Cetaganda

aspect particularly to you, Lord Vorkosigan. Have you ever wondered how the haut, who are not noted for their military prowess, control the ghem, who are?'

'Oh, yes. I've been expecting this crazy Cetagandan double-decked aristocracy to fall apart ever since I learned about it. How can you control guns with, with, art contests? How can a bunch of perfumed poetasters like the haut-lords buffalo whole ghem-armies?'

Maz smiled. 'The Cetagandan ghem-lords would call it the loyalty justly due to superior culture and civilization. The fact is that anyone who's competent enough or powerful enough to pose a threat gets genetically co-opted. There is no higher reward in the Cetagandan system than to be Imperially assigned a haut-lady wife. The ghem-lords are all panting for it. It's the ultimate social and political coup.'

'You're suggesting the haut control the ghem through these wives?' said Miles. 'I mean, I'm sure the haut-women are lovely and all, but the ghem-generals can be such hard-bitten cast-iron bastards—I can't imagine anyone who gets to the top in the Cetagandan Empire being that susceptible.'

'If I knew how the haut-women do it,' Maz sighed, 'I'd bottle it and sell it. No, better—I think I'd keep it for myself. But it seems to have worked for the last several hundred years. It is not, of course, the only method of Imperial control, to be sure. Only the most overlooked one. I find that, in itself, significant. The haut are nothing if not subtle.'

'Does the, uh, haut-bride come with a dowry?' Miles asked.

Maz smiled again, and polished off another chocolate confection. 'You have hit upon an important point, Lord Vorkosigan. She does not.'

'I'd think keeping a haut-wife in the style to which she is accustomed could get rather expensive.'

'Very.'

'So … if the Cetagandan emperor wished to depress an excessively successful subject, he could award him a few haut-wives and bankrupt him?'

'I … don't think it's done quite so obviously as all that. But the element is there. You are very acute, my lord.'

Ivan asked, 'But how does the haut-lady who gets handed out like a good-conduct medal feel about it all? I mean … if the highest haut-lady ambition is to become an Imperial monopoly, this has got to be the ultimate opposite. To be permanently dumped out of the haut-genome—their descendants never marry back into the haut, do they?'

'No,' confirmed Maz. 'I believe the psychology of it all is a bit peculiar. For one thing, the haut-bride immediately outranks any other wives the ghem-lord may have acquired, and her children automatically become his heirs. This can set up some interesting tensions in his household, particularly if it comes, as it usually does, in mid- life when his other marital associations may be of long standing.'

'It must be a ghem-lady's nightmare, to have one of these haut-women dropped on her husband,' Ivan mused. 'Don't they ever object? Make their husbands turn down the honor?'

'Apparently it's not an honor one can refuse.'

'Mm.' With difficulty, Miles pulled his imagination away from these side-fascinations, and back to his most immediate worry. 'That seal of the Star Creche thing—I don't suppose you have a picture of it?'

'I brought a number of vids with me, yes, my lord,' said Maz. 'With your permission, we can run them on your comconsole.'

Ooh, I adore competent women. Do you have a younger sister, milady Maz? 'Yes, please,' said Miles.

They all trooped over to the chamber's comconsole desk, and Maz began a quick illustrated lecture on haut crests and the several dozen assorted Imperial seals. 'Here it is, my lord—the seal of the Star Creche.'

It was a clear cubical block, measuring maybe fifteen centimeters on a side, with the bird-pattern incised in red lines upon its top. Not the mysterious rod. Miles exhaled with relief. The terror that had been riding him ever since Maz had mentioned the seal, that he and Ivan might have accidentally stolen a piece of the Imperial regalia, faded. The rod was some kind of Imperial gizmo, obviously, and would have to be returned —anonymously, by preference—but at least it wasn't—

Maz called up the next unit of data, 'And this object is the Great Key of the Star Creche, which is handed over along with the seal,' she went on.

Ivan choked on his wine. Miles, faint, leaned on the desk and smiled fixedly at the image of the rod. The original lay some few centimeters under his hand, in the drawer.

'And, ah—just what is the Great Key of the Star Creche, m'la—Maz?' Miles managed to murmur. 'What does it do?'

'I'm not quite sure. At one time in the past, I believe it had something to do with data retrieval from the haut gene banks, but the actual device may only be ceremonial by now. I mean, it's a couple of hundred years old. It has to be obsolete.'

We hope. Thank God he hadn't dropped it. Yet. 'I see.'

'Miles . . .' muttered Ivan.

'Later,' Miles hissed to him out of the corner of his mouth. 'I understand your concern.'

Ivan mouthed something obscene at him, over the seated Maz's head.

Miles leaned against the comconsole desk, and screwed up his features in a realistic wince.

'Something wrong, my lord?' Maz glanced up, concerned.

'I'm afraid my legs are bothering me, a bit. I had probably better pay another visit to the embassy physician, after this.'

'Would you prefer to continue this later?' Maz asked instantly.

'Well … to tell you the truth, I think I've had about all the etiquette lessons I can absorb for one afternoon.'

'Oh, there's lots more.' But apparently he was looking realistically pale, too, for she rose, adding, 'Far too much for one session, to be sure. Are your injuries much troubling you? I didn't realize they were that severe.'

Miles shrugged, as if in embarrassment. After a suitable exchange of parting amenities, and a promise to call on his Vervani tutor again very soon, Ivan took over the hostly duties, and escorted Maz back downstairs.

He returned immediately, to seal the door behind him and pounce on Miles. 'Do you have any idea how much trouble we're in?' he cried.

Miles sat before the comconsole, re-reading the official, and entirely inadequate, description of the Great Key, while its image floated hauntingly before his nose above the vid plate. 'Yes. I also know how we're going to get out of it. Do you know as much?'

This gave Ivan pause. 'What else do you know that I don't?'

'If you will just leave it to me, I believe I can get this thing back to its rightful owner with no one the wiser.'

'Its rightful owner is the Cetagandan emperor, according to what Maz said.'

'Well, ultimately, yes. I should say, back to its rightful keeper. Who, if I read the signs right, is as chagrined about losing it as we are in finding it. If I can get it back to her quietly, I don't think she's going to go around proclaiming how she lost it. Although … I do wonder how she did lose it.' Something was not adding up, just below his level of conscious perception.

'We mugged an Imperial servitor, that's how!'

'Yes, but what was Ba Lura doing with the thing on an orbital transfer station in the first place? Why had it disabled the security monitors in the docking bay?'

'Lura was taking the Great Key somewhere, obviously. To the Great Lock, for all I know.' Ivan paced around the comconsole. 'So the poor sod cuts its throat the next morning 'cause it lost its charge, its trust, courtesy of us—hell, Miles. I feel like we just killed that old geezer. And it never did us any harm, it just blundered into the wrong place and had the bad luck to startle us.'

'Is that what happened?' Miles murmured. 'Really . . . ?' Is that why I am so desperately determined for the story to be something, anything, else? The scenario hung together. The old Ba,