Cetaganda

her.'

'Why Ivan?'

'That, I do not know yet. Kety cannot make a consort disappear without great repercussions; I suspect he meant to use your cousin to divest himself of guilt somehow.'

'Another frame, yes, that would fit his modus operandi. You realize, the haut Vio . . . must have murdered the Ba Lura. At Kety's direction.'

'Yes.' Rian's eyes, falling on the prostrate form of the brown-haired woman, were very cold. 'She too is a traitor to the haut. That will make her the business of the Star Creches own justice.'

Miles said uneasily, 'She could be an important witness, to clear Barrayar and me of blame in the disappearance of the Great Key. Don't, um … do anything premature, till we know if that's needed, huh?'

'Oh, we have many questions for her, first.'

'So . . . Kety still has his bank. And the Key. And a warning.' Damn. Whose idiot idea had it been . . . ? Oh. Yes. But you can't blame Ivan for this one. Youthought recalling the gene banks was a great move. And Rian bought it too. Idiocy by committee, the finest kind. 'And he has his consort, whom he knows he cannot let live. Assuming she still lives now. I did not think … I would be sending the haut Nadina to her death.' The haut Rian stared at the far wall, avoiding both Miles's and Pel's eyes.

Neither did I. Miles swallowed sickness. 'He can bury her in the chaos of his revolt, once it gets going. But he can't start his revolt yet.' He paused. 'But if, in order to arrange her death in some artistic way that incriminates Barrayar, he needs Ivan … I don't think she'll be dead yet. Saved, held prisoner on his ship, yes. Not dead yet.' Please, not dead yet. 'We know one other thing, too. The haut Nadina is successfully concealing information from him, or even actively misleading him. Or he wouldn't have tried what he just tried.' Actually, that could also be construed as convincing evidence that the haut Nadina was dead. Miles bit his lip. 'But now Kety's made enough overt moves to incriminate himself, for charges to stick to him and not to me, yes?'

Rian hesitated. 'Maybe. He is clearly very clever.'

Miles stared at the inert float-chair, sitting slightly canted, and looking quite ordinary without its magical electronic nimbus. 'So are we. Those float-chairs. Somebody here must security-key them to their operators in the first place, right? Would I be making too silly a wild-ass guess if I suggested that person was the Celestial Lady?'

'That is correct, Lord Vorkosigan.'

'So you have the override, and could encode this to anybody.'

'Not to anybody. Only to any haut-woman.'

'Ilsum Kety is expecting the return of this haut-bubble, after the ceremonies, with a haut-woman and a Barrayaran prisoner, yes?' He took a deep breath. 'I think … we should not disappoint him.'

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

'I found Ivan, sir.' Miles smiled into the comconsole. The background beyond Ambassador Vorob'yev's head was blurred, but the sounds of the buffet winding down—subdued voices, the clink of plates—carried clearly over the comm. 'He's getting a tour of the Star Creche. We'll be here a while yet—can't insult our hostess and all that. But I should be able to extract him and catch up with you before the party's over. One of the ba will bring us back.'

Vorob'yev looked anything but happy at this news. 'Well. I suppose it will have to do. But Colonel Vorreedi does not care for these spontaneous additions to the planned itinerary, regardless of the cultural opportunity, and I must say I'm beginning to agree with him. Don't, ah … don't let Lord Vorpatril do anything inappropriate, eh? The haut are not the ghem, you know.'

'Yes, sir. Ivan's doing just fine. Never better.' Ivan was still out cold, back in the freight bay, but the returning color to his face had suggested the synergine was starting to work.

'Just how did he obtain this extraordinary privilege, anyway?' asked Vorob'yev.

'Oh, well, you know Ivan. Couldn't let me score a coup he couldn't match. I'll explain it all later. Must go now.'

'I'll be fascinated to hear it,' the ambassador murmured dryly. Miles cut the comm before his smile fractured and fell off his face.

'Whew. That buys us a little time. A very little time. We need to move.'

'Yes,' agreed his escort, the brown-haired Rho Cetan lady. She turned her float-chair and led him out of the side-office containing the comconsole; he had to trot to keep up.

They returned to the freight bay just as Rian and the haut Pel finished re-coding the haut Nadina's bubble- chair. Miles spared an anxious glance for Ivan, laid out on the tessellated pavement. He seemed to be breathing deeply and normally.

'I'm ready,' Miles reported to Rian. 'My people won't come looking for us for at least an hour. If Ivan wakes up … well, you should have no trouble keeping him under control.' He licked lips gone dry. 'If things go wrong … go to ghem-Colonel Benin. Or to your Emperor himself. No Imperial Security middlemen. Everything about this, especially the ways Governor Kety has been able to diddle what everyone fondly believed were diddle-proof systems, is screaming to me that he's suborned a connection high up, probably very high up, in your own security who's giving him serious aid and comfort. Being rescued by him could be a fatal experience, I suspect.'

'I understand,' said Rian gravely. 'And I agree with your analysis. The Ba Lura would not have taken the Great Key to Kety for duplication in the first place if it had not been convinced that he was capable of carrying out the task.' She straightened from the float-chair arm, and nodded to the haut Pel.

The haut Pel had filled her sleeves with most of the little items she had taken from the haut Vio. She nodded back, straightened her robes, and gracefully settled herself aboard. The little items did not, alas, include energy weapons, the power packs of which would set off security scanners. Not even a stunner, Miles thought with morbid regret. I'm going into orbital battle wearing dress blacks and riding boots, and I'm totally disarmed. Wonderful. He took his place again at Pel's left side, perched on the cushioned armrest, trying not to feel like the ventriloquist's dummy that he glumly fancied he resembled. The bubble's force-screen enclosed them, and Rian stood back, and nodded. Pel, her right hand on the control panel, spun the bubble, and they floated quickly toward the exit, which dilated to let them pass; two other consorts exited simultaneously, and sped off in other directions.

Miles felt a brief pang in his heart that Pel and not Rian was his companion in arms. In his heart, but not in his head. It was essential not to place Rian, the most creditable witness of Kety's treason, in Kety's power. And … he liked Pel's style. She had already demonstrated her ability to think fast and clearly in an emergency. He still wasn't sure that drop over the side of the building night before last hadn't been for her amusement, rather than for secrecy. A haut-woman with a sense of humor, almost . . . too bad she was eighty years old, and a consort, and Cetagandan, and . . . Give it up, will you? Ivan you aren't nor ever will be. But one way or another, Governor the haut Ilsum Kety's treason is not going to last the day.

They joined Kety's party as it was making ready to depart at the south gate of the Celestial Garden. The haut Vio would have been sent to collect Ivan at the last possible moment, to be sure. Kety's train was large, as befit his governor's dignity: a couple of dozen ghem-guards, plus ghem-ladies, non-ba servitors in his personal livery, and rather to Miles's dismay, ghem-General Chilian. Was Chilian in on his master's treason, or was he due to be dumped along with the haut Nadina on the way home, and replaced with Kety's own appointee? He had to be one or the other; the commander of Imperial troops on Sigma Ceta could hardly be expected to stay neutral in the upcoming coup.

Kety himself gestured the haut Vio's bubble into his own vehicle for the short ride to the Imperial shuttleport, the exclusive venue for all such high official arrivals to and departures from the Celestial Garden.