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The following day they visit the 149th Annual Bioestheties Exhibition, Class A, Dedicated to the Memory of the Celestial Lady. This dedication, though rather last-minute, makes it a key stop for offworlders on Eta Ceta for funerary proceedings. Lord Vorreedi is, unexpectedly, present too; he may be hard to slip.
The exhibits are gorgeous. Unnatural colors of various flowers are sufficiently routine to be used as borders for the real show - fish with clan marks on their scales (this exhibitor is about twelve), a pet unicorn (this one is possibly not even an exhibit), a tendril of vine that attempts to entrap Ivan's foot (its keeper dislodges it), and a kitten tree.
Ivan is displeased by the kitten tree, believing there to be glue involved in the attachment of kittens to their pods. He picks one in a determined rescue attempt. It is not ripe; the kitten expires when detached. Vorreedi offers to discreetly dispose of the poor beast, for which Ivan is intensely grateful.
Their erstwhile friend Yenaro is present. When Ivan notices, he points the man out to Miles.
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middlingalong
isthisart
"Did she have the opportunity to help him, or is this about what her plans for the future may have been? For that matter, are there any other suspects to be had?"
thisvorlunatic
"Was she one of the six haut-women who passed through the rotunda around the time of Ba Lura's death?"
exerce-imperia
"As the wife of his ghem-general, she certainly has plenty of opportunity to associate with him," says Lisbet. "Suspects... are difficult to come by. Haut Vio cannot of course have visited the rotunda in her bubble, since she no longer has one... but if she had managed to make or steal one with an electronic signature that the security system would not find remarkable, I would not necessarily know about it. Ghem-Colonel Benin should. He didn't give any hint of interviewing a woman who claimed not to have entered the rotunda at all?"
thisvorlunatic
"Indeed not. He specifically claimed to have talked to all six and found nothing worth mentioning except that none of them saw a body. So... he was lying, or he was somehow deceived, or I was wrong about how the body got into the rotunda. I think I'll go with 'he was somehow deceived'," says Miles. "How easy would it be to steal a haut-bubble, by the way?"
exerce-imperia
"Difficult. Perhaps not impossible. The float-chairs authenticate their occupants by means of a genetic scan, but not a complete one; it would be possible for haut Vio to happen to duplicate all the relevant gene factors of some other haut-woman, and steal her bubble that way. I could double-check that, if, of course, I had the Great Key. Unfortunately I don't have a record of haut Vio's genome lying around, or I could check against manual scans of at least all the haut-women in this room."
thisvorlunatic
"So maybe she stole someone's bubble, we don't know whose, and snuck in, and got the records of her visit erased somehow, we don't know how, before anyone had occasion to look them up. And the ceremonial guards were sleeping on the job. Right," sighs Miles.
isthisart
"I don't suppose whoever designed Vio in the first place might know who she's closely related to off the top of her head and be available to interview?"
exerce-imperia
"I don't suppose anyone knows who designed Vio...?"
No one knows who designed Vio.
"I can look it up, but I am less than hopeful that it will yield useful information."
No one knows who designed Vio.
"I can look it up, but I am less than hopeful that it will yield useful information."
thisvorlunatic
"At this point I think we need all the information we can get, however faint the hope thereof," says Miles.
thisvorlunatic
"And, um... I have a suggestion," he says. "If you haven't already considered it - could you recall the gene banks? That would at least prevent Kety from actually getting away with his miniature-empire plan."
exerce-imperia
"Hmm," says Lisbet. "It would need a delicate touch - less so in the cases of the other governors, but Kety in particular must at this point suspect that someone knows what he is up to. Whatever story we fed him through the haut Nadina would need to be carefully crafted to minimize that suspicion. Perhaps... we disovered a subtle malfunction in the equipment used to generate the copy, and we want to examine the copy to verify whether we will need to copy it over again. Naturally, the only way to do that is to temporarily reunite it with the original."
"Do we want to recall the rest of the gene banks?" wonders the haut Pel. "We had such trouble getting them out there in the first place... and without the Great Key, they are useless. They pose no threat, and could be useful later."
