Cetaganda

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Miles had not entered the sacred confines of the Barrayaran embassy's ImpSec offices before, having stayed discreetly upstairs in the diplomatic corps' plusher territory. As he'd posited, it was on the second lowest basement level. A uniformed corporal ushered him past security scanners and into Colonel Vorreedi's office.

It was not as austere as Miles expected, being decorated all about with small examples of Cetagandan art objects, though the powered sculptures were all turned off this morning. Some might be mementos, but the rest suggested the so-called protocol officer was a collector of excellent taste, if limited means.

The man himself was seated at a desk cleared in utilitarian bareness. Vorreedi was dressed as usual in the underlayers and robes of a middle-ranking ghem-lord of painfully sober preferences, subdued blues and grays. Except for the lack of face paint, in a crowd of ghem Vorreedi would practically disappear, though behind a Barrayaran ImpSec comconsole desk the effect of the ensemble was a little startling.

Miles moistened his lips. "Good morning, sir. Ambassador Vorob'yev told me you wanted to see me."

"Yes, thank you, Lord Vorkosigan." Vorreedi's nod dismissed the corporal, who withdrew silently. The doors slid shut behind him with a heavy sealing sound. "Do sit down."

Miles slipped into the station chair across the desk from Vorreedi, and smiled in what he hoped seemed innocent good cheer. Vorreedi looked across at Miles with keen, undivided attention. Not good. Vorreedi was second in authority here only to Ambassador Vorob'yev, and like Vorob'yev, had been chosen as a top man for one of the most critical posts in the Barrayaran diplomatic corps. One might count on Vorreedi to be a very busy man, but never a stupid one. Miles wondered if Vorreedi's meditations this past night had been one half so busy as his own. Miles braced himself for an Illyanesque opening shot, such as What the hell are you up to, Vorkosigan, trying to start a damned war single-handed?!

Instead, Colonel Vorreedi favored him with a long, thoughtful stare, before observing mildly, "Lieutenant Lord Vorkosigan. You are an ImpSec courier officer, by assignment."

"Yes, sir. When I am on duty."

"An interesting breed of men. Utterly reliable and loyal. They go here, go there, deliver whatever is asked of them without question or comment. Or failure, short of intervention by death itself."

"It's not usually that dramatic. We spend a lot of time riding around in jumpships. One catches up on one's reading."

"Mm. And to a man, these glorified mailmen report to Commodore Boothe, head of ImpSec Communications, Komarr. With one exception." Vorreedi's gaze intensified. "You are listed as reporting directly to Simon Illyan himself. Who reports to Emperor Gregor. The only other person I know of offhand in a chain of command that short is the Chief of Staff of the Imperial Service. It's an interesting anomaly. How do you explain it?"

"How do I explain it?" Miles echoed, temporizing. He thought briefly of replying, I never explain anything, except that was both 1) already evident and 2) clearly not the answer Vorreedi was looking for. "Why . . . every once in a while Emperor Gregor needs a personal errand run for himself or his household which is too trivial, or too inappropriate, to assign to working military personnel. Perhaps he wants, say, an ornamental breadfruit bush brought from the planet Pol to be planted in the garden of the Imperial Residence. They send me."

"That's a good explanation," Vorreedi agreed blandly. There was a short silence. "And do you have an equally good story for how you acquired this pleasant job?"

"Nepotism, obviously. Since I am clearly," Miles's smile thinned, "physically unfit for normal duties, this post was manufactured for me by my family connections."

"Hm." Vorreedi sat back, and rubbed his chin. "Now," he said distantly, "if you were a covert ops agent here on a mission from God," meaning Simon Illyan—same thing, from the ImpSec point of view, "you should have arrived with some sort of Render all due assistance order. Then a poor ImpSec local man might know where he stood with you."

If I don't get this man under control, he can and will nail my boots to the floor of the embassy, and Lord X will have no impediment at all to his baroque bid for chaos and empire. "Yes, sir," Miles took a breath, "and so would anyone else who saw it."

Vorreedi glanced up, startled. "Does ImpSec Command suspect a leak in my communications?"

