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]

"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?"

[isthisart]

"No one consulted me."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Clearly." He gazes up at her, intently, urgently. "Milady, let me help. You're in a hell of a situation - this Handmaiden of yours, too, whoever she is - and your enemy in this is my enemy also. Tell me what is going on, and I'll do the best I can for you. What function does the Key serve - why wasn't it backed up before - what in God's green ninety hells was the ba doing trying to copy it now, by such an absurdly risky method?"

[isthisart]

"The status quo was," sighs Linyabel, "one copy of the Key, and one copy of the gene bank it opens. As a matter of centralized control, so no one could go start - independent haut projects of any scope. The late Celestial Lady wanted to decentralize, or at any rate recentralize. She made copies of the gene bank and gave one to each satrap governor. All of them already have one of those. They don't know that the others have them, either, as an incentive to keep it a secret. She left copying the key as a project for later, and then died, and then the ba decided to attempt to continue her plan. The ba may or may not have known at the time it encountered you that it had a fake, but I suspect it did not."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Right... who are our suspects, then?" He climbs painfully to his feet - curse his damn blisters, curse his damn leg braces, curse his damn legs - and starts pacing, back and forth in a slight curve, orbiting the gravitic pull of the lady's beauty. "The haut So-and-so of Something Ceta now has the sole working copy of the Key. And he's probably none too eager to produce another one, except maybe for his personal use as backup, if he isn't f—isn't imprudently concerned with impregnable security over the risk of catastrophic data loss. Hell, keeping a single copy with no backup isn't even impregnable security, as the Ba Lura so helpfully demonstrated..."

[isthisart]

"Yes. Cracking the gene banks without it would be a cryptanalysis project of immense scope and - perhaps a greater deterrent to the relevant parties, considering - necessarily limited elegance. The Handmaiden didn't manage to extract the name of a governor from Ba Lura before it left her custody - and I don't know how it did that, either, although it's possible she simply didn't tell me."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Next question - which parts of this whole scheme count as treason as far as your Emperor is concerned?"

[isthisart]

"The governors' receipt of the gene banks. And whichever one took the Key too, more so. The Empress, the planetary consorts while they went along with her plan, and the Ba Lura performed tasks orthogonal to questions of conventional treason, and now that the Celestial Lady has passed the Handmaiden may make decisions, convince the planetary consorts of different plans, and send me on errands on her own recognizance, not that I wouldn't make an easy target if someone took exception. Why?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"I find it's good to know where I stand with respect to the law. What's a planetary consort?"

[isthisart]

"If the satrap governors are emperors writ small, the consorts are empresses likewise."

[thisvorlunatic]

"I... see." He halts his pacing, turns toward her. "So these consorts would themselves have become - non-miniature empresses, yes? If the plan went through? Is there any chance one of them was behind this whole fiasco?"

[isthisart]

"Significantly less miniature, yes - and it's a thought, but the Handmaiden doesn't seem to think so, and says that she's argued the lot of them around."