"He has already been detained," says Benin.

(Linyabel, meanwhile, has quietly halted the scream into everywhere of the contents of the Great Key and turned it over to Nadina, with its accessory.)

"One thing that Lord Vorpatril has not yet explained to my satisfaction, Lieutenant Vorkosigan," says Vorreedi grimly, "is why you concealed the initial incident involving an object of such enormous importance -"

"Kety was trying to frame Barrayar, sir. Until I could achieve independent corroborative evidence that—"

"From your own side," Vorreedi presses.

Miles sighs.

"In fact, sir, I did not at first recognize the Great Key for what it was. But once the haut Lisbet contacted me via Linyabel, events slid very rapidly from apparently trivial to extremely delicate. By the time I realized the full depth and complexity of the haut-governor's plot, it was too late."

"Too late for what?" asks Vorreedi, rather pointedly.

Miles shakes his head. "You would have taken the investigation away from me, you know you would have, sir. Everyone in the wormhole nexus thinks I'm a cripple who's been given a cushy nepotistic sinecure as a courier. That I might be competent for more is something I - have never been given a chance to publicly prove."

The higher-ups on his own side know, of course, at least those of sufficient height - Illyan, Gregor, Miles's father Aral. It's the Cetagandans who are unaware of just exactly who played an instrumental role in foiling their attempted invasion of Vervain a year or two ago.

And it's the Cetagandans whom Miles happened to need to impress this time around. Not that that was his sole motive.

"So... you wanted to be a hero?" clarifies ghem-Colonel Benin.

"So badly you didn't even care for which side?" says Vorreedi unhappily.

"I have done the Cetagandan Empire a nice little favour," Miles concedes, directing an unsteady but courteous bow to Benin. "But only in the course of rescuing Barrayar from the wrong end of Governor Kety's cruel ambitions. It was all of a piece."

"Where would you be if we hadn't come along, though?" asks Ivan.

(Linyabel, meanwhile, murmurs to her ghem-attendant that, no, she does not need the Barrayaran removed from her person, is the ghem-attendant even paying attention?)

Miles grins.

"Ivan, we won before you boarded this ship. Kety was just thrashing a little on the way down. I suppose if you'd taken another hour he could've cut the bubble and killed us or something," he concedes, "probably starting with me, but he still wouldn't have gotten away and the Star Creche still would've recovered the Key."

"For which," Linyabel puts in, "the Star Creche is thoroughly thankful."

Benin deflates slightly. "Hm. In any case, Lord Vorkosigan - my Celestial master the Emperor haut Fletchir Giaja requests you attend upon him in my company. Now."

"...the haut Linyabel and your friends may accompany you," Benin says. He adds, to Vorreedi and Ivan - assuming Linyabel is full up on protocol, "With the understanding that they may not speak unless invited to do so."

Vorreedi nods understanding. Ivan attempts to look extremely bland.

With that, Linyabel starts floating forward. They wind up near Nadina.

"Such a nice young man," Nadina murmurs about Benin, nodding at him. "So neatly turned-out, and he understands the proprieties. We'll have to see what we can do for him. Don't you agree?"

"Not me," says Linyabel. "Surely."

"You've acquitted yourself so well, though. Perhaps things could be different now."

"Not, I think, enough to suit me, even if enough to suit the haut. But by all means, get ghem-Colonel Benin a present."

And with that, they are on the Cetagandan security shuttle, accompanied by Benin himself.

"By the way," says Miles, smiling with a hint of mischief, "congratulations on cracking your very tricky murder case, General Benin."

"...Colonel Benin," the ghem-colonel corrects, blinking in puzzlement.

"Time will tell," Miles says serenely.

Linyabel stays with them - and with Miles in her lap - until they have landed, and then she picks him up and puts him on his feet gently and goes with Nadina and Benin one way while ghem-guards - courteous, but mysteriously and politely void of any means for their guests to communicate with the outside - lead the Barrayarans elsewhere.

Elsewhere is an antechamber; following a prolonged wait, elsewhere becomes a chamber proper which Vorreedi claims not to recognize. It doesn't, apparently, see use in public or diplomatic ceremony. It has curiously deadened acoustics and, under cunningly but incompletely concealed panels, a pop-up comconsole and station chairs. They are obliged to stand for the time being, as none of the pop-up furnishings are currently popped up.

Yenaro, who looks much the worse for wear, is waiting there too. He is not pleased to see Miles and Ivan, and tries to pretend not to notice them.

Yenaro, pained, nods politely back.

Ghem-Colonel Benin enters the room, and dismisses the ghem-guards. Following him are Linyabel, Nadina, and Lisbet, in float-chairs but without force-screens, who arrange themselves on the side of the room. (Nadina's hair is tucked with its ends out of sight in her garments.)

Last, the emperor himself strides in, shedding more guards at the entrance. By Imperial standards, his outfit is casual, half a dozen layers of mourning white. Yenaro sways on his feet as though likely to faint. Even Benin is rigidly formal. A chair rises from the floor to greet the imperial presence, and down sits Emperor Fletchir Giaja. He beckons Benin; Benin dismisses even Yenaro's guard. The room contains one Emperor, three haut-ladies, three Barrayarans, and Yenaro.

"Lord Vorkosigan," says the Emperor.

Miles steps forward as unshakily as possible.

"Sir," he acknowledges.