"Not as far as I know. But as a lowly courier, I can't ask questions, can I?"

By the slight widening of his eyes, Vorreedi caught the joke. A subtle man indeed. "From the moment you set foot on Eta Ceta, Lord Vorkosigan, I have not noticed you stop asking questions."

"A personal failing."

"And … do you have any supporting evidence for your explanation of yourself?"

"Certainly." Miles stared thoughtfully into the air, as if about to pull his words from the thinnest part. "Consider, sir. All other ImpSec courier officers have an implanted allergy to fast-penta. It renders them interrogation-proof to illicit questioners, at fatal cost. Due to my rank and relations, that was judged too dangerous a procedure to do to me. Therefore, I am qualified for only the lowest-security sort of missions. It's all nepotism."

"Very . . . convincing."

"It wouldn't be much good if it weren't, sir."

"True." Another long pause. "Is there anything else you'd like to tell me—Lieutenant?"

"When I return to Barrayar, I will be giving a complete report of my m—excursion to Simon Illyan. I'm afraid you'll have to apply to him. It is definitely not within my authority to try and guess what he will wish to tell you."

There, whew. He'd told no lies at all, technically, even by implication. Yeah. Be sure and point that out when they play a transcript of this conversation at your future court-martial. But if Vorreedi chose to construe that Miles was a covert ops agent working on the highest levels and in utmost secrecy, it was no less than perfectly true. The fact that his mission here was spontaneously self-appointed and not assigned from above was . . . another order of problem altogether.

"I … could add a philosophical observation."

"Please do, my lord."

"You don't hire a genius to solve the most intractable imaginable problem, and then hedge him around with a lot of rules, nor try to micro-manage him from two weeks' distance. You turn him loose. If all you need is somebody to follow orders, you can hire an idiot. In fact, an idiot would be better suited."

Vorreedi's fingers drummed lightly on his comconsole desk. Miles felt the man might have tackled an intractable problem or two himself, in his past. Vorreedi's brows rose. "And do you consider yourself a genius, Lord Vorkosigan?" he asked softly. Vorreedi's tone of voice made Miles's skin crawl, it reminded him so much of his father's when Count Vorkosigan was about to spring some major verbal trap.

"My intelligence evaluations are in my personnel file, sir."

"I've read it. That's why we're having this conversation." Vorreedi blinked, slowly, like a lizard. "No rules at all?"

"Well, one rule, maybe. Deliver success or pay with your ass."

"You have held your current post for almost three years, I see, Lieutenant Vorkosigan. . . .Your ass is still intact, is it?"

"Last time I checked, sir." For the next five days, maybe.

"This suggests astonishing authority and autonomy."

"No authority at all. Just responsibility."

"Oh, dear." Vorreedi pursed his lips very thoughtfully indeed. "You have my sympathy, Lord Vorkosigan."

"Thank you, sir. I need it." Into the all-too-meditative silence that followed Miles added, "Do we know if Lord Yenaro survived the night?"

"He disappeared, so we think he has. He was last seen leaving the Moon Garden Hall with a roll of carpet over his shoulder." Vorreedi cocked an inquiring eye at Miles. "I have no explanation for the carpet."

Miles ignored the broad hint, responding instead with, "Are you so sure that disappearance equates with his survival? What about his stalker?"

"Hm." Vorreedi smiled. "Shortly after we left him he was picked up by the Cetagandan Civil Police, who still have him in close custody."

"They did this on their own?"

"Let's say they received an anonymous tip. It seemed the socially responsible thing to do. But I must say, the Civils responded to it with admirable efficiency. He appears to be of interest to them for some previous work."

"Did he have time to report in to his employers, before he was canned?"

"No."

So, Lord X was in an information vacuum this morning. He wouldn't like that one bit. The misfire of yesterday's plot must make him frantically frustrated. He wouldn't know what had gone wrong, or if Yenaro had realized his intended fate, though Yenaro's disappearance and subsequent non-communication would surely be a fat clue. Yenaro was now as loose a cannon as Miles and Ivan. Which of them would be first on Lord X's hit list after this? Would Yenaro go seeking protection to some authority, or would the rumor of treason frighten him off?

