[ february i log ]

[barrayarmods]

Who: Everyone
What: New arrivals, desperate times, whispers down the hall.
When: February 1st - 18th
Where: Barrayaran camp / Cetagandan base
Warnings: TBD


Quick links:
Barrayar: Barrayaran camp / Missions
Cetaganda: Cetagandan base / Missions



welcome to barrayar.
It's the dark of night when you come to in the foothills. Snow on the ground, chill winter wind whistling -- in fact, it's dangerously cold, and all you have is the clothes on your back.. A steep mountain range towers just ahead, its peaks illuminated by the light of two moons. Whatever you last remember, it isn't how you got here, and you feel oddly jetlagged, slightly queasy.

And you're not alone. There are a few other people close by, all looking equally lost and confused. But before any of you have a chance to figure out what's going on, the soldiers arrive.
There's a war on, they say, and you unlucky bastards have just been dropped right smack in the middle of it.

barrayar
The cold snap hits the guerrilla camp hard, especially with a handful of new people to care for. On the 1st, a few people from Riverfall Village come to the camp, Village Speaker Yakiv Gura among them, who seems to have a rapport with Piotr. They bring extra supplies with them, such as clothing, heavy wool blankets and bedrolls, as well as extra firewood to help fend off the cold. The new outsiders are accommodated the best they can -- they're all provided bedrolls and any extra clothing they (probably) need -- but the Barrayarans don't have an extra tent to spare, so that means all twelve outsiders are force to share a tent that ordinarily sleeps ten. On the plus side, it should provide some warmth. The cold is

A young boy comes in tow of the villagers; Speaker Gura tells Piotr that the boy turned up a week ago and insisted on helping them with the supply haul, despite his small size. He's clearly Barrayaran, and looks as though he might have been living on hisown for a while. He doesn't speak mcuh, and when asked his name, will only give it as Negri -- first or last, no one's sure, but the boy doesn't seem easily fazed. Piotr tells the villagers he has no room in his camp for lost children, but somehow the day after the villagers leave, Negri turns up in camp again. He's curious, but quiet and unobtrusive, wherever he is in camp. He's a very good listener…even when you might not want him to be.



On the 3rd, the Barrayarans and outsiders awake to discover that the part of the cave where they've kept the majority of their food supply has collapsed, either blocking their access to the cache or destroying it entirely. It's impossible to tell. The villagers can't spare much more than they already have been -- certainly not enough to feed the hundred and fifty-odd soldiers in the camp -- so while they try to find out a way to recoup their food supply, they have no choice but to slaughter their own horses for food. Food will be heavily rationed, but fairly -- the outsiders receive no less than the rest. The prisoners, on the other hand, get nothing. There probably isn't enough wild game in the area to sustain the camp, but Piotr sends out hunting parties, and when they get wind of a Cetagandan supply drop on its way, they organize a raid on the supply lines.

camp
With temperatures well below freezing, no food, and excruciatingly little in the way of advantage against the Cetagandans after their last infiltration attempt, morale is beginning to drop. Piotr and Olivia remain bastions of perseverance as always, but Sonia is beginning to buckle and wilt as the days go on. The soldiers do their best to entertain themselves and keep morale up, but all they've got are maple mead, and old card and dice games. They could use some new forms of entertainment. Maybe a snowball fight might get the blood moving -- assuming you can stand the wind chill. Thankfully, there's no shortage of warm clothes and wool scarves.

The cave isn't big enough to simply move all of camp inside, but the sickbay and mess tents are moved where it's a little warmer and out of the harsh wind. It's generally crowded with off-duty soldiers despite the food shortage, because no one wants to be out in the cold right now. Things get a little better after the mostly successful raids, but food is still heavily rationed.



missions
The hunting parties are only moderately successful; there isn't much wild game out there right now, and while the soldiers fare alright, the outsiders' hunting party fails miserably. The raiding parties yield a little more in the way of relief, enough now that they don't have to keep eating horse meat, but Pearl was captured by enemy forces in the chaos.

Maine helps Piotr with a very successful final interrogation of ghem-Miko, the Cetagandan scientist taken prisoner last month. He reveals that the Cetagandans have been studying the locations where exotics appeared, as it seems to be linked to wormhole technology, and that the Cetagandans are planning on building a device to control it. They have the technology, they're almost sure, but it's a puzzle they haven't solved yet. Ghem-Miko doesn't live long past his interrogation -- public execution by decapitation is his sentence, and when it's done, a few soldiers carry off his body and severed head.

Piotr's interrogation of Duv Galeni goes about as well but, blessedly, less fatally. It becomes known that Duv is from Komarr, the planet that sold Barrayar out to the Cetagandans, and that Duv Galeni is really David Galen, a relative of a few Counselors in the head of Komarran government. However, he's able to successfully convince Piotr that he isn't allied with the Cetagandans, and after a few days of agony, Duv is granted parole at Piotr's discretion.

