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]

"With the ghem-lords, who can say? But no, I don't think so."

The engraved pattern depicts a screaming bird, wings flared, talons extended. Somewhere, logically, there must be a device embossed with a complementary design, its contact points ready to transmit the codes that open the seal. And then what? Information of some kind, living amid that gorgeous ghostly glitter... what secrets might it hold, in this secretive empire?

[middlingalong]

"You... are going to give it back, aren't you?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"Of course," he says. "If they ask for it."

[middlingalong]

"Aaaand if they don't?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"Keep it for a souvenir, I suppose," he says flippantly. "It's too pretty to throw away. Maybe I'll take it home as a present to Illyan, let his cipher-laboratory elves play with it as an exercise." He turns the object over in his hands and adds, "For about a year. It's not an amateur's bauble, even I can tell that."

To forestall further objections, he tucks the thing away in the inner breast pocket of his tunic - and hands Ivan the captured nerve disruptor. "Ah—you want to keep this?"

[middlingalong]

"Ah, yes," says Ivan, and he accepts the weapon, satisfied by this piratical distribution of their captured objects.

[thisvorlunatic]

After a few more minutes, which Miles spends lost in thought, station traffic control provides new docking coordinates - directing them to a pod pocket two spaces over from their original docking site. The pilot tucks the pod into its new home; the hatch opens without incident; Miles once again waits for Ivan to go first.

[middlingalong]

Ivan... hesitates, but goes along the flex tube when it is presented.

The receiving chamber is just like the last one, maybe better maintained - certainly more populated. There are five Barrayarans in it, Lord Vorob'yev in House wine-red and black flanked by four guards in undress greens; and two Cetagandan stationers.

[thisvorlunatic]

That's... not what Miles was expecting.

Still, when has he ever let that stop him?

"Good afternoon, Lord Vorob'yev," he says to the ambassador, offering him a sealed diplomatic disk. "My father sends you his personal regards, and these messages."

One of the station officials notes something down on his report panel - probably the transfer of the disk, since the transfer of Aral Vorkosigan's personal regards is unlikely to merit a mention on a customs form. Although with Cetagandans, you never know.

"Six items of luggage?" the same stationer asks, inclining his head at the stack of them as the pod pilot finishes piling them up on the float pallet provided for this purpose. The pilot, with this last task complete, salutes Miles and disappears back into his ship. Miles verifies at a quick glance that the stack contains both of his luggage cases and all four of Ivan's.

[middlingalong]

"Yes, that's all," agrees Ivan as blandly as he can with a nerve disruptor in his pocket.

The luggage is trundled away.

"Will we get it all back?" Ivan wonders.

[thisvorlunatic]

Miles observes that no one else here seems to be able to read the loudly flashing signage in Ivan's manner and posture. That's convenient.

"Eventually," says Vorob'yev, signalling two of his guards to accompany the luggage as the first Cetagandan bears it away. "After some delays, if things run true to form. Did you gentlemen have a good trip?"

"Entirely uneventful," Miles says swiftly, heading off any possible attempt by Ivan to interject extraneous truths into the conversation. "Until we got here. Is this a usual docking port for Barrayaran visitors, or were we redirected for some other reason?"

The remaining Cetagandan produces no detectable response to this question, and Miles is certainly detecting as hard as he can. Hmm. Inconclusive.

"Sending us through the service entrance is just a little game the Cetagandans play with us, to reaffirm our status," says Vorob'yev with a thin smile. "You are correct, it is a studied insult, designed to distract our minds. I stopped allowing it to distract me some years ago, and I recommend you do the same."

No response from the Cetagandan to this frank speech, either. Miles conceives of the hypothesis that these expressionless fellows are meant to act and be treated like mobile statuary, since that is approximately how Vorob'yev seems to think of the man and he certainly isn't offering any evidence to the contrary - in which case, a reaction would be very telling, but the absence of one is virtually meaningless.

"Thank you, sir. I'll take your advice," he says. "Uh... were you delayed too? We were. They cleared us to dock once and then sent us back out to cool."

"The runaround today seems particularly ornate. Consider yourselves honoured, my lords," says Vorob'yev. He turns to lead them out of the freight bay with a smooth, "Come this way, please."

