Forward Momentum -- Chapter 17 (a)

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Chapter Seventeen

Four days later, waiting to board the Lord Mark Vorkosigan in yet another astonishingly designed, elegantly cut, and confidence-bestowing dress Lady Alys had produced, apparently at Gregor’s cost, Helen Vorthys fingered her Imperial Silver Star and wondered how much more history she could safely absorb.

Colleagues in the nascent Vorbarra Institute were aboard liners with the counts, ghem-lords, ambassadors, and political observers, and she badly wanted their perspectives to supplement her own, which she thought had probably been imperially skewed. Just slightly. She also felt distracted by side-play, not only in the sumptuous receptions each emperor had thrown for the other, but in individual preoccupations and densities of people she was beginning to know and like, as well as respect. Harra and Lem Csurik were altogether a remarkable couple (and she should clearly get a graduate student into Silvy Vale as soon as might be) but made her feel she could no longer see events from outside. Lord Mark, conversely, however saturnine and delightful to see with Kareen, like Taura made her feel she lacked under­standing of what Jackson’s Whole had truly been, the horrors and moral nullities lurking behind such handy labels as genetic entrepôt and clone merchants.

A searing glimpse of those horrors had unexpectedly been afforded her late on the evening of the invasion, when she had at last dragged herself away from images of Imperial and ghem troops releasing bewild­ered Jacksonians from stasis to process them, of barons and baronnes slowly assembled by bubbles that did indeed march them through their own streets. The Nexus-wide broadcast continued, and while people must sleep sometime they seemed to be leaving holovids on, and the estimated audience was hovering around 750 billion-a historical event to ponder even had the content of the broadcast been drying paint, but that dimension would have to wait. Finding Miles and Ekaterin on their own in a morning-room attached to the guest accommodation area, she had propelled them into a corner and clarified basic matters about his colourful guests and their reasons for being invited. Fascinating. Did Miles know how much he revealed of his deeper motives in his patent knight errantry and forcible, hyper­extend­ed rescues of women in distress? Looking at Ekaterin’s smile she thought he did and, arraying in her mind Elena Bothari-Jesek, Elli Quinn, Taura, and Rowan Durona, with Harra Csurik and the haut Rian Degtiar, began to think better of her niece’s strongly romantic-and-botanical theory of Vorkosiganity at large and its Milesian variant in particular. Conversation was drifting to interesting things Ekaterin had done and seen on honeymoon-Helen especially wanted to hear about Marilac-when a bustle heralded the arrival of Gregor trailed by an alarmed Laisa, Cordelia, and a string of sweating guards.

Miles had told Helen once that Gregor did everything quietly, even rage, but his quiet rage could fill a room like sea-water, palpable pressure making breathing difficult. Helen didn’t know if this was rage exactly, but even with her back to the door she felt weight envelop her, and as Miles and Ekaterin rose turned to see Gregor standing there, face dead white, eyes burning. Cordelia, coming to a halt behind him, was trying to mouth something to Miles, but he didn’t seem to need it. He flicked his hands, and Cordelia swung to sweep the guards back out and close the door. By the time she turned again Miles had reached Gregor and enfolded him in a hug, one arm summoning Laisa and Cordelia to join them, then Ekaterin, holding Gregor close in a circle of human family warmth. Helen sat frozen with her mind whirling until after what seemed an eternity Miles pulled Gregor over to a seat and squatted in front of him, still holding his foster-brother’s hands.

“What did they find?” Gregor said nothing; unnervingly, Helen saw tears in his eyes. “The Bharaputras’ deep labs?”

“Yes.” Gregor’s voice was a cracked whisper. “You knew?”

Miles grimaced. “I could only imagine details but I knew what there must be, somewhere. So did Pel. And Rian,.” He peered closely at Gregor and spoke intimately, though everyone could hear him. “I know you, brother. And just now you are bitterly hating yourself and the world because you felt bilious horror at Bharaputra’s and Ryoval’s monsters, as well as overwhelming rage for them and a deal of personal relief.” Behind Gregor Helen saw Cordelia’s and Laisa’s mouths form Os of understand­ing, but Miles didn’t seem inclined to a Betan psycho­therapeutic route. “Two things, Gregor dear. Don’t be silly. Of course you did. Anyone sane would. Even I do.” Helen could detect no irony in his voice, and part of her brain seized as he continued. “And don’t you dare.” Miles’s voice hit Gregor like a slap. “Mark taught me this. Remember the man who made worse than you’ve just seen held Mark for five days we cannot imagine. Then Mark killed him, and has never allowed any of us to know or pity what he somehow endured, because free of our pity, which is shame in disguise, his victory is complete and his healing possible. So shall yours be, and I will not let you erode it from within.”

