Cetaganda

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Miles woke from a late, uneasy doze to find Ivan cautiously shaking him by the shoulder.

He closed his eyes again, blocking out the dimness of his suite and his cousin. "Go 'way." He tried to pull the covers back up over his head.

Ivan renewed his efforts, more vigorously. "Now I know it was a mission," he commented. "You're having your usual post-mission sulks."

"I am not sulking. I am tired."

"You look terrific, you know. Great blotch on the side of your face that goon left with his shock-stick. Goes all the way up to your eye. It'll show from a hundred meters. You should get up and look in the mirror."

"I hate people who are cheerful in the morning. What time is it? Why are you up? Why are you here?" Miles lost his clutch on his bedclothes as Ivan dragged them ruthlessly from his grip.

"Ghem-Colonel Benin is on his way here to pick you up. In an Imperial land-cruiser half a block long. The Cetagandans want you at the cremation ceremony an hour early."

"What? Why? He can't be arresting me from here, diplomatic immunity. Assassination? Execution? Isn't it a little late for that?"

"Ambassador Vorob'yev also wants to know. He sent me to rustle you up as swiftly as possible." Ivan propelled Miles toward his bathroom. "Start depilating, I've brought your uniform and boots from the embassy laundry. Anyway, if the Cetagandans really wanted to assassinate you, they'd hardly do it here. They'd slip something subtle under your skin that wouldn't go off for six months, and then would drop you mysteriously and untraceably in your tracks."

"Reassuring thought." Miles rubbed the back of his neck, surreptitiously feeling for lumps. "I bet the Star Creche has some great terminal diseases. But I pray I didn't offend them."

Miles suffered Ivan to play valet, on fast-forward, with editorials. But he forgave his cousin all sins, past, present, and future, in exchange for the coffee bulb Ivan also shoved into his hand. He swallowed and stared at his face in the mirror, above his unfastened black tunic. The shock-stick contusion across his left cheek was indeed turning a spectacular polychrome, crowned by a blue-black circle under his eye. The other two hits were not as bad, as his clothing had offered some protection. He still would have preferred to spend the day in bed. In his cabin on the outbound ImpSec jumpship, heading home as fast as the laws of physics would allow.

They arrived at the embassy's lobby to find not Benin but Mia Maz waiting in her formal black and white funeral clothing. She had been keeping Ambassador Vorob'yev company when they'd dragged in last night—this morning, rather—and could not have had much more sleep than Miles. But she looked remarkably fresh, even chipper. She smiled at Miles and Ivan. Ivan smiled back.

Miles squinted. "Vorob'yev not here?"

"He's coming down as soon as he's finished dressing," Maz assured him.

"You . . . coming with me?" Miles asked hopefully. "Or . . . no, I suppose you have to be with your own delegation. This being the big finish and all."

"I'll be accompanying Ambassador Vorob'yev." Maz's smile escaped into a chipmunk grin, dimples everywhere. "Permanently. He asked me to marry him last night. I think it was a measure of his general distraction. In the spirit of the insanity of the moment, I said yes."

If you can't hire help . . . Well, that would solve Vorob'yev's quest for female expertise on the embassy's staff. Not to mention accounting for all that bombardment of chocolates and invitations. "Congratulations," Miles managed. Though perhaps it ought to be Congratulations to Vorob'yev and Good luck to Maz.

"It still feels quite strange," Maz confided. "I mean, Lady Vorob'yev. How did your mother cope, Lord Vorkosigan?"

"You mean, being an egalitarian Betan and all? No problem. She says egalitarians adjust to aristocracies just fine, as long as they get to be the aristocrats."

"I hope to meet her someday."

"You'll get along famously," Miles predicted with confidence.

Vorob'yev appeared, still fastening his black tunic, at almost the same moment as ghem-Colonel Benin was escorted inside by the embassy guards. Correction. Ghem-General Benin. Miles smiled under his breath at the glitter of new rank insignia on Benin's blood-red dress uniform. I called that one right, did I not?

"May I ask what this is all about, ghem-General?" Vorob'yev didn't miss the new order.

Benin half-bowed. "My Celestial Master requests the attendance of Lord Vorkosigan at this hour. Ah … we will return him to you."

"Your word upon it? It would be a major embarrassment for the embassy were he to be mislaid . . . again." Vorob'yev managed to be stern at Benin while simultaneously capturing Maz's hand upon his arm and covertly stroking it.

