funerary proceedings

[middlingalong]

In the wake of the death of Empress Rian Degtiar of the Cetagandan Empire, cordiality from Barrayar consists of sending a couple of lieutenants to attend the funeral. It promises to be a series of social scaffolding appointments, a funeral, some more socialization - all of it principally with ghem-lords and -ladies; Barrayaran lieutenants, Ivan is sure, do not rate shoulder-rubbing with haut, but that's all well and good anyway - and then going home. Well enough. They have a diplomatic purpose, but they are not, actually, diplomats - if actual diplomats were supposed to be necessary Ivan assumes someone with Ambassador in front of his name would have been sent in... lieu of... lieutenants.

"Now," Ivan says, for want of better ways to pass the time, "is it, 'Diplomacy is the art of war pursued by other men', or is it the other way around...?"

Comments

[thisvorlunatic]

"'All diplomacy is a continuation of war by other means,'" Miles recites from memory. "Chou En Lai, twentieth century, Earth."

[middlingalong]

"What are you," snorts Ivan, "a walking reference library?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"No, but Commodore Tung is," he explains. "He collects Wise Old Chinese Sayings, and makes me memorize 'em."

[middlingalong]

"So was old Chou a diplomat," Ivan wonders, "or a warrior?"

[thisvorlunatic]

Miles considers this question, and concludes, "I think he must have been a diplomat."

Then the pilot of their personnel pod makes a course adjustment. The force exerted by the attitude jets briefly presses Miles against his seat straps as the pod rotates; when the acceleration ceases, the planet of Eta Ceta IV is visible through the forward viewport. Miles cranes his neck to study it over the pilot's shoulder.

It's a hell of a view.

The retreating dayline, just visible on the far edge of the planet, leaves in its wake a glittering sprawl of civilization so dense and extensive that, orbiting above the nightside, you could probably read by its cumulative glow the way someone on the ground of a less industrialized planet might use the light of full moons. Barrayar, for example. Miles attempts with mixed success to redirect his envy; surely the central planet of the Cetagandan Empire is gaudy and overdressed, in comparison to his home with its few sparkling cities scattered amid the darkness of the unpowered and in some cases still unterraformed landscape. Yes, that's the ticket. Lieutenant Lord Miles Vorkosigan, officer and nobleman, should not be daunted by the mere sight of a planet shinier than his own.

[middlingalong]

Ivan's looking too. It's very shiny; he admires it unselfconsciously as they come up on the orbital transfer station. "Daunted" would not be the word.

[thisvorlunatic]

Of course it wouldn't. Miles glances up at his taller cousin; the envy thereby invoked is much older and tireder, running along grooves worn into his mind by twenty-odd years of unflattering comparisons.

Ivan: six feet tall, quick to show his charming smile, with exactly the impeccable physique for which his standard Barrayaran Imperial Service undress greens were made.

Miles: four foot nine, his face creased with pain-lines, his uniform by necessity hand-tailored to hang as gracefully and unobtrusively as possible on his crooked, inadequate frame. And this after the extensive medical intervention that ensured he has a skeleton at all, even a small and fragile and malformed one, instead of living his life as a floppy pile of meat to be carried around in a bucket.

Hard not to think that his purpose on this diplomatic mission is to stand next to Ivan and make him look good. But at least the old envy comes with a new answer: Miles works for Barrayaran Imperial Security, who pay him to be the genius he is, not the Ivan he isn't. Maybe Ivan was sent along to stand next to Miles and make him sound good. Ha.

Their destination, the Cetagandan orbital transfer station at which they will be received by customs, dawns at last in the viewport. Miles contemplates it, his mind wandering from the sight to the station's purpose as a receiving platform for galactic visitors, and onward to the morbidly entertaining thought that the Cetagandans would consider any attempt by offworlders to land directly on the planet's surface a monstrous breach of etiquette, yes, one likely to be corrected by the nearest orbiting Cetagandan warship - and from there he skips to an entirely different track.

"I wonder if the Dowager Empress's death was entirely natural? It was sudden enough." Do they even use the term 'dowager' on Cetaganda? He can't recall. He should brush up on his diplomatic vocabulary.

