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stillness.
Time to stand up, Miles whispered to Ekaterin, and grounded his floater. She
and
Roic helped hoist him out of it to his feet, and step forward to stand at
attention.
The close-cut grass, beneath his booted soles, felt like thick fine carpeting;
its scent was damp and mossy.
A wide cargo hatch opened, and a ramp extended itself, illuminated from
beneath in a pale, diffuse glow. First down it drifted a haut lady bubble -
its force field not opaque, as the others, but transparent as gauze. Within,
its float chair could be seen to be empty.
Miles murmured to Ekaterin, Where's Pel? Thought this was all her... baby.
It's for the Consort of Rho Ceta who was lost with the hijacked ship, she
whispered back. The haut Pel will be next, as she conducts the children in
the dead consort's place.
Miles had met the murdered woman, briefly, a decade ago. To his regret, he
could remember little more of her now than a cloud of chocolate-brown hair
that had tumbled down about her, stunning beauty camouflaged in an array of
other haut women of equal splendor, and a ferocious commitment to her duties.
But the float chair seemed suddenly even emptier.
Another bubble followed, and yet more, and ghem-women and ba servitors. The
second bubble drew up beside the haut governor's group, grew transparent, and
then winked out.
Pel in her white robes sat regally in her float chair.
Ghem-General Benin, as you are charged, please convey now the thanks of
Emperor the haut Fletchir Giaja to these outlanders who have brought our
Constellations' hopes home to us.
She spoke in a normal tone, and Miles didn't see the voice pickups, but a
faint echo back from the grassy bowl told him their words were being conveyed
to all assembled here.
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Benin called Bel forward; with formal words of ceremony, he presented a high
Cetagandan honor to the Betan, a paper bound in ribbon, written in the
Emperor's Own
Hand, with the odd name of the Warrant of the Celestial House. Miles knew
Cetagandan ghem-lords who would have traded their own mothers to be enrolled
on the year's Warrant
List, except that it wasn't nearly that easy to qualify. Bel dipped its
floater for
Benin to press the beribboned roll into its hands, and though its eyes were
bright with irony, murmured thanks to the distant Fletchir Giaja in return,
and kept its sense of humor, for once, under full control. It probably helped
that the herm was still so exhausted it could barely hold its head upright, a
circumstance for which Miles had not expected to be grateful.
Miles blinked, and suppressed a huge grin, when Ekaterin was next called
forward by ghem-General Benin and bestowed with a like beribboned honor. Her
obvious pleasure was not without its edge of irony either, but she returned an
elegantly worded thank you.
My Lord Vorkosigan, Benin spoke.
Miles stepped forward a trifle apprehensively.
My Imperial Master, the Emperor the haut Fletchir Giaja, reminds me that true
delicacy in the giving of gifts considers the tastes of the recipient. He
therefore charges me only to convey to you his personal thanks, in his own
Breath and Voice.
First prize, the Cetagandan Order of Merit, and what an embarrassment that
medal had been, a decade ago. Second prize, two
Cetagandan Orders of Merit? Evidently not. Miles breathed a sigh of relief,
only slightly tinged with regret. Tell your Imperial Master from me that he
is entirely welcome.
My Imperial Mistress, the Empress the haut Rian Degtiar, Handmaiden of the
Star
Creche, also charged me to convey to you her own thanks, in her own Breath and
Voice.
Miles bowed perceptibly lower. I am at her service in this.
Benin stepped back; the haut Pel moved forward. Indeed. Lord Miles Naismith
Vorkosigan of Barrayar, the Star Creche calls you up.
He'd been warned about this, and talked it over with Ekaterin. As a practical
matter, there was no point in refusing the honor; the Star Creche had to have
about a kilo of his flesh on private file already, collected not only during
his treatment here, but from his memorable visit to Eta Ceta all those years
back. So with only a slight tightening of his stomach, he stepped forward, and
permitted a ba servitor to roll back his sleeve and present the tray with the
gleaming sampling needle to the haut Pel.
Pel's own white, long-fingered hand drove the sampling needle into the fleshy
part of his forearm. It was so fine, its bite scarcely pained him; when she
withdrew it, barely a drop of blood formed on his skin, to be wiped away by
the servitor. She laid the needle into its own freezer case, held it high for
a moment of public display and declaration, closed it, and set it away in a
compartment in the arm of her float chair.
The faint murmur from the throng in the amphitheater did not seem to be
outrage, though there was, perhaps, a tinge of amazement. The highest honor
any Cetagandan could achieve, higher even than the bestowal of a haut bride,
was to have his or her genome formally taken up into the Star Creche's banks -
for disassembly, close examination, and possible selective insertion of the
approved bits into the haut race's next generation.
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