marilacan embassy

[middlingalong]

Ivan does not successfully get Miles to stop fussing with the thing (Miles takes an impression of its impressions on a plastic flimsy) or convince him to leave it somewhere other than inside the bedchamber (it is in a drawer) nor get him to actually tell Vorreedi as promised (Vorreedi is dealing with importation infractions out of town; this is, Miles says, nothing to do with him). He does, however, get Miles (who complains about not having had warning about all this downtime such that he could have scheduled leg bone replacement surgery) to their ride to the party, on time and in uniform.

The Marilacan embassy is, Vorob'yev says, to be regarded as neutral yet non-secured territory - they can enjoy themselves, among fellow offworlders and some ghem-lords. Vorob'yev entertains them - so to speak - on the way by remarking on the Marilacan strategic situation; they've apparently been taking lots of help from Ceteganda, are ignoring their womhole maps and don't think Cetaganda would ever backstab them and blah blah. There is also more fascinating gossip about suicides with... "uncooperative principals", but not much of it; the topic soon drifts to the fact that the party may yield gossip that they should report to Vorreedi when he's back. Along with certain other things they should report to Vorreedi.

"Try not to give away more than you gain," Vorob'yev says.

"Well, I'm safe," remarks Ivan. "I don't know anything." A position of safety he'd dearly like to be able to cultivate more, coz, hint hint.

The Marilacan embassy is pretty, and scans their guests; Ivan does at least know enough to have left the nerve disruptor behind. There's an art project - Ivan doesn't rightly know what sort of thing to call it; a sculpture? With a water feature? And flying colorful flakes? The Marilacan ambassador, Berneaux, says it's called Autumn Leaves, anyway, so it's an Autumn Leaves - and then both lieutenants are shooed. The hors d'oeuvres are excellent. There is wine. Ivan can at this point get rid of his cousin and see if there are any ladies who could benefit from his company about.

Oh now there is one.

Ivan sets about charming the probably-at-least-an-eighth-haut ghem-lady as best he knows how. Mutants on purpose may be mutants still but pretty on purpose is pretty still likewise. He knows tact, at least with girls. He gets her (Lady Gelle) to laugh. Miles is wandering back in his direction again, but whatever, Miles probably isn't going to compete with him for elbow room here.

Then they're approached by some ghem-lord, Yenaro apparently, who mercifully doesn't seem to be related to or involved with the girl, and indeed obliquely congratulates her on having located "galactic exotics". Good, Ivan has been trading on the right characteristic with her so far. Gelle introduces Ivan, and prompts Ivan to introduce Miles, to Yenaro. They talk ancient history, grandfathers and who's at fault for events of the war - apparently they call it the Barrayaran War here.

Gelle kindly diverts the subject to the art piece, which is Yenaro's handiwork. He insults her stylistic choices and Ivan takes the opening to compliment her; if she's looking for sophisticated Cetegandan taste over appreciative galactic obliviousness Ivan can't help her, but he can show off the latter to best effect in case it'll sell. Yenaro chooses this occasion to tell the lady that Ivan was born in the usual - well, the normal, anyway - fashion. Her revulsion is disheartening, although she seems to find Yenaro's behavior at least as obnoxious as she finds childbirth grotesque. Either way, the combination of the two sends her skating off into the crowd.

Yenaro fumbles and then coaxes them into touring the interior of his sculpture. Miles breaks off, but Ivan goes ahead and has a look, no use holding a grudge at the man for dissuading exactly one girl, however pretty she was. Miles is apparently more interested in talking to the forty-standard lady Vorob'yev has on his arm.

Comments

[alicornucopia]

"Just Maz, please. We Vervani don't use such titles. I'm afraid we have trouble taking them seriously," Maz smiles. Dimple.

[thisvorlunatic]

"You must be good at keeping a straight face," he muses. "Or you could not function so well here."

[alicornucopia]

"Yes, my lord," Maz dimples.

[thisvorlunatic]

Very dimply, is Maz.

"My mother would agree with you," says Miles. "She would have seen no inherent difference between the two corpses in the rotunda. Except their method of arriving there, of course. I take it this suicide was an unusual and unprecedented event?"

[alicornucopia]

"Unprecedented," confirms Maz, "and if you know Cetagandans, you know just how strong a term that is."

[thisvorlunatic]

"So Cetagandan servants do not routinely accompany their masters in death like a pagan sacrifice... Ivan was wondering if the haut-lords cloned their servants," he says.

[alicornucopia]

"The ghem-lords sometimes do," Maz says. "But not the haut-lords, and most certainly never the Imperial Household. They consider each servitor as much a work of art as any of the other objects with which they surround themselves. Everything in the Celestial Garden must be unique, if possible handmade, and perfect. That applies to their biological constructs as well. They leave mass production to the masses. I'm not sure if it's a virtue or a vice, the way the haut do it, but in a world flooded with virtual realities and infinite duplication, it's strangely refreshing. If only they weren't such awful snobs about it."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Speaking of things artistic - you said you had some luck identifying that icon?"

[alicornucopia]

"Yes. Where," she asks, searching his face, "did you say you saw it, Lord Vorkosigan?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"I didn't."

[alicornucopia]

"Hm." She smiles a bit, but not enough to dimple again. "It is the seal of the Star Creche, and not something I'd expect an outlander to run across every day. In fact, it's not something I'd expect an outlander to run across any day. It's most private."

[thisvorlunatic]

"And, um... just what is the Star Creche?"

[middlingalong]

"You don't know?" This seems to surprise her, perhaps in light of his having presented her with a drawing of its seal. "Well, I suppose you fellows have spent all your time studying Cetagandan military matters."

"A great deal of time, yes," sighs Ivan.

