Cetaganda

CHAPTER ONE

"Now is it, 'Diplomacy is the art of war pursued by other men,'" asked Ivan, "or was it the other way around? 'War is diplo—'"

"All diplomacy is a continuation of war by other means," Miles intoned. "Chou En Lai, twentieth century, Earth."

"What are you, a walking reference library?"

"No, but Commodore Tung is. He collects Wise Old Chinese Sayings, and makes me memorize 'em."

"So was old Chou a diplomat, or a warrior?"

Lieutenant Miles Vorkosigan thought it over. "I think he must have been a diplomat."

Miles's seat straps pressed against him as the attitude jets fired, banking the personnel pod in which he and Ivan sat across from each other in lonely splendor. Their two benches lined a short fuselage. Miles craned his neck for a glimpse past the pod pilots shoulder at the planet turning below them.

Eta Ceta IV, the heart and homeworld of the sprawling Cetagandan empire. Miles supposed eight developed planets and an equal fringe of allied and puppet dependencies qualified as a sprawl in any sane person's lexicon. Not that the Cetagandan ghem-lords wouldn't like to sprawl a little farther, at their neighbors' expense, if they could.

Well, it didn't matter how huge they were, they could only put military force through a wormhole jump one ship at a time, just like everybody else.

It was just that some people had some damned big ships.

The colored fringe of night slid around the rim of the planet as the personnel pod continued to match orbits from the Barrayaran Imperial courier vessel they had just left, to the Cetagandan transfer station they were approaching. The nightside glittered appallingly. The continents were awash in a fairy dust of lights. Miles swore he might read by the glow of the civilization, as if from a full moon. His homeworld of Barrayar seemed suddenly a dull vast swatch of rural darkness, with only a few sparks of cities here and there. Eta Ceta's high-tech embroidery was downright . . . gaudy. Yes, overdressed, like a woman weighted down with too much jewelry. Tasteless, he tried to convince himself. I am not some backcountry hick. I can handle this. I am Lord Vorkosigan, an officer and a nobleman.

Of course, so was Lieutenant Lord Ivan Vorpatril, but the fact did not fill Miles with confidence. Miles regarded his big cousin, who was also craning his neck, eyes avid and lips parted, drinking in their destination below. At least Ivan looked the part of a diplomatic officer, tall, dark-haired, neat, an easy smile permanently plastered on his handsome face. His fit form filled his officer's undress greens to perfection. Miles's mind slid, with the greased ease of old bad habit, to invidious comparison.

Miles's own uniforms had to be hand-tailored to fit, and insofar as possible disguise, the massive congenital defects that years of medical treatments had done so much to correct. He was supposed to be grateful, that the medicos had done so much with so little. After a lifetime of it he stood four-foot-nine, hunchbacked and brittle-boned, but it beat being carried around in a bucket. Sure.

But he could stand, and walk, and run if need be, leg braces and all. And Barrayaran Imperial Security didn't pay him to be pretty, thank God, they paid him to be smart. Still, the morbid thought did creep in that he had been sent along on this upcoming circus to stand next to Ivan and make him look good. ImpSec certainly hadn't given him any more interesting missions, unless you could call Security Chief Illyan's last curt "… and stay out of trouble!" a secret assignment.

On the other hand, maybe Ivan had been sent along to stand next to Miles and make him sound good. Miles brightened slightly at the thought.

And there was the orbital transfer station, coming up right on schedule. Not even diplomatic personnel dropped directly into Eta Ceta's atmosphere. It was considered bad etiquette, likely to draw an admonition administered by plasma fire. Most civilized worlds had similar regulations, Miles conceded, if only for purposes of preventing biological contaminations.

"I wonder if the Dowager Empress's death was really natural?" Miles asked idly. Ivan, after all, could hardly be expected to supply the answer. "It was sudden enough."

Ivan shrugged. "She was a generation older than Great Uncle Piotr, and he was old since forever. He used to unnerve the hell out of me when I was a kid. It's a nice paranoid theory, but I don't think so."

"Illyan agrees with you, I'm afraid. Or he wouldn't have let us come. This could have been a lot less dull if it had been the Cetagandan emperor who'd dropped, instead of some tottering little old haut-lady."