And what method could Lord X come up with for disposing of the Barrayaran envoys one-half so baroque and perfect as Yenaro had been? Yenaro was a masterpiece, as far as the art of assassination went, beautifully choreographed in three movements and a crescendo. Now all that elaborate effort was wasted. Lord X would be as livid at the spoiling of his lovely pattern as at the failure of his plot, Miles swore. And he was an anxious impatient artist who couldn't leave well enough alone, who had to add those clever little touches. The kind of person who, as a child given his first garden, would dig up the seeds to see if they'd sprouted yet. (Miles felt a tiny twinge of sympathy for Lord X.) Yes, indeed, Lord X, playing for great stakes and losing both time and his inhibitions, was now well and classically primed to make a major mistake.

Why am I not so sure that's such a great idea?

"More to add, Lord Vorkosigan?" said Vorreedi.

"Hm? No. Just, uh, thinking." Besides, it would only upset you.

"I would request, as the embassy officer ultimately responsible for your personal safety as an official envoy, that you and Lord Vorpatril end your social contacts with a man who is apparently involved in a lethal Cetagandan vendetta."

"Yenaro is of no further interest to me. I wish him no harm. My real priority is in identifying the man who supplied him with that fountain."

Vorreedi's brows rose in mild reproach. "You might have said so earlier."

"Hindsight," said Miles, "is always better."

"That's for damned sure," sighed Vorreedi, in a voice of experience. He scratched his nose, and sat back. "There is another reason I called you here this morning, Lord Vorkosigan. Ghem-Colonel Benin has requested a second interview with you."

"Has he? Same as before?" Miles kept his voice from squeaking.

"Not quite. He specifically requested to speak with both you and Lord Vorpatril. In fact, he's on his way now. But you can refuse the interview if you wish."

"No, that's . . . that's fine. In fact, I'd like to talk to Benin again. I, ah … shall I go fetch Ivan, then, sir?" Miles rose to his feet. Bad, bad idea to let the two suspects consult before the interrogation, but then, this wasn't Vorreedi's case. How fully had Miles convinced the man of his secret clout?

"Go ahead," said Vorreedi affably. "Though I must say . . ."

Miles paused.

"I do not see how Lord Vorpatril fits into this. He's no courier officer. And his records are as transparent as glass."

"A lot of people are baffled by Ivan, sir. But … sometimes, even a genius needs someone who can follow orders."

Miles tried not to scamper, hustling down the corridor to Ivan's quarters. The luxury of privacy their status had bought them was about to come to a screeching halt, he suspected. If Vorreedi didn't turn on the bugs in both their rooms after this, the man either had supernatural self-control or was brain dead. And the protocol officer was the voraciously curious type; it went with his job.

Ivan unlocked his door with a drawl of "Enter," at Miles's impatient knock. Miles found his cousin sitting up in bed, half-dressed in green trousers and cream shirt, leafing through a pile of hand-calligraphed colored papers with an abstracted and not particularly happy air.

"Ivan. Get up. Get dressed. We're about to have an interview with Colonel Vorreedi and ghem-Colonel Benin."

"Confession at last, thank God!" Ivan tossed the papers up in the air and fell backward on his bed with a woof of relief.

"No. Not exactly. But I need you to let me do most of the talking, and confirm whatever I assert."

"Oh, damn." Ivan frowned up at the ceiling. "What now? "

"Benin has to have been investigating Ba Lura's movements, the day before its death. I'm guessing he's traced the Ba to our little encounter at the pod dock. I don't want to screw up his investigation. In fact, I want it to succeed, at least as far as identifying the

Ba's murderer. So he needs as many real facts as possible."

"Real facts. As opposed to what other kind of facts?"

"We absolutely can't bring up any mention of the Great Key, or the haut Rian. I figure we can tell events exactly as they happened, just leave out that one tiny detail."

"You figure, do you? You must be using a different kind of math than the rest of the universe does. Do you realize how pissed Vorreedi and the Ambassador are going to be about our concealing that little incident?"

"I've got Vorreedi under control, temporarily. He thinks I'm on a mission from Simon Illyan."

