Miles, Mutants and Microbes - Lois McMaster Bujold [301]
"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 Crèche, 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 Crèche 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 Crèche 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 Crèche's banks—for disassembly, close examination, and possible selective insertion of the approved bits into the haut race's next generation.
Miles, rolling his sleeve back down, muttered to Pel, "It's prob'ly nurture, not nature, y'know."
Her exquisite lips resisted an upward crook to form the silent syllable, Sh.
The spark of dark humor in her eye was veiled again as if seen through the morning mist as she reactivated her force shield. The sky to the east, across the lake and beyond the next range of hills, was turning pale. Coils of fog curled across the waters of the lake, its smooth surface growing steel gray in reflection of the predawn luminescence.
A deeper hush fell across the gathering of haut as through the shuttle's door and down its ramp floated array after array of replicator racks, guided by the ghem-women and ba servitors. Constellation by constellation, the haut were called forth by the acting consort, Pel, to receive their replicators. The Governor of Rho Ceta left the little group of visiting dignitaries/heroes to join with his clan, as well, and Miles realized that his humble bow, earlier, had not been any kind of irony after all. The white-clad crowd assembled were not the whole of the haut race residing on Rho Ceta, just the fraction whose genetic crosses, arranged by their clan heads, bore fruit this day, this year.
The men and women whose children were here delivered might never have touched or even seen each other till this dawn, but each group of men accepted from the Star Crèche's hands the children of their getting. They floated the racks in turn to the waiting array of white bubbles carrying their genetic partners. As each constellation rearranged itself around its replicator racks, the force screens turned from dull mourning white to brilliant colors, a riotous