"My word upon it, Ambassador," Benin promised. At Vorobyev's reluctant nod of permission, he led Miles out. Miles glanced back over his shoulder, lonely for Ivan, or Maz, or somebody on his side.

The groundcar wasn't half a block long, but it was a very fine vehicle indeed, and not military issue. Cetagandan soldiers saluted Benin punctiliously, and settled him and his guest in the rear compartment. When they pulled away from the embassy, it felt something like riding in a house.

"May I ask what all this is about, ghem-General?" Miles inquired in turn.

Benin's expression was almost . . . crocodilian. "I am instructed that explanations must wait until you arrive at the Celestial Garden. It will take only a few minutes of your time, nothing more. I first thought that you would like it, but upon mature reflection, I think you will hate it. Either way, you deserve it."

"Take care your growing reputation for subtlety doesn't go to your head, ghem-General," Miles growled. Benin merely smiled.

It was definitely an Imperial audience chamber, if a small one, not a conference chamber like the room last night. There was only one seat, and Fletchir Giaja was in it already. The white robes he wore this morning were bulky and elaborate to the point of half-immobilizing him, and he had two ba servitors waiting to help him with them when he rose again. He had his icon-look plastered back on his face again, his expression so reserved it resembled porcelain. Three white bubbles floated silently beyond his left hand. Another ba servitor brought a small flat case to Benin, who stood upon the Emperor's right.

"You may approach my Celestial Master, Lord Vorkosigan," Benin informed him.

Miles stepped forward, deciding not to kneel. He and the haut Fletchir Giaja were almost eye to eye as he stood.

Benin handed the case to the emperor, who opened it. "Do you know what this is, Lord Vorkosigan?" Giaja asked.

Miles eyed the medallion of the Order of Merit on its colored ribbon, glittering on a bed of velvet. "Yes, sir. It is a lead weight, suitable for sinking small enemies. Are you going to sew me into a silk sack with it, before you throw me overboard?"

Giaja glanced up at Benin, who responded with a Didn't I tell you so? shrug.

"Bend your neck, Lord Vorkosigan," Giaja instructed him firmly. "Unaccustomed as you may be to doing so."

Was not Rian in one of those bubbles? Miles stared briefly at his mirror-polished boots, as Giaja slipped the ribbon over his head. He stepped back half a pace, tried and failed to keep his hand from touching the cool metal. He would not salute. "I … refuse this honor, sir.

"No, you don't," Giaja said in an observant tone, watching him. "I am given to understand by my keenest observers that you have a passion for recognition. It is a . . ."

Weakness that can be exploited—

"— an understandable quality that puts me much in mind of our own ghem."

Well, it was better than being compared to the hauts' other semi-siblings, the ba. Who were not the palace eunuchs they seemed, but rather some sort of incredibly valuable in-house science projects—the late Ba Lura might be better than half-sibling to Giaja himself, for all Miles knew. Sixty-eight percent shared chromosomal material, say. Quite. Miles decided he would have more respect for, not to mention caution of, the silent slippered ba after this. They were all in on this haut-business together, the putative servitors and their putative masters. No wonder the emperor had taken Lura's murder so seriously.

"As far as recognition goes, sir, this is hardly something that I will be able to show around at home. More like, hide it in the bottom of the deepest drawer I own."

"Good," said Fletchir Giaja in a level tone. "As long as you lay all the matters associated with it alongside."

Ah. That was the heart of it. A bribe for his silence. "There is very little about the past two weeks that I shall take pleasure in remembering, sir."

"Remember what you will, as long as you do not recount it."

"Not publicly. But I have a duty to report."

"Your classified military reports do not trouble me."

"I . . ." He glanced aside at Rian's white bubble, hovering near. "Agree."

Giaja's pale eyelids swept down in an accepting blink. Miles felt very strange. Was it a bribe to accept a prize for doing exactly what he'd been going to do, or not do, anyway?

Come to think of it … would his own Barrayarans think he had struck some sort of bargain? The real reason he'd been detained for that unwitnessed chitchat with the Emperor last night began to glimmer up at last in his sleep-deprived brain. Surely they can't imagine Giaja could suborn me in twenty minutes of conversation. Could they?

"You will accompany me," Giaja went on, "on my left hand. It's time to go." He rose, assisted by the ba, who gathered up his robes.

Miles eyed the hovering bubbles in silent desperation. His last chance . . . "May I speak with you one more time, haut Rian?" he addressed them generally, uncertain which was the one he sought.

