Cetaganda

were intercepted by a quick-moving red-clad guard.

'Sir. Galactic guests may not wander the Celestial Garden unaccompanied.'

Miles opened his palm at the ba servitor.

'My Lady requests and requires this man's attendance. I must take him,' said the ba.

The guard looked unhappy, but gave a short, reluctant nod. 'My superior will speak to yours.'

'I'm sure.' The ba's lips twitched in what Miles swore was a smirk.

The guard grimaced, and stepped away, his hand reaching for his comm link. Go, go! thought Miles as he climbed aboard, but they were already moving. This time, the float-car took a shortcut, rising up over the garden and heading southwest in a straight line. They actually moved fast enough for the breeze to ruffle Miles's hair. In a few minutes, they descended toward the Star Creche, gleaming pale through the trees.

A strange procession of white bubbles was bobbing toward what was obviously a delivery entrance at the back of the building. Five bubbles, one on each side and one above, were . . . herding a sixth, bumping it along toward the high, wide door and into whatever loading bay lay beyond. The bubbles buzzed like angry wasps whenever their force-fields touched. The ba brought its little float-car calmly down into the tail of this parade, and followed the bubbles inside. The door slid closed behind them and sealed with that solid clunk and cacophony of chirps that bespoke high security.

Except for being lined with colored polished stone in geometric inlays instead of gray concrete, the loading bay was utilitarian and normal in design. It was presently empty except for the haut Rian Degtiar, standing in full flowing white robes beside her own float-chair, waiting. Her pale face was tense.

The five herding bubbles settled to the floor and snapped off, revealing five of the consorts Miles had met in the council night before last. The sixth bubble remained stubbornly up, white and solid and impenetrable.

Miles swung out of his cart as it settled to the pavement, and limped hurriedly to Rian's side. 'Is Ivan in there?' he demanded, pointing at the sixth bubble.

'We think so.'

'What's happening?'

'Sh. Wait.' She made a graceful, palm-down gesture; Miles gritted his teeth, jittering inside. Rian stepped forward, her chin rising.

'Surrender and cooperate,' said Rian clearly to the bubble, 'and mercy is possible. Defy us, and it is not.'

The bubble remained defiantly up and blank. Standoff. The bubble had nowhere to go, and could not attack. But she has Ivan in there.

'Very well,' sighed Rian. She pulled a pen-like object from her sleeve, with a screaming-bird pattern engraved in red upon its side, adjusted some control, pointed it at the bubble, and pressed. The bubble winked out, and the float-chair fell to the floor with a reverberant thump, all power dead. A yelp floated from a cloud of white fabric and brown hair.

'I didn't know anyone could do that,' whispered Miles.

'Only the Celestial Lady has the override,' said Rian. She put the control back in her sleeve, and stepped forward again, and stopped.

The haut Vio d'Chilian had recovered her balance instantly. She now half-knelt, one arm under Ivan's black-uniformed arm, supporting his slumping form, the other hand holding a thin knife to his throat. It looked very sharp, as it pressed against his skin. Ivan's eyes were open, dilated, shifting; he was paralyzed, not unconscious, then. And not dead. Thank God.

Yet.

The haut Vio d'Chilian, unless Miles missed his guess, would have no inhibitions whatsoever about cutting a helpless man's throat. He wished ghem-Colonel Benin were here to witness this.

'Move against me,' said the haut Vio, 'and your Barrayaran servitor dies.' Miles supposed the emphasis was intended as a hautish insult. He was not quite sure it succeeded.

Miles paced anxiously to Rian's other side, making an arc around the haut Vio but venturing no closer. The haut Vio followed him with venomous eyes. Now directly behind her, the haut Pel gave Miles a nod; her float-chair rose silently into the air and slipped out a doorway to the Creche. Going for help? For a weapon? Pel was the practical one … he had to buy time.

'Ivan!' Miles said indignantly. 'Ivan's not the man you want!'

The haut Vio's brows drew down. 'What?'

But of course. Lord X always used front men, and women, for his legwork, keeping his own hands clean. Miles had been galloping around doing the legwork; therefore, Lord X must have reasoned that Ivan was really in charge. 'Agh!' Miles cried. 'What did you think? That because he's taller, and, and cuter, he had to be running this show? It's the haut way, isn't it? You—you morons! I'm the brains of this outfit!' He paced the other way, spluttering. 'I had you spotted from Day One, don't you know? But no! Nobody ever takes me seriously!' Ivan's eyes, the only part of him that apparently still worked, widened at this rant. 'So you went and kidnapped the wrong man. You just blew your cover for the sake of grabbing the expendable one!' The haut Pel hadn't gone for help, he decided. She'd gone to the lav to fix her hair, and was going to take forever in there.

Well, he certainly had the undivided attention of everyone in the loading bay, murderess, victim, haut-cops and all. What next, handsprings? 'It's been like this since we were little kids, y'know? Whenever the two of us were together, they'd always talk to him first, like I was some kind of idiot alien who needed an interpreter—' the haut Pel reappeared silently in the doorway, lifted her hand—Miles's voice rose to a shout, 'Well, I'm sick of it, d'you hear?!'

The haut Vio's head twisted in realization just as the haut Pel's stunner buzzed. Vio's hand spasmed on the knife as the stunner beam struck her. Miles pelted forward as a line of red appeared at the blade's edge, and he grabbed for Ivan as she slumped unconscious. The stun nimbus had caught Ivan too, and his eyes rolled back. Miles let the haut Vio hit the floor on her own, as hard as gravity took her. Ivan he lowered gently.

It was only a surface cut. Miles breathed again. He pulled out his pocket handkerchief and dabbed at the sticky trickle of blood, then pressed it against the wound.

He glanced up at the haut Rian, and the haut Pel, who floated over to examine her handiwork. 'She knocked him over with some kind of drug-mist. Stun on top of that—is he in medical danger?'

'I think not,' said Pel. She dismounted from her float-chair, knelt, and rummaged through the unconscious haut Vio's sleeves, and came up with an assortment of objects, which she laid out in a methodical row on the pavement. One was a tiny silvery pointed thing with a bulb on the end. The haut Pel waved it under her lovely nose, sniffing. 'Ah. This is it. No, he's in no danger. It will wear off harmlessly. He'll be very sick when he wakes up, though.'

'Maybe you could give him a dose of synergine?' Miles pleaded.

'We have that available.'

'Good.' He studied the haut Rian.Only the Celestial Lady has the override. But Rian had used it as one entitled, and no one had blinked, not even the haut Vio. Have you grasped this yet, boy? Rian is the acting Empress of Cetaganda, until tomorrow, and every move she's made has been with full, real, Imperial authority. Handmaiden, ha. Another one of those impenetrable, misleading haut titles that didn't say what it meant; you had to be in the know.

Assured of Ivan's eventual recovery, Miles scrambled to his feet and demanded, 'What's happening now? How did you find Ivan? Did you get all the gene banks back, or not? What did you—'

The haut Rian held up a restraining hand, to stem the flood of questions. She nodded to the dead bubble- chair. 'This is the Consort of Sigma Ceta's float-chair, but as you see, the haut Nadina is not with it.'

'Ilsum Kety! Yes? What happened? How'd he diddle the bubble? How'd you detect it? How long have you known?'

'Ilsum Kety, yes. We began to know last night, when the haut Nadina failed to return with her gene bank. All the others were back and safe by midnight. But Kety apparently only knew that his consort would be missed at this morning's ceremonies. So he sent the haut Vio to impersonate her. We suspected at once, and watched