"That means you aren't. I knew it!" Ivan groaned, and pulled a pillow over his face, and squashed it tight.

Miles pulled it out of his grasp. "I am now. Or I would be, if Illyan knew what I know. Bring that nerve disrupter. But don't pull it out unless I tell you to."

"I am not shooting your commanding officer for you."

"You're not shooting anybody. And anyway, Vorreedi's not my commander." That could be an important legal point, later. "I may want it for evidence. But not unless the subject comes up. We volunteer nothing."

"Never volunteer, yes, that's the ticket! You're catching on at last, coz!"

"Shut up. Get up." Miles threw Ivan's undress uniform jacket across his prostrate form. "This is important! But you have to stay absolutely cool. I may be completely off-base, and panicking prematurely."

"I don't think so. I think you're panicking post-maturely. In fact, if you were panicking any later it would be practically posthumously. I've been panicking for days."

Miles tossed Ivan his half-boots, with ruthless finality. Ivan shook his head, sat up, and began pulling them on.

"Do you remember," Ivan sighed, "that time in the back garden at Vorkosigan House, when you'd been reading all those military histories about the Cetagandan prison camps during the invasion, and you decided we had to dig an escape tunnel? Except it was you who did all the designing, and me and Elena who did all the digging?"

"We were about eight," said Miles defensively. "The medics were still working on my bones. I was still pretty friable then."

"—and the tunnel collapsed on me?" Ivan went on dreamily. "And I was under there for hours?"

"It wasn't hours. It was minutes. Sergeant Bothari had you out of there in practically no time."

"It seemed like hours to me. I can still taste the dirt. It got stuffed up my nose, too." Ivan rubbed his nose in memory. "Mother would still be having the fit, if Aunt Cordelia hadn't sat on her."

"We were stupid little kids. What has this got to do with anything?"

"Nothing, I suppose. I just woke up thinking about it, this morning." Ivan stood up, fastened his tunic, and pulled it straight. "I never believed I'd miss Sergeant Bothari, but I think I do now. Who's going to dig me out this time?"

Miles wanted to snap out a sharp rejoinder, but shivered instead. I miss Bothari too. He had almost forgotten how much, till Ivan's words hit the scar of his regret, that secret little pocket of anguish that never seemed to drain. Major mistakes . . . Dammit, a man walking a tight-wire didn't need someone shouting from the sidelines how far down the drop was, or what lousy balance he had. It wasn't like he didn't know; but what he most needed was to forget. Even a momentary loss of concentration—of self-confidence—of forward momentum, could be fatal. "Do me a favor, Ivan. Don't try to think. You'll hurt yourself. Just follow orders, huh?"

I van bared his teeth in a non-smile, and followed Miles out the door.

They met with ghem-Colonel Benin in the same little conference room as before, but this time, Vorreedi rode shotgun personally, dispensing with the guard. The two colonels were just finishing the amenities and sitting down as Miles and Ivan entered, by which sign Miles hoped they'd had less time to compare notes than he and Ivan'd had. Benin was dressed again in his formal red uniform and lurid face paint, freshly and perfectly applied. By the time they'd all finished going through the polite greetings once more, and everyone was reseated, Miles had his breathing and heartbeat under control. Ivan concealed his nerves in an expression of blank benevolence that made him look, in Miles's opinion, remarkably sappy.

"Lord Vorkosigan," ghem-Colonel Benin began. "I understand you work as a courier officer."

"When I'm on duty." Miles decided to repeat the party line for Benin's benefit. "It's an honorable task, that's not too physically demanding for me."

"And do you like your duties?"

Miles shrugged. "I like the travel. And, ah … it gets me out of the way, an advantage that cuts two ways. You know about Barrayar's backward attitude to mutations." Miles thought of Yenaro s longing for a post. "And it gives me an official position, makes me somebody"

"I can understand that, " conceded Benin.

Yeah, I thought you would.

"But you're not on courier duty now?"

"Not this trip. We were to give our diplomatic duties our undivided attention, and, it was hoped, maybe acquire a little polish."

"And Lord Vorpatril here is assigned to Operations, is that right?"

