"I'm assistant chief of protocol," says Mia. "I specialize in women's ettiquette."

Miles blinks. "That's a separate specialty?"

"It is here," she says, "or should be. I've been telling Ambassador Vorob'yev for years that he ought to add a woman to his staff for that purpose."

"Anyway, Lord Vorkosigan," says Maz, smiling, "I wanted to let you know that if there's anything we at the Vervani Embassy can do for the son or the nephew of Admiral Aral Vorkosigan during your visit to Eta Ceta, well - all that we have is at your disposal."

"Don't make that offer to Ivan," Miles jokingly advises, with a nod over the railing to point out his cousin still touring Yenaro's miniature mountain. "He might take you up on it personally."

Maz looks where he indicates, and grins, dimpling. "Not a problem."

"So are, uh... ghem-ladies really so different from ghem-lords as to make a full-time study? I admit, most Barrayarans' views of the ghem-lords have been through range-finders." And their views of ghem-ladies have been so limited that even the word itself flows less naturally from Miles's brain. Hm.

"Two years ago, I would have scorned that militaristic view. Since the Cetagandan invasion attempt we've come to appreciate it. Actually, the ghem-lords are so much like the Vor, I'd think you'd find them more comprehensible than we Vervani do. The haut-lords are... something else. And the haut-ladies are even more something else, I've begun to realize."

"They have their own sort of power. Their own areas of control. Parallel, not competing with their men. It all makes sense, they just never bother explaining it to outsiders."

"To inferiors," says Miles, having perhaps not immersed himself as well as he meant. But the haut are - well, haughty, even more so than the Cetagandan baseline.

"That, too." Dimple!

"I'm fairly well up," she says. "They have layers within layers; I can't claim to know them all by any means."

Maz scrutinizes it. "I don't recognize it right off. But you're correct, it's definitely in the Cetagandan style. It's old, though."

"How can you tell?" he asks, eager for any light she can shed.

"Well, it's clearly a personal seal, not a clan-mark, but it doesn't have an outline around it. For the last three generations people have been putting their personal marks in cartouches, with more and more elaborate borders. You can practically tell the decade by the border design. If you like, I can try to look it up in my resource materials."

"Would you? I'd like that very much." He refolds the flimsy and hands it over. "Uh... I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't show it to anyone else, though." Who knows what kind of trouble it could get her into - or him - or both.

"Oh...?"

"Excuse me. Professional paranoia. I, uh..." need to pass this off as smoothly as possible so she doesn't think I'm up to something—act a little more suspicious, Miles, why don't you— "It's a habit," is the best he can come up with on the spot.

"Yes, it's very fine," says Miles, with perhaps less enthusiasm than he might have. True, he's gotten as much intelligence out of Maz as he's going to for the moment, but he was hoping for another dimple or two.

"So very few are," says the smiling ghem-lord, "but that doesn't stop them."

"It does seem to me to be a considerable technical achievement," he says, steering the conversation onto a topic he is comfortable discussing. "Do you drive the motion with anti-grav, then?" A technology with which he is particularly familiar - he's lost count of the time he's spent slithering around on grav-crutches after an unlucky fall broke one or both legs. He hates the things even more than he hates the steel leg braces, currently concealed under his uniform trousers, that he wears to prevent more such incidents.

"No, there's no antigrav in it at all. The generators would be bulky and wasteful of power. The same force drives the leaves' motion as drives their color changes - or so my technicians explained to me."

"Technicians? I somehow pictured you putting all this together with your own hands," he says, eyeing the sculpture as they stand at the walk-through entrance - presumably to await the beginning of the cycle. (He isn't sure why he pictured such a thing; the image is more than a little bizarre. The well-dressed Yenaro seems better suited to whisking around in a small organized laboratory working on small organized creations, an image which Miles can conjure without difficulty.)

Yenaro spreads said hands: long pianist's fingers, pale, unmarked. "Of course not. Hands are to be hired. Design is the test of the intellect."

"You are a man capable of true conversation, I perceive," says Yenaro. "You must meet my friends, if your schedule here permits. I'm holding a reception at my home in two evenings' time - do you suppose -?"

"Um - maybe." He consults his memory of the funerary schedule: the suggested evening is free of ceremonial obligations. An opportunity to socialize with the younger ghem-lords, to see what they're like outside the no doubt constraining presence of their elders - to look into the future of Cetaganda, in a sense. "Yes, why not?"

Yenaro yells for help; Ivan plows through the mob towards his cousin, anxious.

"Awfully elaborate, if so," notes Ivan.

"The timing is awfully tight, for a conspiracy."