As Miles spoke colour came back to Gregor’s face and focus to his eyes. A hand sought Laisa’s as she knelt beside him. Miles gave them a moment, exchanging a glance with his mother and a briefer one with Ekaterin; when his gaze rested on Helen she felt an assessment at once passionate and distantly analytical before he turned back to Gregor and Laisa, speaking intimately again, not caring if Helen heard.

“Some combat wisdom you might not have been able to learn from Cavilo, brother, sister.” Helen, wondering who in the Nexus Cavilo might be, saw Laisa’s and Cordelia’s glances flick sharply at Miles. “Lose the horrors in a warm body, soon. If you don’t you’ll be trying to lose them in the bottle or worse before the week’s out.” He gave them another few seconds and stood, hauling Gregor up. “What’s happening with the lab?”

Gregor swallowed. “The Star Crèche are sending a team down to … do what they can.”

“And what they must, yes. So leave it to them, for now.” Miles guided Gregor and Laisa towards the door Cordelia opened; guards snapped to attention in the corridor. She left briefly, but returned to collar Miles and Ekaterin for what Helen suspected, as she made her way to her own cabin, would qualify as a debriefing. Uninterested in revelations of the imperial bedroom, if not of the imperial mind, she had glimpsed with force a mental world known to her only in theory, save perhaps in those hours as a prisoner on the Komarran jump-station; and thinking of that experience and her own reactions to it she went in search of Georg.

The other distraction, for a putative biographer of Miles, was Lord Ivan, and in his case one puzzle had replaced another. In previous encounters Helen had found Ivan a pleasant, handsome, and amusing if self-centred high Vor lordling, and slowly came to understand his affable idiot strategy as strategy-one she had to admit made sense if you were, while Miles, Mark, and Gregor were childless, third in line to the Vorkosigan countship, and via Aral and Miles arguably third in line to the imperial throne. What Major-or probably Colonel-Lord Vorpatril would do when the present spate of Vorbarra and Vorkosigan babies had distanced him from these grim possibilities she looked forward to finding out, and his unexpectedly loutish ill-humour had been the first puzzle. Then yesterday, as she was talking with Georg, Miles, and Cordelia about Nicol’s wonderful music, which the ship’s captain by popular demand and imperial permission was playing twice a day over the comm, Ivan passed them with something close to a sneer and she had seen Cordelia’s face crease in concern. Waiting until he was a dozen paces past Miles abruptly excused himself and shot after his cousin. Catching up he had done something that brought Ivan to one knee with a gasp as Miles gripped his shoulders and began an intense whisper. What exactly he said Helen had no idea, but it sent Ivan by turns a dull red, bone white, and a deeper red, interspersed with glances at Cordelia from lowered eyes. When Miles let him go he had risen, limped back to them, made a strangled apology, mostly to Cordelia, and departed the way he had come. Rejoining them Miles smiled blandly and said nothing, despite a pair of sharply raised maternal eyebrows, but since then Ivan had seemed more himself, as if the mask of polite cheer Miles forced on him was having a genuine effect.

Then there had been the imperial receptions. The more fascinating for her had in most ways been the visit to Giaja’s ship with its extra­ordinary combinations of luxury and austerity, hundreds of flowering plants in exquisite ceramic pots with the subtlest curves and mono­chrome glazes, and gliding among them intensely disturbing Ba servitors; the circulation of what seemed dozens of haut lady-bubbles in festive colours, and vocal melodies that exquisitely engineered voices floated through a burble of conversation; the reserved pride and counter­vailing, intense curiosity about the Barrayarans of the haut; the food, oh my, the food, course after course following rich, haunting choral music sung by a ghem-choir who with Giaja’s permission dedicated their perform­ance to a stunned Nicol; the presence of a cheerful Jack Chandler, just returned from what she realised must have been work on the wormholes and evidently forgiven by the Cetagandans; and the unexpectedly few military ghem present, closely attentive to Miles, markedly deferential to Ekaterin, and including Vanos Kariam in delightful person.