"But then we would not be here," Ivan pointed out logically. "We'd both be on duty hunkering down in some defensive outpost right now, while the prince-candidates' factions fought it out. This is better. Travel, wine, women, song—"

"It's a State funeral, Ivan."

"I can hope, can't I?"

"Anyway, we're just supposed to observe. And report. What or why, I don't know. Illyan emphasized he expects the reports in writing."

Ivan groaned. "How I spent my holiday, by little Ivan Vorpatril, age twenty-two. It's like being back in school."

Miles's own twenty-third birthday would be following Ivan's soon. If this tedious duty ran to schedule, he should actually be back home in time for a celebration, for a change. A pleasant thought. Miles's eyes glinted. "Still, it could be fun, embroidering events for Illyan's entertainment. Why should official reports always have to be in that dead dry style?"

"Because they're generated by dead dry brains. My cousin, the frustrated dramatist. Don't get too carried away. Illyan has no sense of humor, it would disqualify him for his job."

"I'm not so sure. . . ." Miles watched as the pod wove through its assigned flight path. The transfer station flowed past, vast as a mountain, complex as a circuit diagram. "It would have been interesting to meet the old lady when she was still alive. She witnessed a lot of history, in a century and a half. If from an odd angle, inside the haut-lords' seraglio."

"Low-life outer barbarians like us would never have been let near her."

"Mm, I suppose not." The pod paused, and a major Cetagandan ship with the markings of one of the out-planet governments ghosted past, on and on, maneuvering its monstrous bulk to dock with exquisite care. "All the haut-lord satrap governors—and their retinues—are supposed to be converging for this. I'll bet Cetagandan imperial security is having fun right now."

"If any two governors come, I suppose the rest have to show up, just to keep an eye on each other." Ivan's brows rose. "Should be quite a show. Ceremony as Art. Hell, the Cetagandans make blowing your nose an art. Just so they can sneer at you if you get the moves wrong. One-upmanship to the nth power."

"It's the one thing that convinces me that the Cetagandan haut-lords are still human, after all that genetic tinkering."

Ivan grimaced. "Mutants on purpose are mutants still." He glanced down at his cousins suddenly stiff form, cleared his throat, and tried to find something interesting to look at out the canopy.

"You're so diplomatic, Ivan," said Miles through a tight smile. "Try not to start a war single . . . mouthed, eh?" Civil or otherwise.

Ivan shrugged off his brief embarrassment. The pod pilot, a Barrayaran tech-sergeant in black fatigues, slid his little ship neatly into its assigned docking pocket. The view outside shrank to blank dimness. Control lights blinked cheery greetings, and servos whined as the flex-tube portals matched and locked. Miles snapped off his seat straps just a shade more slowly than Ivan, pretending disinterest, or savoir faire, or something. No Cetagandan was going to catch him with his nose pressed to the glass like some eager puppy. He was a Vorkosigan. His heart beat faster anyway.

The Barrayaran ambassador would be waiting, to take his two high-ranking guests in hand, and show them, Miles hoped, how to go on. Miles mentally reviewed the correct greetings and salutations, and the carefully memorized personal message from his father. The pod lock cycled, and the hatch on the side of the fuselage to the right of Ivan's seat dilated.

A man hurtled through, swung himself to a sudden halt on the hatch's handlebar, and stared at them with wide eyes, breathing heavily. His lips moved, but whether in curses, prayers, or rehearsals Miles wasn't sure.

He was elderly but not frail, broad-shouldered and at least as tall as Ivan. He wore what Miles guessed was the uniform of a station employee, cool gray and mauve. Fine white hair wisped over his scalp, but he had no facial hair at all on his shiny skin, neither beard nor eyebrows nor even down. His hand flew to his left vest, over his heart.

"Weapon!" Miles yelled in warning. The startled pod pilot was still snaking his way clear of his seat straps, and Miles was physically ill-equipped to jump anyone, but Ivan's reflexes had been honed by plenty of training, if not actual combat. He was already moving, rotating around his own hand-hold point-of-contact and into the intruders path.

Hand-to-hand combat in free fall was always incredibly awkward, due in part to the necessity of having to hang on tightly to anybody one wanted to seriously hit. The two men quickly ended up wrestling. The intruder clutched wildly, not at his vest but at his right trouser pocket, but Ivan managed to knock the glittering nerve disrupter from his hand.