He turns, trying to conceal his startlement. "Yes... ma'am?" he hazards, taking in the sight of an androgynous elderly bald - person - much closer to his height than most people, wearing the grey and white of the Celestial Garden's service staff.

"Ba," she corrects politely. "A lady wishes to speak with you. Would you accompany me, please?"

"Uh... sure," he says. Maybe she's from Mia. He certainly can't imagine any other ladies around here who might want to talk to him about anything.

"I... did receive such an object," he says slowly. "Very unexpectedly. And I'm afraid I haven't the least idea what it is, or who it belongs to - besides, that is, not me."

"It belongs to the Star Creche, with the current custodian being the Handmaiden thereof in the temporary absence of an Empress."

"I... see." No he doesn't. "There remains the matter of - some kind of proof. I don't mean to be rude about it, milady, but I have nothing more to go on right now than the word of a very pretty soap bubble, and that's not enough to reassure me I'd be giving it to the right person. Leaving aside the fact that I don't have it here."

"Please, tell me about your standards of proof," invites the bubble.

"Well - what the thing is, and who you are, if not the Handmaiden in question, would both be good to know," he says. "Ideally corroborated by outside sources of some kind... it's possible I could find a little information about the sparkly stick on my own, which, no offense, settles my mind somewhat better than getting it all from you. But speaking of my curiosity, somewhat more trivially - I couldn't help noticing your serving woman. Are there many folk around here with no hair?" Not even eyebrows - a detail which naturally caught his eye.

"...It's not a woman. It's a ba, sexless. There was a fashion of making ba hairless some years ago. My name is Linyabel Miriat, although I doubt you'll have ever heard of me before. The Handmaiden sent me and is listening in on this conversation. And I do not think you will be able to find very much information about the 'sparkly stick' by yourself, although perhaps I underestimate what resources are available outside of my typical spheres..."

"All hairless people are ba," confirms Linyabel. "The design on the stick will match the seal of the Star Creche, if you can find some way to confirm that to your satisfaction? There is - unfortunately no obvious way to confirm that I'm running errands for the Handmaiden. Even if she came personally, even if she opted to display her face - you would not recognize her."

Ivan hands over the box as soon as Miles is within handing range. "Where the hell were you all this time, in the lav? I looked there -"

"What's gone wrong? Did somebody faint or something?"

Ivan seizes Miles by the back of his uniform and marches him doorward. "What the hell is going on?"

"Lord Vorkosigan! I tried to call you at your embassy earlier, but you'd already left. What in the world happened in the rotunda, do you have any idea? For the Cetagandans to alter a ceremony of this magnitude in the middle - it's unheard of."

Ivan does his level best.

Miles half-stifles a yowl of pain.

Ivan pauses. "Does that hurt?"

"Yes, keep going, dammit."

"Maybe you ought to go downstairs to the embassy infirmary again."

"Later. I am not going to let that butcher of a physician dissect my best boots. Pull," he says firmly.

"So?"

"So... give."

"Give what?" he asks, one last halfhearted stab at pretending innocence.

"Knowing your usual humor, I'd have thought you'd be as amused by the idea of an extra corpse in the funeral chamber as Vorob'yev was, but you came back looking like you'd just seen your grandfather's ghost."

"The ba had cut its throat," he says, recalling the image vividly. "It was a messy scene."

"I think you've seen messier corpses."

Ivan shoots a look at the drawer containing the sparkle stick. "That does it. We've got to report this to Vorob'yev."

"If it was the same ba," he says, theorizing on the spot in the interests of keeping Ivan on board with secrecy. "For all I know, the Cetagandans clone their servants in batches, and the one we saw yesterday was this one's twin or something."

"...You think so?"

"I don't know, but I know where I can find out. Just let me have one more pass at this, before I send up the flag, please? I've asked Mia Maz from the Vervani embassy to stop in and see me. If you wait... I'll let you sit in," he offers.

"Boot!" he prompts, hoping to make the most of Ivan's distraction.

Mia Maz is promptly ensconced up in their suite, and Ivan sends the staffer for wine and tea, and Maz sits down.

"Milady Maz. Thank you for coming," says Miles.

"Just Maz, please. We Vervani don't use such titles. I'm afraid we have trouble taking them seriously," Maz smiles. Dimple.

"You must be good at keeping a straight face," he muses. "Or you could not function so well here."

"Yes, my lord," Maz dimples.

"Unprecedented," confirms Maz, "and if you know Cetagandans, you know just how strong a term that is."

"So Cetagandan servants do not routinely accompany their masters in death like a pagan sacrifice... Ivan was wondering if the haut-lords cloned their servants," he says.

