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

[middlingalong]

"Not exactly."

[thisvorlunatic]

"I'd like you to talk to him again, then. Try to lead him in the direction of the satrap governors if you can manage it."

[middlingalong]

"Why don't you talk to him?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"I'm not - ready," he says. "Not yet, not tonight, not now. I'm still assimilating it all. And technically, he is my ImpSec superior here, or would be, if I were on active duty. I'd like to limit my, um..."

[middlingalong]

"Outright lies to him?" trills Ivan.

[thisvorlunatic]

He makes a face, but offers no verbal objections. "I need someone to cover the angles I can't," he presses.

[middlingalong]

"Right. Just this once," warns Ivan. "You realize, coz, that if somebody notices there's a web being spun they look for the spider? Then what, O Mastermind?"

And he bows his way out of the room, eyebrows raised in ironic challenge.

[thisvorlunatic]

Ugh.

[alicornucopia]

The following morning, there is an unusual visitor, who Ambassador Vorob'yev announces to Miles under that designation alone. (When Vorob'yev is questioned, alas, the identity of the visitor is only ghem-colonel Dag Benin, not haut-lady Anybody.) He is assigned to Celestial Garden internal affairs and Miles has been brought to his "negative attention" with respect to the death of Ba Lura. And the embassy has decided to extend to the colonel the courtesy of an interview with Miles. Which means a bodyguard (as a status symbol) and monitoring of the conversation (not).

The ghem-colonel greets him politely enough.

[thisvorlunatic]

The yo-yo is a charmingly primitive toy consisting of a pair of disks connected by a short stem, with a long string tied to the stem at a calculated degree of tension and looped at the other end to provide a grip. Skilled practitioners can make the thing dance the most amazing routines.

Miles takes the lead on this conversation so effectively, he feels almost as though he has attached a string to the good ghem-colonel's waist and is causing him to spin rapidly and hop up and down a few inches above the floor.

Has the investigation yet ruled that the death was a suicide? Benin indicates that they have - but his tone and expression indicate otherwise. Well, have they done tests to rule out the possibility that the ba was stunned elsewhere and then its throat slit on the spot by some unknown assailant? They have not. Can they? No, because the ba has already been cremated. Surely not at the investigator's behest? No, indeed, and why is Lord Vorkosigan so morbidly fascinated with this subject?

He admits to having solved murders before, without mentioning that the murder in question was singular, not plural. Do they get a lot of this sort of thing around here? No, they do not. Aha. He presses the cremation line: awfully premature, wasn't it? Benin assures him firmly that even the ceremonial guards would have noticed if Ba Lura had been hauled bodily into the funeral rotunda, dead, unconscious, or in any other state. Miles forges onward with his theories.

The body was only discovered when the procession actually entered the rotunda and found it there, and by the size of that pool of blood, it had to have been at least a solid quarter hour. Obviously, then, that exact spot must have been occluded to visual surveillance. Who would have known about this convenient gap? Someone a little higher up, perhaps - or a lot higher?

This provides Benin an opening with which to remind Miles that the questions here are supposed to be flowing the other way. Miles jerks the figurative string another time or two, then deigns to describe his original meeting with the haut Linyabel Miriat. To be specific, he describes the haut-lady as having taken him aside for a chat and asked him several polite but mystifyingly vague questions, which he is embarrassed to suspect might have been aimed at seeking a genetic explanation for his visible peculiarities. A genetic explanation which does not exist - he is always very clear on that point whenever it comes up.

From there he segues back into his helpful theorizing: haut-bubbles are so interesting, aren't they? How individually identifiable are they, and how easily borrowed? Could someone perhaps have stunned the ba, taken him into such a bubble, floated him into the rotunda therein, and arranged him in the blind spot before floating away again? Benin seems intrigued by this reasoning; he divulges that six haut-women crossed the chamber during the critical window. He has interviewed them all, along with the miscellaneous other personnel who did the same; none of these people admit to having seen the body. Surely the last one is lying, then? Benin attests that it is not that simple; Miles supposes that some of them might have passed by without noticing, if they kept to the other side of the chamber. Hm.

He drops a few words about the hazards of internal investigations and Benin's low rank - expendably low, you might say. Benin professes that these things are his problem. Miles is beginning to like the man. He helpfully lays out a line of subtly governorward reasoning: whoever arranged this murder must be high-ranking, with extensive access to internal security - if the ba has led an unexceptional life, perhaps the events leading to its death are very recent, concerning an individual who may perhaps have only been here a short time - if the ba left the Celestial Garden in the days leading up to its murder, perhaps it communicated with the murderer - the whole thing reeks of a rush job, desperation, panic, things that tend to follow from dramatic events taking place over a short period of time.

