Cetaganda

horrified first impression, they were not actually dropping like a rock. They were arcing outward, across the boulevards far below, and the light-sparked green rings of parks, toward the dome of the Celestial Garden.

Miles thought wildly of the witch Baba Yaga, from the Barrayaran folk tales, who flew in a magic mortar. This witch didn't qualify as old and ugly. But he was not, at this moment, totally convinced she didn't eat bad children.

In a few minutes, the bubble decelerated again to a smooth walking pace a few centimeters above the pavement outside one of the Celestial Garden's minor entrances. A movement of her finger brought back the white glow.

'Ah,' she said, in a refreshed tone. 'I haven't done that in years.' She almost cracked a smile, for a moment nearly . . . human.

Miles was shocked when they passed through the Celestial dome's security procedures almost as if they weren't there, except for a swift exchange of electronic codes. No one stopped or searched the bubble. The sort of uniformed men who'd shaken down the galactic envoys with beady-eyed thoroughness stood back respectfully, with downcast gaze.

'Why don't they stop us?' Miles whispered, unable to overcome the psychological conviction that if he could see and hear them, they could see and hear him.

'Stop me?' repeated the haut-woman in puzzlement. 'I am the haut Pel Navarr, Consort of Eta Ceta. I live here.'

Their further progress was happily ground-hugging, if faster than the usual walking-pace, through the increasingly familiar precincts of the Celestial Garden to the low white building with the bio-filters on every window. The haut Pel's passage through its automated security procedures was almost as swift and perfunctory as through the dome entrance itself. They passed silently down a set of corridors, but turned in a different direction from the labs and offices at the building's heart, and went up one level.

Double doors parted to admit them to a large circular room done in subdued and subduing tones of silvery gray. Unlike any other place he'd seen in the Celestial Garden, it was devoid of living decorations, neither plant nor animal nor any of those disturbing creations in-between. Hushed, concentrated, undistracting … It was a chamber in the Star Creche; he supposed he could dub it the Star Chamber. Eight women in white awaited them, sitting silently in a circle. His stomach should not still be turning over, dammit, the free fall was done.

The haut Pel brought her float-chair to a halt in a waiting empty gap in the circle, grounded it, and switched off the force-bubble. Eight extraordinary pairs of eyes focused on Miles.

No one, he thought, should be exposed to this many haut-women at once. It was some kind of dangerous overdose. Their beauty was varied; three were as silver-haired as the ghem-admiral's wife, one was copper-tressed, one was dark-skinned and hawk-nosed, with masses of blue- black ringlets tumbling down around her like a cloak. Two were blonde, his guide with her golden weave and another with hair as pale as oat straw in the sun, and as straight to the floor. One dark-eyed woman had chocolate-brown hair like the haut Vio, but in soft curling clouds instead of bound. And then there was Rian. Their massed effect went beyond beauty; where to, he was not sure, but terror came close. He slipped off the arm of the float chair, and stood away from it, grateful for the propping effect of his stiff high boots.

'Here is the Barrayaran to testify,' said the haut Rian.

Testify. He was here as a witness, then, not as the accused. A Key witness, so to speak. He stifled a slightly manic giggle. Somehow he did not think Rian would appreciate the pun.

He swallowed, and got his voice unlocked. 'You have the advantage of me, ladies.' Though he could make a good guess who they all were, at this point. His gaze swept the circle, and he blinked hard against the vertigo. 'I have only met your Handmaiden.' He nodded toward Rian. On a low table before her the Empress's entire formal regalia was laid out, including the Seal and the false Great Key.

Rian tilted her head in acknowledgment of the reasonableness of his request, and proceeded to go around the circle with a bewildering slug of haut names and titles—yes, here indeed sat the consorts of the eight satrap planets. With Rian the ninth, sitting in for the late Empress. The creative controllers of the haut-genome, of the would-be master race, were all met here in some extraordinary council.

The chamber was clearly set up for just this purpose; such meetings must also occur when the consorts journeyed home to escort the child-ships. Miles particularly focused on the consorts of Prince Slyke, Ilsum Kety, and the Rond. Kety's woman, the Consort of Sigma Ceta, was one of the silver-haired ones, closer to being contemporary with the late Empress than anyone else in the room. Rian introduced her as the haut Nadina. The oat-straw blonde served Prince Slyke of Xi Ceta, and the brown-curled woman was the Consort of Rho Ceta. Miles wondered anew at the significance of their titles, which named them all consorts of their planets, not of the men.

'Lord Vorkosigan,' said the haut Rian. 'I would like you to repeat for the consorts how you say you came into possession of the false Great Key, and all the subsequent events.'

Miles did not blame her in the least for switching strategies from playing all cards close to her chest to calling in reinforcements. It was not before time, in his opinion. But he disliked being taken by surprise. It would have been nice if she'd at least consulted him, first. Yeah? How?

'I take it you understood my message to abort the infiltration of Prince Slyke's ship,' he countered.

'Yes. I expect you will explain why, in due order.'

'Excuse me, milady. I do not mean to insult . . . anyone here. But if one of the consorts is a traitoress, in collusion with her satrap governor, this will pipeline everything we know straight to him. How do you know you are entirely among friends?'

There was enough tension in the room to go with any number of treasons, certainly. Rian raised a hand, as if to stem it. 'He is an outlander. He cannot understand.' She gave him a slow nod. 'There is treason, we believe, yes, but not on this level. Further down.'

'Oh . . . ?'

'We have concluded that even with the bank and Key in his hands, the satrap governor could not run the haut-genome by himself. The haut of his satrap would not cooperate with such a sudden usurpation, the overturning of all custom. He must plan to appoint a new consort, one under his own control. We think she has already been selected.'

'Ah … do you know who?'

'Not yet,' Rian sighed. 'Not yet. She is someone, I fear, who does not wholly understand the goal of haut. It is all of a piece. If we knew which governor, we could guess which haut-woman he has suborned; if we knew which woman . . . well.'

Dammit, this triangulation had to break soon. Miles chewed on his lower lip, then said slowly, 'Milady. Tell me—if you can—something about how your force-bubbles are keyed to their individual operators, and why everyone is so damned convinced they're dead-secure. The keypad on those control panels looks like a palm-lock, but it can't just be a palm-lock; you can get around palm-locks.'

'I cannot give you the technical details, Lord Vorkosigan,' said Rian.

'I don't expect you to. Just the general logic of it.'

'Well . . . they are keyed genetically, of course. One brushes one's hand across the pad, leaving a few skin cells. These are sucked in and scanned.'

'Does it scan your entire genome? Surely that would take a lot of time.'

'No, of course not. It runs through a tree of a dozen or so critical markers that individually identify a haut- woman. Starting with the presence of an X chromosome pair, and going down a branching list until confirmation is achieved.'

'How much chance is there of duplicating the markers in two or more individuals?'

'We do not clone ourselves, Lord Vorkosigan.'

'I mean, just of the dozen factors, just enough to fool the machine.'

'Vanishingly small.'

'Even among closely related members of one's own constellation?'

She hesitated, exchanging a glance with Lady Pel, who raised her brows thoughtfully.