Gregor’s reception had been the more dramatic, however, from the moment Giaja had swept out of the lift from the docking-hold to clasp Gregor’s hands for a long minute in the antechamber while Rian’s and three other bubbles waited behind him with the rest of his party and the emperors assessed one another in the flesh. Rian and the other haut women-Pel and two planetary consorts new to Helen-remained embubbled, though conversing readily, until food was served and the emperors and empresses withdrew to a private dining-chamber. Rather to her surprise Helen and Georg were invited to this, with other original summiteers including Miles and Ekaterin, Lady Alys and Simon Illyan, and Cordelia and Aral, though not Chandler, and on the Cetagandan side a tense Admiral Lhosh with his lady, planetary governors attached to the additional consorts, and a very relaxed Dag Benin.

Entering the room beside Georg she was taken entirely aback to hear Giaja’s beautiful voice ask Gregor where ImpSec was, and chuckle at being told he was being kept out of the kitchens by two Armsmen equipped with fish and stunners. When Giaja asked for him to be summoned Helen belatedly realised the haut emperor meant Miles’s cat, though how he knew of the animal was a mystery that grew when ImpSec arrived in Armsman Gerard’s arms, greeted Giaja with a pleased mmrt and a firm push of head into hand, then leaped to the floor and made a direct line for Rian’s bubble, uttering a loud miaow. As if on feline command the bubble snapped off, revealing not only haut Rian but also, perched on the arms of her float-chair, the magnificent, long-haired black and white cats Helen had seen flanking Giaja when Aral had reported local space secured. Both leaped down, tails bannering behind them, and simultaneously went nose-to-nose with ImpSec, shorter and stockier, a triple cat-greeting of a kind Helen had never seen and that seemed to go on for a long time. The Barrayarans were distracted by Rian and the other haut consorts, whose bubbles also disappeared-even more mind-numbingly beautiful in the flesh than they had been by frame, and all, despite the presence of Lhosh and Benin, in their open, emotive mode-but Helen was watching the emperors, and they were watching the cats with satisfied smiles. Miles, drifting up behind her, murmured that the white tom was Don Pierrot de Navarre, the black queen Shuang-Mei, and both names a puzzle neither the human nor feline ImpSec had yet been able to solve, adding that as she might remember him remarking at the summit force-bubbles really were purrfect for covert ops. Glaring at his grin she was overtaken by a sense of absurdity that expanded while becoming more serious when he added that all three imperial familiars were invited to the ceremonies downside.

The great cat conundrum continued throughout the meal as the animals, between occasional stretches to imperial arms for portions of their own, continued what seemed for all the world an intense, silent trialogue. It was nevertheless shunted aside in Helen’s mind by observing both emperors clearly enjoying themselves and talking mostly with Aral and Cordelia, and both empresses, on whom Helen, remember­ing the spinning implications of Miles’s conversation the night she and Georg sprang Vanos Kariam on him, kept a special eye. Warm to one another from the first, Helen rapidly realised from Laisa’s and Rian’s conversation that what had happened between them was not a haut gift but an exchange-Laisa’s razor-sharp business acumen and understand­ing of markets in return for Rian’s genetic knowledge and abilities. It was in effect reciprocal consultancy, she realised, Laisa hired by the Star Crèche and Rian by House Vorbarra, mutual need and convenience forming the basis of what appeared genuine liking. As the meal wore on Helen also thought a shared gratitude to Miles, profound but short of love and with sharply mixed feelings, was also at constructive work, and found herself reflecting that the more dangerous and celebrated knights errant in literature were those who chivalrously-or otherwise-fell in love with queens, and that if one was Miles’s size and shape to take them as models was at once cunning and self-confident to an insane degree. Then again, as this meal was proving over and above his remark­able party of guests, the man had made it all work, for everyone.

Other conversations clamoured for attention, especially the delicate fencing-match between Illyan and Benin, enjoyed on both sides, and the astonishing discussion of male genetics and protocol conducted by Alys and Pel, who also seemed to have become friends. But her memory of both was fragmentary, overlaid by what happened after the emperors emerged back into the larger party, cats padding neatly between them. That Giaja and Degtiar had both known who Harra and Lem Csurik were, presumably from haut Palma, and went out of their way to greet them and ask after their child-to-be, was as surprising to Helen as to the Csuriks, though Miles had a satisfied look and Harra rose to the occasion with vivid thanks and natural dignity. But Helen and Georg then found themselves recruited as a barrier of sorts, helping to shield Giaja, Degtiar, and Benin within a loose circle while Miles and Ekaterin brought Dendarii guests, from a polite but wary Elli Quinn to a stunned Ky Tung and a delightfully if alarmingly beaming Taura. The main purpose seemed a brisk, business-like exchange between Benin and Quinn about fleet-transit of Cetagandan space, Giaja and Degtiar benignly looking on, and then a much more surprising exchange about the Dagoola IV prison-break. After some exact questions from Benin and Giaja, answered at Miles’s nod with equal precision by Elli, Elena, and Ky, Giaja spoke with those stone depths of irony in his gorgeous voice.

