singing open the great gates

[middlingalong]

The following day, very little happens, except for Vorreedi mentioning that Yenaro has been arrested (by the civil police, for theft, on charges from a ghem-lord Miles has never heard of, as opposed to by Cetagandan security for treason).

Also, Ivan gets bored - with all the bodyguards Vorreedi now requires for them after the incident at the bioestheties exhibition, the possible spontaneity of going out with his ghem girlfriends is much reduced.

But the next day they get to attend the Singing Open of the Great Gates.

And oh, is there ever singing.

Comments

[isthisart]

"I have very high hopes for how things will be with her as Empress. But I don't think she'll get things done fast enough to suit me - impatience is my besetting flaw - so I still wanted to leave."

[thisvorlunatic]

"I... tentatively share your high hopes."

[isthisart]

"At any rate, if she finds Cetaganda much the worse for lack of Linyabels, she can let my designer make me a half-dozen sisters."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Who will all subsequently grow up and demand to be dispensed to outworld husbands?"

[isthisart]

"Plausible outworld husbands don't show up every day, and Lisbet will have a while before they grow up to arrange matters more to their liking."

[thisvorlunatic]

"True, I suppose."

[isthisart]

"Honestly, if you hadn't been right there offering a viable route off-planet she probably could have tempted me to stay rather than, say, making a second essay at the Betan Embassy or stowing away to Illyrica. No one would try to drive the Empress's favored errand girl out of her constellation to be awarded to some arbitrary ghem-lord. But you were there."

[thisvorlunatic]

"I was there," he agrees. "And now we're here."

[isthisart]

"Yes."

On impulse, she scoops him up again, in a careful hug, and sits down on the bed with him in her lap again. (He's so scoopable!)

[thisvorlunatic]

"Eeeee," says Miles, snuggling into her lap. "Hello."

[isthisart]

"It is is more or less constantly tempting to scoop you up," she informs him.

[thisvorlunatic]

"Well - I'm glad you mostly refrain in public," he says. "But feel free to give in to the temptation in private."

[isthisart]

"Understood." Snuggle. "I gather Lord Vorpatril would be obnoxious about it."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Ivan is frequently obnoxious."

[isthisart]

"What's it like, having an approximately conventional family?" she wonders.

[thisvorlunatic]

"Um... approximately conventional, I suppose. Very approximately. I'd hardly describe my parents as conventional people."

[isthisart]

"Well, yes, but you have them, at all," says Linya. "I am asking from the standpoint of - not."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Yeah... I've been defining myself my whole life by how I stand out, though," he says. "I don't know how to explain the parts of my life that are normal to someone for whom they aren't."

[isthisart]

"I met my designer once," says Linya. "I was - eleven, almost twelve. She was on Eta Ceta for a speed chess tournament."

[thisvorlunatic]

"What was that like?"

[isthisart]

"We got along, actually. She told me some things about how I was put together that I hadn't found in my general files yet. She wanted to know how her experiment had turned out and I told her it worked perfectly but people around me didn't seem thrilled with the knock-on effects."

[thisvorlunatic]

"What, in fact, was the experiment...?"

[isthisart]

"She was trying to edit out akrasia."

[thisvorlunatic]

"...And the knock-on effects...?"

[isthisart]

"The impatience is, I think, related, and the general disinclination to sit around being ornamental when there are so many opportunities in the galaxy."