Giaja glanced over his shoulder, and opened his long-fingered hand in a permissive gesture, though he himself continued on at the decorous pace enforced by his costume. Two bubbles waited, one followed, and Benin stood guard just outside the open door. Not exactly a private moment. That was all right. There was very little Miles wanted to say out loud at this point anyway.

Miles glanced back and forth uncertainly at the pale glowing spheres. One blinked out, and there Rian sat, much as he had first seen her, stiff white robes cloaked by the inkfall of shining hair. She still took his breath away.

She floated closer, and raised one fine hand to touch his left cheek. It was the first time they had touched. But if she asked, Does it hurt?, he swore he'd bite her.

Rian was not a fool. "I have taken much from you," she spoke quietly, "and given nothing."

"It's the haut way, is it not?" Miles said bitterly.

"It is the only way I know."

The prisoner's dilemma . . .

From her sleeve, she removed a dark and shining coil, rather like a bracelet. A tiny hank of silken hair, very long, wound around and around until it seemed to have no end. She thrust it at him. "Here. It was all I could think of."

That's because it is all you have that you truly own, milady. All else is a gift of your constellation, or the Star Creche, or the haut, or your emperor. You live in the interstices of a communal world, rich beyond the dreams of avarice, owning . . . nothing. Not even your own chromosomes.

Miles took the coil from her. It was cool and smooth in his hand. "What does this signify? To you?"

"I … truly do not know," she confessed.

Honest to the end. Does the woman even know how to lie? "Then I shall keep it. Milady. For memory. Buried very deep."

"Yes. Please."

"How will you remember me?" He had absolutely nothing on him that he could give away right now, he realized, except for whatever lint the embassy laundry had left in the bottoms of his pockets. "Or will it please you to forget?"

Her blue eyes glinted like sun on a glacier. "There is no danger of that. You will see." She move'd gently away from him. Her force-screen took form around her slowly, and she faded like perfume. The two bubbles floated after the emperor to seek their places.

The dell was similar in design to the one where the haut had held the elegiac poetry recitations, only larger, a wide sloping bowl open to the artificial sky of the dome. Haut-lady bubbles and haut– and ghem-lords in white filled its sides. The thousand or so galactic delegates in all their muted garbs crowded its circumference. In the center, ringed by a respectfully unpeopled band of grass and flowers, sat another round force dome, a dozen meters or more in diameter. Dimly through its misted surface Miles could see a jumble of objects piled high around a pallet, upon which lay the slight, white-clad figure of the haut Lisbet Degtiar. Miles squinted, trying to see if he could make out the polished maplewood box of the Barrayaran delegation's gift, but Dorca's sword was buried somewhere out of sight. It hardly mattered.

But he was going to have a ringside seat, a nearly Imperial view of it all. The final parade, down an alley cleared to the center of the bowl, was arranged in inverse order of clout; the eight planetary consorts and the Handmaiden in their nine white bubbles, seven—count 'em folks, seven—ghem-governors, then the emperor himself and his honor guard. Benin blended into ghem-General Naru's former place without a ripple. Miles limped along in Giaja's train, intensely self-conscious. He must present an astonishing sight, slight, short, sinister, his face looking like he'd lost a spaceport bar fight the night before. The Cetagandan Order of Merit made a fine show against his House blacks, quite impossible to miss.

Miles supposed Giaja was using him to send some kind of signal to his haut-governors, and not a terribly friendly one. Since Giaja clearly had no plans to let out the details of the past two weeks' events, Miles could only conclude it was one of those catch it if you can things, intended to unnerve by doubt as much as knowledge, a highly delicate species of terrorism.

Yeah. Let 'em wonder. Well, not them— he passed the Barrayaran delegation near the front of the galactic mob. Vorob'yev stared at him stunned. Maz looked surprised but pleased, pointing at Miles's throat and saying something to her fiance. Vorreedi looked wildly suspicious. Ivan looked . . . blank. Thank you for your vote of confidence, coz.

Miles himself stared for a moment when he spotted Lord Yenaro in the back row of ghem-lords. Yenaro was dressed in the purple and white garb of a Celestial Garden ghem-lord-in-waiting of the tenth rank, sixth degree, the lowest order. The lowest of the highest, Miles corrected himself. Looks like he got that assistant perfumers job after all. And so the haut Fletchir Giaja brought another loose cannon under control. Smooth.

