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]

"I think it will interest you."

And of a sudden she's a woman on a mission, leading him out to meet - a ba. The same one who led him to the haut Linyabel.

"The ba will escort you the rest of the way."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Very well." He holds up a hand and extracts his com link from his pocket. "Base. I'm leaving Yenaro's premises for a while. Track me, but don't interrupt me unless I call for you."

"Yes, my lord," the driver answers dubiously. "Where are you going?"

"I'm - taking a walk with a lady," he half-fibs. "Wish me luck."

"Oh," says the driver; Miles can almost see the smile, the nod of understanding. "Good luck, my lord."

"Thank you," he says, closes the channel, and tucks the link back into his pocket. "All right."

And he follows the ba wherever it may care to lead.

[alicornucopia]

The ba leads him to -

a bubble.

How surprising.

[thisvorlunatic]

Yes, and let's not forget the miscellaneous landscape through which they have to traipse in order to get to this dilapidated little wooden building in the middle of an overgrown garden. Miles's poor boots are going to hate him for this. The place looks like it hasn't been touched in fifty years, granted that it must have been very pretty fifty years ago.

But - here he is, with the Great Key in his pocket. Ready to return it... under some potential circumstances.

"Milady?" he says cautiously.

[alicornucopia]

"It's Linyabel again," the bubble clarifies, in, indeed, the same slightly bubble-distorted voice. "Did your research confirm the provenance of the object to your satisfaction?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"...Yes," he says. "And a little more besides. I am left with... some further questions."

[alicornucopia]

"...What do you need to know?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"Why would be a fine start. Why did the Empress's most senior servant steal a piece of her regalia right before her funeral? I suppose there's a chance you don't know - but someone must. These things don't just happen. Every instinct I own is crying out that I am being set up - I, or Barrayar through me. I want to know enough to dodge the trap, wherever it may be hiding."

[alicornucopia]

"You may very well be being set up, but ceasing to hold the object would be a good start at being less easily implicated," says Linyabel.

[thisvorlunatic]

"I'm not convinced it would. Someone knew enough about me to - to arrange a very personally embarrassing accident. Someone might know enough about me to predict that I have no ambition to keep the thing. Maybe the trap comes after I give it back. Maybe you are the trap, knowingly or not. Information, milady. I need it."

[alicornucopia]

Linyabel sighs.

"The ba Lura was attempting to carry out the wishes of the late Celestial Lady, who intended that the key be copied but did not accomplish this before her death. It is even possible that what you have - if you have it? - is a decoy, but I can check."

[thisvorlunatic]

"I... see," he says. "So. The ba took the Key to the transfer station, to meet with - a different set of galactics? I sincerely doubt it. A planetary governor?" He remembers the markings on that huge ship he saw docking when they came in. All the governors have come with their entourages for the funeral. It's a reasonable shot in the dark.

[alicornucopia]

"A planetary governor," says Linyabel. "If you have any idea which direction ba Lura was coming from that might narrow it down, actually."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Unfortunately, no... I'll tell you the sequence of events from our point of view," he says, tapping his fingers on his thigh as he retrieves the details from memory.

"Ivan and I were coming over from the Barrayaran courier jump-ship in a personnel pod. We docked into this dump of a freight bay. The Ba Lura, wearing a station employee uniform and some badly applied false hair, lumbered into our pod as soon as the lock cycled open, and reached, we thought, for a weapon. We jumped it, and took away a nerve disruptor and - a sparkly stick, of we knew not what origin or purpose. The ba shook us off and escaped, and I stuck the stick in my pocket till I could find out more. The next time I saw the ba it was dead in a pool of its own blood on the floor of the funeral rotunda. I found this unnerving, to say the least."

[alicornucopia]

"So that remains a mystery, but you have something, which, if it is the Great Key, needs to go back where it belongs as soon as possible. Will you let me check it?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"Which you will do... how, milady?"

[alicornucopia]

"The Handmaiden gave me something that should serve."

[thisvorlunatic]

He sighs.

"All right," he says, withdrawing the Great Key from the pocket where it has been lurking all this time. "But in light of the whole situation, I would like to be able to testify—under fast-penta, if need be—just who I gave the Great Key or its facsimile back to. You could be anyone, in that bubble. My Aunt Alys, for all I know. I'll hand it over face to face. And watch you verify it."

[alicornucopia]

"I am not your aunt Alys," says the bubble, sounding mildly amused. "But yes, I suppose that's fair."

The bubble -

[isthisart]

- disappears.

She's robed in white mourning, varied artfully in texture and cut from layer to layer and panel to seamless panel. Above the neckline is a face of improbable - well, entirely probable, deliberate, intentional, inspired - symmetry and smoothness, chocolate eyes blinking darkly from ivory under matching chocolate hair, worn up in twin clusters of braids plaited to each other and wound into half-spheres at the base of her skull on either side. She's only wearing two articles of jewelry: a brooch pinned to the top of one sleeve, and a necklace of black chain from which hangs a long black pendant tipped on each end with a clear cabochon.

She looks young. Haut age well, but there is no experienced gravity to her expression, no "well-preserved" look about her eyes or her lips. She could easily be younger than Miles.

She holds out her hand.

[thisvorlunatic]

"Oh," says Miles.

The highest soaring flights of his imagination could not have conjured such a face. No Diana could be purer, no Venus more beautiful. If he were to touch that perfect hand, would lightning strike him down on the spot? The same part of him that is convinced it is so yearns to try it.

He hardly notices sinking to his knees, so consumed is he in a far greater fall. In love, oh yes, into and through - down, down, down past the clouds of a not quite endless sky, toward the unforgiving surface of inevitable reality. Miles is familiar with falls. They have a habit of ending in broken bones.

It takes all his concentration to lift the Key and place it very carefully into her hand, not daring to touch her for fear of thunderbolts.

[isthisart]

The least little smile touches her lips when he kneels, and she takes the Key.

And tests it with the seal-embossed ring in her hand.



"It's a fake," she says, smile vanished.

[thisvorlunatic]

"Damn," sighs Miles. The absence of that smile is painful to an almost physical degree, but he forges on. "So - what now? This thing is meant to have some function or other, my sources were extremely vague; is there time to restore from backup? Please tell me there's time to restore from backup." He has this sinking feeling that it's not going to be that easy...

[isthisart]

"There isn't one. Unless whichever governor has the Key has copied it, in which case there still isn't a backup in the hands of the Star Creche."

[thisvorlunatic]

"No backup. Milady, what the hell? I mean, I've heard the haut like their creations one-of-a-kind, but that's going a little far, don't you think?"