Cetaganda

'Not exactly . . .' she hesitated. 'Some secrets are not mine to give. They belong to the Celestial Lady.'

'Whom you serve.'

'Yes.'

'Even in death.'

'Yes.' A note of pride edged her voice.

'And whom the Ba betrayed. Even in death.'

'No! Not betrayed . . . We had a disagreement.'

'An honest disagreement?'

'Yes.'

'Between a thief and a murderess?'

'No!'

Quite so, but the accusation definitely had her going. Some guilt, there. Yeah, tell me about guilt. 'Look, I'll make it easy for you. I'll begin. 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 disrupter and this.' Miles held up the Great Key. 'The Ba shook us off and escaped, and I stuck this 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. Now it's your turn. You say Ba Lura stole the key from your charge. When did you discover the Great Key was missing?'

'I found it missing from its place . . . that day.'

'How long could it have been gone? When had you last checked it?'

'It is not being used every day now, because of the period of mourning for the Celestial Lady. I had last seen it when I arranged her regalia . . . two days before that.'

'So potentially, it could have been missing for three days before you discovered its absence. When did the Ba go missing?'

'I'm . . . not sure. I saw Ba Lura the evening before.'

'That cuts it down a little. So the Ba could have been gone with the key as early as the previous night. Do the ba servitors pass pretty freely in and out of the Celestial Garden, or is it hard?'

'Freely. They run all our errands.'

'So Ba Lura came back . . . when?'

'The night of your arrival. But the Ba would not see me. It claimed to be sick. I could have had it dragged into my presence, but … I did not want to inflict such an indignity.'

They were in it together, right.

'I went to see the Ba in the morning. The whole sorry story came out then. The Ba was trying to take the Great Key to … someone, and entered into the wrong docking bay.'

'Then someone was supposed to supply a personnel pod? Then someone was waiting on a ship in orbit?'

'I didn't say that!'

Keep pressing her. It's working. Though it did make him feel faintly guilty, to be badgering the distraught old lady so, even if possibly for her own good. Don't let up. 'So the Ba blundered onto our pod, and—what was the rest of its story? Tell me exactly!'

'Ba Lura was attacked by Barrayaran soldiers, who stole the Great Key.'

'How many soldiers?'

'Six.'

Miles s eyes widened in delight. 'And then what?'

'Ba Lura begged for its life, and head and honor, but they laughed and ejected the Ba, and flew away.'

Lies, lies at last. And yet . . . the Ba was only human. Anyone who had screwed up so hugely might re-tell the story so as to make themselves look less at fault. 'What exactly did it say we said?'

Her voice grated with anger. 'You insulted the Celestial Lady.'

'Then what?'

'The Ba came home in shame.'

'So . . . why didn't the Ba call on Cetagandan security to shake us down and get the Great Key back on the spot?'

There was a longer silence. Then she said, 'The Ba could not do that. But it confessed to me. And I came to you. To … humble myself. And beg for the return of my . . . charge and my honor.'

'Why didn't the Ba confess to you the night before?'

'I don't know!'

'So while you set about your retrieval task, Ba Lura cut its throat.'

'In great grief and shame,' she said lowly.

'Yeah? Why not at least wait to see if you could coax the key back from me? So why not cut its throat privately, in its own quarters? Why advertise its shame to the entire galactic community? Isn't that a bit unusual? Was the Ba supposed to attend the bier-gifting ceremony?'

'Yes.'

'And you were too?'

'Yes …'

'And you believed the Ba's story?'

'Yes!'

'Lady, I think you are lost in the woods. Let me tell you what happened in the personnel pod as I saw it. There were no six soldiers. Just me, my cousin, and the pod pilot. There was no conversation, no begging or pleading, no slurs on the Celestial Lady. Ba Lura just yelped, and ran off. It didn't even fight very hard. In fact, it scarcely fought us at all. Strange, don't you think, in a hand-to-hand struggle for something so important that the Ba slit its own throat over its loss the next day? We were left scratching our heads, holding the damned thing and wondering what the hell? Now you know that one of us, me or the Ba, is lying. I know which one.'

'Give the Great Key to me,' was all she could say. 'It's not yours.'

'But I think I was framed. By someone who apparently wants to drag Barrayar into a Cetagandan internal . . . disagreement. Why? What am I being set up for? '

Her silence might indicate that these were the first new thoughts to penetrate her panic in two days. Or … it might not. In any case, she only whispered, 'Not yours!'

Miles sighed. 'I couldn't agree with you more, milady, and I am glad to return your charge. 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 back to. You could be anyone, in that bubble. My Aunt Alys, for all I know. Or Cetagandan security, or … who knows. I will return it to you . . . face-to-face.' He held out his hand half-open, the key resting invitingly across his palm.

'Is that . . . the last of your price?' if

'Yes. I'll ask no more.' ff

It was a small triumph. He was going to see a haut-woman, and Ivan wasn't. It would doubtless embarrass the old dragon, to reveal herself to outlander eyes, but dammit, given the runaround Miles had suffered, she owed him something. And he was deathly serious about being able to identify where the Great Key went. The haut Rian Degtiar, Handmaiden of the Star Creche, was certainly not the only player in this game.

'Very well,' she whispered. The white bubble faded to transparency, and was gone from between them.

'Oh,' said Miles, in a very small voice.