They all took their assigned places at the center of the bowl. A procession of young ghem-girls laid a final offering of flowers all around the central force-bubble. A chorus sang. Miles found himself attempting to calculate the price in labor alone of the entire month's ceremonies if one set the time of everyone involved at some sort of minimum wage. The sum was . . . celestial. He became increasingly aware that he hadn't had breakfast, or nearly enough coffee. I will not pass out. I will not scratch my nose, or my ass. I will not—

A white bubble drifted up in front of the emperor. A short, familiar ba paced alongside it, carrying a compartmented tray. Rian's voice spoke from the bubble, ceremonial words; the ba laid the tray before Giaja's feet. Miles, at Giaja's left hand, stared down into the compartments and smiled sourly. The Great Key, the Great Seal, and all the rest of Lisbet's regalia, were returned to their source. The ba and the bubble retreated. Miles waited in mild boredom for Giaja to call forth his new empress from somewhere in the mob of hovering haut-bubbles.

The emperor motioned Rian and her ba to approach again. More formal phrases, so convoluted Miles took a full belated minute to unravel their meaning. The ba bowed and picked up the tray again on its mistress's behalf. Miles's boredom evaporated in a frisson of shock, muffled by intense bemusement. For once, he wished he were shorter, or had Ivan's talent for invisibility, or could magically teleport himself somewhere, anywhere, out of here. A stir of interest, even astonishment, ran through the haut and ghem audience. Members of the Degtiar constellation looked quite pleased. Members of other constellations . . . looked on politely.

The haut Rian Degtiar took possession of the Star Creche again as a new Empress of Cetaganda, fourth Imperial Mother to be chosen by Fletchir Giaja, but now first in seniority by virtue of her genomic responsibility. Her first genetic duty would be to cook up her own Imperial prince son. God. Was she happy, inside that bubble?

Her new . . . not husband, mate, the emperor—might never touch her. Or they might become lovers. Giaja might wish to emphasize his possession of her, after all. Though to be fair, Rian must have known this was coming before the ceremony, and she hadn't looked like she objected. Miles swallowed, feeling ill, and horribly tired. Low blood sugar, no doubt.

Good luck to you, milady. Good luck . . . good-bye.

And Giaja's control extended itself, softly as fog. . . .

The Emperor raised his hand in signal, and the waiting Imperial engineers solemnly went into motion at their power station. Inside the great central force-bubble, a dark orange glow began, turning red, then yellow, then blue-white. Objects inside tilted, fell, then roiled up again, their forms disintegrating into molecular plasma. The Imperial engineers and Imperial Security had doubtless had a tense and sweaty night, arranging the Empress Lisbet's pyre with the utmost care. If that bubble burst now, the heat-effects would resemble a small fusion bomb.

It really didn't take very long, perhaps ten minutes altogether. A circle opened in the gray-clouded dome overhead, revealing blue sky. The effect was extremely weird, like a view into another dimension. A much smaller hole opened in the top of the force-bubble. White fire shot skyward as the bubble vented itself. Miles assumed the airspace over the center of the capital had been cleared of all traffic, though the stream diffused into faint smoke quickly enough.

Then the dome closed again, the artificial clouds scurrying away on an artificial breeze, the light growing brighter and cheerier. The force-bubble faded into nothingness, leaving only an empty circle of undamaged grass. Not even ash.

A waiting ba servitor brought the Emperor a colorful robe. Giaja traded off his outer layer of whites, and donned the new garment. The Emperor raised a finger, and his honor guards again surrounded him, and the Imperial parade reversed itself out of the bowl. When the last major figure cleared the rim, the mourners gave a collective sigh, and the silence and rigid pattern broke in a murmur of voices and rustle of departing motion.

A large open float-car was waiting at the top of the dell to take the emperor . . . away, to wherever Cetagandan emperors went when the party was over. Would Giaja have a good stiff drink and kick off his shoes? Probably not. The attendant ba arranged the Imperial robes, and sat to the controls.

Miles found himself left standing beside the car as it rose. Giaja glanced over at him, and favored him with a microscopic nod. "Good-bye, Lord Vorkosigan."

Miles bowed low. "Until we meet again."

"Not soon, I trust," Giaja murmured dryly, and floated off, trailed by a gaggle of force-bubbles now turned all the colors of the rainbow. None paused as if to look back.

Ghem-General Benin, at Miles's elbow, almost cracked an expression. Laughing? "Come, Lord Vorkosigan. I will escort you back to your delegation. Having given your ambassador my personal word to return you, I must personally—redeem it, as you Barrayarans say. A curious turn of phrase. Do you use it in the sense of a soul in a religion, or an object in a lottery?"

"Mm . . . more in a medical sense. As in the temporary donation of a vital organ." Hearts and promises, all redeemed here today.

"Ah."