The nerve disruptor tumbled away and whanged off the other side of the cabin, now a random threat to everyone aboard.

Miles had always been terrified of nerve disrupters, but never before as a projectile weapon. It took two more cross-cabin ricochets for him to snatch it out of the air without accidentally shooting himself or Ivan. The weapon was undersized but charged and deadly.

Ivan had meanwhile worked around behind the old man, attempting to pinion his arms. Miles seized the moment to try to nail down the second weapon, dragging open the mauve vest and going for that lump in the inner pocket. His hand came away clutching a short rod that he first took for a shock-stick.

The man screamed and wrenched violently. Greatly startled and not at all sure what he'd just done, Miles launched himself away from the struggling pair and ducked prudently behind the pod pilot. Judging from that mortal yell Miles was afraid he'd just ripped out the power pack to the man's artificial heart or something, but he continued to fight on, so it couldn't have been as fatal as it sounded.

The intruder shook off Ivan's grip and recoiled to the hatchway. There came one of those odd pauses that sometimes occur in close combat, everyone gulping for breath in the rush of adrenaline. The old man stared at Miles with the rod in his fist; his expression altered from fright to—was that grimace a flash of triumph? Surely not. Demented inspiration?

Outnumbered now as the pilot joined the fray, the intruder retreated, tumbling back out the flex tube and thumping to whatever docking bay deck lay beyond. Miles scrambled after Ivan's hot pursuit just in time to see the intruder, now firmly on his feet in the stations artificial gravity field, land Ivan a blow to his chest with a booted foot that knocked the younger man backward into the portal again. By the time Miles and Ivan had disentangled themselves, and Ivan's gasping became less alarmingly disrupted, the old man had vanished at a run. His footsteps echoed confusingly in the bay. Which exit—? The pod pilot, after a quick look to ensure that his passengers were temporarily safe, hurried back inside to answer his comm alarm.

Ivan regained his feet, dusted himself off, and stared around. Miles did too. They were in a small, dingy, dimly lit freight bay.

"Y'know," said Ivan, "if that was the customs inspector, we're in trouble."

"I thought he was about to draw on us," said Miles. "It looked like it."

"You didn't see a weapon before you yelled."

"It wasn't the weapon. It was his eyes. He looked like someone about to try something that scared him to death. And he did draw."

"After we jumped him. Who knows what he was about to do?"

Miles turned slowly on his heel, taking in their surroundings in more detail. There wasn't a human being in sight, Cetagandan, Barrayaran, or other. "There's something very wrong here. Either he wasn't in the right place, or we weren't. This musty dump can't be our docking port, can it? I mean, where's the Barrayaran ambassador? The honor guard?"

"The red carpet, the dancing girls?" Ivan sighed. "You know, if he'd been trying to assassinate you, or hijack the pod, he should have come charging in with that nerve disrupter already in his hand."

"That was no customs inspector. Look at the monitors." Miles pointed. Two vid-pickups mounted strategically on nearby walls were ripped from their moorings, dangling sadly down. "He disabled them before he tried to board. I don't understand. Station security should be swarming in here right now. . . . D'you think he wanted the pod, and not us?"

"You, boy. No one would be after me."

"He seemed more scared of us than we were of him." Miles concealed a deep breath, hoping his heart rate would slow.

"Speak for yourself," said Ivan. "He sure scared me."

"Are you all right?" asked Miles belatedly. "I mean, no broken ribs or anything?"

"Oh, yeah, I'll survive … you?"

"I'm all right."

Ivan glanced down at the nerve disrupter in Miles's right hand, and the rod in his left, and wrinkled his nose. "How'd you end up with all the weapons?"

"I … don't quite know." Miles slipped the little nerve disrupter into his own trouser pocket, and held the mysterious rod up to the light. "I thought at first this was some land of shock-stick, but it's not. It's something electronic, but I sure don't recognize the design."

"A grenade," Ivan suggested. "A time-bomb. They can make them look like anything, y'know."

"I don't think so—"

"My lords," the pod pilot stuck his head through the hatch. "Station flight control is ordering us not to dock here. They're telling us to stand off and wait clearance. Immediately."

"I thought we must be in the wrong place," said Ivan.

"It's the coordinates they gave me, my lord," said the pod pilot a little stiffly.