In closing, he offers to assist Benin with any further questions he may have and deftly deflects the suggestion that he answer them under fast-penta. Benin doesn't pursue the point; he didn't seem all that hopeful about it in the first place. It can't be very often that you get to administer interrogation drugs to foreign diplomats.

Miles is full of further questions for Benin, but he fears that if he keeps swinging this string around it will snap and the toy on the end will fly away. He only adds one more thing: a suggestion to the ghem-colonel that, given the delicate nature of his investigation and the high probability of the murderer being located in an upward direction along social and political ladders, he should travel all the way to the top as soon as possible, and make direct contact with his Emperor to request that his investigation be afforded protection from potential interference. Benin seems slightly alarmed by the suggestion, but allows that he will consider it.

Whew. Off he goes. Miles exerts considerable self-control to prevent himself from flopping to the ground and taking a much-needed nap in the middle of the hallway.

[middlingalong]

After the ghem-colonel has departed, Vorob'yev appears, accompanied by a man he introduces as Vorreedi. Vorob'yev compliments Miles on the conduction of his interview - open question who interviewed whom, really - and Vorreedi, perhaps charmed by Miles's interest in detective work, suggests arranging tours of local police organizations, declined due to lack of time.

Ivan also receives invitations, of which he will have to decline at least some due to lack of time - apparently the two ghem-ladies he absconded with at Yenaro's party and one of their friends are inviting him to things. Him alone. He declines to turn this into further opportunities for Miles's spidery behavior. Miles can meet the people he's directly interested in at official functions without intruding on Ivan's social ones.



Miles's next official function (Ivan bows out, claiming weariness from social engagements and further, contradictory and smugly exhausting, invitations), Miles is accompanied by Mia Maz and Vorob'yev both, and they are seated in much lower-status positions than the white-robed haut-men and the white-bubbled haut-women. There is a considerable amount of high-quality, subtly-read poetry from the haut-men (Maz explains that the women did their own similar ceremony the day before), which gets very wearing after long enough. The satrap governors go last. (Maz says that many of these poems have been ghostwritten by haut-ladies.)

Then: food.

Here there is an unbubbled haut-woman, not on a float chair at all: some ghem-general's award, dramatically older than Linyabel, silver-blonde and very closed in towards herself in the body language as she moves around. And another, over there, brown-haired and cinnamon-eyed, accompanying another husband-winner of the same presumable rank. (Maz seems to be making desperate facial expressions about them.)

[thisvorlunatic]

...Miles is slightly worried by Maz's desperate facial expressions. He directs an inquiring facial expression back at her.

[alicornucopia]

"Ah - to warn you," says Maz, "there's a rare point of etiquette in force today - if you see a haut-woman outside of a bubble, the polite thing to do is behave as though the bubble is still there. Because its loss is considered a great loss of face, you see, especially coming as it does with marrying out of the haut genome and into ghem-rank. You must never directly address a haut-wife, even if she's standing right in front of you. Put all inquiries through her ghem-husband, and wait for him to transmit the replies - and never stare directly at them."

[thisvorlunatic]

"I see," murmurs Miles. He thinks back to his conversation with the haut Linyabel, and decides that under the circumstances, the rules were probably waived. "Thank you for the warning."

Vorob'yev proceeds to introduce Miles to the haut Este Rond, during which exchange Miles divines that the Rond must have been Vorob'yev's ticket into this extremely exclusive event, and also that even haut-lords seem to take note when Vorob'yev makes a recommendation. Miles actually receives a minute or so of Este Rond's undivided attention, for no obvious reason except that Vorob'yev introduced him personally.

Of course, the haut Rond might have other, less obvious reasons to be interested in Miles.

But over the course of their short conversation, nothing of substance is openly discussed, and Miles learns nothing either positive or negative about this governor's potential as a suspect. Finally, sensing waning interest, Miles ventures to ask, "Would you be so kind, haut Rond, as to introduce me to Governor haut Ilsum Kety?"

"Why, certainly, Lord Vorkosigan," says the haut Rond, with a thin smile that suggests he welcomes the opportunity to foist the offworlder on a fellow governor. He leads Miles over to Kety, who receives their visit with diplomatic displeasure. After formal greetings, Kety is impolite enough to let the conversation hang dead in the air; Miles tries Kety's ghem-general next, but General Chilian is an equally unpromising conversationalist, disgorging nothing more than a reluctant, "Lord Vorkosigan," before returning to silence. The general's haut-wife stands next to him like a very pretty, faintly contemptuous statue. Miles gives up, and tries the introduction gambit a second time.