They came upon Ambassador Vorob'yev and his party, looking around as galactic delegates boarded float-cars for a ride to one last fantastical meal. The cars' white silk seats had all been replaced, in the last hour, by assorted colored silks, signifying the end of official mourning. At no discernible signal, one came promptly to Benin. No waiting in line for them.

"If we left now," Miles noted to Ivan, "we could be in orbit in an hour."

"But—the ghem-ladies might be at the buffet," Ivan protested. "Women like food, y'know."

Miles was starving. "In that case, definitely leave straightaway," he said firmly.

Benin, perhaps mindful of his Celestial Master s last broad hint, supported this with a bland, "That sounds like a good choice, Lord Vorkosigan."

Vorob'yev pursed his lips; Ivan's shoulders slumped slightly.

Vorreedi nodded at Miles s throat, a glint of puzzled suspicion in his eyes. "What was that all about . . . Lieutenant?"

Miles fingered his silken collar with the Cetagandan Imperial Order of Merit attached. "My reward. And my punishment. It seems the haut Fletchir Giaja has a low taste for high irony."

Maz, who had obviously not yet been brought up to speed on the subtext of the situation, protested his lack of enthusiasm. "But it's an extraordinary honor, Lord Vorkosigan! There are Cetagandan ghem-officers who would gladly die for it!"

Vorob'yev explained coolly, "But rumors of it will hardly make him popular at home, love. Particularly circulating, as they must, without any real explanation attached. Even more particularly in light of the fact that Lord Vorkosigan's military assignment is in Barrayaran Imperial Security. From the Barrayaran point of view, it looks . . . well, it looks very strange."

Miles sighed. His headache was coming on again. "I know. Maybe I can get Illyan to classify it secret."

"About three thousand people just saw it!" Ivan said.

Miles stirred. "Well, that's your fault."

"Mine!"

"Yeah. If you'd brought me two or three coffee bulbs this morning, instead of only one, my brain might have been on-line, and I could've ducked faster and avoided this. Bloody slow reflexes. The implications are still dawning on me." For example: if he had not bowed his head to Giaja's silk collar in polite compliance, how dramatically would the chances have risen of his and Ivan's jumpship meeting some unfortunate accident while exiting the Cetagandan Empire?

Vorreedi's brows twitched. "Yes . . ." he said. "What did you and the Cetagandans talk about last night, after Lord Vorpatril and I were excluded?"

"Nothing. They never asked me anything more." Miles grinned blackly. "That's the beauty of it, of course. Let's see you prove a negative, Colonel. Just try. I want to watch."

After a long pause, Vorreedi slowly nodded. "I see."

"Thank you for that, sir," breathed Miles.

Benin escorted them all to the South Gate, and saw them out for the last time.

The planet of Eta Ceta was fading in the distance, though not fast enough to suit Miles. He switched off the monitor in his bunk aboard the ImpSec courier vessel, and lay back to nibble a bit more from his plain dry ration bar, and hope for sleep. He wore loose and wrinkled black fatigues, and no boots at all. He wriggled his toes in their unaccustomed freedom. If he played it right, he might be able to finesse his way through the entire two-week trip home barefoot. The Cetagandan Order of Merit, hung above his head, swayed slightly on its colored ribbon, gleaming in the soft light. He scowled meditatively at it.

A familiar double-knock sounded on his cabin door; for a moment he longed to feign sleep. Instead he sighed, and pushed himself up on his elbow. "Enter, Ivan."

Ivan had skinned out of his dress uniform and into fatigues as fast as possible also. And friction-slippers, hah. He had a sheaf of colored papers in his hand.

"Just thought I'd share these with you," Ivan said. "Vorreedi's clerk handed 'em to me just as we were leaving the embassy. Everything we're going to be missing tonight, and for the next week." He switched on Miles's disposal chute, in the wall. A yellow paper. "Lady Benello." He popped it in; it whooshed into oblivion. A green one. "Lady Arvin." Whoosh. An enticing turquoise one; Miles could smell the perfume from his bunk. "The inestimable Veda." Whoosh—

"I get the point, Ivan," Miles growled.

"And the food," Ivan sighed. "—why are you eating that disgusting rat bar? Even courier ship stores can do better than that!"

"I wanted something plain."

"Indigestion, eh? Your stomach acting up again? No blood leakage, I hope."

"Only in my brain. Look, why are you here?"