"The ghem-lords sometimes do," Maz says. "But not the haut-lords, and most certainly never the Imperial Household. They consider each servitor as much a work of art as any of the other objects with which they surround themselves. Everything in the Celestial Garden must be unique, if possible handmade, and perfect. That applies to their biological constructs as well. They leave mass production to the masses. I'm not sure if it's a virtue or a vice, the way the haut do it, but in a world flooded with virtual realities and infinite duplication, it's strangely refreshing. If only they weren't such awful snobs about it."

"Speaking of things artistic - you said you had some luck identifying that icon?"

"Yes. Where," she asks, searching his face, "did you say you saw it, Lord Vorkosigan?"

"I didn't."

"Hm." She smiles a bit, but not enough to dimple again. "It is the seal of the Star Creche, and not something I'd expect an outlander to run across every day. In fact, it's not something I'd expect an outlander to run across any day. It's most private."

"And, um... just what is the Star Creche?"

"Oh, that. I was dimly aware of - do they keep backup copies of themselves, then?"

"The Star Creche is far more than that. Among the haut, they don't deal directly with each other to have egg and sperm united and the resulting embryo deposited in a uterine replicator, the way normal people do. Every genetic cross is negotiated and a contract drawn between the heads of the two genetic lines - the Cetegandans call them constellations, though I suppose you Barrayarans would call them clans. That contract in turn must be approved by the Emperor, or rather, by the senior female in the Emperor's line, and marked by the seal of the Star Creche. For the last half-century, since the present regime began, that senior female has been haut Rian Degtiar, the Emperor's mother. It's not just a formality, either. Any genetic alterations — and the haut do a lot of them — have to be examined and cleared by the Empress's board of geneticists, before they are allowed into the haut genome. You asked me if the haut-women had any power. The Dowager Empress had final approval or veto over every haut birth."

Intrigued, he asks, "Can the Emperor override her?"

"I truly don't know. The haut are incredibly reserved about all this. If there are any behind-the-scenes power struggles, the news certainly doesn't leak out past the Celestial Garden's gates. I do know I've never heard of such a conflict," says Maz thoughtfully.

"Ah! Now you've touched on something interesting," says Maz, warmly didactic. "Nobody knows, or at least, the Emperor hasn't made the public announcement. The seal is supposed to be held by the Emperor's mother if she lives, or by the mother of the heir-apparent if the dowager is deceased. But the Cetagandan emperor has not yet selected his heir. The seal of the Star Crèche and all the rest of the empress's regalia is supposed to be handed over to the new senior female as the last act of the funeral rites, so he has ten more days to make up his mind. I imagine that decision is the focus of a great deal of attention right now, among the haut-women. No new genomic contracts can be approved until the transfer is completed."

"So - he has three young sons, right? Does it go to one of their mothers, or...?"

"A reward, or a punishment?" wonders Miles. He's getting mental images of a haut-lady tucked away in her bubble within a bubble, never seeing the light of day.

"It's the best shot at power a haut-woman can ever get—a chance of becoming a dowager empress, if her son — and it's always and only a son — is ultimately chosen to succeed his father. Even being the mother of one of the losers, a prince-candidate or satrap governor, is no bad deal. It's also why, in an apparently patriarchal culture, the output of the haut-constellations is skewed to girls. A constellation head — clan chief, in Barrayaran terminology — can never become an emperor or the father of an emperor, no matter how brightly his sons may shine. But through his daughters, he has a chance to become the grandfather of one. Advantages, as you may imagine, then accrue to the dowager empress's constellation. The Degtiar were not particularly important until fifty years ago."

"So - the emperor has sons, but everyone else is mad for daughters," he says, temporarily distracted from Handmaid-related concerns by sociological curiosity. "But only once or twice a century, when a new emperor succeeds, can anyone win the game."

Hang on. If the haut don't marry— "But what about all those famous and successful ghem-generals and ghem-lords who've won haut-lady wives?"

"They can't all aspire to become Imperial mothers, can they? Actually, I would point out this aspect particularly to you, Lord Vorkosigan. Have you ever wondered how the haut, who are not noted for their military prowess, control the ghem, who are?"

"Oh, yes," he says. "I've been expecting this crazy Cetagandan double-decked aristocracy to fall apart ever since I learned about it. How can you control guns with, with, art contests? How can a bunch of perfumed poetasters like the haut-lords buffalo whole ghem-armies?"

"The Cetagandan ghem-lords would call it the loyalty justly due to superior culture and civilization," Maz smiles. "The fact is that anyone who's competent enough or powerful enough to pose a threat gets genetically co-opted. There is no higher reward in the Cetagandan system than to be Imperially assigned a haut-lady wife. The ghem-lords are all panting for it. It's the ultimate social and political coup."

