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]

Linyabel applies them, and some more besides - "Lisbet gave me an Imperial override, thank you Lisbet - there."

Kety, meanwhile, is apparently ready to wait his half-hour to crack the bubble open again, but:

"Haut-governor," comes a nervous subordinate's voice. "We are experiencing a peculiar communication over emergency channels. An enormous data dump is being speed-loaded onto our systems. Some kind of coded gibberish, but it has exceeded the memory capacity of the receiver and is spilling over into other systems like a virus. It's marked with an Imperial override. The initial signal appears to be originating from our ship. Is this... something you intend?"

It is not something Kety intends. He swears. "No. Get ghem-General Naru and his people awake! We have to get this force-screen down now!"

There follow creative medical attempts to revive the stunned techs and general.

[thisvorlunatic]

Miles clings to the back of the float-chair and cackles wildly.

Unfortunately for him, the back of the float-chair is not really designed for this sort of thing. Caution and determination have kept him in place so far; now, just as his laughter begins to calm, he slips. His cramped fingers are too slow to catch him. The force-screen makes a sound like a dropped wasp's nest when he hits it - a crackling thump and a rising angry buzz. And everywhere he touches the surface is one continuous painful shock until he breaks contact. He yelps and tries to climb back up onto the chair, but only manages to roll underneath it, his feet kicking the power pack at the back while his hands flail for purchase on the footrest and his head bumps the undercarriage in his efforts to keep his face off the buzzing force-screen.

[isthisart]

"Nadina," says Linyabel, trying to reach under the chair. "Help -"

Eventually, between the two of them, Linyabel manages to pick him up and - hold him, without having to lose all three of them the bubble's protection. She can't really put him down; there's nowhere to put him. He's sort of tucked under her arm.

[thisvorlunatic]

Hopefully she won't mind if he just sort of groans a bit and then clings to her.

It is around this time that a spot on the door begins to glow.

[isthisart]

Linyabel doesn't mind.

The door bursts inward in a spray of molten plastic and metal, and in comes ghem-Colonel Benin, and a thoroughly armed squad behind him.

Kety's people spontaneously decide in favor of surrender.

Vorreedi steps in behind Benin. Ivan is there, too, shifting anxiously.

"Good evening, haut Kety," says Benin, bowing cordially. "By the personal order of Emperor Fletchir Giaja, it is my duty to arrest you and ghem-General Naru both upon the serious charge of treason to the Empire. And," he adds, smiling, "complicity in the murder of the Imperial Servitor the Ba Lura."

Linyabel relaxes considerably, though not enough to drop Miles, and she doesn't take down the force screen until the arrests are all complete. Then she takes it down to let Nadina out and rearrange Miles more comfortably on the chair's arm, her own arm around him to steady him there.

[thisvorlunatic]

Miles decides that he is totally willing to keep leaning on Linyabel until such time as she tells him to get lost or somebody picks him up and hauls him bodily away.

[middlingalong]

Of all the things Ivan could be having a reaction to, the sight of Miles perched on the arm of a haut-lady's float-chair with her arm around him appears to be the most pressing, but he doesn't formulate an immediate verbal comment.

Kety growls, "Congratulations, Lord Vorpatril. I hope you may be fortunate enough to survive your victory."

"Huh?" says Ivan.

The arrestees are marched away before anyone elaborates.

"Miles," says Ivan, sighing, "are you all right?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"Wurgh," says Miles, then clears his throat and tries again. "F-fell onto the inside of the force-screen. The ladies hauled me off it. I'll be fine. I'm not entirely looking forward to the next time I have to walk, but luckily there's this float-chair..."

[middlingalong]

Ivan looks quizzically at Linyabel.

[isthisart]

Linyabel raises an eloquent eyebrow at Ivan, and transfers Miles to her lap, pointedly.

Vorreedi looks Miles up and down. "It might be more convenient if you'd been injured by an attacker. Vorob'yev is going to need all the ammunition he can get. You have created the most extraordinary public incident of his career, I suspect."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Fat chance of it staying public," Miles mutters, leaning dizzily on Linyabel. He resists the urge to burrow. Just sitting in a haut-lady's lap is probably quite enough of an etiquette breach, without also having the temerity to cuddle her...

[middlingalong]

Nadina, meanwhile, is being supplied with another float-chair and more supplementation to her outfit and ghem-lady attendants. Linyabel gets a ghem-lady attendant too.

"I explained everything," Ivan tells Miles, "as best I could, um, under the circumstances."

"I admit," Vorreedi says, "I am still... assimilating it."

[thisvorlunatic]

Right. Miles sighs.

