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Pel let him out of her bubble in another private nook, in an unobserved
moment, and drifted away again. He pictured her reporting back to Rian-Yes,
milady, I released the Barrayaran back into the wild as you ordered. I hope he
will be able to find food and a mate out there.... He sat on a bench
overlooking the Celestial Garden, and meditated upon that view until Ivan and
Ambassador Vorob'yev found him.
They looked, respectively, scared and angry. "You're late," said Ivan. "Where
the hell did you go?"
"I almost called out Colonel Vorreedi and the guards," added Ambassador
Vorob'yev sternly.
"That would have been... futile," sighed Miles. "We can go now."
"Thank God," muttered Ivan.
Vorob'yev said nothing. Miles rose, wondering how soon the ambassador and
Vorreedi were going to stop taking Not yet for an answer.
Not yet. Please, not yet.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
There was nothing he would have liked more than a day off, Miles reflected,
but not today. The worst was the knowledge that he'd done this to himself.
Until the consorts completed their retrieval of the gene banks, all he could
do was wait. And unless Rian sent a car to the embassy to pick him up, a move
so overt as to be vigorously resisted by both sets of Imperial Security, it
was impossible for Miles to make contact with her again until the Gate-song
Ceremonies tomorrow morning at the Celestial Garden.
He grumbled under his breath, and called up more data on his suite's
comconsole, then stared at it unseeing.
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He wasn't sure it was wise to give Lord X an extra day either, for all that
this afternoon would contain a nasty shock for him when his consort came to
take away his gene bank. That would eliminate his last chance of sitting
tight, and gliding away with bank and Key, perhaps dumping his old centrally
appointed and controlled consort out an airlock en route. The man must realize
now that Rian would turn him in, even if it meant incriminating herself,
before letting him get away. Assassinating the
Handmaiden of the Star Creche hadn't been part of the Original Plan, Miles was
fairly sure. Rian had been intended to be a blind puppet, accusing Miles and
Barrayar of stealing her Key. Lord X had a weakness for blind puppets. But
Rian was loyal to the haut, beyond her own self-interest. No right-minded
plotter could assume she would stay paralyzed for long.
Lord X was a tyrant, not a revolutionary. He wanted to take over the system,
not change it. The late Empress was the real revolutionary, with her attempt
to divide the haut into eight competing sibling branches, and may the best
superman win. The Ba
Lura might have been closer to its mistress's mind than Rian allowed. You
can't give power away and keep it simultaneously.
Except posthumously.
So what would Lord X do now? What could he do now, but fight to the last,
trying anything he could think of to avoid being brought down for this? It was
that or slit his wrists, and Miles didn't think he was the wrist-slitting
type. He would still be searching for some way to pin it all on Barrayar,
preferably in the form of a dead Miles who couldn't give him the lie. There
was even still a faint chance he could bring that off, given the Cetagandan
lack of enthusiasm for outlanders in general and
Barrayarans in particular. Yes, this was a good day to stay indoors.
So would the results have been any better if Miles had publicly turned over
the decoy Key and the truth on the very first day?
No... then the embassy and its envoys would be mired right now in false
accusations and public scandal, and no way to prove their innocence. If Lord X
had picked any other delegation but Barrayar's upon which to plant his false
Key-say, the Marilacans, the
Aslunders, or the Vervani-his plan might yet be running along like clockwork.
Miles hoped sourly that Lord X was Very, Very
Sorry that he'd targeted Barrayar. And I'm going to make you even sorrier, you
sod.
Miles's lips thinned as he turned his attention back to his comconsole. The
satrap governors' ships were all to the same general plan, and a general plan,
alas, was all the Barrayaran embassy data bank had available without tapping
in to the secret files. Miles
shuffled the holovid display though the various levels and sections of the
ship. If I were a satrap governor planning revolt, where would I hide the
Great Key? Under ray pillow? Probably not.
The governor had the Key, but not the Key's key, so to speak; Rian still
possessed that ring. If Lord X could open the Great
Key, he could do a data dump, possess himself of a duplicate of the
information-contents, and maybe, in a pinch, return the original, divesting
himself of material evidence of his treasonous plans. Or even destroy it, hah.
But if the Key were easy to get open, he should have done this already, when
his plans first began to go seriously wrong. So if he was still trying to
access the
Key, it ought to be located in some sort of cipher lab. So where on this vast
ship was a suitable cipher lab... ?
The chime of his door interrupted Miles's harried perusal. Colonel Vorreedi's
voice inquired, "Lord Vorkosigan? May I come in?"
Miles sighed. "Enter." He'd been afraid all this comconsole activity would
attract Vorreedi's attention. The protocol officer had to be monitoring from
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downstairs.
Vorreedi trod in, and studied the holovid display over Miles's shoulder.
"Interesting. What is it?"
"Just brushing up on Cetagandan warship specs. Continuing education,
officer-style, and all that. The hope for promotion to ship duty never dies."
"Hm." Vorreedi straightened. "I thought you might like to hear the latest on
your Lord Yenaro."
"I don't think I own him, but-nothing fatal, I hope," said Miles sincerely.
Yenaro might be an important witness, later; upon mature reflection Miles was
beginning to regret not offering him asylum at the embassy.
"Not yet. But an order has been issued for his arrest."
"By Cetagandan Security? For treason?"
"No. By the civil police. For theft."
"It's a false charge, I'd lay odds. Somebody's trying to use the system to
smoke him out of hiding. Can you find out who laid the charge?"
"A ghem-lord by the name of Nevic. Does that mean anything to you?"
"No. He's got to be a puppet. The man who put Nevic up to it is the man we
want. The same man who supplied Yenaro with the plans and money for his
fun-fountain. But now you have two strings to pull."
"You imagine it to be the same man?"
"Imagination," said Miles, "has nothing to do with it. But I need proof,
stand-up-in-court type proof."
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