"Desk work," Ivan sighed. "I keep hoping for ship duty."

Not really true, Miles reflected; Ivan adored being assigned to HQ at the capital, where he kept up his own apartment and a social life that was the envy of his brother-officers. Ivan just wished his mother Lady Vorpatril might be assigned ship duty, someplace far away.

"Hm." Benin's hands twitched, as if in memory of sorting stacks of plastic flimsies. He drew breath, and looked Miles straight in the eyes. "So, Lord Vorkosigan—the funeral rotunda was not the first time you saw the Ba Lura, was it?"

Benin was trying for the rattling unexpected straight shot, to unnerve his quarry. "Correct," Miles answered, with a smile.

Expecting denial, Benin already had his mouth open for the second strike, probably the presentation of some telling piece of evidence that would give the Barrayaran the lie. He had to close it again, and start over. "If … if you wished to keep it a secret, why did you as much as flat tell me to look where I would be sure to find you? And," his tone sharpened with baffled annoyance, "if you didn't want to keep it a secret, why didn't you tell me about it in the first place?"

"It provided an interesting test of your competence. I wanted to know if it would be worth my while to persuade you to share your results. Believe me, my first encounter with the Ba Lura is as much a mystery to me as I'm sure it is to you."

Even from beneath the gaudy face paint, the look Benin gave Miles reminded him forcibly of the look he got all too often from superiors. He even capitalized it in his mind, The Look. In a weird backhanded way, it made him feel quite comfortable with Benin. His smile became slightly cheerier.

"And . . . how did you encounter the Ba?" said Benin.

"What do you know so far?" 'Miles countered. Benin would, of course, keep something back, to cross-check Miles s story. That was quite all right, as Miles proposed to tell almost the whole truth, next.

"Ba Lura was at the transfer station the day you arrived. He left the station at least twice. Once, apparently, from a pod docking bay in which the security monitors were deactivated and unchecked for a period of forty minutes. The same bay and the same period in which you arrived, Lord Vorkosigan."

"Our first arrival, you mean."

"… Yes."

Vorreedi's eyes were widening and his lips were thinning. Miles ignored him, for now, though Ivan's gaze cautiously shifted to check him out.

"Deactivated? Torn out of the wall, I'd call it. Very well, ghem-Colonel. But tell me—was our encounter in the pod dock the first or second time the Ba appeared to leave the station?"

"Second," Benin said, watching him closely.

"Can you prove that?"

"Yes."

"Good. It may be very important later that you can prove that." Ha, Benin wasn't the only one who could cross-check the truth of this conversation. Benin, for whatever reason, was being straight with him so far. Turn and turnabout. "Well, this is what happened from our point of view—"

In a flat voice, and with plenty of corroborative physical details, Miles described their confusing clash with the Ba. The only item he changed was to report the Ba reaching for its trouser pocket before he'd yelled his warning. He brought the tale up to the moment of Ivan's heroic struggle and his own retrieval of the loose nerve disrupter, and bounced it over to Ivan to finish. Ivan gave him a dirty look, but, taking his tone from Miles, offered a brief factual description of the Ba's subsequent escape.

Since it lacked face paint, Miles could watch Vorreedi's face darken, out of the corner of his eye. The man was too cool and controlled to actually turn purple or anything, but Miles bet a blood pressure monitor would be beeping in plaintive alarm right now.

"And why did you not report this at our first meeting, Lord Vorkosigan?" Benin asked again, after a long, digestive pause.

"I might," said Vorreedi in a slightly suffused voice, "ask you the same question, Lieutenant." Benin shot Vorreedi a raised-brow look, almost putting his face paint in danger of smudging.

Lieutenant, not my lord; Miles took the point. "The pod pilot reported to his captain, who will have reported to his commander." To wit, Illyan; in fact, the report, slogging through normal channels, should be reaching Illyan's desk right about now. Three days more for an emergency query to arrive on Vorreedi's desk from home, six more days for a reply and return-reply. It would all be over before Illyan could do a damned thing, now. "However, on my authority as senior envoy, I suppressed the incident for diplomatic reasons. We were sent with specific instructions to maintain a low profile and behave with maximum courtesy. My government considered this solemn occasion an important opportunity to send a message that we would be glad to see more normal trade and other relations, and an easing of tensions along our mutual borders. I did not judge that it would do anything helpful for our mutual tensions to open our visit with charges of an unmotivated armed attack by an Imperial slave upon the Barrayaran special representatives."

