yourself?" she asked.

He tried to convince himself her tone was merely taken aback, not scornful. "As a ba servitor, probably. Some of them are as short as I am. And you haut treat those people like they're invisible. Blind and deaf, too."

"No man would disguise himself as a ba!"

"So much the better, then." He grinned ironically at her reaction.

Her comconsole chimed. She stared at it in brief, astonished annoyance, then touched its code pad. The face of a fit-looking middle-aged man formed over the vid-plate. He wore a Cetagandan security officer's ordinary uniform, but he was no one Miles recognized. Gray eyes glinted like granite chips from freshly applied zebra-striped face paint. Miles quailed, and glanced around quickly-he was out of range of the vid-pickup, at least.

"Haut Rian," the man nodded deferentially.

"Ghem-Colonel Millisor," Rian acknowledged. "I ordered my comconsole blocked to incoming calls. This is not a convenient time to speak." She kept her eyes from darting to Miles.

"I used the emergency override. I've been trying to reach you for some time. My apologies, Haut, for intruding upon your mourning for the Celestial Lady, but she would have been the first to wish it. We have succeeded in tracking the lost L-X-10-Terran-C to Jackson's Whole. I need the authorization of the Star Creche to pursue out of the Empire with all due force. I had understood that the recovery of the L-X-10-Terran-C was one of our late Lady's highest priorities. After the field tests she was considering it as an addition to the haut-genome itself."

"This was true, ghem-Colonel, but... well, yes, it still should be recovered. Just a moment." Rian rose, went to one of the cabinets, and unlocked it with the encode-ring, fished from its chain around her neck. She rummaged within, and removed a clear block about fifteen centimeters on a side with the scarlet bird pattern incised upon the top, returned to her desk, and placed it over the comconsole's read- pad. She tapped out some codes, and a light flashed briefly within the block. "Very well, ghem-Colonel. I leave it entirely to your judgment. You knew our late Lady's mind on this. You are fully authorized, and may draw your resources as needed from the Star Creche's special fund."

"I thank you, Haut. I will report our progress." The ghem-colonel nodded, and keyed off.

"What was that all about?" Miles asked brightly, trying not to look too predatory.

Rian frowned at him. "Some old internal business of the haut-genome. It has nothing to do with you or Barrayar, or the present crisis, I a.s.sure you. Life does go on, you know."

"So it does." Miles smiled affably, as if fully satisfied. Mentally, he filed the conversation away verbatim. It might make a nice tidbit to distract Simon Illyan with later. He had a bad feeling he was going to need some major distractions for Illyan, when he got home.

Rian put the Great Seal of the Star Creche carefully away again in its locked cabinet, and returned to her station-chair.

"So can you do it?" Miles pursued. "Have a lady you trust meet me, with a ba servitor's uniform and real IDs, the false rod, and some way to check the real one? And send her up to Prince Slyke's ship on some valid pretext, with me in her train? And when?"

"I'm... not sure when."

"We have to set the meeting in advance, this time. If I'm going to go wandering away from my emba.s.sy's supervision for several hours, you can't just call me away at random. I have to cover my own a-concocted a cover story for my own security, too. Do you have a copy of my official schedule? You must, or we could not have connected before. I think we should rendezvous outside the Celestial Garden, this time, for starters. I'm going to be going to something called the Bioesthetics Exhibit tomorrow afternoon. I think I could make up an excuse to get away from there, maybe with Ivan's help."

"So soon..."

"Not soon enough, in my view. There's not much time left. And we have to allow for the possibility that the first attempt may have to be aborted for some reason. You... do realize, your evidence against Prince Slyke is suggestive only. Not conclusive."

"But it's all I have, so far."

"I understand. But we need all the margin we can get. In case we have to go back for a second pa.s.s."

"Yes... you're right..." She took a breath, frowning anxiously. "Very well, Lord Vorkosigan. I shall help you make this attempt."

"Do you have any guesses where on his ship Prince Slyke might be inclined to store the Great Key? It's a small object, and a big ship, after all. My first guess would be his personal quarters. Once aboard, is there any way of detecting the Great Key's location? I don't suppose we're so fortunate as to have a screamer circuit on it?"

"Not as such. Its internal power system is an old and very rare design, though. At short range, it might be possible to pick it up with an appropriate sensor. I will see that my lady brings you one, and anything else I can think of."

"Every little bit helps." There. They were in motion at last. He suppressed a wild impulse to beg her to throw it all over and flee away with him to Barrayar. Could he even smuggle her out of the Cetagandan Empire? Surely it was no more miraculous a task than the one now before him. Yes, and what would be the effect on his career, not to mention his father's, of installing a refugee Cetagandan haut- woman and close relative of Emperor Fletchir Giaja's in Vorkosigan House? And how much trouble would trail him? He thought fleetingly of the story of the Trojan War.

Still, it would have been flattering, if she had indeed been trying to suborn him, if she'd at least tried a little harder. She had not lifted a finger to attract him; not an eyebrow arched in false invitation. She seemed straightforward to the point of naivete, to his own ImpSec-trained, naturally convoluted mind. When someone fell deeply and hopelessly in love with somebody, that somebody ought at least to have the courtesy to notice....

