The Celestial Garden is the Cetegandan imperial residence. It is enclosed entirely by an opalescent force dome - an enormous one. The skyscrapers around it and the park ringing its border form a sort of bowl in which it rests, egglike, boulevards fanning out beyond the park ring in eight directions. Ivan and Miles are apparently to be placed in the "dress rehearsal" they're about to attend as though they are second-order ghem-lords. They're all three in House mourning uniforms, since after all the real reason they are here is that someone has died.
They have no escort; only the Emperor of Cetaganda, himself, could arrange an assassination here, and if he wanted to a squad of bodyguards wouldn't stop him. They change vehicles, are waved through by appropriately mournful personages, observe trees and the private little buildings nestled between them, are ushered along still further in. The hall they turn up in is tastefully decorated, little indoor garden tidbits here and there not interfering a whit with rather miraculous acoustics.
There are a couple of floating pearly spheres drifting along at the far end of one branch of the room. Haut-ladies. Wrapped up in force-bubbles generated by float-chairs, whenever outside their private quarters. White, today, for the occasion; Cetagandan mourning color. If this denies outsiders the opportunity to look at haut-ladies, that does not bother those haut-ladies, certainly; it also denies outsiders the opportunity to shoot at them. (There is a haut-lord, over there, plainly visible, accompanied by ghem-guards.)
A lord accepts Gregor's gift's documentation from Miles's hand; a sword Dorca Vorbarra the Just carried in the First Cetagandan War. Documented provenance. The sword itself they have to lug a bit longer. He invites Miles to convey his own Imperial master's thanks to Miles's.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2014-07-09 10:42 pm (UTC)The Celestial Garden is the Cetegandan imperial residence. It is enclosed entirely by an opalescent force dome - an enormous one. The skyscrapers around it and the park ringing its border form a sort of bowl in which it rests, egglike, boulevards fanning out beyond the park ring in eight directions. Ivan and Miles are apparently to be placed in the "dress rehearsal" they're about to attend as though they are second-order ghem-lords. They're all three in House mourning uniforms, since after all the real reason they are here is that someone has died.
They have no escort; only the Emperor of Cetaganda, himself, could arrange an assassination here, and if he wanted to a squad of bodyguards wouldn't stop him. They change vehicles, are waved through by appropriately mournful personages, observe trees and the private little buildings nestled between them, are ushered along still further in. The hall they turn up in is tastefully decorated, little indoor garden tidbits here and there not interfering a whit with rather miraculous acoustics.
There are a couple of floating pearly spheres drifting along at the far end of one branch of the room. Haut-ladies. Wrapped up in force-bubbles generated by float-chairs, whenever outside their private quarters. White, today, for the occasion; Cetagandan mourning color. If this denies outsiders the opportunity to look at haut-ladies, that does not bother those haut-ladies, certainly; it also denies outsiders the opportunity to shoot at them. (There is a haut-lord, over there, plainly visible, accompanied by ghem-guards.)
A lord accepts Gregor's gift's documentation from Miles's hand; a sword Dorca Vorbarra the Just carried in the First Cetagandan War. Documented provenance. The sword itself they have to lug a bit longer. He invites Miles to convey his own Imperial master's thanks to Miles's.