Ivan pulls carpet-fibers, takes Yenaro not terribly gently by the arm, and follows Miles to an empty nook a few spaces down, where he takes up a forbidding position between Miles, Yenaro, and the pathway.

Yenaro, making impotent protests and trying without success to get Ivan's hand off his arm, eventually obeys, cut off mid-vague-threat by the bright flash of heat.

"And that was only a gram of the stuff, if that. Multiply this," he gestures at the scorch mark on the quasi-marble tile, "out to the full mass of your little carpet bomb - about five kilos, I'd guess. But you probably have a better idea. I imagine you carried it in here personally. You've obviously never had military training, or you would've recognized it yourself, by the smell—sensitized asterzine. You can dye it to almost any colour, mold it to almost any shape, and until it meets the right catalyst it's totally, harmlessly inert. But as soon as they make contact," scorch mark. "Which is what would have happened to you, me, Ivan, the ladies, the exhibit, and anyone else who happened to be passing by, if you'd dumped that pitcher like you planned."

"This is - some sort of trick," Yenaro insists.

"Of course it is. But this time the joke is on you. Tell me, what effect did your good friend the haut-governor say this was going to have?"

"Allowing me and Ivan to stumble through the rest of the exhibition blind drunk, I suppose. Charming. Did you come pre-antidoted?"

"That first night, at the Marilacan embassy," says Miles. "When I was burned - you weren't entirely faking all that apologetic fluttering, were you? You didn't expect that level of... severity."

Miles leaves the pitcher on the floor next to the scorch mark and stands, gesturing to a little bench tucked against one side of the nook. "I've got something to tell you, Lord Yenaro, and I think you'd better be sitting down."

"This isn't just a few cute tricks played on the unsuspecting envoys of an old enemy," Miles says quietly. "You are a pawn in a treasonous plot against your own Empire. The last such pawn I know about was Ba Lura - I assume you've heard how it ended up. You were all set to play out the same pattern, just now." He gestures at the scorch mark for emphasis.

"That - that can't be," says Yenaro after a silent moment. "It's too crude, it would have started a blood feud between his clan and those of the - bystanders."

"No," Miles corrects. "It would have started a feud between their clans and yours. Because who would be around to say you hadn't set the trap yourself, and then incompetently walked into it with the rest of us? It would be the obvious conclusion, from the evidence available. A very elegant way for your backer to dispose of you at exactly the moment you ceased to be useful."

"The Ba Lura..." says Yenaro slowly. "Committed... suicide."

"No. It was murdered. Your Imperial Security is already headed down that trail. They'll reach the end eventually; I'm just not sure it will be soon enough."

"So I judged," he says, nodding. "For the sake of my curiosity - what were you promised, in return for all this? Or was the scheme its own reward?"

"Yes," says Miles. "I imagine you would have been. Which governor was it, by the way?"

"...Haut Ilsum Kety."

"Thank you." He checks the time. "God, I'm late - you'll have to take it from here, Ivan. Good day, Lord Yenaro, and a much better one than you were meant to have."