“Alas, We can hardly reward sometime enemies for defeating Us, but you have Our sincere admiration for your feat. And at need, Admiral Quinn, you may call on Our ships for any non-military assistance. General Benin will give you the necessary codes.” When Miles’s eyebrows as well as Quinn’s jerked upwards Giaja smiled faintly and spoke to Miles directly, dropping his imperial plurals. “I trust that will help you rest content, Lord Vorkosigan, when I tell you a certain artfully edited holovid about Dagoola is in wider circulation than hitherto. I understand your grimace, but you understand, I believe, the value among the ghem that the surprising truth about Dagoola can have. What you perhaps are commendably inhibited from understanding, in as much as you are inhibited about anything, is its value among the haut, to whom the holovid, attested as truthful, is in itself a compelling reason to honour you even had pursuit of war with Barrayar otherwise been a priority.”

At the end of this twisting encomium Miles looked as surprised as Helen had ever seen him, though Gregor was grinning, and she saw both Pel and Benin slip tiny data-discs to Alys and Illyan; Rian’s hand also rested a moment in Elli Quinn’s as she took her leave with Giaja a moment later. Soon after that the Cetagandans left, and cautious application (after a little thought) to Elli produced a late-night viewing-session with Georg, both Tungs, and other Dendarii in the sitting-room of Elli’s suite. During the holovid sometimes raucous commentary from those involved helped her to piece together what had happened-though if you have it all straight in one viewing it’s a miracle-and kept her from shrieking; afterwards, trying to get her mind around what Miles and the Dendarii had in cold reality done, she had not known whether to laugh or weep at his insane courage and bravura improvisation, and did both. Now, breaking her thoughts, a politely muted klaxon sounded, the line she and Georg were in began to move forwards into the pleasant surroundings and silver-trimmed brown décor of the Lord Mark Vorkosigan, and the curtain rose on the final act.

* * * * *

From outside, walking with Georg in the slightly low gravity of Jackson’s Whole and realising the hem of her dress had been subtly weighted for good reason, Helen could see only the great curving wall of an enormous force-dome, but even the approach felt Cetagandan. A covered, richly tiled walkway wound broadly between arrayed plants screening buildings, leading to a gate manned by ImpSec and Imperial Guards in contrasting green and red uniforms. As they passed into the dome Helen saw it was generated over a large, open square before a handsome, rather brooding building, presumably a baronial palace, in front of which stood an enormous frame. On two sides tiered seating was already filled with people arrayed in witness. On the fourth side was what at first looked like a transplanted fragment of the Celestial Garden with a host of decorative Barrayaran, Cetagandan, and Terran plants; then she saw in its central space three raised areas, two behind and one before, and realised this was where the emperors and Aral would stand. There seemed to be a further subtly marked place to one side. Vorbarra Armsmen guided her and Georg to seats in the tiers nearest the imperial podium, beside the block of Lords Auditor and Counts who had come in person-among them Dono Vorrutyer, René Vorbretten, and Vorinnis for the Progress­ives as well as old Vorhalas, Vorkalloner, and Vormoncrief for the Conservatives, and the lightweight Vorfolse with Falco Vorpatril, snowy mane gleaming, for the Independ­ents. Faces turned to the arriving party with murmurs of curiosity at towering Taura, epicene Bel, four-armed Nicol in her personal floater, and the grey Dendarii uniforms that even Elli Quinn, resigned to fame, was wearing. Beyond the counts were chosen observers from districts of Barrayar and Sergyar and sectors of Komarr-more than a hundred ordinary couples in painfully best dress looking astounded, excited, nervous, and proud, with super­numaries among them. She saw Sergeant Barnev and Mia Maz Vorb’yev, as well as institute colleagues and faces she recognised from the multi-generationally bereaved veterans at the treaty-signing; then there were the diplomats, row on row.