"Not your error, Sergeant, I'm sure," Miles soothed.

"Flight control sounds very forceful." The sergeant's face was tense. "Please, my lords."

Obediently, Miles and Ivan shuffled back aboard the pod. Miles refastened his seat straps automatically, his mind running on overdrive, trying to construct an explanation for their bizarre welcome to Cetaganda.

"This section of the station must have been deliberately cleared of personnel," he decided aloud. "I'll bet you Betan dollars Cetagandan security is in process of conducting a sweep-search for that fellow. A fugitive, by God." Thief, murderer, spy? The possibilities enticed.

"He was disguised, anyway," said Ivan.

"How do you know?"

Ivan picked a few fine white strands from his green sleeve. "This isn't real hair."

"Really?" said Miles, charmed. He examined the clump of threads Ivan extended across the aisle to him. One end was sticky with adhesive. "Huh."

The pod pilot finished taking up his new assigned coordinates; the pod now floated in space a few hundred meters from the row of docking pockets. There were no other pods locked onto the station for a dozen pockets in either direction. "I'll report this incident to the station authorities, shall I, my lords?" The sergeant reached for his comm controls.

"Wait," said Miles.

"My lord?" The pod pilot regarded him dubiously, over his shoulder. "I think we should—"

"Wait till they ask us. After all, we're not in the business of cleaning up Cetagandan security's lapses after them, are we? It's their problem."

A small grin, immediately suppressed, told Miles the pilot was amenable to this argument. "Yes, sir," he said, making it an order-received, and therefore Miles s lordly officer's responsibility, and not that of a lowly tech-sergeant. "Whatever you say, sir."

"Miles," muttered Ivan, "what do you think you're doing?"

"Observing," said Miles primly. "I'm going to observe and see how good Cetagandan station security is at their job. I think Illyan would want to know, don't you? Oh, they'll be around to question us, and take these goodies back, but this way I can get more information in return. Relax, Ivan."

Ivan settled back, his disturbed air gradually dissipating as the minutes ticked on with no further interruptions to the boredom in the little pod. Miles examined his prizes. The nerve disrupter was of some exceptionally fine Cetagandan civilian make, not military issue, in itself odd; the Cetagandans did not encourage the dispersal of deadly anti-personnel weapons among their general populace. But it did not bear the fancy decorations that would mark it as some ghem-lord's toy. It was plain and functional, of a size meant to be carried concealed.

The short rod was odder still. Embedded in its transparent casing was a violent glitter, looking decorative; Miles was sure microscopic examination would reveal fine dense circuitry. One end of the device was plain, the other covered with a seal which was itself locked in place.

"This looks like it's meant to be inserted in something," he said to Ivan, turning the rod in the light.

"Maybe it's a dildo," Ivan smirked.

Miles snorted. "With the ghem-lords, who can say? But no, I don't think so." The indented seal on the end-cap was in the shape of some clawed and dangerous-looking bird. Deep within the incised figure gleamed metallic lines, the circuit-connections. Somewhere somebody owned the mate, a raised screaming bird-pattern full of complex encodes which would release the cover, revealing . . . what? Another pattern of encodes? A key for a key … It was all extraordinarily elegant. Miles smiled in sheer fascination.

Ivan regarded him uneasily. "You are going to give it back, aren't you?"

"Of course. If they ask for it."

"And if they don't?"

"Keep it for a souvenir, I suppose. It's too pretty to throw away. Maybe I'll take it home as a present to Illyan, let his cipher-laboratory elves play with it as an exercise. For about a year. It's not an amateur's bauble, even I can tell that."

Before Ivan could come up with more objections, Miles undid his green tunic and slipped the device into his own inner breast pocket. Out of sight, out of mind. "Ah—you want to keep this?" He handed the nerve disrupter across to his cousin.

Ivan plainly did. Placated by this division of the spoils, Ivan, a partner in crime now, made the little weapon disappear into his own tunic. The weapon's secret and sinister presence would do nicely, Miles calculated, to keep Ivan distracted and polite all through the upcoming disembarkation.

At last the station traffic control directed them to dock again. They locked onto a pod pocket two up from the one they had been assigned before. This time the door opened without incident. After a slight hesitation, Ivan exited through the flex tube. Miles followed him.