The key word, boy, is hopelessly. Keep it in mind.

They shared no love, he and Rian, nor the chance of any. And no goals. But they did share an enemy. It would have to do.

Rian rose in dismissal; Miles scrambled up too, saying, "Has ghem-Colonel Benin caught up with you yet? He was a.s.signed to investigate the death of Ba Lura, you know."

"So I understood. He has twice requested an audience with me. I have not yet granted his request. He seems... persistent."

"Thank G.o.d. We've still got a chance to get our stories straight." Miles quickly summed up his own interview with Benin, with special emphasis on his fictional first conversation with Rian. "We need to make up a consistent account of this visit, too. I think he'll be back. I rather encouraged him, I'm afraid. I didn't guess Prince Slyke would give himself away to you so quickly."

Rian nodded, walked to the window-wall, and, pointing to various sites within the laboratory, gave Miles a brief description of the tour she'd given Prince Slyke yesterday. "Will that do?"

"Nicely, thanks. You can tell him I asked a lot of medical questions about... correcting various physical disabilities, and that you couldn't help me much, that I'd come to the wrong store." He could not help adding, "There's nothing wrong with my DNA, you know. All my damage was teratogenic. Outside your purview and all that."

Her face, always mask-like in its beauty, seemed to grow a shade more expressionless. Rattled, he added, "You Cetagandans spend an inordinate amount of time on appearances. Surely you've encountered false appearances before." Stop it, shut up now.

She opened a hand, acknowledging without agreeing or disagreeing, and returned to her bubble. Worn out, and not trusting his tongue any further, Miles paced silently beside it back to the main entrance.

They exited into a cool and luminous artificial dusk. A few pale stars shone in the apparently boundless dark blue hemisphere above. Sitting in a row on a bench across the entry walk from the Star Creche were Mia Maz, Amba.s.sador Vorob'yev, and ghem-Colonel Benin, apparently chatting amiably. They all looked up at Miles's appearance, and Vorob'yev's and Benin's smiles, at least, seemed to grow a shade less amiable. Miles almost turned around to flee back inside.

Rian evidently felt some similar emotion, for the voice from her bubble murmured, "Ah, your people are awaiting you, Lord Vorkosigan. I hope you found this educational, even if not to your needs. Good evening, then," and slipped promptly back into the sanctuary of the Star Creche.

Oh, this whole thing is a learning experience, milady. Miles fixed a friendly smile on his face, and trod forward across the walkway to the bench, where his waiting watchers rose to greet him. Mia Maz had her usual cheerful dimple. Was it his imagination, or had Vorob'yev's diplomatic affability acquired a strained edge? Benin's expression was less easy to read, through the swirls of face paint.

"h.e.l.lo," said Miles brightly. "You, uh, waited, sir. Thanks, though I don't think you needed to." Vorob'yev's brows rose in faint, ironic disagreement.

"You have been granted an unusual honor, Lord Vorkosigan," said Benin, nodding toward the Star Creche.

"Yes, the haut Rian is a very polite lady. I hope I didn't wear her out with all my questions."

"And were all your questions answered?" asked Benin. "You are privileged."

One could not mistake the bitter edge to that comment, though one could, of course, ignore it. "Oh, yes and no. It's a fascinating place, but I'm afraid its technologies hold no help for my medical needs. I think I'm going to have to consider more surgeries after all. I don't like surgeries, they're surprisingly painful." He blinked mournfully.

Maz looked highly sympathetic; Vorob'yev looked just a little saturnine. He's beginning to suspect there's something screwy going on. d.a.m.n.

In fact, both Benin and Vorob'yev looked like only the presence of the other was inhibiting him from pinning Miles to the nearest wall and twisting till some truth was emitted.

"If you are finished, then, I shall escort you to the gate," said Benin.

"Yes. The emba.s.sy car is waiting, Lord Vorkosigan," Vorob'yev added pointedly.

They all herded obediently after Benin down the path he indicated.

"The real privilege today was getting to hear all that poetry, though," Miles burbled on. "And how are you doing, ghem-Colonel? Are you making any progress on your case?"

Benin's lips twitched. "It does not simplify itself," he murmured.

I'll bet not. Alas, or perhaps fortunately, this was not the time or place for a couple of security men to let their hair down and talk shop frankly.

"Oh, my," said Maz, and they all paused to take in the show a curve in the path presented. A woodsy vista framed a small artificial ravine. Scattered in the dusk among the trees and along the streamlet were hundreds of tiny, luminous tree frogs, variously candy-colored, all singing. They sang in chords, pitch-perfect, one chord rising and dying away to be replaced by another; the creatures' luminosity rose and fell as they sang, so the progress of each pure note could be followed by the eye as well as the ear. The ravine's acoustics bounced the not-quite music around in a highly synergistic fashion. Miles's brain seemed to stop dead for a full three minutes at the sheer absurd beauty of it all, till some throat- clearing from Vorob'yev broke the spell, and the party moved on again.