In the opposite tiers were yet more ambassadors accredited to Eta Ceta and polity observers brought by the Cetagandans; diplomatic suits were soberly dull beside scores of ghem showing what must be every clan-design there was and almost as many uniforms, the women striking and bejewelled with long hair elaborately wound on their heads. There was a solid block of tall haut men, glittering in festive colours. Closest to the podium she could see a Cetagandan party equivalent to her own being seated, including planetary governors, Benin with two ghem she didn’t recognise in Imperial Array, Lhosh in his blue-and-yellow with his wife, Vanos Kariam behind his awful orange-and-green rosette, and four lady-bubbles swirling with colour. Outside it was cloudy, the overcast through which they had descended thick, but under the dome all was sunlit, yellow rays without visible origin falling at a morning slant across faces, bubbles, and foliage to carpet the great flagstones of the square with traceries and curves of shadow. There was also a faint, pleasant breeze that rippled plants and filmier outermost layers of haut clothing. As the last bubble, presumably Rian’s, glided into foremost position Helen saw below her Lord Mark enter with Kareen, set face covering nervousness, then Miles with Ekaterin, Cordelia, and Laisa. As they reached their places silence fell. A soft chime and flickering light in the upper bar  of the frame signalled the broadcast had begun, and with part of her mind Helen tried again to assess the simultaneity that would be central to any account of this event, but right now she was at its heart, not watching remotely, and the moment more compelling than its future record.

A single note sounded, low and brassy, and two uniformed figures walked to centre-stage, Armsman Gerard in full black Vorbarra livery and a Ba servitor in black uniform without any apparent emblems. Each announced their Imperial Masters with a full list of titles in his or its language, and as they finished everyone save the occupants of the haut bubbles and, interestingly, Laisa, rose to their feet. As Gerard and the Ba withdrew the wall at the rear of the podium seemed to dissolve for a moment and the emperors were there, red-and-blue and iridescent white, walking evenly forward to the raised spots while all bowed or curtsied and came straight again. Between them, unannounced, walked ImpSec, Shuang-Mei, and Don Pierrot de Navarre, stepping fluidly in unison with one another and the emperors as if their exit from the dinner aboard the Lady Alys Vorpatril had been a rehearsal. A ripple ran through the audience but both emperors and all three cats stared straight out for a moment, waiting for stillness, before Giaja turned his head to where Aral now stood to one side of them-that was what the extra place was for-and spoke in Barrayaran.

“My Lord Viceroy-and-Admiral Vorkosigan.”

Aral inclined his head. “Your Imperial Majesties.” His right arm lifted slightly, gesturing all to look, then curved in summons, and Helen swivelled her head to see emerging from the palace and passing under the frame into the square a column of captive barons and baronnes. The taunting face-bubbles no longer preceded them, but behind each couple coloured captor-bubbles floated, shoving them forward step by step, dishevelled and dirty, ragged mouthed, in a grotesquely lurching shuffle. None could even struggle, though a few were clearly being propelled while others had surrendered to the inevitable and seemed to be walking on their own within narrow, permitted parameters. Helen had never seen anything remotely like it, yet like her first exposure to haut women it summoned vague memories of myths or bad dreams involving sorcery, as if barons and baronnes were a host of corpses raised from their graves by Baba Yaga to serve her need. In the frame-broadcast, she realised, the column must be emerging remorse­lessly from the bottom of the image, protruding slowly into the square like a discoloured tongue.

The captive Jacksonians were led by a stout, sweating man, a freer walker she recognised from Taura’s comments during the invasion as the arms- but not gene-dealing Baron Fell, followed by the vile Bhara­putras, wholly propelled by tractor-beam. As processing bodies entered between the tiers and approached the podium where two emperors, three cats, and Aral watched with stony faces, Fell came straight on but the Bhara­putras were angled to come up beside him when he halted almost level with Helen. Others were pushed right and left and behind the front rank the rest were arrayed in a square, columns tightly packed but ranks separated by ten feet, until the last shambling pair reached their place in the rear corner and halted, swaying. Then without any word or sign Helen saw every last Jacksonian magnate silently dropped jarringly to his or her knees, raised both arms, and fell prostrate, faces barely saved from the brunt of their fall by hands smacking painfully onto stone. Behind them bubbles sank and brightened in colour for a second before dimming to subdued earth-shades. Georg sighed softly to himself with professional relief, and around her Helen felt intense satisfaction she realised she shared to a surprising degree. The image of Gregor’s white face and burning eyes came to her as the symbol of what she knew these fallen men and women to have done and condoned.

Gravely Aral walked to the spot before the emperors, turned to face them-and so, Helen realised, turned his back not only on the fallen barons but on more than eight hundred billion viewers-and bowed twice. As when she saw him at Ekaterin’s graduation vitality glowed in his fluid, prowling movement, strangely like the cats’ and reminding Helen sharply of how he had been when he first seized the Barrayarans’ loyalty and imagination nearly forty years ago at Komarr. He spoke in Cetagandan.