"You're suggesting the haut control the ghem through these wives?" he says skeptically. "I mean, I'm sure the haut-women are lovely and all, but the ghem-generals can be such hard-bitten cast-iron bastards—I can't imagine anyone who gets to the top in the Cetagandan Empire being that susceptible."

"If I knew how the haut-women do it," Maz sighs, "I'd bottle it and sell it. No, better — I think I'd keep it for myself. But it seems to have worked for the last several hundred years. It is not, of course, the only method of Imperial control, to be sure. Only the most overlooked one. I find that, in itself, significant. The haut are nothing if not subtle."

He considers this for a moment, and asks, "Does this - haut-bride - come with a dowry?"

"I'd think keeping a haut-wife in the style to which she is accustomed could get rather expensive," he says, continuing in this line of reasoning.

"Very."

"So," he concludes, "if the Cetagandan emperor wished to depress an excessively successful subject, he could award him a few haut-wives and bankrupt him?"

"Do you have any idea how much trouble we're in?"

"Yes," he says calmly. "I also know how we're going to get out of it. Do you know as much?"

"...What else do you know that I don't?"

"If you will just leave it to me, I believe I can get this thing back to its rightful," what was the word, "custodian with no one the wiser."

Miles unhesitatingly accepts.

Miles snorts. "I can't tell you," he says loftily, touching a hand to one of his paired silver Horus-eye collar pins - the insignia of an ImpSec agent. Which Miles is. "There's a lady's reputation involved."

"Horseshit," pronounces Ivan. "Are you running some kind of secret rig for Simon Illyan?"

"If I were, I couldn't tell you, now could I?"

"Why - certainly," he says. "Is Lord Yenaro's garden a sight to see?" In the dark?

"It's Linyabel again," the bubble clarifies, in, indeed, the same slightly bubble-distorted voice. "Did your research confirm the provenance of the object to your satisfaction?"

"...Yes," he says. "And a little more besides. I am left with... some further questions."

"...What do you need to know?"

"Why would be a fine start. Why did the Empress's most senior servant steal a piece of her regalia right before her funeral? I suppose there's a chance you don't know - but someone must. These things don't just happen. Every instinct I own is crying out that I am being set up - I, or Barrayar through me. I want to know enough to dodge the trap, wherever it may be hiding."

"You may very well be being set up, but ceasing to hold the object would be a good start at being less easily implicated," says Linyabel.

"I'm not convinced it would. Someone knew enough about me to - to arrange a very personally embarrassing accident. Someone might know enough about me to predict that I have no ambition to keep the thing. Maybe the trap comes after I give it back. Maybe you are the trap, knowingly or not. Information, milady. I need it."

"I... see," he says. "So. The ba took the Key to the transfer station, to meet with - a different set of galactics? I sincerely doubt it. A planetary governor?" He remembers the markings on that huge ship he saw docking when they came in. All the governors have come with their entourages for the funeral. It's a reasonable shot in the dark.

"A planetary governor," says Linyabel. "If you have any idea which direction ba Lura was coming from that might narrow it down, actually."

"So that remains a mystery, but you have something, which, if it is the Great Key, needs to go back where it belongs as soon as possible. Will you let me check it?"

"Which you will do... how, milady?"

"The Handmaiden gave me something that should serve."

"Damn," sighs Miles. The absence of that smile is painful to an almost physical degree, but he forges on. "So - what now? This thing is meant to have some function or other, my sources were extremely vague; is there time to restore from backup? Please tell me there's time to restore from backup." He has this sinking feeling that it's not going to be that easy...

"There isn't one. Unless whichever governor has the Key has copied it, in which case there still isn't a backup in the hands of the Star Creche."

"No backup. Milady, what the hell? I mean, I've heard the haut like their creations one-of-a-kind, but that's going a little far, don't you think?"

"No one consulted me."

"Clearly." He gazes up at her, intently, urgently. "Milady, let me help. You're in a hell of a situation - this Handmaiden of yours, too, whoever she is - and your enemy in this is my enemy also. Tell me what is going on, and I'll do the best I can for you. What function does the Key serve - why wasn't it backed up before - what in God's green ninety hells was the ba doing trying to copy it now, by such an absurdly risky method?"

"The status quo was," sighs Linyabel, "one copy of the Key, and one copy of the gene bank it opens. As a matter of centralized control, so no one could go start - independent haut projects of any scope. The late Celestial Lady wanted to decentralize, or at any rate recentralize. She made copies of the gene bank and gave one to each satrap governor. All of them already have one of those. They don't know that the others have them, either, as an incentive to keep it a secret. She left copying the key as a project for later, and then died, and then the ba decided to attempt to continue her plan. The ba may or may not have known at the time it encountered you that it had a fake, but I suspect it did not."