Six men awaited them in a gray chamber almost identical to the first one, if cleaner and better lit. Miles recognized the Barrayaran ambassador immediately. Lord Vorob'yev was a stout solid man of about sixty-standard, sharp-eyed, smiling, and contained. He wore a Vorob'yev House uniform, rather formal for the occasion Miles thought, wine-red with black trim. He was flanked by four guards in Barrayaran undress greens. Two Cetagandan station officials, in mauve and gray garb of similar style but more complex cut than the intruder's, stood slightly apart from the Barrayarans.

Only two stationers? Where were the civil police, Cetagandan military intelligence, or at least some ghem-faction's private agents? Where were the questions, and the questioners Miles had been anticipating dissecting?

Instead, he found himself greeting Ambassador Vorob'yev as if nothing had happened, just as he'd first rehearsed. Vorob'yev was a man of Miles s father's generation, and in fact had been his appointee, back when Count Vorkosigan had still been Regent. Vorob'yev had been holding down this critical post for six years, having retired from his military career to take up Imperial service on the civil side. Miles resisted an urge to salute, and gave the ambassador a formal nod instead.

"Good afternoon, Lord Vorob'yev. My father sends you his personal regards, and these messages."

Miles handed across the sealed diplomatic disk, an act duly noted by a Cetagandan official on his report panel. "Six items of luggage?" the Cetagandan inquiredwith a nod, as the pod pilot finished stacking them on the waiting float pallet, saluted Miles, and returned to his ship.

"Yes, that's all," said Ivan. To Miles's eye, Ivan looked stuffed and shifty, intensely conscious of the contraband in his pocket, but apparently the Cetagandan official could not read his cousin's expression as well as Miles could.

The Cetagandan waved a hand, and the ambassador nodded to his guards; two of them split off to accompany the luggage on its trip through Cetagandan inspection. The Cetagandan re-sealed the docking port, and bore off the float-pallet.

Ivan anxiously watched it go. "Will we get it all back?"

"Eventually. After some delays, if things run true to form," said Vorob'yev easily. "Did you gentlemen have a good trip?"

"Entirely uneventful," said Miles, before Ivan could speak. "Until we got here. Is this a usual docking port for Barrayaran visitors, or were we redirected for some other reason?" He kept one eye on the remaining Cetagandan official, watching for a reaction.

Vorob'yev smiled sourly. "Sending us through the service entrance is just a little game the Cetagandans play with us, to re-affirm our status. You are correct, it is a studied insult, designed to distract our minds. I stopped allowing it to distract me some years ago, and I recommend you do the same."

The Cetagandan displayed no reaction at all. Vorob'yev was treating him with no more regard than a piece of furniture, a compliment he apparently returned by acting like one. It seemed to be a ritual.

"Thank you, sir, I'll take your advice. Uh . . . were you delayed too? We were. They cleared us to dock once and then sent us back out to cool."

"The runaround today seems particularly ornate. Consider yourselves honored, my lords. Come this way, please."

Ivan gave Miles a pleading look as Vorob'yev turned away; Miles shook his head fractionally, Wait. . . .

Led by the expressionless Cetagandan station official and flanked by the embassy guards, the two young men accompanied Vorob'yev up several station levels. The Barrayaran embassy's own planetary shuttle was docked to a genuine passenger lock. It had a proper VIP lounge with its own grav system in the flex tube so nobody had to float. There they shed their Cetagandan escort. Once on board the ambassador seemed to relax a little. He settled Miles and Ivan in luxuriously padded seats arranged around a bolted-down comconsole table. At Vorob'yev's nod a guard offered them drinks of choice while they waited for their luggage and departure clearances. Following Vorob'yev's lead they accepted a Barrayaran wine of a particularly mellow vintage. Miles barely sipped, hoping to keep his head clear, while Ivan and the ambassador made small talk about their trip, and mutual Vorish friends back home. Vorob'yev seemed to be personally acquainted with Ivan's mother. Miles ignored Ivan's occasional raised-brow silent invitation to join the chat, and maybe tell Lord Vorob'yev all about their little adventure with the intruder, yes?

Why hadn't the Cetagandan authorities been all over them just now, asking questions? Miles ran scenarios through his heated brain.