The Imperial fuss is not all that intimidating to him; his parents raised Emperor Gregor Vorbarra, his foster brother in all but name, and his childhood memories insist that emperors are for playing hide-and-seek with. Which could be a deadly intuition to obey in this context. He tries very hard to keep salient facts in the forefront of his mind, like ruler of eight planets, and older than my father.

"I am still... unclear," the Cetagandan Emperor continues, "just what your place was in these recent events. And how you came by it."

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

The Celestial Master frowns slightly. "Explain yourself."

Miles flicks a glance at the haut Lisbet.

A complete explanation, then.

He takes a deep breath and starts at the beginning.

Vorreedi manages to damp his reaction down to a clenched jaw when Miles gets to the part about Ba Lura carrying the false Great Key on its ill-fated incursion.

From there he goes on to the funeral rotunda, to his realization that to exculpate Barrayar he must produce the true Key, that the ba's murder implied something seriously whiffy going on at the highest levels of Celestial Garden security, that Benin must have been a sacrificial appointee - Benin confirms with a nod that Naru did indeed personally assign him to the case. Miles goes on to praise Benin's ability to pick up his hints and run with them, and picks up the haut-thread of the narrative again with a commendation of Lisbet Serise's ability to read her people and general level-headedness.

"I'm sure Lura was primed with all sorts of lies, but haut Lisbet didn't buy a word of them. She acted throughout for the good of the haut - for all of us - never once for her personal aggrandizement," he says. "I'd say your late August Mother chose her Handmaiden well."

"That is hardly for you to judge, Barrayaran," says the haut Fletchir Giaja in tones so dry Miles can't tell amusement from genuine danger.

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

The Imperial eyebrows drift upward in surprise.

"And," the Emperor asks after a pause, "how did you come to be involved with Lord Yenaro?"

"Um," says Miles. "From my point of view, you mean? Right." And he proceeds to lay out the whole business as neutrally as possible, one two three - sorry, Ivan - from the microwaved leg braces to the zlati ale to the carpet incident. Vorreedi looks slightly sick when Miles describes that last. "In my opinion," Miles concludes, "Lord Yenaro was as much an intended victim as Ivan or I. The asterzine bomb proves it. There is no treason in the man."

Yenaro, when prompted, confirms Miles's story. Benin calls for a guard to escort the ghem-lord out.

There is an extended silence. Miles shifts uncomfortably.

"Does your medical condition require you to sit?" asks ghem-Colonel Benin, with a less-than-subtle glance at the haut Linyabel.

"I'll live," mutters Miles.

The Emperor makes a slight gesture, commanding immediate absolute silence from the Cetagandans in the room. Miles picks up this cue.

"That suffices for my appraisal of the concerns of the Empire. We must now turn to the concerns of haut. Ladies, you may keep your Barrayaran creature. Ghem-Colonel Benin. Will you kindly wait in the antechamber with Colonel Vorreedi and Lord Vorpatril until I call you."

"Sire," says Benin, and with a sharp salute turns to herd Ivan and Vorreedi out of the room.

Miles thinks of objecting, and then decides against it, on the grounds that no quantity of Barrayarans short of an army is going to make him any safer in Fletchir Giaja's presence than Fletchir Giaja decides he ought to be.

The remaining Cetagandans undergo a remarkable transformation, from haut-blankness to a more expressive affect. The Emperor looks angry. Lisbet looks... slightly amused.

"Give the boy a chair, Fletchir," she says. "He fell onto the inside of a haut-bubble force-screen; if you make him stand up for much longer, he's going to fall over."

"As you wish," says the Emperor. He manipulates a control; a station chair rises from the floor next to Miles.

"I am sure you all see now," says the haut Fletchir Giaja, "the wisdom of our ancestors in arranging that the haut and the Empire shall have only one interface. Me. Only one veto. Mine. Issues of the haut-genome must remain as insulated as possible from the political sphere, lest they fall into the hands of politicians who do not understand the goal of haut. That includes most of our gentle ghem-lords, as ghem-General Naru has perhaps proved to you, Nadina."

Nadina nods unhappily.

Lisbet shakes her head. "More to the point, look at Ilsum Kety. That is what I would call the true result of our ancestors' wisdom. The culmination of their high art. I am not yet sure where the solution lies, except that it certainly isn't with the late Celestial Lady's intended Imperial mitosis."

Fletchi regards Lisbet thoughtfully. She regards him right back, direct and calm. "Backups," she says firmly. "Backups, and perhaps an Imperial edict or two to encourage constellation crosses and genetic diversification. We need more experiments," is that a slight incline of her head towards Linyabel? "not less."

"Hm," says Fletchir. "And—Nadina—whatever possessed you to spill the contents of the Great Key across the entire Eta Ceta system? As a joke, it does not amuse."

"My idea," interjects Miles from his chair. "And no joke, sir. As far as we knew, we might all have been about to die sometime in the next hour. It was my understanding that the highest priority was the recovery of the Great Key. The receivers got the Key but no lock - valueless gibberish, without the gene banks to go with it. One way or another, we assured you would be able to recover it, even after our deaths, regardless of any measures Kety might take. The upload was only canceled after Benin charged in and arrested everyone. Live or die, the job gets done—that's the best kind of strategy, in my opinion."

"Hm," Fletchir repeats. He glances at Nadina, then Linyabel. "Is this true?"