"I wonder, haut Kety, if you would introduce me to Governor haut Slyke Giaja. As an Imperial relation of sorts myself, I can't help feeling he is something of my opposite number." Miles can't recall at the moment just how close an Imperial relation the haut Slyke in fact is, but they share a constellation - the Emperor's name is Fletchir Giaja - which implies some degree of genetic congruence.

This actually manages to startle a substantial response out of poor haut Kety. "I doubt Slyke would think so," he opines, but after weighing the request for a few moments he dispatches General Chilian to make inquiries on Miles's behalf. Miles watches the ghem-general pick his way across the room through the sparse crowd, attempts without success to lip-read their exchange, and observes that the haut Slyke has no unusual reactions to the request, although - unsurprisingly - he sends Chilian back with a polite refusal.

Miles concludes that the avenue of conversation with haut governors has been thoroughly explored, none of the three have proven distinguishable from innocent by their responses and reactions, and there is no further benefit to be had from hanging around annoying them further. He drifts off in no particular direction.

[alicornucopia]

A ba - the same ba who has been showing him to Linyabel's hiding places - appears at his elbow.

"Lord Vorkosigan. My lady wishes to speak with you."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Yes, of course," he says, and glances around for Vorob'yev - thankfully well out of reach - or Maz. Maz is reasonably close. "Just a moment," he says to the ba, and approaches Maz to inform her that he will be going off to speak with a lady and may be some time, and that they needn't wait for him.

[alicornucopia]

Maz is doubtful, but makes no attempt to prevent him from leaving.

The ba leads him through exquisite gardens populated by charmingly engineered creatures, to a bubble in a cloistered walkway.

[thisvorlunatic]

Since he has know way of knowing which haut-lady this is - or even if it is a haut-lady to begin with; he suggested the bubble-borrowing gambit to Benin himself, after all - he greets her in the most generic possible way. "Good evening, milady. You asked to see me? How may I serve you?"

[alicornucopia]

Linyabel's voice, or one cunningly disguised thereas - well, as cunning as it needs to be with the helpful layer of distortion from the bubble, at any rate - says: "Lord Vorkosigan. You expressed an interest in genetic matters. I thought you would care for a short tour."

[thisvorlunatic]

So, she must at least suspect they're being monitored. Good for her. Miles suspects the same.

"Indeed, milady. All medical procedures interest me," he answers. "I feel the corrections to my own damage were extremely incomplete. I'm always looking for new hopes and chances, whenever I have an opportunity to visit more advanced galactic societies."

[isthisart]

"Follow me," she suggests, and she leads him on a meandering route through the garden, to a long, low, white building with a door that objects to casual entry. It lets him in with her as soon as she's finessed its requirements, though.

The corridors are much less labyrinthine, and she takes him to a spacious office, glass-walled on one side displaying a biolab of sorts.

Linyabel dispenses with her bubble and gets up out of her chair as soon as they're there. Her hair is in a single, five-stranded braid that falls to her knees and is dotted with pins of pearls carved into flowers every few inches; she's still in white mourning, but it's a different exact outfit, drapier, trailing to the floor when she stands.

"Lisbet," she says, to another haut-woman there, "Lord Vorkosigan. Lord Vorkosigan, the Handmaiden haut Lisbet Serise."

[exerce_imperia]

"Welcome, Lord Vorkosigan," says the Handmaiden of the Star Creche.

She is wearing a white bodysuit under a few layers of simple calf-length robes decorated with touches of white-on-white embroidery. Her skin is a warm shade of medium brown, as flawless as Linya's; her eyes are a much darker brown, almost but not quite black; her hair is mainly between the two, but where individual strands in the waterfall of curls catch the light just so, they shine a deep honey-gold.

"We can speak freely here. I agree with your assessment that it is past time we met."

[thisvorlunatic]

Miles discovers that he is developing an immunity to haut beauty; he has only a moderate urge to throw himself to the floor and weep.

"Er... yes, milady," he manages. "Won't your Security be, um, less than pleased, though?"

[exerce_imperia]

The haut Lisbet smiles. "They will just have to contain their displeasure. First, I should tell you that I spoke with Governor haut Slyke Giaja yesterday, and I strongly believe he is not the thief. He wanted to see the regalia, but had no reaction whatsoever to the fake Key - no subtle tells, and no demands that I demonstrate its continued functionality. That narrows our list of suspects down to two."

[thisvorlunatic]

"I see... you're sure about him?" he asks. "It's just, I was just talking to the other two, and haut-lords don't seem to have tells, as far as I can... tell."