The implied threat was obvious enough; despite Benin's face paint, Miles could tell that one had hit home. Even Vorreedi looked like he might be giving the pitch serious consideration.

"Can you . . . prove your assertions, Lord Vorkosigan?" asked Benin cautiously.

"We still have the captured nerve disruptor. Ivan?" Miles nodded to his cousin.

Gently, using only his fingertips, Ivan drew the weapon from his pocket and laid it gingerly on the table, and returned his hands demurely to his lap. He avoided Vorreedi's outraged eye. Vorreedi and Benin reached simultaneously for the nerve disruptor, and simultaneously stopped, frowning at each other.

"Excuse me," said Vorreedi. "I had not seen this before."

"Really?" said Benin. How extraordinary, his tone implied. "Go ahead." His hand dropped politely.

Vorreedi picked up the weapon and examined it closely, among other things checking to see that the safety lock was indeed engaged, before handing it equally politely to Benin.

"I'd be glad to return the weapon to you, ghem-Colonel," Miles went on, "in exchange for whatever information you are able to deduce from it. If it can be traced back to the Celestial Garden, that's not much help, but if it was something the Ba acquired en route, well … it might be revealing. This is a check that you can make more easily than I can." Miles paused, then added, "Who did the Ba visit from the station the first time?"

Benin glanced up from his close contemplation of the nerve disruptor. "A ship moored off-station."

"Can you be more specific?"

"No."

"Excuse me, let me re-phrase that. Could you be more specific if you chose to?"

Benin set the disruptor down, and leaned back, his expression of attention to Miles, if possible, intensifying.

He was silent for a long thoughtful moment before finally replying, "No, unfortunately. I could not." Rats. The three haut-governors' ships moored off that transfer station were Ilsum Kety's, Slyke Giaja's and Este Rond's. This could have been the final line of his triangulation, but Benin didn't have it. Yet. "I'd be particularly interested in how traffic control, or what certainly passed for traffic control, came to direct us to the wrong, or at any rate the first, pod dock."

"Why do you think the Ba entered your pod?" Benin asked in turn.

"Given the intense confusion of the encounter, I certainly would consider the possibility of it having been an accident. If it was arranged, I think something must have gone very wrong."

No shit, said Ivan's silent morose look. Miles ignored him.

"Anyway, ghem-Colonel, I hope this helps to anchor your time-table," Miles continued in a tone of finality. Surely Benin would be itching to run and check out his new clue, the nerve disrupter.

Benin didn't budge. "So what did you and the haut Rian really discuss, Lord Vorkosigan?"

"For that, I'm afraid you will have to apply to the haut Rian. She is Cetagandan to the bone, and so all your department." Alas. "But I think her distress at the death of the Ba Lura was quite genuine."

Benin's eyes flicked up. "When did you see enough of her to gauge the depth of her distress?"

"Or so I deduced." And if he didn't end this now he was going to put his foot in it so deep they'd need a hand-tractor to pull it out again. He had to play Vorreedi with the utmost delicacy; this was not quite the case with Benin. "This is fascinating, ghem-Colonel, but I'm afraid I'm out of time for this morning. But if you ever find out where that nerve disruptor came from, and where the Ba went to, I would be more than glad to continue the conversation." He sat back, folded his arms, and smiled cordially.

What Vorreedi should have done was announce loudly that they had all the time in the world, and let Benin continue to be his stalking-horse—Miles would have, in his place—but Vorreedi himself was clearly itching to get Miles alone. Instead, the protocol officer rose, signaling the official end to the interview. Benin, on embassy grounds as a guest, on sufferance—not his normal mode, Miles was sure—acceded without comment, rising to take his farewells.

"I will be speaking with you again, Lord Vorkosigan," Benin promised darkly.

"I certainly hope so, sir. Ah—did you take my other piece of advice, too? About blocking interference?"

