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

[thisvorlunatic]

"It does seem to me to be a considerable technical achievement," he says, steering the conversation onto a topic he is comfortable discussing. "Do you drive the motion with anti-grav, then?" A technology with which he is particularly familiar - he's lost count of the time he's spent slithering around on grav-crutches after an unlucky fall broke one or both legs. He hates the things even more than he hates the steel leg braces, currently concealed under his uniform trousers, that he wears to prevent more such incidents.

[alicornucopia]

"No, there's no antigrav in it at all. The generators would be bulky and wasteful of power. The same force drives the leaves' motion as drives their color changes - or so my technicians explained to me."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Technicians? I somehow pictured you putting all this together with your own hands," he says, eyeing the sculpture as they stand at the walk-through entrance - presumably to await the beginning of the cycle. (He isn't sure why he pictured such a thing; the image is more than a little bizarre. The well-dressed Yenaro seems better suited to whisking around in a small organized laboratory working on small organized creations, an image which Miles can conjure without difficulty.)

[alicornucopia]

Yenaro spreads said hands: long pianist's fingers, pale, unmarked. "Of course not. Hands are to be hired. Design is the test of the intellect."

[thisvorlunatic]

And those certainly aren't the hands of a technician.

"I must disagree," says Miles. "In my experience, hands are integral with brains, almost another lobe for intelligence. What one does not know through one's hands, one does not truly know."

[alicornucopia]

"You are a man capable of true conversation, I perceive," says Yenaro. "You must meet my friends, if your schedule here permits. I'm holding a reception at my home in two evenings' time - do you suppose -?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"Um - maybe." He consults his memory of the funerary schedule: the suggested evening is free of ceremonial obligations. An opportunity to socialize with the younger ghem-lords, to see what they're like outside the no doubt constraining presence of their elders - to look into the future of Cetaganda, in a sense. "Yes, why not?"

[alicornucopia]

"I'll send you directions. Oh -" Yenaro nods towards the fountain, now summering once more. "Now we can go in."

From the inside the view is less easily rendered by the observer into fascinating apophenia, although the music is clearer.

Yenaro starts talking about the technical details. "Now, you'll see something -"

[thisvorlunatic]

He sees plenty. The view is pretty, and the music is lovely - and - something is wrong with his leg braces; he suppresses a grimace at the faint tingling sensation.

The tingling sensation rapidly becomes less faint.

He bolts for the entrance, along the artistically winding paths, not daring to step foot in the temptingly cool water lest something electrical happen to him in this artifact that has already proven treacherous. His leg braces are scalding hot. Abandoning dignity as a priority wholly overridden by the circumstances, he sprawls on the floor and hauls at his trousers until he can reach the braces' clamps. Not surprisingly, they're hot enough to burn his fingers. He yanks his boots off, tries again, and this time gets the braces unfastened. Off they come, shoved aside violently in his hurry to escape them; then there's nothing left to do but curl up in a miserable ball and hiss curses under his breath, trying not to let anything whatsoever touch the horrific blisters that now pattern both his legs from knee to ankle.

[middlingalong]

Yenaro yells for help; Ivan plows through the mob towards his cousin, anxious.

[thisvorlunatic]

And from another direction, Lord Vorob'yev hurries up to ask, "Lord Vorkosigan! What has happened?"

"I'm all right," Miles lies, unclenching his teeth as best he can. There are staring diplomats and socialites everywhere, a whole crowd focused on his display; he pulls his trouser legs down, preferring the discomfort of fabric on his blistered shins to the discomfort of strangers' eyes.

[middlingalong]

"What happened? I had no idea," Yenaro is exclaiming hysterically. "Are you all right, Lord Vorkosigan? Oh dear..."

Ivan bends to poke one of the braces, no longer quite so hot to the touch. "Yes, what the hell?"

[thisvorlunatic]

It's a very good question. Miles thinks it through. Not antigrav - not suspicious to Marilacan Security and their scanners - not dangerous to anyone who isn't wearing steel under their clothes.