“I beg leave to report that Your Imperial Commands have been obeyed, without loss of a single life. I now deliver into Your Imperial Hands the planet of Jackson’s Whole with its criminal plutocrats and their possessions, including all who have been their slaves and serfs.” He bowed briefly, and stood waiting.

Gregor spoke, also in Cetagandan. “My Lord Viceroy-and-Admiral, you have Our admiring thanks for a necessary task most mercifully, efficiently, and elegantly performed.” Giaja’s hawk face nodded sharply and all three cats turned benign gazes on Aral before returning to supercilious inspection of the prostrate barons. “Please await now Our further pleasure.”

Aral bowed again and returned to the side-position, giving the barons not a single glance. Both emperors stared out again for a moment, directly into the frames, before Giaja began, this time in a high Cetagandan Helen was sure carried for haut and ghem more nuance than she could discern, but made hair bristle on her neck in its edged tones and implacable cadences. The cats knew it too, especially Shuang-Mei and Don Pierrot, and glowered outward as their Master spoke, ImpSec lending bare-fanged support as new imperial plurals hovered beautifully.

“Our subjects. Guests. Outlanders who watch. In answer to the crimes and abominations of its erstwhile owners this planet is hereby annexed jointly by Us. Our peace is a peace for the Nexus, as for Ourselves and Our own; though We have done so bloodlessly We do not break it lightly. And while this planet shall serve Our convenience, We do not and will not act for territory. We act because the merchants of this place, beyond personal indulgences of vileness, repeatedly aided for gain or themselves undertook murder of Barrayarans and Cetagandans, haut and ghem, Vor and common. Now these merchants pay, and many among them will stand trial in Our courts for their lives.”

Gregor took over in Barrayaran, and it seemed the emperors were playing a form of stern parent, forgiving parent. “All who have conspired against Us, all who have done murder or sold bioweapons, will face Our justice, but We know many here are blameless, born into gene-slavery or technical serfdom. All living beings on this planet are hereby freed from any such condition. They may choose to become Barrayaran or Ceta­gandan subjects with all attendant rights, privileges, and duties, or be taken with family dependents and personal possessions to any polity they desire that will promise Us honourably to accept them as subjects or citizens. Those who wish to remain here will be accommodated.”

Diplomats sat straight with calculating looks at imperial liberality. There were no suddenly freed and empowered Jacksonian slaves and serfs present to cheer, though Helen knew the ceremony was being broad­cast on-planet as well as off, and many would hear. Giaja was still being remorseless though his voice softened, and his supremely elegant cats were more relaxed, sitting neatly together with ImpSec.

“Yet this planet will also become the headquarters for Our joint fleet, and nothing will remain of what it has been. In Our treaty We claim substantial new volumes and many systems made practicable by Our new technologies. We understand many will desire access to these volumes for trade and other exchange, and as Joint-Fleet headquarters this planet will serve as Our place of embassy in those matters, whence all polities accredited at Our courts may send new ambassadors.”

Diplomats sat straighter. Plum business, thought Helen, but allowed their goodwill and serious purpose too.

“Embassies will be jointly received, but Barrayar will establish here a technical institute to which applications for licensing new frame, nanoforge, and wormhole technologies may be addressed. Bubble technology will not be licensed.”

Diplomats sat straighter yet, if that were possible. The technical institute was a new proposition, and Giaja leaned into the silence Gregor wrought. “Cetaganda correspondingly will establish a genetic institute, where We will license to Our peaceful friends a human antigeriatric package very much safer and more effective than the murderous clone-transplant technologies We now utterly suppress.”

Rigid spines shivered. As Miles had, the diplomats immediately under­stood this as news to dwarf even invasion, as well as superb political finesse. The loathed if envied privilege of an amoral financial elite was at a stroke replaced by virtuous possibility for all, and for that almost everyone hearing this would have sold the Jacksonians downriver in a second. Through­out the audience heads turned to stare at one another, but the emperors were not done and Gregor’s voice snapped those heads round to face them again.

“One thing more. We take from this planet the name of opprobrium it has borne, and in honour of Our Alliance and its conqueror, Our faithful feudatory, We name it Aralyar Ceta.” Save Giaja’s fierce nod stillness was absolute, haut and ghem as transfixed as Barrayarans, though Helen saw some Counts’ eyes bulge dangerously. “Viceroy-and-Admiral Count Vorkosigan, will you address your debtors?”

“I will, Sire.”