On the evening of the 15th, Maine, Beth and Byerly inadvertently catch Vorhalas in the act of trying to sabotage what little of their food supply they've been able to recoup. He tries both fight and flight, but the three outsiders are able to take him down and drag him to Piotr's doorstep. It quickly becomes apparent that Vorhalas was responsible for the cave-in earlier in the month. Piotr is both furious and victorious; he now has a lead on the traitor conspiracy among his men, and his esteem of Beth, Maine and Byerly has gone up considerably for their part. Vorhalas is up next in the interrogation chair, and this one won't be pretty.

The unabridged event writeup is here.

cetaganda
The recent supply drop not only provides resources for the base and for distribution to their other outposts, but also brings fresh species for transplant into the gardens at the Grow Labs. The arrival of a handful of new exotics gives rise to a fresh wave of buzzing curiosity around the base. All of the new exotics are given thorough physicals, just as the first wave were, and provided with fatigues and anything else they might need. They make an even dozen now, their bunk at capacity. The Cetagandans are beginning to become accustomed to having the exotics on base, some of them even forward enough with their curiosity to be friendly. Darkstalker now has a small following of ghem lady scientists who regularly feature him as a subject in their art.

New arrivals will be processed as the first were -- once everyone has been whisked out of the extreme cold, everyone is subject to a thorough physical, including a number of scans that may or may not seem totally arcane to you. Other than a blood sample, nothing they're doing is at all invasive. Lady Diya d'Zefyst, while not a physician, is present at all physicals. She is easily notable not only for her striking, almost ethereal beauty as is typical of the haut, but, as the only haut on base, she is easily distinguishable by her lack of facepaint.

While the exotics still have freedom of movement around the base, the recent extreme temperatures have their hosts diplomatically suggesting they travel as much as possible, they are provided cold weather wear, as the mess hall and medbay are in separate buildings from the barracks. Weather warning aside, they encourage the exotics to take advantage of the non-restricted recreational facilities -- exercise rooms, art rooms, the lush gardens in the Grow Labs -- and will satisfy any reasonable curiosities.

base
In an effort to make the exotics feel more at home, the Cetagandans decide to put on the sort of function they might for visiting diplomats, full of art of all sorts, to show that they're just as willing to share their culture with the exotics as they're asking the exotics to share with them. The function is hosted on the evening of the 7th in an annex to the Grow Labs apparently meant for this express purpose, as it shows off the most beautiful and elegant of the Grow Labs' specimens, and acts as a live arboretum in and of itself, and quite vibrantly beautiful.



If there's one thing the Cetagandans are good at (besides art, and language, and genetics) it's throwing a good party. Functions like this are always an opportunity for Cetagandans to try and socially one-up one another; everyone is in their most fashionable dress in the latest fashions they manage to keep off-planet, or at least a dress uniform, wearing fanciful scents and vibrant facepaint they might not otherwise on the job. For the artistically inclined ghem (read: a lot of them), this is the chance to show off their artistic endeavors as well -- large sculptures of unusual and improbable materials, walkable installations meant to engage every sense, and of course the living art engineered by the ghem ladies, ranging from relatively simple and tame pieces such as koi fish patterned with clan insignia or black roses and blue orchids, to complex combinations of non-human DNA to create some genetic sculpture. There is, of course, food and drink -- in the usual flagrant Cetagandan style, although the hors d'oeuvres and drinks are even more ecletic than the usual mess hall fare. It seems as though the Cetagandan passion for genetic art extends even into the culinary realm.

At the center of the party is a particular kind of art installation called a discernment garden. Housed in a beautiful, improbably architectural tent, the discernment garden consists of a series of rooms, each meant to test the refinement of the senses -- not unlike a varietal wine tasting. Each room is dedicated to a single sense, inviting participants to judge a collection of samples and suss out the differences, or match tastes and smells and textures to labels; the end of the garden presents its visitors with a final art piece incorporating all five senses, as a final test of one's refinement. Some of the ghem might (a bit wryly) confess that this is actually more of an education tool used for Cetagandan children, but this is meant as a gesture of good will toward the exotics.



missions
On the evenings of the 6th and the 8th, some of the exotics do a little sneaking around, and not for the first time. York lends Kaidan his access badge to the R&D Lab on the 6th and Kaidan, along with Sans and Symmetra, stumble onto a whole lot of wormhole data and schematics to construct a device capable of controlling the phenomena of the exotics' appearance. On the 8th, Deanna and Natasha sneak around to the tactical buildings and overhear some marital discord between Zahal and Diya, and a troubling glimpse at their diverging plans.

On the evening of the 13th, Jasper, York and Daryl are all in the medbay when a biocontainment breach sends it into automatic lockdown, trapping them inside. They overhear Diya arguing with one of her subordinates over unauthorized use of ba genetic material, whatever that is.

The unabridged event writeup is here.