Benin paused, looking suddenly a little abstracted. "Yes, in fact."

"How did it go?"

"Better than I would have expected."

"Good."

Benin's parting semi-salute was ironic, but not, Miles felt, altogether hostile.

Vorreedi escorted his guest to the door, but turned him over to the hall guard and was back in the little room before Miles and Ivan could make good their escape.

Vorreedi pinned Miles by eye. Miles felt a momentary regret that his diplomatic immunity did not extend to the protocol officer as well. Would it occur to Vorreedi to separate the pair of them, and break Ivan? Ivan was practicing looking invisible, something he did very well.

Vorreedi stated dangerously, "I am not a mushroom, Lieutenant Vorkosigan."

To be kept in the dark and fed on horseshit, right. Miles sighed inwardly. "Sir, apply to my commander," meaning Illyan—Vorreedi's commander too, in point of fact—"be cleared, and I'm yours. Until then, my best judgment is to continue exactly as I have been."

"Trusting your instincts?" said Vorreedi dryly.

"It's not as if I had any clear conclusions to share yet."

"So … do your instincts suggest some connection between the late Ba Lura, and Lord Yenaro?"

Vorreedi had instincts too, oh, yes. Or he wouldn't be in this post. "Besides the fact that both have interacted with me? Nothing that I … trust. I'm after proof. Then I will … be somewhere."

"Where?"

Head down in the biggest privy you ever imagined, at the current rate. "I guess I'll know when I get there, sir."

"We too will speak again, Lord Vorkosigan. You can count on it." Vorreedi gave him a very abbreviated nod, and departed abruptly—probably to apprise Ambassador Vorob'yev of the new complications in his life.

Into the ensuing silence, Miles said faintly, "That went well, all things considered."

Ivan's lip curled in scorn.

They kept silence on the trudge back to Ivan's room, where Ivan found a new stack of colored papers waiting on his desk. He sorted through them, pointedly ignoring Miles.

"I have to reach Rian somehow," Miles said at last. "I can't afford to wait. Things are getting too damned tight."

"I don't want anything more to do with any of this," said Ivan distantly.

"It's too late."

"Yes. I know." His hand paused. "Huh. Here's a new wrinkle. This one has both our names on it."

"Not from Lady Benello, is it? I'm afraid Vorreedi will count her off-limits now."

"No. It's not a name I recognize."

Miles pounced on the paper, and tore it open. "Lady d'Har. A garden party. What does she grow in her garden, I wonder? Could it be a double meaning—referencing the Celestial Garden? Hm. Awfully short notice. It could be my next contact. God, I hate being at haut Rian's mercy for every setup. Well, accept it anyway, just in case."

"It's not my first choice of how to spend the evening," said Ivan.

"Did I say anything about a choice? It's a chance, we've got to take it." He went on nastily, "Besides, if you keep leaving your genetic samples all over town, your progeny could end up being featured in next year's art show. As bushes."

Ivan shuddered. "You don't think they would—that's not why—uh, could they?"

"Sure. Why, when you're gone, they could re-create the operative body parts that interest them, to perform on command, to any scale—quite the souvenir. And you thought that kitten tree was obscene."

"There's more to it than that, coz," Ivan stated with injured dignity. His voice faded in doubt. "… you don't think they'd really do something like that, do you?"

"There's no more ruthless passion than that of a Cetagandan artist in search of new media." He added firmly, "We're going to a garden party. I'm sure it's my contact with Rian."

"Garden party," conceded Ivan with a sigh. He stared off blankly into space. After a minute he commented offhandedly, "Y'know, it's too bad she can't just get the gene bank back from his ship. Then he'd have the key but no lock. That'd fox him up but good, I bet."

Miles sat down in Ivan's desk chair, slowly. When he'd got his breath back, he whispered, "Ivan—that's brilliant. Why didn't I think of that before?"

Ivan considered this. "'Cause it's not a scenario that lets you play the lone hero in front of the haut Rian?"

They exchanged saturnine looks. For once, Miles's gaze shifted first. "I meant that as a rhetorical question," he said tightly. But he didn't say it very loudly.