It was a setup, and I've just taken the bait, and they're letting the line play out. Considering what he knew of Cetagandans, Miles placed this possibility at the head of his list.

Or maybe it's just a time lag, and they'll be here momentarily. Or . . . eventually. The fugitive must first be captured, and then made to disgorge his version of the encounter. This could take time, particularly if the man had been, say, stunned unconscious during arrest. If he was a fugitive. If the station authorities had indeed been sweeping the docking area for him. If … Miles studied his crystal cup, and swallowed a mouthful of the smoky ruby liquid, and smiled affably at Ivan.

Their luggage and its guards arrived just as they finished their drinks, experienced timing on Vorob'yev's part, Miles judged. When the ambassador rose to oversee its stowage and their departure, Ivan leaned across the table to whisper urgently to Miles, "Aren't you going to tell him about it?"

"Not yet."

"Why not?"

"Are you in such a hurry to lose that nerve disrupter? The embassy'd take it away from you as fast as the Cetagandans, I bet."

"Screw that. What are you up to?"

"I'm . . . not sure. Yet." This was not the scenario he'd expected to unfold. He'd anticipated bandying sharp exchanges with assorted Cetagandan authorities while they made him disgorge his prizes, and trading for information, consciously or unconsciously revealed. It wasn't his fault the Cetagandans weren't doing their job.

"We've got to at least report this to the embassy's military attache."

"Report it, yes. But not to the attache. Illyan told me that if I had any problems—meaning, of the sort our department concerns itself with—I was to go to Lord Vorreedi. He's listed as a protocol officer, but he's really an ImpSec colonel and chief of ImpSec here."

"The Cetagandans don't know?"

"Of course they know. Just like we know who's really who at the Cetagandan embassy in Vorbarr Sultana. It's a polite legal fiction. Don't worry, I'll see to it." Miles sighed inwardly. He supposed the first thing the colonel would do was cut him out of the information-flow. And he dared not explain why Vorreedi shouldn't.

Ivan sat back, temporarily silenced. Only temporarily, Miles was sure.

Vorob'yev joined them again, settling down and hunting his seat straps. "And that's that, my lords. Nothing taken from your possessions, nothing added. Welcome to Eta Ceta Four. There are no official ceremonies requiring your presence today, but if you're not too tired from your journey, the Marilacan Embassy is hosting an informal reception tonight for the legation community, and all its august visitors. I recommend it to your attention."

"Recommend?" said Miles. When someone with a career as long and distinguished as Vorob'yev's recommended, Miles felt, one attended.

"You'll be seeing a lot of these people over the next two weeks," Vorob'yev said. "It should provide a useful orientation."

"What should we wear?" asked Ivan. Four of the six cases they'd brought were his.

"Undress greens, please," said Vorob'yev. "Clothing is a cultural language everywhere, to be sure, but here it's practically a secret code. It is difficult enough to move among the ghem-lords without committing some defined error, and among the haut-lords it's nearly impossible. Uniforms are always correct, or, if not exactly correct, clearly not the wearer's fault, since he has no choice. I'll have my protocol office give you a list of which uniforms you are to wear at each event."

Miles felt relieved; Ivan looked faintly disappointed.

With the usual muted clinks and clanks and hisses, the flex tubes withdrew and the shuttle unlocked and undocked from the side of the station. No arresting authorities had poured through the hatch, no urgent communications had sent the ambassador hurrying forward. Miles considered his third scenario.

Our intruder got clean away. The Station authorities know nothing of our little encounter. In fact, no one knows.

Except, of course, the intruder. Miles kept his hand down, and did not touch the concealed lump in his tunic. Whatever the device was, that fellow knew Miles had it. And he could surely find out who Miles was. I have a string on you, now. If I let it play out, something must surely climb back up it to my hand, right? This could shape up into a nice little exercise in intelligence/counter-intelligence, better than maneuvers because it was real. No proctor with a list of answers lurked on the fringes recording all his mistakes for later analysis in excruciating detail. A practice-piece. At some stage of development an officer had to stop following orders and start generating them. And Miles wanted that promotion to ImpSec captain, oh yes. Might he somehow persuade Vorreedi to let him play with the puzzle despite his diplomatic duties?

Miles's eyes narrowed with new anticipation as they began their descent into the murky atmosphere of Eta Ceta.