"Right... who are our suspects, then?" He climbs painfully to his feet - curse his damn blisters, curse his damn leg braces, curse his damn legs - and starts pacing, back and forth in a slight curve, orbiting the gravitic pull of the lady's beauty. "The haut So-and-so of Something Ceta now has the sole working copy of the Key. And he's probably none too eager to produce another one, except maybe for his personal use as backup, if he isn't f—isn't imprudently concerned with impregnable security over the risk of catastrophic data loss. Hell, keeping a single copy with no backup isn't even impregnable security, as the Ba Lura so helpfully demonstrated..."

"Yes. Cracking the gene banks without it would be a cryptanalysis project of immense scope and - perhaps a greater deterrent to the relevant parties, considering - necessarily limited elegance. The Handmaiden didn't manage to extract the name of a governor from Ba Lura before it left her custody - and I don't know how it did that, either, although it's possible she simply didn't tell me."

"Next question - which parts of this whole scheme count as treason as far as your Emperor is concerned?"

"The governors' receipt of the gene banks. And whichever one took the Key too, more so. The Empress, the planetary consorts while they went along with her plan, and the Ba Lura performed tasks orthogonal to questions of conventional treason, and now that the Celestial Lady has passed the Handmaiden may make decisions, convince the planetary consorts of different plans, and send me on errands on her own recognizance, not that I wouldn't make an easy target if someone took exception. Why?"

"I find it's good to know where I stand with respect to the law. What's a planetary consort?"

"If the satrap governors are emperors writ small, the consorts are empresses likewise."

"I... see." He halts his pacing, turns toward her. "So these consorts would themselves have become - non-miniature empresses, yes? If the plan went through? Is there any chance one of them was behind this whole fiasco?"

"Significantly less miniature, yes - and it's a thought, but the Handmaiden doesn't seem to think so, and says that she's argued the lot of them around."

"I feel an increasing need to meet this Handmaiden," says Miles. "If she's not too hautish to speak to an offworlder."

"She's listening to this conversation, so if she considers your need compelling you may well find that the next bubble you encounter is hers."

"And... what do you mean when you say you're an easy target?"

"Oh. I - personally, not as a result of any of this business - am fairly marginal or - maybe a better word would be disappointing - as haut-ladies go. I am exactly the sort who winds up first in line to be awarded to some ghem-lord alongside a couple of shiny new medals. Probably not even the Order of Merit."

...Miles splutters. "What!"

"...Which part of that do you need explained?"

"I - I know about haut-wives - I find myself incapable of imagining how anyone could consider you a disappointment," he admits, spreading his hands.

"Well, you remain the only haut-lady I've ever met. Perhaps the rest of them are even more - sensible, practical, prudent, straightforward... maybe the problem is that I'm valuing the wrong things," sighs Miles.

"Probably," says Linyabel. "We are not supposed to be any of the listed things. We are supposed to be artistic and insular."

"Well. I'm glad they missed the mark with you, then. This problem needs all the practical attention it can get. —I'm sorry if that was too flippant; I know a little something about being a disappointment, you see..." He lowers his gaze self-consciously.

"...I envy you, milady."

"The non-self-esteem-related concerns are significant," she amends. "I do not particularly want to marry a ghem-lord."

"I—see." And how much less must she want to—he isn't even going to think about it. "Back to the business at hand... do you know, or does your Handmaiden know, which governors were docked at that station when I arrived?"

"Ilsum Kety, Slyke Giaja, and Este Rond. Sigma, Xi, and Rho Ceta respectively."

"Right... I wish I'd brought a map of the wormhole nexus," he sighs. "I guess - how soon can I see—I mean—talk to you again? I'm going to be missed at the party if I'm here much longer." Much to his deep regret. "If possible, I'd like to meet with you and the Handmaiden both. With enough time to have a real conversation about what each of us knows and what we need to do to solve this."

When he mentions a use for a map her hand goes to the long wand of a pendant at her neck, but she leaves it be when he claims the need to depart. "I'll talk to her. I could extract the com link from the ba who led you here to allow contact at our mutual convenience but I'm not sure what the Barrayaran embassy would make of such a thing."

He shakes his head. "They'd be all over it, and not helpfully."

"Then it will have to be go-betweens again, but I'll talk to Lisbet and we'll try to find another bit of leeway in your schedule, hopefully a suitably prolonged one."

He flinches slightly, dreading to lose sight of her - but - he will be meeting her again; they've just arranged it.

"Goodbye, milady."

"I took a long walk with a lady." Speaking of which, "Where is my cousin?"

"Lord Vorpatril is taking a tour of the house with Lady Arvin and Lady Benello," says Yenaro. "They've been gone... an astonishingly long time." He seems puzzled, though he is trying to conceal that. "Since before you... I don't quite... ah well. Would you care for a drink?"