"I just wanted to share my virtuous divesting of my life of decadent Cetagandan luxury," Ivan said primly. "Sort of like shaving my head and becoming a monk. For the next two weeks, anyway." His eye fell on the Order of Merit, turning slowly on its ribbon. "Want me to put that down the disposer too? Here, I'll get rid of it for you—" He made to grab it.

Miles came up out of his bunk in a posture of defense like a wolverine out of its burrow. "Will you get out of here!"

"Ha! I thought that little bauble meant more to you than you were letting on to Vorreedi and Vorob'yev," Ivan crowed.

Miles stuffed the medal down out of sight, and out of reach, under his bedding. "I frigging earned it. Speaking of blood." Ivan grinned, and stopped circling for a swoop on Miles's possessions, and settled down into the tiny cabin's station chair.

"I've thought about it, you know," Miles went on. "What it's going to be like, ten or fifteen years from now, if I ever get out of covert ops and into a real line command. I'll have had more practical experience than any other Barrayaran soldier of my generation, and it's all going to be totally invisible to my brother officers. Classified. They'll all think I spent the last decade riding in jumpships and eating candy. How am I going to maintain authority over a bunch of overgrown backcountry goons—like you? They'll eat me alive."

"Well," Ivan's eye glinted, "they'll try, to be sure. I hope I'm around to watch."

Secretly, Miles hoped so too, but he would rather have had his fingernails removed with pliers, in the old-fashioned ImpSec interrogation style of a couple of generations ago, than say so out loud.

Ivan heaved a large sigh. "But I'm still going to miss the ghem-ladies. And the food."

"There's ladies and food at home, Ivan."

"True." Ivan brightened slightly.

"S'funny." Miles lay back on his bunk, shoving his pillow behind his shoulders to prop himself half-up. "If Fletchir Giaja's late Celestial Father had sent the haut-women to conquer Barrayar, instead of the ghem-lords, I think Cetaganda would own the planet right now."

"The ghem-lords were nothing if not crude," Ivan allowed. "But we were cruder." He stared at the ceiling. "How many more generations, d'you think, before we can no longer consider the haut-lords human?"

"I think the operative question is, how many generations till the haut-lords no longer regard us as human." Well, I'm used to that even at home. Sort of a preview of things to come. "I think . . . Cetaganda will remain potentially dangerous to its neighbors as long as the haut are in transition to … wherever they're going. Empress Lisbet and her predecessors," and her heiresses, "are running this two-track evolutionary race—the haut fully controlled, the ghem used as a source of genetic wild cards and pool of variations. Like a seed company keeping strains of wild plants even when they only sell a monoculture, to permit development in the face of the unexpected. The greatest danger to everybody else would be for the haut to lose control of the ghem. When the ghem are allowed to run the show—well, Barrayar knows what it's like when half a million practicing social Darwinists with guns are let loose on one's home planet."

Ivan grimaced. "Really. As your esteemed late grandfather used to tell us, in gory detail."

"But if … the ghem fail to be consistently militarily successful in the next generation or so—our generation—if their little expansionist adventures continue to be embarrassing and costly, like the Vervain invasion debacle, maybe the haut will turn to other areas of development than the military in their quest for superiority. Maybe even peaceful ones. Perhaps ones we can scarcely imagine."

"Good luck," snorted Ivan.

"Luck is something you make for yourself, if you want it." And I want it more, oh yes. Keeping one eye out for sudden moves from his cousin, Miles re-hung his medallion.

"You going to wear that? I dare you."

"No. Not unless I have a need to be really obnoxious sometime."

"But you're going to keep it."

"Oh, yes."

Ivan stared off into space, or rather, at the cabin wall, and into space beyond by implication. "The worm-hole nexus is a big place, and constantly getting bigger. Even the haut would have trouble filling it all, I think."

"I hope so. Monocultures are dull and vulnerable. Lisbet knew that."

Ivan chuckled. "Aren't you a little short to be thinking of re-designing the universe?"

"Ivan." Miles let his voice grow unexpectedly chill. "Why should the haut Fletchir Giaja decide he needed to be polite to me? Do you really think this is just for my father's sake?" He ticked the medallion and set it spinning, and locked eyes with his cousin. "It's not a trivial trinket. Think again about all the things this means. Bribery, sabotage, and real respect, all in one strange packet . . . we're not done with each other yet, Giaja and I."

Ivan dropped his gaze first. "You're a frigging crazy man, you know that?" After an uncomfortable minute of silence, he hoisted himself from Miles s station-chair, and wandered away, muttering about finding some real food on this boat.

Miles settled back with slitted eyes, and watched the shining circle spin like planets.