Aral moved forward to the third position in front of the emperors, bowed, and turned his back to them, facing outward to the audience and the Nexus. Helen wasn’t sure if Cordelia’s hand was before her mouth at the immense force Aral projected, to which she had been so passionately drawn all those years ago, or because as he turned ImpSec stood and moved smoothly forward to sit by his leg, neither seeming to expect nor receiving notice. Whatever cellular effect had lessened the visibility of Aral’s scar had smoothed his appearance, reducing lines but not the impression of age; his face remained massive, potentially brutal in the heavyset jaw and power he exuded were it not for the eyes, alive with intelligence and humour as well as driving will. Helen hoped the broad­cast was offering a close-up so those eyes could be seen, and half-remembered Miles saying that would be so. Without speaking Aral let his gaze move slowly around the square, ending with his own family, then rake across the prostrate Jacksonians. His right hand moved sharply outward, fingers straightening in scornful dismissal, and as one prone bodies were jerked upright by bubbles that brightened and rose before spinning captives around and beginning to hustle them back the way they had come. From all tiers came a hum of appreciation-Aral had called and prostrated them; now he despatched them. Behind the frame Helen saw green- and red-uniformed troops ready to receive prisoners, and Aral waited until the last was clear of the broadcast area.

“Good riddance to bad rubbish.” The ironised, homely satisfaction took almost everyone by surprise, Helen thought as her gaze came to rest momentarily on Cordelia, and made the commanding icon before them abruptly a living man. “Your Imperial Majesties, fellow Barrayar­ans, honoured haut and honourable ghem, citizens and subjects of the Nexus, I am a man under authority, as I have always been.” That line had a ring Helen suspected Cordelia could explain. “In my life I have parti­cipated in three planetary invasions. For my part in Barrayar’s conquest of Komarr you collectively saw fit to give me the soubriquet of the Butcher, though the only life I took myself in that action was of the man who ordered the Solstice Massacre, whose neck I broke for his trouble. But I commanded, and I take responsibility, as I have lived with your gift of a name and burned my offerings at the Solstice Shrine.”

Aral’s irony was less layered than Giaja’s, Helen thought, but had the same kind of stony truths compressed within it. In the tier below she could see around Delia that Duv Galeni’s face was very still and wondered what he felt at this moment; what Laisa felt. But Komarr had been only the first act of this drama.

“In our criminal and stupid attempt to conquer Escobar my part was only to save what lives I could from a disaster already achieved, and my Imperial Master has this week heard my further apologies on our behalf to Escobar, and offered generous final reparations. Now there is this, a truly bloodless annexation of a hellhole and arrest of its vile masters, to whom you of the Nexus have collectively given no brand of shame but only your custom.”

After Aral’s strange opening about authority and references to older history, news of a new Escobaran apology and concessions had brought frowns to Barrayaran faces, but his last, remorseless sentence and the moral slap in its ending were more welcome. On the other hand, while Aral had been speaking of Komarr and Escobar, to Helen’s ear with old pain in the rasp of his voice, ImpSec leaned his head briefly against a uniformed leg, but with the ending he too curved upright again and returned to his minatory glare at the frames and the billions beyond.

“I was born on Occupied Barrayar, and I have survived two civil wars, seventy-eight years of galactic conflict, and a dozen assassination attempts. I have known military and personal disgrace before, after, and in the very midst of military and personal triumph, for reasons I acknowledged and reasons I did not. And here I stand before one emperor whom I have spent half-a-lifetime serving, and another with whom I have spent a whole lifetime in contest.” Something close to a grin lit Aral’s face, transforming it from within as if the intelligence in his eyes and his humour were one. “Who’d have given me odds on this swansong even a year ago, never mind sixty-six?”

The implied date, Helen knew instantly from her own age, was 2739, the year of Mad Yuri’s massacre, and she knew Aral was thinking of his dead mother and siblings, but it was also a reminder that he had in his time hacked another emperor to bloody fragments in revenge for those murders. The historical wheel was turning and though connections were missing in her mind she sensed the patterns had come round again, but also that everything about this bizarre annexation promised this would be the last iteration of its particular kind, as in its bloodless joy it was already signally distinct even from Komarr.

“So-we have learned and will learn more together. Today I am honoured, but honour is a strange thing, and like love and grace cannot be given, but must be made, in our living and our dying. So if the honour of this naming is to be real, let those who serve the Joint Fleet that will be headquartered here remember always that though military men and women they serve an instrument of peace, not war. Let all who hear me in the Nexus remember it also. The velvet aggression of these last days is a fruit of the peace two emperors have in their grace and greatness made, and you have all heard of more ripening-gifts of ease and life, to which our past conflict was inimical. Be sure to take care of your own peace as you seek advantage in what my Masters have wrought.”

