Cetaganda

'Urn . . . are you sure? I mean, there are natural causes for these moments, I'm told. . . .'

'It was a setup. I didn't seduce them, they seduced me! Wafted me upstairs to this amazing room—it had to have been all arranged in advance. God, it was, it was . . .' His voice broke in a sigh, 'it was glorious. For a little while. And then I realized I couldn't, like, perform.'

'What did you do?'

'It was too late to get out gracefully. So I winged it. It was all I could do to keep 'em from noticing.' 'What?'

'I made up a lot of instant barbarian folklore—I told 'em a Vor prides himself on self-control, that it's not considered polite on Barrayar for a man to, you know, before his lady has. Three times. It was considered insulting to her. I stroked, I rubbed, I scratched, I recited poetry, I nuzzled and nibbled and—cripes, my fingers are cramped.' His speech was a bit slurred, too, Miles noticed. 'I thought they'd never fall asleep.' Ivan paused; a slow smirk displaced the snarl on his face. 'But they were smiling, when they finally did.' The smirk faded into a look of bleak dismay. 'What do you want to bet those two are the biggest female ghem- gossips on Eta Ceta?'

'No takers here,' said Miles, fascinated. Let the punishment fit the crime. Or, in this case, the trap fit the prey. Someone had studied his weaknesses. And someone just as clearly had studied Ivan's. 'We could have the ImpSec office do a data sweep for the tale, over the next few days.'

'If you breathe a word of this I'll wring your scrawny neck! If I can find it.'

'You've got to confess to the embassy physician. Blood tests—'

'Oh, yes. I want a chemical scan the instant I hit the door. What if the effect's permanent?'

'Ba Vorpatril?' Miles intoned, eyes alight.

'Dammit, I didn't laugh at you.'

'No. That's true, you didn't,' Miles sighed. 'I expect the physician will find whatever it was metabolizes rapidly. Or Yenaro wouldn't have drunk the stuff himself.'

'You think?'

'Remember the zlati ale? I'd bet my ImpSec silver eyes that was the vector.'

Ivan relaxed slightly, obviously relieved at this professional analysis. After a minute he added, 'Yenaro's done you now, and he's done me. Third time's a charm. What's next, do you suppose? And can we do him first?'

Miles was silent for a long time. 'That depends,' he said at last, 'on whether Yenaro's merely amusing himself, or whether he too is being . . . set up. And on whether there's any connection between Yenaro's backer and the death of Ba Lura.'

'Connection? What possible connection?'

'We are the connection, Ivan. A couple of Barrayaran backcountry boys come to the big city, and ripe for the plucking. Somebody is using us. And I think somebody . . . has just made a major mistake in his choice of tools.' Or fools.

Ivan stared at his venomous tone. 'Have you got rid of that little toy you're packing yet?' he demanded suspiciously.

'Yes . . . and no.'

'Oh, shit. I knew better than to trust—what the hell do you mean by Yes and no? Either you have or you haven't, right?'

'The object has been returned, yes.'

'That's that, then.'

'No. Not quite.'

'Miles . . . You had better start talking to me.'

'Yes, I think I better had,' Miles sighed. They were approaching the legation district. 'After you're done in the infirmary, I have a few confessions to make. But if—when—you talk to the ImpSec night-duty officer about Yenaro, don't mention the other. Yet.'

'Oh?' drawled Ivan in a tone of deep suspicion.

'Things have gotten . . . complex.'

'You think they were simple before?'

'I mean complex beyond the scope of mere security concerns, into genuine diplomatic ones. Of extreme delicacy. Maybe too delicate to submit to the sort of booted paranoids who sometimes end up running local ImpSec offices. That's a judgment call . . . that I'll have to make myself. When I'm sure I'm ready. But this isn't a game anymore, and it's no longer feasible for me to run without backup.' I need help, God help me.

'We knew that yesterday.'

'Oh, yes. But it's even deeper than I first thought.'

'Over our heads?'

Miles hesitated, and smiled sourly. 'I don't know, Ivan. How good are you at treading water?'

Alone in his suite's bathroom, Miles slowly peeled off his black House uniform, now in desperate need of attention from the embassy's laundry. He glanced at himself sideways in the mirror, then resolutely looked away. He considered the problem, as he stood in the shower. To the haut, all normal humans doubtless looked like some lower life-form. From the haut Rian Degtiar's foreshortened perspective, perhaps there was little to choose between him and, say, Ivan.

And ghem-lords did win haut wives, from time to time, for great deeds. And the Vor and the ghem-lords were very much alike. Even Maz had said so.

How great a deed? Very great. Well . . . he'd always wanted to save the Empire. The Cetagandan just wasn't the empire he'd pictured, was all. Life was like that, always throwing you curveballs.

You've gone mad, you know. To hope, to even think it . . .

If he defeated the late Dowager Empress's plot, might the Cetagandan emperor be grateful enough to … give him Rian's hand? If he advanced the late Dowager Empress's plot, might the haut Rian Degtiar be grateful enough to … give him her love? To do both simultaneously would be a tactical feat of supernatural scope.

Barrayar's interests lay, unusually, squarely with the interests of the Cetagandan emperor. Obviously, it was his clear ImpSec duty to foil the girl and save the villain.

Right. My head hurts.

Reason was returning to him, slowly, the astonishing effect of the haut Rian Degtiar wearing off. Wasn't it? She hadn't exactly tried to suborn him, after all. Even if Rian was as ugly as the witch Baba Yaga, he'd still have to be following up on this. To a point. He needed to prove Barrayar had not filched the Great Key, and the only certain way of doingthat was to find its real thief. He wondered if one could get a hangover from excess passion. If so, his was apparently starting while he was still drunk, which did not seem quite fair.

Eight Cetagandan satrap governors had been led into treason by the late empress. Optimistic, to think that only one could be a murderer. But only one possessed the real Great Key.

Lord X? Seven chances of guessing wrong, against one of guessing right. Not favorable odds.

I'll . . . figure something out.

CHAPTER SEVEN