[middlingalong]

Ivan shrugs, unconcerned with ferreting out possibilities of this nature where they do not present themselves of their own accord. "She was a generation older than Great Uncle Piotr, and he was old since forever. He used to unnerve the hell out of me when I was a kid. It's a nice paranoid theory, but I don't think so."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Illyan agrees with you, I'm afraid. Or he wouldn't have let us come."

Miles declines to bring up the fact that the last words his boss said to him on his way out the door were And stay out of trouble!; as secret mission assignments go, it's somewhat lacking in grandeur. One might almost call it a secret mission admonishment.

"This could have been a lot less dull if it had been the Cetagandan emperor who'd dropped, instead of some tottering little old haut-lady."

[middlingalong]

"But then," says Ivan, still admiring the spectacle, "we would not be here. We'd both be on duty hunkering in some defensive outpost right now, while the prince-candidates' factions fought it out. This is better. Travel, wine, women, song -"

[thisvorlunatic]

"It's a State funeral, Ivan."

[middlingalong]

"I can hope, can't I?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"Anyway, we're just supposed to observe," he says. "And report. What or why, I don't know. Illyan emphasized he expects the reports in writing."

[middlingalong]

Groan. "How I spent my holiday, by little Ivan Vorpatril, age twenty-two. It's like being back in school."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Still," Miles speculates, "it could be fun, embroidering events for Illyan's entertainment. Why should official reports always have to be in that dead dry style?" His mind whirs, alight with possibilities.

[middlingalong]

"Because," says Ivan, "they're generated by dead dry brains. My cousin, the frustrated dramatist. Don't get too carried away. Illyan has no sense of humor, it would disqualify him for his job."

[thisvorlunatic]

"I'm not so sure..."

He watches the intricate exterior of the transfer station rolling past the viewports as their pod travels in its assigned flight path. It's nothing in comparison to the planet it currently occludes, but still vast enough to put him in mind of mountains.

"It would have been interesting to meet the old lady when she was still alive," he muses, meditating on the complexities of the station's construction as a metaphor for the complexities of the civilization that constructed it. "She witnessed a lot of history in a century and a half. If from an odd angle, inside the haut-lords' seraglio." Or whatever it is they have instead. His knowledge of haut society is vague at best - a limitation shared, as he understands it, by nearly all people who aren't haut.

[middlingalong]

"Low-life outer barbarians like us would never have been let near her," says Ivan mildly.

[thisvorlunatic]

"Mm, I suppose not," he concedes.

Their personnel pod pauses, making way for a much larger Cetagandan ship to drift past on its way to its own docking hookup. The markings on the side of the vessel relate to one of the outer planetary governments, but Miles can't recall off the top of his head which one.

"All the haut-lord satrap governors—and their retinues—are supposed to be converging for this. I'll bet Cetagandan imperial security is having fun right now." Despite his amusement, and his desire to write exciting reports, he wishes them well. The last thing anyone needs on this trip is some kind of security cockup.

[middlingalong]

"If any two governors come, I suppose the rest have to show up, just to keep an eye on each other. Should be quite a show. Ceremony as Art. Hell, the Cetagandans make blowing your nose an art. Just so they can sneer at you if you get the moves wrong. One-upmanship to the nth power."

[thisvorlunatic]

"It's the one thing that convinces me that the Cetagandan haut-lords are still human, after all that genetic tinkering," Miles remarks.

[middlingalong]

"Mutants on purpose are mutants still," mutters Ivan - then he catches himself and tries to find something interesting in the dwindling view.

[thisvorlunatic]

Miles stiffens. The fact that the label isn't technically accurate - the damage to his bones is teratogenic, not genetic, thank you very much - has historically not done a lot to stop prejudiced Barrayarans from applying it. Something of a sore spot, which Ivan well knows; alas that these things never seem to occur to him before he shoots his mouth off.

"You're so diplomatic, Ivan," he grits. "Try not to start a war single... mouthed, eh?"

[middlingalong]

Ivan shrugs off momentary embarrassment.

When the ship is snugged into its dock, he unstraps himself from his seat.

[thisvorlunatic]

In the interest of disguising his excitement, Miles delays his own unstrapping until just a few moments after Ivan is free. He reviews the appropriate salutations for greeting the local Barrayaran anbassador, who will be awaiting them on the other end of the flex tube that links their pod's hatchway to the station's corresponding portal.