"The Star Creche," continues Maz, "is the private name of the haut-race's gene bank."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Oh, that. I was dimly aware of - do they keep backup copies of themselves, then?"

[alicornucopia]

"The Star Creche is far more than that. Among the haut, they don't deal directly with each other to have egg and sperm united and the resulting embryo deposited in a uterine replicator, the way normal people do. Every genetic cross is negotiated and a contract drawn between the heads of the two genetic lines - the Cetegandans call them constellations, though I suppose you Barrayarans would call them clans. That contract in turn must be approved by the Emperor, or rather, by the senior female in the Emperor's line, and marked by the seal of the Star Creche. For the last half-century, since the present regime began, that senior female has been haut Rian Degtiar, the Emperor's mother. It's not just a formality, either. Any genetic alterations — and the haut do a lot of them — have to be examined and cleared by the Empress's board of geneticists, before they are allowed into the haut genome. You asked me if the haut-women had any power. The Dowager Empress had final approval or veto over every haut birth."

[thisvorlunatic]

Intrigued, he asks, "Can the Emperor override her?"

[alicornucopia]

"I truly don't know. The haut are incredibly reserved about all this. If there are any behind-the-scenes power struggles, the news certainly doesn't leak out past the Celestial Garden's gates. I do know I've never heard of such a conflict," says Maz thoughtfully.

[thisvorlunatic]

"So... who is the new senior female?" he asks. "Who inherits the seal?"

Maybe she'll drop the word Handmaiden in here somewhere and he can be reassured on that point too.

[alicornucopia]

"Ah! Now you've touched on something interesting," says Maz, warmly didactic. "Nobody knows, or at least, the Emperor hasn't made the public announcement. The seal is supposed to be held by the Emperor's mother if she lives, or by the mother of the heir-apparent if the dowager is deceased. But the Cetagandan emperor has not yet selected his heir. The seal of the Star Crèche and all the rest of the empress's regalia is supposed to be handed over to the new senior female as the last act of the funeral rites, so he has ten more days to make up his mind. I imagine that decision is the focus of a great deal of attention right now, among the haut-women. No new genomic contracts can be approved until the transfer is completed."

[thisvorlunatic]

"So - he has three young sons, right? Does it go to one of their mothers, or...?"

[middlingalong]

"Not necessarily," says Maz. "He could hand things over to an Imperial aunt, one of his mother's kin, as an interim move."

There is a knock, which proves to herald tea and wine and petits fours (one sort of which turns out to be Maz's favorite).

Ivan takes some wine, swallows a mouthful, and says, "Do the haut-lords marry, then? One of these genetic contracts must be the equivalent of a marriage, right?"

"Well . . . no." Maz eats a second petit four and then a third, then drinks about half a cupful of tea. "There are several kinds of contracts. The simplest is for a sort of one-time usage of one's genome. A single child is created, who becomes the... I hesitate to use the term property... who is registered with the constellation of the male parent, and is raised in his constellation's crèche. You understand, these decisions are not made by the principals — in fact, the two parents may never even meet each other. These contracts are chosen at the most senior level of the constellation, by the oldest and presumably wisest heads, with an eye to either capturing a favored genetic line, or setting up for a desirable cross in the ensuing generation.

"At the other extreme," she goes on, "is a lifetime monopoly — or longer, in the case of Imperial crosses. When a haut-woman is chosen to be the mother of a potential heir, the contract is absolutely exclusive — she must never have contracted her genome previously, and can never do so again, unless the emperor chooses to have more than one child by her. She goes to live in the Celestial Garden, in her own pavilion, for the rest of her life."

[thisvorlunatic]

"A reward, or a punishment?" wonders Miles. He's getting mental images of a haut-lady tucked away in her bubble within a bubble, never seeing the light of day.

[alicornucopia]

"It's the best shot at power a haut-woman can ever get—a chance of becoming a dowager empress, if her son — and it's always and only a son — is ultimately chosen to succeed his father. Even being the mother of one of the losers, a prince-candidate or satrap governor, is no bad deal. It's also why, in an apparently patriarchal culture, the output of the haut-constellations is skewed to girls. A constellation head — clan chief, in Barrayaran terminology — can never become an emperor or the father of an emperor, no matter how brightly his sons may shine. But through his daughters, he has a chance to become the grandfather of one. Advantages, as you may imagine, then accrue to the dowager empress's constellation. The Degtiar were not particularly important until fifty years ago."

[thisvorlunatic]

"So - the emperor has sons, but everyone else is mad for daughters," he says, temporarily distracted from Handmaid-related concerns by sociological curiosity. "But only once or twice a century, when a new emperor succeeds, can anyone win the game."

[middlingalong]

"That's about right," Maz nods.

"So.. where does sex fit into all this?" asks Ivan plaintively.

"Nowhere," says Maz.

"Nowhere!" exclaims a horrified Ivan.

Maz laughs. "Yes, the haut have sexual relations, but it's purely a social game. They even have long-lasting sexual friendships that could almost qualify as marriages, sometimes. I was about to say there's nothing formalized, except that the etiquette of all the shifting associations is so incredibly complex. I guess the word I want is legalized, rather than formalized, because the rituals are intense. And weird, really weird, sometimes, from what little I've been able to gather of it all. Fortunately, the haut are such racists, they almost never go slumming outside their genome, so you are not likely to encounter those pitfalls personally."

"Oh," says Ivan, a little disappointed. "But... if the haut don't marry and set up their own households, when and how do they leave home?"

"They never do."

"Ow! You mean they live with, like, their mothers, forever?"

"Well, not with their mothers, of course. Their grandparents or great-grandparents. But the youth — that is, anyone under fifty or so — do live as pensioners of their constellation. I wonder if that is at the root of why so many older haut become reclusive. They live apart because they finally can."