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

[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.

[pythbox]

The pod lock cycles; the hatch beside Ivan dilates.

Decidedly off the script, a tall broad-shouldered man comes hurtling through it, catching himself on the handlebar next to the hatch and turning his rapid trajectory into a dead-stop float. The hair remaining on his scalp is white, but his face is bare of any more - he doesn't even have eyebrows. His lips move, but he emits no sound other than a faint panting; and after a shocked instant spent staring at the pair of them, his hand darts tensely to the left side of his gray-trimmed mauve vest, reaching for an inner pocket.

[thisvorlunatic]

"Weapon!" yells Miles—not because he can see what's in the pocket, but purely based on an instinctive reading of the stranger's face and posture, the wide-eyed breathless desperation of someone about to do something dangerous and terrifying, intersecting with the relatively concealed placement of the pocket to form a highly suggestive picture. The pod pilot is still entangled in his seat straps, and Miles doesn't have the skeletal resilience for hand-to-hand combat, but maybe Ivan—?

[middlingalong]

Ivan swings around his handhold, training taking over, and winds up wrestling the intruder. A nerve disruptor comes loose from the grapple and thwocks against a wall, ready to go off if the interior of this cabin demonstrates bad trigger discipline - not a virtue cabin interiors are known for.

Ivan attempts to get around behind the old fellow and entrap both arms. He's modestly successful for the immediate moment.

[thisvorlunatic]

Miles, from his vantage across the pod, is well placed to observe that the nerve disruptor came from a trouser pocket, not the vest - therefore the intruder, whoever he is, is still armed with something. First things first - he tracks the nerve disruptor's trajectory as it bounces back and forth across the cabin, until he can match course and grab it out of the air without accidentally shooting himself or Ivan, a horrifying prospect to say the least.

His success is well timed, because Ivan has just pinned the old man, and Miles can bounce across the cabin himself to haul open that vest and retrieve the second weapon while he has the chance. A short rod, of unfamiliar design - at first glance he parses it as a shock-stick, but that isn't quite right.

[pythbox]

The intruder howls like the souls of the damned and yanks against Ivan's grip with surprising strength.

[thisvorlunatic]

Miles prudently bounces away again, aiming his weightless flight to bring him and his battle-spoils to the dubious shelter of the pilot's chair. He's afraid for a moment that whatever he took from that vest pocket was the power pack to an artificial heart, or something similarly vital, to have provoked such a scream—but that theory is disproved by a moment's glance at the man's continuing violent struggles. Dead men are not habitually so lively.

[middlingalong]

Ivan is now experiencing more thoroughly modest success, which is to say failure, at keeping his captive held.