[middlingalong]

Miles, what the hell? But Ivan doesn't say anything, because Miles is probably attempting to walk some kind of elaborate invisible tightrope and Ivan doesn't relish having to explain it to the-count-his-father or the-Cordelia-his-mother if something happens to the balancing act and it's Ivan's fault. He just gives Miles a sort of pleading look and on they go to the embassy's planetary shuttle.

[thisvorlunatic]

Miles returns him a slight shake of the head - at this point, it is most prudent to wait. Or at least, most informative...

Onward they go, the five Barrayarans - Miles, Ivan, two guards, and Vorob'yev - trailing the Cetagandan stationer like four green ducklings and a wine-and-black cygnet all in line behind the mauve-and-grey mama duck.

The Barrayaran embassy's local planetary shuttle is docked at a proper passenger lock with a VIP lounge, none of this freight bay business; the Cetagandan stationer deposits them there and leaves. A guard serves drinks at the comfortably seated lounge table - Vorob'yev chooses the wine and Miles politely accepts some, although he sips as minimally as etiquette will allow and pays equally minimal attention to the ensuing small talk.

[middlingalong]

Ivan supplies small talk. He drinks wine. He shoots Miles pointed looks when Vorob'yev isn't looking directly at them.

[thisvorlunatic]

He ignores them all, thoroughly occupied with his meditations on the subject of Cetagandan security.

Why has no one come calling - even if not to meet them at the gate, then at least on the way here, or while they sit and drink and chat - to ask them sternly worded questions and demand the return of their captured goods?

Possibility one: A setup of some kind; even as Miles waits for the Cetagandans to pounce, they are waiting for him to - what? He's not sure, but Cetagandans being Cetagandans, this scenario seems likely.

Possibility two: A matter of timing. The fugitive is not yet captured, or if captured not yet interrogated, or if interrogated not yet subjected to any line of questioning that would lead him to mention his Barrayaran surprise. If indeed he is a fugitive at all. If indeed anyone knew he was there... Miles gazes contemplatively into his wine, and has a mouthful so as to make at least a pretense of keeping up with the other two.

Just as Vorob'yev finishes his glass - a matter of experienced planning on his part, Miles judges - their luggage arrives with its escort. Vorob'yev departs the table to see it stowed in the shuttle. Miles braces mentally for incoming Ivan, now that the two of them are alone and relatively unobserved.

[middlingalong]

And indeed:

"Aren't you going to tell him about it?" pleads Ivan.

[thisvorlunatic]

"Not yet," mutters Miles.

[middlingalong]

"Why not?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"Are you in such a hurry to lose that nerve disruptor?" he inquires. "The embassy'd take it away from you as fast as the Cetagandans, I bet."

[middlingalong]

Ivan will not be baited. Right this minute. "Screw that. What are you up to?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"I'm... not sure," he admits. "Yet."

He meant to be up to just the sort of thing that plays to his natural talents - verbal fencing with miscellaneous authority figures, the Cetagandans trying to extract the day's prizes from him while he in turn tries to extract from them whatever information he can get them to deliberately or inadvertently divulge, on this or other topics. He considers it hardly his fault that the Cetagandans are inexplicably failing to come after him in the first place.

[middlingalong]

"We've got to at least report this to the embassy's military attaché."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Report it, yes. But not to the attaché," says Miles. "Illyan told me that if I had any problems—meaning, of the sort our department concerns itself with—I was to go to Lord Vorreedi. He's listed as a protocol officer, but he's really an ImpSec colonel and chief of ImpSec here."

[middlingalong]

"The Cetagandans don't know?"

[thisvorlunatic]

And pictured in Fig. 1, we have the reason Ivan does not work for ImpSec...

"Of course they know. Just like we know who's really who at the Cetagandan embassy in Vorbarr Sultana. It's a polite legal fiction. Don't worry, I'll see to it."

Not without considerable regret, because of course Vorreedi isn't going to share any results with a mere unnoteworthy courier whose family happens to be important, and of course Miles can't breathe a word of his actual accomplishments to sway that decision because all the good ones are staggeringly classified.