"Yes, please—" He accepts some of whatever it is, takes a distracted gulp, and installs himself in a seat with a view of the stairs. Come on, Ivan. Whatever you're doing up there with a pair of ghem-girls can't be all that important... normally Miles would find the pair of ghem-girls a considerable distraction in mental imagery, but the haut Linyabel's smile still blossoms in his memory, and the ghem-women who looked so beautiful to him when he left the house now seem no more than old rag dolls, their colours dull and faded, their stitching half unpicked.

"What? D'you want to call down the lightflyer?"

"No. Just back to the embassy in the groundcar."

"But—"

"No, dammit. Just quietly. Before that smirking bastard goes upstairs."

"I take it you don't think it's acute...?"

"Oh, it was cute, all right."

"You didn't murder anybody up there, did you?"

Ivan is still down in the infirmary by the time Miles is through with his showering and his musing.

"How - how - is this remotely your job?"

"The job is there and I can do it, Ivan. My social position gives me a kind of access no other ImpSec officer on this planet can claim. All right? Now - when you talked to Colonel Vorreedi, did you plant the idea that Yenaro had a high-placed backer? We might as well put him to use, now that he's back in town."

"Not exactly."

"I'd like you to talk to him again, then. Try to lead him in the direction of the satrap governors if you can manage it."

"Why don't you talk to him?"

"I'm not - ready," he says. "Not yet, not tonight, not now. I'm still assimilating it all. And technically, he is my ImpSec superior here, or would be, if I were on active duty. I'd like to limit my, um..."

"Outright lies to him?" trills Ivan.

He makes a face, but offers no verbal objections. "I need someone to cover the angles I can't," he presses.

Ugh.

...Miles is slightly worried by Maz's desperate facial expressions. He directs an inquiring facial expression back at her.

"Ah - to warn you," says Maz, "there's a rare point of etiquette in force today - if you see a haut-woman outside of a bubble, the polite thing to do is behave as though the bubble is still there. Because its loss is considered a great loss of face, you see, especially coming as it does with marrying out of the haut genome and into ghem-rank. You must never directly address a haut-wife, even if she's standing right in front of you. Put all inquiries through her ghem-husband, and wait for him to transmit the replies - and never stare directly at them."

"Yes, of course," he says, and glances around for Vorob'yev - thankfully well out of reach - or Maz. Maz is reasonably close. "Just a moment," he says to the ba, and approaches Maz to inform her that he will be going off to speak with a lady and may be some time, and that they needn't wait for him.

Since he has know way of knowing which haut-lady this is - or even if it is a haut-lady to begin with; he suggested the bubble-borrowing gambit to Benin himself, after all - he greets her in the most generic possible way. "Good evening, milady. You asked to see me? How may I serve you?"

Linyabel's voice, or one cunningly disguised thereas - well, as cunning as it needs to be with the helpful layer of distortion from the bubble, at any rate - says: "Lord Vorkosigan. You expressed an interest in genetic matters. I thought you would care for a short tour."

The haut Lisbet smiles. "They will just have to contain their displeasure. First, I should tell you that I spoke with Governor haut Slyke Giaja yesterday, and I strongly believe he is not the thief. He wanted to see the regalia, but had no reaction whatsoever to the fake Key - no subtle tells, and no demands that I demonstrate its continued functionality. That narrows our list of suspects down to two."

"I see... you're sure about him?" he asks. "It's just, I was just talking to the other two, and haut-lords don't seem to have tells, as far as I can... tell."

"The haut can be difficult to read," she acknowledges, "even to other haut - but reading people is a particular talent of mine. Slyke is a dead end, I all but guarantee it."

"Okay. That leaves Kety or Rond," he says. "I couldn't manage to eliminate either of them with the lines of investigation available to me... by the way," he turns to Linyabel, "the ghem-colonel in charge of investigating Ba Lura's murder spoke with me yesterday. He wanted to know what we talked about, the first - and as far as he knows, the only - time we met. I said you asked me a lot of confusingly vague questions that I thought might have something to do with a genetic interest in my... anomalies. Which are not in fact genetic," he emphasizes. "Teratogenic damage only - prenatal poisoning, from an assassination attempt on my parents. I hope he hasn't managed to corner you in the meantime and gotten a different story out of you...?"

"I was not in the least informative to him, so the story is consistent," she says. "And I knew that already; I looked you up."

...He blinks, caught off-guard. "You did?"

"I had to know who to send the ba for the first time," she explains. "And I read quickly and I was not pressingly occupied, so there was no reason to stop at the part where I could describe you as being roughly its height."

