Cetaganda

Rian looked pale and grave. No clue there, Rian always looked pale and grave. A last pang of desire banked itself to a tiny, furtive ember in Miles's heart, secret and encysted like a tumor. But he could still be afraid for her. His chest was cold with that dread.

'Lord Vorkosigan,' Fletchir Giaja's exquisite baritone broke the waiting silence.

Miles suppressed a quick glance around—it wasn't like there were any other Lords Vorkosigan present, after all—stepped forward, and came to a precise parade rest. 'Sir.'

'I am still . . . unclear, just what your place was in these recent events. And how you came by it.'

'My place was to have been a sacrificial animal, and it was chosen for me by Governor Kety, sir. But I didn't play the part he tried to assign to me.'

The Emperor frowned at this less-than-straight-forward reply. 'Explain yourself.'

Miles glanced at Rian. 'Everything?'

She gave an almost imperceptible nod.

Miles closed his eyes in a brief, diffuse prayer to whatever sportive gods were listening, opened them again, and launched once more into the true description of his first encounter with the Ba Lura in the personnel pod, Great Key and all. At least it had the advantage of simultaneously getting in Miles's overdue confession to Vorreedi in a venue where the embassy's chief security officer was totally blocked from making any comment or reply. Amazing man, Vorreedi, he betrayed no emotion beyond one muscle jumping in his jaw.

'As soon as I saw the Ba Lura in the funeral rotunda with its throat cut,' Miles went on, 'I realized my then-unknown opponent had thrown me into the logically impossible position of having to prove a negative. There was no way, once I had been tricked into laying hands on the false key, to prove that Barrayar had not effected a substitution, except by the positive testimony of the one eyewitness then lying dead on the floor. Or by positively locating the real Great Key. Which I set out to do. And if the Ba Lura's death was not a suicide, but rather a murder elaborately set up to pass as a suicide, it was clear someone high in the Celestial Garden's security was cooperating with the Ba's killers, which made approaching Cetagandan Security for help quite dangerous at that point. But then somebody assigned ghem-Colonel Benin to the case, presumably with heavy hints that it would be well for his career to bring in a quick verdict confirming suicide. Somebody who seriously underestimated Benin's abilities,' and ambition, 'as a security officer. Was it ghem- General Naru, by the way?'

Benin nodded, a faint gleam in his eye.

'For . . . whatever reason, Naru decided ghem-Colonel Benin would make a suitable additional goat. It was beginning to be a pattern in their operations, as you must realize if you've collected testimony from Lord Yenaro here—?' Miles raised an inquiring eyebrow at Benin. 'I see you found Lord Yenaro before Kety's agents did. I think I'm glad, in all.'

'You should be,' Benin returned blandly. 'We picked him up—along with his very interesting carpet—last night. His account was critical in shaping my response to your cousin's, um, sudden onslaught of information and demands.'

'I see.' Miles shifted his weight, his parade rest growing rather bent. He rubbed his face, because it didn't seem like the time or place to rub his crotch.

'Does your medical condition require you to sit?' Benin inquired solicitously.

'I'll manage.' Miles took a breath. 'I tried, in our first interview, to direct ghem-Colonel Benin's attentions to the subtleties of his situation. Fortunately, ghem-Colonel Benin is a subtle man, and his loyalty to you,' or to the truth, 'outweighed whatever implied threats to his career Naru presented.'

Benin and Miles exchanged guarded, appreciative nods.

'Kety tried to deliver me into the hands of the Star Creche, accused by means of Ba Lura's false confession to the Handmaiden,' Miles continued carefully. 'But once again his pawns ad libbed against his script. I entirely commend the haut Rian for her cool and collected response to this emergency. The fact that she kept her head and did not panic allowed me to continue to try to clear Barrayar of blame. She is, um, a credit to the haut, you know.' Miles regarded her anxiously for a cue. Where are we? But she remained as glassily attentive as if that now-absent force-bubble had become one with her skin. 'The haut Rian acted throughout for the good of the haut, never once for her own personal aggrandizement or safety.' Though one might argue, apparently, over where the good of the haut actually lay. 'Your late August Mother chose her Handmaiden well, I'd say.'