"What, uh, happened after I left the Star Creche?" he asks Ivan.

[middlingalong]

"I woke up and you were gone. I think that was the worst moment of my life. Knowing you'd gone haring off on some insane self-appointed mission without backup."

[thisvorlunatic]

"But Ivan," he murmurs, "you were my backup."

[middlingalong]

"Your favorite kind, knocked out cold on the floor, unable to inject sense into the proceedings, so you could take off to get killed or worse when everybody would have blamed me. The last thing Aunt Cordelia said to me before we left was 'And try to keep him out of trouble, Ivan.'" He parodies the Betan accent and everything. "Anyway, as soon as I figured out what the hell was going on, I got away from the haut-ladies - they're just like my mother, Miles, several times over, ugh - anyway, and Lisbet very emphatically suggested I talk to ghem-Colonel Benin, and he seemed like he had his head screwed on straight -" Benin drifts over to listen in. "And God be praised he actually listened to me. Made sense of my - gabble."

"I was, of course," says Benin, "following the very unusual activities around the Star Creche today. My own investigations had already led me to suspect something was going on involving one or more of the haut-governors, so I had orbital squads on alert."

"Squads," snorts Ivan. "There's three Imperial battle cruisers surrounding this ship, right now."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Sounds about right. Ghem-General Chilian's a dupe," he addresses Benin, "but you might want to ask him a few pointed questions about his wife the haut Vio."

[isthisart]

"He has already been detained," says Benin.

(Linyabel, meanwhile, has quietly halted the scream into everywhere of the contents of the Great Key and turned it over to Nadina, with its accessory.)

"One thing that Lord Vorpatril has not yet explained to my satisfaction, Lieutenant Vorkosigan," says Vorreedi grimly, "is why you concealed the initial incident involving an object of such enormous importance -"

[thisvorlunatic]

"Kety was trying to frame Barrayar, sir. Until I could achieve independent corroborative evidence that—"

"From your own side," Vorreedi presses.

Miles sighs.

"In fact, sir, I did not at first recognize the Great Key for what it was. But once the haut Lisbet contacted me via Linyabel, events slid very rapidly from apparently trivial to extremely delicate. By the time I realized the full depth and complexity of the haut-governor's plot, it was too late."

"Too late for what?" asks Vorreedi, rather pointedly.

Miles shakes his head. "You would have taken the investigation away from me, you know you would have, sir. Everyone in the wormhole nexus thinks I'm a cripple who's been given a cushy nepotistic sinecure as a courier. That I might be competent for more is something I - have never been given a chance to publicly prove."

The higher-ups on his own side know, of course, at least those of sufficient height - Illyan, Gregor, Miles's father Aral. It's the Cetagandans who are unaware of just exactly who played an instrumental role in foiling their attempted invasion of Vervain a year or two ago.

And it's the Cetagandans whom Miles happened to need to impress this time around. Not that that was his sole motive.

"So... you wanted to be a hero?" clarifies ghem-Colonel Benin.

"So badly you didn't even care for which side?" says Vorreedi unhappily.

"I have done the Cetagandan Empire a nice little favour," Miles concedes, directing an unsteady but courteous bow to Benin. "But only in the course of rescuing Barrayar from the wrong end of Governor Kety's cruel ambitions. It was all of a piece."

[middlingalong]

"Where would you be if we hadn't come along, though?" asks Ivan.

(Linyabel, meanwhile, murmurs to her ghem-attendant that, no, she does not need the Barrayaran removed from her person, is the ghem-attendant even paying attention?)

[thisvorlunatic]

Miles grins.

"Ivan, we won before you boarded this ship. Kety was just thrashing a little on the way down. I suppose if you'd taken another hour he could've cut the bubble and killed us or something," he concedes, "probably starting with me, but he still wouldn't have gotten away and the Star Creche still would've recovered the Key."

[middlingalong]

"Why don't you sign up for Cetagandan Imperial Security, then, coz," says Ivan. "Maybe ghem-Colonel Benin would promote you. Maybe they'll load you up with a whole grab bag of prizes."

[isthisart]

Linyabel raises an eyebrow at Ivan. She doesn't think she approves very much of him.

[thisvorlunatic]

"Ivan," Miles says pointedly. "Don't be an ass." He flashes a grin. "I'm too short for Cetagandan Security, obviously. If I was freelancing for anyone, it was the Star Creche."

[isthisart]

"For which," Linyabel puts in, "the Star Creche is thoroughly thankful."

Benin deflates slightly. "Hm. In any case, Lord Vorkosigan - my Celestial master the Emperor haut Fletchir Giaja requests you attend upon him in my company. Now."