"Anyway. This leaves two possibilities and I am at a loss as to how to meaningfully discriminate between them in a timely manner."

"Much as I hate to say it... if none of us can think of anything better, we might just have to wait," says Miles. "I gave the investigator a hint or two that might help lead him in the direction of the governors, and my own embassy's security is investigating the man who caused my embarrassing accident earlier in the week." He omits all mention of Ivan's embarrassing accident. "I can probably get something out of Benin if he comes back to ask me more questions, and embassy security might turn up some dirt on Yenaro. Those are the only lines I've got."

"So - this was close to pointless apart from getting our stories straight, then - speaking of which, what is the explanation for why Lord Vorkosigan is here if someone asks?"

"Lord Vorkosigan inquired after genetic solutions to his troubles, which I of course proved unable to supply—" Her comconsole chimes. She glances at it. "—And then, apparently, I asked the two of you to wait outside my office while I took a call relating to Star Creche business." She makes a slight shooing motion.

Linyabel shoos. If she does have a balance disorder, it is not apparent when she's just gliding across the floor.

"If the consequences of pointing out the wrong one weren't so potentially disastrous this would be much easier," sighs Linyabel.

"Yes," says Miles. "If only. It is worthwhile to have Slyke ruled out, though. Just two to go..." Oh, the hell with it. "Milady, may I ask why you don't want to be married off to a ghem-lord? I'm—sorry if the question is too personal. I find all this haut-business even more bewildering than I'd anticipated."

"I don't mind the question. Though I am a little skeptical that you are interested to hear me complain."

"Fascinated, milady," he promises quite sincerely.

"...I find I understand your position more than I expected to," he says after a moment, thoughtfully.

"Why, what were you imagining I'd say?"

"I really didn't have any idea," he says. "But I'm reminded of a story from my childhood - up until age five, I had to spend all my time in a full-body brace, to make sure my bones grew as straight as possible and didn't break too often while they were still just developing. I have it on good authority from my mother - my own memories are somewhat vaguer - that as soon as I got out of the thing, I learned to run almost immediately and didn't slow down for months." He thinks of Ivan, and adds, "Some people might say I still haven't. So your complaints about haut society have... emotional resonance."

"I think I was about five when I noticed I wasn't supposed to do the things that most interested me," muses Linyabel. "I don't even think I was the only one - but I declined to be sneaky about it and pretend to grow out of it. Sometimes I wonder if that was a good idea. I suppose I'll have a very clear picture when I'm old enough to see in more detail where it gets me."

"It's rarely given to us to know where we could have ended up, if we'd made a different choice," says Miles. "We only have the one reality to play with."

"Yes. But if I risk some particular drawback, and it befalls me, I think I may be legitimately wistful about the lost chance to pursue plans that did not have that specific problem. Who knows, perhaps if I am very clever I will wind up with a ghem-lord who will bring me on a diplomatic excursion to Beta Colony and leave the door unlocked."

"I've actually never been out under the sun without my bubble unless you count that extremely rainy occasion or don't count the dome as interfering with the sunshine... And, we don't hear back from the wives very often. So perhaps it's vanishingly uncommon; I would like to think so. But if he did decide to lock her up - to do anything he liked to her, for that matter - what do you imagine she could do about it? These are extremely high-status ghem-lords, with powerful friends who owe them favors, and they're often half or more haut themselves genetically speaking, in the event it ever comes down to a physical contest."

Miles shudders slightly. "What a horrifying thought."

"But perhaps this never happens. Perhaps all the actual personal relationships are negotiated in their details to the mutual satisfaction of both principals - if not that of the ghem co-wives, I suppose - and the reason one does not hear about any runaways is that I am the only haut-lady who has ever considered living on Beta Colony - or somewhere - preferable."

"Having a haut-wife is meant to be an honour... but... I suppose it doesn't necessarily follow that the wives in question are treated as cherished people as opposed to cherished ornaments," he says. "Ambulatory medals."

"Why, what would you do with one if you had one?"

"That might do it," she agrees. "I can't say for sure - you aren't a ghem-lord. But it is not impossible."

"I... um... admit to entertaining some hope in the matter," he says. Is he blushing? God, he hopes he's not blushing. (He is blushing.)

"I have no wish to insinuate myself where unwelcome," says Linyabel lightly.

"You would be very welcome," he assures her with utmost sincerity.

"...by you, that is clear. I do have some concern about the rest of Barrayar, though. Considering." She gestures generally at herself; she might as well be labeled 100% Cetagandan, Manufactured On Eta Ceta, This End Up.

"Imperial approval is, in most places where 'imperial' is a relevant adjective, an excellent start," agrees Linyabel. "As is a well-filtered list of associates, I suppose."