'That is hardly for you to judge, Barrayaran,' drawled the haut Fletchir Giaja, whether in amusement, or dangerously, Miles's ear could not quite tell.

'Excuse me, but I didn't exactly volunteer for this mission. I was suckered into it. My judgments have brought us all here, one way or another.'

Giaja looked faintly surprised, even a little nonplussed, as if he'd never before had one of his gentle hints thrown back in his face. Benin stiffened, and Vorreedi winced. Ivan suppressed a grin, the merest twitch, and continued his Invisible Man routine.

The emperor took another tack. 'And how did you come to be involved with Lord Yenaro?'

'Um . . . from my point of view, you mean?' Presumably Benin had already presented him with Yenaro's own testimony; a cross-check was in order, to be sure. In carefully neutral phrasing, Miles described his and Ivan's three encounters with Yenaro s increasingly lethal practical jokes, with a lot of emphasis on Miles's clever (once proved) theories about Lord X. Vorreedi's face drained to an interesting greenish cast upon Miles's description of the go-round with the carpet. Miles added cautiously, 'In my opinion, certainly proved by the incident with the asterzine bomb, Lord Yenaro was as much an intended victim as Ivan and myself. There is no treason in the man.' Miles cut off a slice of smile. 'He hasn't the nerve for it.'

Yenaro twitched, but did not gainsay any of it. Yeah, slather on the suggestion of Imperial mercy due all 'round, maybe some would slop over on the one who needed it most.

At Benin's direction, Yenaro, in a colorless voice, confirmed Miles's account. Benin called in a guard and had the ghem-lord taken out, leaving eight in this chamber of Imperial inquisition. Would they work their way down to one?

Giaja sat silent for a time, then spoke, in formally modulated cadences. 'That suffices for my appraisal of the concerns of the Empire. We must now turn to the concerns of haut. Haut Rian, you may keep your Barrayaran creature. Ghem-Colonel Benin. Will you kindly wait in the antechamber with Colonel Vorreedi and Lord Vorpatril until I call you.'

'Sire.' Benin saluted his way out, shepherding the reluctant Barrayarans.

Obscurely alarmed, Miles put in, 'But don't you want Ivan too, Celestial Lord? He witnessed almost everything with me.'

'No,' stated Giaja flatly.

That settled that. Well . . . until Miles and Ivan were out of the Celestial Garden, indeed, out of the Empire and halfway home, they wouldn't be any safer anyway. Miles subsided with a faint sigh; then his eyes widened at the abrupt change in the room's atmosphere.

Feminine gazes, formerly suitably downcast, rose in direct stares. Without awaiting permission, the three float-chairs arranged themselves in a circle around Fletchir Giaja, who himself sat back with a face suddenly more expressive; dryer, edgier, angrier. The glassy reserve of the haut vanished in a new intensity. Miles swayed on his feet.

Pel glanced aside at the motion. 'Give him a chair, Fletchir,' she said. 'Kety's guard shock-sticked him in the best regulation form, you know.'

In her place, yes.

'As you wish, Pel.' The Emperor touched a control in his chair-arm; a station chair near Miles's feet rose from the floor. He fell more than sat in it, grateful and dizzy, on the edge of their circle.

'I hope you all see now,' said the haut Fletchir Giaja more forcefully, 'the wisdom of our ancestors in arranging that the haut and the Empire shall have only one interface. Me. Only one veto. Mine. Issues of the haut- genomemust remain as insulated as possible from the political sphere, lest they fall into the hands of politicians who do not understand the goal of haut. That includes most of our gentle ghem-lords, as ghem-General Naru has perhaps proved to you, Nadina.' A flash of subtle, savage irony there—Miles suddenly doubted his initial perception of gender issues on Eta Ceta. What if Fletchir Giaja was haut first, and male second,