"I think it was some sort of electro-hysteresis effect. The colour changes in the display are apparently driven by a reversing magnetic field at low level. No problem for most people. For me, well, it wasn't quite as bad as shoving my leg braces into a microwave, but—you get the idea."

He gets to his feet, producing a nice big grin from somewhere along the way, and staggers Ivanward. "Get me out of here," he mutters from as close a range as possible, trying to control his shivers.

[middlingalong]

Ivan fetches up the boots and the braces both, and secures his hand on Miles's shoulder, and draws him through the crowd (which is already beginning to turn elsewhere) towards the exit.

Ambassador Berneaux approaches, apologizes, offers the infirmary's use. Ivan scampers to get the groundcar sent out.

[thisvorlunatic]

Thank God for Ivan.

"No. Thank you," grits Miles, to the ambassador's offer. "I'll wait till we get home, thanks." And hope most fervently that they get home as soon as humanly possible.

[middlingalong]

Yenaro and Berneax start muttering about the appropriate treatment of the hazardous art project. Ivan reappears, groundcar secured, and he and Vorob'yev manage between them to escort Miles to the waiting groundcar.

In said groundcar, Ivan doffs his tunic and drapes it around his shivering cousin.

"All right, let's see the damages," he demands, and he collects a Miles-foot and rolls up the trouser leg. "Damn, that's got to hurt."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Quite," agrees Miles.

"It could hardly have been an assassination attempt, though," says Vorob'yev.

"No," agrees Miles.

"Bernaux told me he had his own security people examine the sculpture before they installed it. Looking for bombs and bugs, of course, but they cleared it."

"I'm sure they did," agrees Miles. "This could not have hurt anyone... but me."

"A trap?" says Vorob'yev, easily following Miles along this chain of reasoning.

[middlingalong]

"Awfully elaborate, if so," notes Ivan.

[thisvorlunatic]

"I'm... not sure."

Which can only be by deliberate design, if it was indeed a trap... a trap of surpassing subtlety. Almost Cetagandan, you might say.

"It had to have taken days, maybe weeks, of preparation. We didn't even know we were coming here till two weeks ago. When did it arrive at the Marilacan embassy?"

"Last night, according to Bernaux," Vorob'yev supplies.

"Before we even arrived." Therefore, also before they met the mystery fugitive. Logically speaking, it couldn't possibly have followed from that incident. Miles is not wholly sure he trusts the comforting solidity of this logic. "How long have we been scheduled for that party?"

"The embassies arranged the invitations about three days ago."

[middlingalong]

"The timing is awfully tight, for a conspiracy."

[thisvorlunatic]

"I think I must agree with you, Lord Vorpatril. Shall we put it down as an unfortunate accident, then?" suggests Vorob'yev.

"Provisionally," Miles allows.

The hell it is. That accident was targeted with exquisite care and attention, and knowledge of his particular weaknesses - knowledge that anyone could likely find on public information networks, granted, but they'd still have to spend the time to dig it up. This is the opening salvo of some subtle war.

If only he had the slightest clue who was on the other side.

The one thing he knows for damn sure is that he is going to Lord Yenaro's party come hell or high water.

[middlingalong]

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.

[thisvorlunatic]

Miles nods as ungrudgingly as possible.

"That worked well," says Vorob'yev, gazing after the departing - and visibly impressed - majordomo.

"I should bloody think so. Breaks my heart," mutters Miles. He passes the beautiful maplewood box to Ivan, looks around at the air of general stalledness in the vicinity, and wafts away in search of a nice warm drink. Ideally one without the soporific effect alcohol tends to have on him. He's already taken a moderate dose of painkillers just in order to be able to walk in his stiff, calf-embracing formal boots; he doesn't need to be dulled any further from here.

[alicornucopia]

At his elbow a soft voice murmurs, "Lord Vorkosigan?"

[thisvorlunatic]

He turns, trying to conceal his startlement. "Yes... ma'am?" he hazards, taking in the sight of an androgynous elderly bald - person - much closer to his height than most people, wearing the grey and white of the Celestial Garden's service staff.