"Anyway. I... suppose I shouldn't get ahead of myself," he sighs. "We still need to find the damn Key. And then get it back - and I do think I'd be useful on that mission. I'm the only trained intelligence agent you've got, at the moment. As far as I know. The job description may be 'courier', but the training's no different."

"Yes. What do you need to operate? I am assuming Lisbet will help; she seems to like you."

"Yes, I got a similar impression... Ideally I'd want some way to travel up to the appropriate ship in disguise, or otherwise concealed," he says. "Disguised as a ba, possibly, because some of them are as short as I am and hardly anyone seems to pay them any attention unless they're lying dead in unexpected places. And of course an accurate map of the ship would be extremely helpful."

"It shouldn't be hard to get you a ba's uniform," Linyabel nods. "A map of the ships in question might not be available, but I can see if I'm wrong..." And with that she plucks the long black wand from her necklace - it detaches easily, revealing itself to have been tucked in a little collar on the chain. She spins it in her hand, pokes three points in the air, turns it around again, and - it projects something you might expect to see on a custom-programmed comconsole, but hovering stationary in the air on the plane she defined, even as the wand moves to jab at this and that and navigate her file trees.

"...Nice," says Miles. "Is that a usual haut-lady tool?"

"Nope," she says, grinning. "It's my pen. I made it."

"Very nice."

"I'm very fond of it." Eventually she has found what she's looking for. "Well, these are the models of the ships, and here are maps of them, but this won't show any customization that's happened since or tell you if the rooms have been purposed other than according to the maker's recommendations."

"Yeah. Less than ideal, but - it's not nothing. Thanks. I'll want another look at whichever one of those turns out to be relevant, before I go up."

"Lisbet may have a peripheral I can use to get them on flimsies, if you don't expect anyone to wonder why you have ship maps on flimsies?"

"Mmm... at this point, I think it wouldn't be enough of a benefit to be worth the admittedly slight risk that someone will get nosy about them. If I only study the one ship, and only when I'm ready to go, then it'll be fresher in my mind when I'm up there and there won't be any risk of getting the two confused."

"All right." She waggles the pen; the projection disappears and she puts it back on her necklace.

"That is an amazing gadget."

"I'd like to come up with a consumer version, but so far the best I've been able to do is smuggle about a third of the gesture recognition technology to a company on Escobar."

"Well. I... hope you find the horizon of your opportunities broadening soon." Oh, does he ever.

"So do I."

When the door to the office opens again, Linyabel slips back inside. "I wouldn't have expected you to have left the console open to calls," she comments to Lisbet.

"I like to know when someone wants my attention even if I am going to ignore them," says the Handmaiden. "Lord Vorkosigan, your delegation will be missing you. I will make arrangements to contact you again soon, to discuss any further information we may receive."

"There's this Bioestheties Exhibition thing tomorrow," he ventures. "It's possible I could sneak away from that, if you sent someone."

"Then I will send someone."

Linyabel, detecting the end of the conversation, returns to her float-chair and bubbles herself to escort Miles out.

Miles follows the bubble.

Ivan is back from his most recent social engagement with ghem-ladies already by the time Miles goes to their suite.

Miles attempts to damp down his good mood, lest it inspire Ivan to curiosity.

"No!" he says indignantly.

"What's going on then, come on, give."

"None of your business."

"Does it have to do with your whole Lieutenant Vorkosigan's Adventures with the Empress's Dildo shenanigans?"

"Not exactly in the way you mean," he hedges. "Although I did meet the Handmaiden today, and she crossed one more governor off the list. It's down to two, now."

"And now you look vaguely drunk. Come on, coz, spill. Do I not keep your secrets?"

"You do," he says, "for which I am certainly grateful, but—" But what? But he has the irrational fear that if he tells Ivan that a haut-lady wants to marry him, Ivan will find some way to - Ivan her away? Yes, apparently he does. He shrugs, perhaps in an unnecessarily theatrical fashion.

"Are you that sure you're not going to need me to cover you for whatever-it-is?" attempts Ivan.

"I might need you to cover for me ducking out of the Bioestheties Exhibition tomorrow, actually. But not for any mysterious reasons; the Handmaiden's going to be sending someone to check in and exchange information, see if either of us has it narrowed down any better by then."

"How're you going to do that?" asks Ivan, successfully distracted.

"Do what? Narrow it down, or duck out of the exhibition? In either case, I suspect I'll be improvising."

"Of course," snorts Ivan. "Why do you only ever tell me anything when I'm your only ticket to getting your boots off?"

"I told you about the eliminated governor, didn't I? It was Slyke - we're down to Ilsum Kety or Este Rond."

Ivan grumbles, but leaves it be.