"Without the Great Key or an incredible analytical effort, they are useless," Lisbet corrects. "If we leave them in the possession of their governors, someone might be tempted to begin that effort. Of course we recall the banks. I think it would be potentially useful to keep backup copies on every planet, strictly under the control of the planetary consorts, but not while anyone who is currently a governor remains a governor. The risk is too high."
"Agreed," Pel concedes after a moment's thought. "That leaves the question of how we disguise the banks to outsiders on their way back in."
"Collections of genetic samples from the various satrapies, requested by the Celestial Lady, for the Star Creche's experimental files," shrugs Lisbet. "Outsiders will not inquire any more deeply. Do I have agreement on recalling all gene banks other than Nadina's, which is a separate case because of the increased risks involved?"
The consorts other than Nadina each indicate that she has theirs.
"Do we want to recall the rest of the gene banks?" wonders the haut Pel. "We had such trouble getting them out there in the first place... and without the Great Key, they are useless. They pose no threat, and could be useful later."
"Without the Great Key or an incredible analytical effort, they are useless," Lisbet corrects. "If we leave them in the possession of their governors, someone might be tempted to begin that effort. Of course we recall the banks. I think it would be potentially useful to keep backup copies on every planet, strictly under the control of the planetary consorts, but not while anyone who is currently a governor remains a governor. The risk is too high."
"Agreed," Pel concedes after a moment's thought. "That leaves the question of how we disguise the banks to outsiders on their way back in."
"Collections of genetic samples from the various satrapies, requested by the Celestial Lady, for the Star Creche's experimental files," shrugs Lisbet. "Outsiders will not inquire any more deeply. Do I have agreement on recalling all gene banks other than Nadina's, which is a separate case because of the increased risks involved?"
The consorts other than Nadina each indicate that she has theirs.
isthisart
Linyabel, meanwhile, is looking up Vio's designer with her pen. "The haut Vio is alas orphaned on that side of the family," she says, spinning the display to show the file she's called up: the lady has been dead for five years.
thisvorlunatic
"Am I still going to be retrieving the Key for you? I'll be honest, I'm not really sure what your other resources are as far as field agents. Or if you even have any. But it seems like you value the Key very highly, and besides my personal sympathy for that, I value not being framed for its theft pretty highly myself."
exerce-imperia
"Once I've discussed the recall of Kety's gene bank with haut Nadina, I'll send for you again. Your schedule is empty of public events tomorrow, but it should be relatively easy to pull you away from the Ceremony of Singing Open the Great Gates the day after, if I plan carefully and wait until a later stage of the event. I think that, regardless of what Nadina and I do or do not decide in the interim, we'll need to make our move then. The schedule is too tight otherwise."
thisvorlunatic
"I... agree, milady," says Miles. "Is that all for now, then?"
thisvorlunatic
"In my experience, haut Lisbet, we can never get back to exactly where we started, no matter how hard we try."
isthisart
"For one thing," remarks Linyabel, "these chairs don't go up nearly as easily as they go down."
She pats the armrest he was sitting on when she originally dropped her bubble, and puts her pen back on her necklace.
She pats the armrest he was sitting on when she originally dropped her bubble, and puts her pen back on her necklace.
thisvorlunatic
"A fact of engineering for which I am somewhat grateful," Miles murmurs as he carefully climbs up to perch on the armrest.
isthisart
Bubble.
"Until later," Linyabel tells the Handmaiden and Consorts politely, and she turns the chair around and ferries him out.
"Until later," Linyabel tells the Handmaiden and Consorts politely, and she turns the chair around and ferries him out.
thisvorlunatic
And a-bubbling they go.
Miles is quiet on the way back. The armrest is not the most comfortable seat he's ever taken, but far be it from him to complain.
Miles is quiet on the way back. The armrest is not the most comfortable seat he's ever taken, but far be it from him to complain.
isthisart
She makes straight for the side entrance of the Garden. "There's a car waiting, but I think we're going to be a bit late relative to my first estimate," she notes.