Cetaganda

edge? Benin's expression was less easy to read, through the swirls of face paint.

'Hello,' said Miles brightly. 'You, uh, waited, sir. Thanks, though I don't think you needed to.' Vorob'yev's brows rose in faint, ironic disagreement.

'You have been granted an unusual honor, Lord Vorkosigan,' said Benin, nodding toward the Star Creche.

'Yes, the haut Rian is a very polite lady. I hope I didn't wear her out with all my questions.'

'And were all your questions answered?' asked Benin. 'You are privileged.'

One could not mistake the bitter edge to that comment, though one could, of course, ignore it. 'Oh, yes and no. It's a fascinating place, but I'm afraid its technologies hold no help for my medical needs. I think I'm going to have to consider more surgeries after all. I don't like surgeries, they're surprisingly painful.' He blinked mournfully.

Maz looked highly sympathetic; Vorob'yev looked just a little saturnine. He's beginning to suspect there's something screwy going on. Damn.

In fact, both Benin and Vorob'yev looked like only the presence of the other was inhibiting him from pinning Miles to the nearest wall and twisting till some truth was emitted.

'If you are finished, then, I shall escort you to the gate,' said Benin.

'Yes. The embassy car is waiting, Lord Vorkosigan,' Vorob'yev added pointedly.

They all herded obediently after Benin down the path he indicated.

'The real privilege today was getting to hear all that poetry, though,' Miles burbled on. 'And how are you doing, ghem-Colonel? Are you making any progress on your case?'

Benin's lips twitched. 'It does not simplify itself,' he murmured.

I'll bet not. Alas, or perhaps fortunately, this was not the time or place for a couple of security men to let their hair down and talk shop frankly.

'Oh, my,' said Maz, and they all paused to take in the show a curve in the path presented. A woodsy vista framed a small artificial ravine. Scattered in the dusk among the trees and along the streamlet were hundreds of tiny, luminous tree frogs, variously candy-colored, all singing. They sang in chords, pitch- perfect, one chord rising and dying away to be replaced by another; the creatures' luminosity rose and fell as they sang, so the progress of each pure note could be followed by the eye as well as the ear. The ravine's acoustics bounced the not-quite music around in a highly synergistic fashion. Miles's brain seemed to stop dead for a full three minutes at the sheer absurd beauty of it all, till some throat-clearing from Vorob'yev broke the spell, and the party moved on again.

Outside the dome, the capital city's night was warm, humid, and apricot-bright, rumbling with the vast subliminal noise of its life. Night and the city, stretching to the horizon and beyond.

'I am impressed by the luxury of the haut, but then I realize the size of the economic base that supports it,' Miles remarked to Benin.

'Indeed,' said Benin, with a small smirk. 'I believe Cetaganda's per capita tax rate is only half that of Barrayar's. The Emperor cultivates his subjects' economic well-being as a garden, I have heard it said.'

Benin was not immune to the Cetagandan taste for one-upmanship. Taxes were always a volatile civil issue at home. 'I'm afraid so,' Miles returned. 'We have to match you militarily with less than a quarter of your resources.' He bit his tongue to keep from adding, Fortunately, that's not hard, or something equally snide. Benin was right, though, Miles reflected, as the embassy's aircar rose over the capital. One was awed by the great silver hemisphere, till one looked at the city extending for a hundred kilometers in all directions, not to mention the rest of the planet and the other seven worlds, and did a little math. The Celestial Garden was a flower, but its roots lay elsewhere, in the haut and ghem control of other aspects of the economy. The Great Key seemed suddenly a tiny lever, with which to try to move this world. Prince Slyke, I think you are an optimist.

CHAPTER TEN

'You've got to help me out on this one, Ivan,' Miles whispered urgently.

'Oh?' murmured Ivan, in a tone of extreme neutrality.

'I didn't know Vorob'yev would be sending him along.' Miles jerked his chin toward Lord Vorreedi, who had stepped away for some under-voiced conference of his own with their groundcar's driver, the uniformed embassy guard, and the plainclothes guard. The uniformed man wore undress greens like Miles and Ivan; the other two wore the bodysuits and calf-length robes of Cetagandan street wear, the protocol officer with more comfortable practiced ease.

Miles continued, 'When I set up this rendezvous with my contact, I thought we'd get Mia Maz as our native guide again, what with this exhibition being the Ladies' Division or whatever they call it. You won't just need to cover my departure. You may need to distract them when I make my break.'

The plainclothes guard nodded and strode off. Outer-perimeter man; Miles memorized his face and clothing. One more thing to keep track of. The guard headed toward the entrance to the exhibition . . . hall, it was not. When today's outing had first been described to Miles, he had pictured some cavernous quadrangular structure like the one that housed the District Agricultural Fair at Hassadar. Instead, the Moon Garden Hall, as it was styled, was another dome, a miniature suburban imitation of the Celestial Garden at the center of the city. Not too miniature—it was over three hundred meters in diameter, arcing over steeply sloping ground. Flocks of well-dressed ghem-types, both men and women, funneled toward its upper entrance.

'How the hell am I supposed to do that, coz? Vorreedi's not the distractible sort.'

'Tell him I left with a lady, for . . . immoral purposes. You leave with immoral ladies all the time, why not me?' Miles s lips twisted in a suppressed snarl at Ivan's rolled eyes. 'Introduce him to half a dozen of your girlfriends, I can't believe we won't run across some here. Tell them he's the man who taught you all you know about the Barrayaran Art of Love.'

'He's not my type,' said Ivan through his teeth.

'So use your initiative!'

'I don't have initiative. I follow orders, thank you. It's much safer.'

'Fine. I order you to use your initiative.'

Ivan breathed a bad word, by way of editorial. 'I'm going to regret this, I know I am.'

'Just hold on a little while longer. This will all be over in a few hours.' One way or another.

'That's what you said day before yesterday. You lied.'

'It wasn't my fault. Things were a little more complicated than I'd anticipated.'

'You remember the time down at Vorkosigan Surleau when we found that old guerrilla weapons cache, and you talked me and Elena into helping you activate the old hovertank? And we ran it into the barn? And the barn collapsed? And my mother put me under house-arrest for two months?'

'We were ten years old, Ivan!'

'I remember it like yesterday. I remember it like day-before-yesterday, too.'

'That old shed was practically falling down anyway. Saved the price of a demolition crew. For God's sake Ivan, this is serious! You can't compare it to—' Miles broke off as the protocol officer dismissed his men and, smiling faintly, turned back to the two young envoys. He shepherded them into the Moon Garden Hall.

Miles was surprised to see something so crass as a sign, even if made entirely of flowers, decorating an entry arch to a labyrinth of descending walkways spilling down the natural slope. The 149th Annual Bioesthetics Exhibition, Class A. Dedicated to the Memory of the Celestial Lady. Which dedication had made it a mandatory stop on all polite funeral envoys' social calendars. 'Do the haut-women compete here?' Miles asked the protocol officer. 'I'd think this would be in their style.'

'So much so that no one else could win if they did,' said Lord Vorreedi. 'They have their own annual bash, very privately, inside the Celestial Garden, but it's on hold till this period of official mourning is completed.'