His face was stern, and for Helen as for all older Barrayarans there was a strong sense of the Lord Regent they had known, holding them together and-what had Georg said?-cajoling a whole culture forwards. But the stern look was succeeded by a wryer, more introspective one, a face Helen had come to know only because Ekaterin’s remarriage had brought her so unexpectedly into Aral’s personal circle, and she could feel surprise wash through Barrayarans around her immediate group.

“One thing more I will say while I have this chance, learning from the grace of my daughter Ekaterin.” Oh my. “I have commanded here for my Imperial Masters, but mine is a lesser contribution to this day. It is my fellow admirals and their officers and men who have laboured and still labour here, some in scenes of genetic mayhem that would bring bile to any honest mouth.” Bleakness momentarily deepened Aral’s voice before he consciously sloughed it. “But those who have made the labour possible are my son Miles, ghem-General Benin, and my Imperial Masters.” For the first time Aral glanced down to his side at ImpSec, and as the grey-and-tabby head cocked to look up at him, flicked a finger slightly. Impsec flowed swiftly back to his place beside Shuang-Mei and sat neatly, while Aral, with military precision-no, that was wrong; nothing about this was military, but the grace of movement was founded on service discipline-with fluent ease, half-turned and took a pace backwards, so that he could address both the emperors and the full audience, local and distant.

“Your Imperial Majesties, in both our cultures You are solitary pinnacles. From You honour descends to all, and we return it as we may-not always so well, perhaps, though those among our listeners who affect to despise absolute rule might consider very carefully events of the last two years. In neither of our systems, however, is it easy to render You personal respect, and that opportunity I seize.” In a blinding moment Helen saw Aral was reversing the effect Miles had so potently invoked at the summit, and for all Giaja was seven years older than Aral his youthful appearance suddenly worked against him, allowing Aral to address both emperors as the foster-father he was to Gregor.

“I have known and studied four Barrayaran and two Cetagandan emperors. Your ghem-pilgrims, Celestial Lord, saw fit to call my Imperial Master Gregor the Great, and I laud their estimate. He towers over all his forebears save only Dorca the Just. But I believe also in You, Celestial Lord, who like my Imperial Master came to Your duty very young and have proven a greater ruler by far than Your late father.”

Both imperial faces were still though Giaja’s eyes were very bright. A flickering glance-she didn’t dare take her eyes off the tableau for any longer-showed ghem faces mostly frozen but some sharp nods and a few dry smiles among the haut.

“As Lord Regent I also ruled an Imperium, and I know the poisons in that chalice to their bitterest dregs and most lingering consumptions. You do me personal honour, but to purify that chalice in substantial measure is for me the real achievement of this day, and it is in great part Yours. You do me honour, Sires, but Your greatest gift to me is the untainted pride I may at last take in my Masters’ honours. As I am exalted, so I am humbled; all that remains is to offer my sincere thanks for Your commands and intents to which I have been obedient.”

As Lhosh had at the summit he saluted both Gregor and Giaja, holding each ritual gesture for a full count of three, then bowed fractionally to a space between them and walked slowly back to his place at the side. Both emperors were as frozen as the audience but the cats could be heard purring, and as Aral reached his place and turned to stand in it a sudden clap from the Cetagandan tiers broke the audience’s dam and applause crashed out, from ghem and haut driven by the approximate origin of the single clap, as much as from wondering Barrayarans. To Helen’s ears that clap sounded oddly amplified in the fractional time before it was drowned out, and she remembered one of the bubbles below housed haut Pel. In any case license was taken to be granted and tensions found noisy release. As applause and cheering continued unabated Helen saw a swift exchange of imperial glances, followed by half-turns, arms extended to invite Aral to return, and when he reached them, passing through cats who stepped politely aside, to move between and exit before them. The cats fell in behind, tails suddenly lifting high, so that the last she or anyone in the Nexus saw of the imperial party was a triple, sashaying feline moon of unconcerned departure as the wall through which all had passed resolved into solidity.

Those present who watched carefully might have seen, some minutes later, a grey-and-tabby head appear under the raised platform, and followed by the rest of ImpSec slip between an Imperial Guardsman’s legs and trot over to Miles with a noise Helen couldn’t hear but knew must be a highly self-satisfied mmrrt. The reply, she thought, was probably much the same.

* * * * *