Outside the dome, the capital city's night was warm, humid, and apricot-bright, rumbling with the vast subliminal noise of its life. Night and the city, stretching to the horizon and beyond.

"I am impressed by the luxury of the haut, but then I realize the size of the economic base that supports it," Miles remarked to Benin.

"Indeed," said Benin, with a small smirk. "I believe Cetaganda's per capita tax rate is only half that of Barrayar's. The Emperor cultivates his subjects' economic well-being as a garden, I have heard it said."

Benin was not immune to the Cetagandan taste for one-upmanship. Taxes were always a volatile civil issue at home. "I'm afraid so," Miles returned. "We have to match you militarily with less than a quarter of your resources." He bit his tongue to keep from adding, Fortunately, that's not hard, or something equally snide. Benin was right, though, Miles reflected, as the emba.s.sy's aircar rose over the capital. One was awed by the great silver hemisphere, till one looked at the city extending for a hundred kilometers in all directions, not to mention the rest of the planet and the other seven worlds, and did a little math. The Celestial Garden was a flower, but its roots lay elsewhere, in the haut and ghem control of other aspects of the economy. The Great Key seemed suddenly a tiny lever, with which to try to move this world. Prince Slyke, I think you are an optimist.

CHAPTER TEN.

"You've got to help me out on this one, Ivan," Miles whispered urgently.

"Oh?" murmured Ivan, in a tone of extreme neutrality.

"I didn't know Vorob'yev would be sending him along." Miles jerked his chin toward Lord Vorreedi, who had stepped away for some under-voiced conference of his own with their groundcar's driver, the uniformed emba.s.sy guard, and the plainclothes guard. The uniformed man wore undress greens like Miles and Ivan; the other two wore the bodysuits and calf-length robes of Cetagandan street wear, the protocol officer with more comfortable practiced ease.

Miles continued, "When I set up this rendezvous with my contact, I thought we'd get Mia Maz as our native guide again, what with this exhibition being the Ladies' Division or whatever they call it. You won't just need to cover my departure. You may need to distract them when I make my break."

The plainclothes guard nodded and strode off. Outer-perimeter man; Miles memorized his face and clothing. One more thing to keep track of. The guard headed toward the entrance to the exhibition... hall, it was not. When today's outing had first been described to Miles, he had pictured some cavernous quadrangular structure like the one that housed the District Agricultural Fair at Ha.s.sadar. Instead, the Moon Garden Hall, as it was styled, was another dome, a miniature suburban imitation of the Celestial Garden at the center of the city. Not too miniature-it was over three hundred meters in diameter, arcing over steeply sloping ground. Flocks of well-dressed ghem-types, both men and women, funneled toward its upper entrance.

"How the h.e.l.l am I supposed to do that, coz? Vorreedi's not the distractible sort."

"Tell him I left with a lady, for... immoral purposes. You leave with immoral ladies all the time, why not me?" Miles s lips twisted in a suppressed snarl at Ivan's rolled eyes. "Introduce him to half a dozen of your girlfriends, I can't believe we won't run across some here. Tell them he's the man who taught you all you know about the Barrayaran Art of Love."

"He's not my type," said Ivan through his teeth.

"So use your initiative!"

"I don't have initiative. I follow orders, thank you. It's much safer."

"Fine. I order you to use your initiative."

Ivan breathed a bad word, by way of editorial. "I'm going to regret this, I know I am."

"Just hold on a little while longer. This will all be over in a few hours." One way or another.

"That's what you said day before yesterday. You lied."

"It wasn't my fault. Things were a little more complicated than I'd antic.i.p.ated."

"You remember the time down at Vorkosigan Surleau when we found that old guerrilla weapons cache, and you talked me and Elena into helping you activate the old hovertank? And we ran it into the barn? And the barn collapsed? And my mother put me under house-arrest for two months?"

"We were ten years old, Ivan!"

"I remember it like yesterday. I remember it like day-before-yesterday, too."

"That old shed was practically falling down anyway. Saved the price of a demolition crew. For G.o.d's sake Ivan, this is serious! You can't compare it to-" Miles broke off as the protocol officer dismissed his men and, smiling faintly, turned back to the two young envoys. He shepherded them into the Moon Garden Hall.

Miles was surprised to see something so cra.s.s as a sign, even if made entirely of flowers, decorating an entry arch to a labyrinth of descending walkways spilling down the natural slope. The 149th Annual Bioesthetics Exhibition, Cla.s.s A. Dedicated to the Memory of the Celestial Lady. Which dedication had made it a mandatory stop on all polite funeral envoys' social calendars. "Do the haut- women compete here?" Miles asked the protocol officer. "I'd think this would be in their style." Annual Bioesthetics Exhibition, Cla.s.s A. Dedicated to the Memory of the Celestial Lady. Which dedication had made it a mandatory stop on all polite funeral envoys' social calendars. "Do the haut- women compete here?" Miles asked the protocol officer. "I'd think this would be in their style."