Comments

[vorrutyer]

"Just so," he says, spreading his hands at her to indicate that by that very comment of hers, he's won the match. "Democracy seems a lovely notion to me. Honestly. The Betans seem to do all right, and I honestly can't see how even the least-educated prole could do worse than most of my cousins and uncles and great-uncles and second cousins who have held Countships. But bring this notion to those sorts of people and, whoops, suddenly you find yourself having misplaced your head. So unless you want to be the one donating that little skull of yours to the Vorhartung Castle Museum of Oddities, better to accept that Countships are how it's going to go for the foreseeable future."

[littlemissfutility]

"My skull isn't that odd," she answers, maybe a little sullen. They'd probably want my blood. And that thought brings along a darker one, something she's tried not to think about ever since the prison fell: whether getting cut across the neck is close enough to the brain stem to do any good. She's pretty sure it isn't, but the thought of her father's head lingering in some kind of undeath in a bloodied field is too much to bear.

Arguing about democracy doesn't really matter right now. They're in the middle of nowhere, and if they're going to live, they have to have some kind of leader. Fine. Whatever. Spending a whole month here, never thinking about what happens if I die in someone else's war for more than a moment--that actually matters. And with serious, steely Rani captured, she's not sure who she can actually trust. Sonia's so cheerful that it's hard to think of asking her about death; the countess is a remote ally at best. Somehow, Byerly has become one of her better options for help if the worst happens.

She's silent, expression grave, with something of a measuring look. It's not the right place to ask this, and just because he's her best option doesn't mean he's a great one--but people have been killed and captured. She can't just let something happen. "Byerly? If I asked you to do something..."

[vorrutyer]

That...takes him by surprise. Beth is normally so wary and hostile - so resistant to being perceived as weak - that he doesn't quite know how to respond. His normal response to a request like that is glib and automatic, but of course milady, a mocking bow, a leer. It's usually a request that earns him an ugh, forget it from the other party, and thus By successfully avoids work or obligation of any sort. But coming from Beth, he's unprepared for it, and so instead of his normal off-putting response, he responds a little more honestly.

"Depends on what it is," he says, eyeing her. Not hostile, but cautious - and, for once, without any hint of nastiness.

[littlemissfutility]

She's halfway steeling herself for something sarcastic in reply, and part of her wishes he'd just be a jerk so she doesn't have to say it. It was so obvious at home--people die, people need to be stabbed before they become walkers--that it's something nobody ever needed to voice. It was what you did. But he's not a jerk, and she has to say it.

"If I die," she says, keeping her voice low and even--the last thing anybody needs is for her to freak out the soldiers in the mess, "somebody needs to stab me in the head."

Can you do that for me? is on her tongue, but it seems like a bad idea to say it like a favor she needs from him. Even if that's exactly what it is.

[vorrutyer]

Um. Byerly is genuinely, truly, thoroughly taken aback, positively speechless - which is a rare sight indeed; Beth ought to consider herself fortunate. His mouth opens, and then closes, and then finally he clears his throat.

"Stab you in the head," he repeats faintly, and then reaches up to pass his hand over his face. "Can I ask...why?"

[littlemissfutility]

You can't just ask somebody to stab you and refuse to explain.

She nods, her hands clasped together on the tabletop. It's another thing people don't really have to say--not these days. After two years, you know how walkers work, or you're dead. "If you die and nobody does anything about your brain, you become a walker. Doesn't matter if you were bitten or not."

At least they've already gone over those. Even if he was drunk then (or pretending to be drunk? who knows?), he has to remember the walkers. Remembering the headless corpse being carried away, she adds, "We should probably start stabbing everyone in the head, just in case."

[vorrutyer]

He feels a sudden sickening leap of panic in his throat at that last comment. His mouth is suddenly, abruptly very dry. Start stabbing everyone in the head - A little shakily, he takes in a breath, and faces the more immediate request first.

"I don't expect that you'll be dying any time soon," he says. "But - I'm sorry. What do you mean, we should stab everyone in the...head? Are you saying - there's some infection?"

[littlemissfutility]

"It only matters if you die," she says hastily, guessing what Byerly might think of this even if she can't quite see it in him. Crap. "It doesn't do anything if you're alive. But everyone at home has it. So...everyone here might, too."

She probably should have mentioned that in the first place. Her stomach drops at the thought of stiff-backed Count Vorkosigan getting wind of this from casual gossip. She'd really prefer if he didn't have reason to find out at all, but if he doesn't hear it from her, she's probably going to end up getting a sword to the neck herself. "Please don't say anything about it--if anyone asks, you didn't know. Okay?"

[vorrutyer]

"But - " The look on his face isn't feigned. There's absolutely nothing fake about his posture now, nothing dishonest. No. The drawling fop has vanished entirely, replaced with an actual human being. And the look on his face is genuinely, truly afraid - his expression drawn and taut, his shoulders tensed, his breath coming quickly through his lips. He clenches his fists on the table in front of him, and relaxes them, and clenches them again.

His voice is unsteady when he says, "If that's true - That might kill everyone on Barrayar. You - If everyone has it, then my home - " He clamps his jaw shut, and he draws in a trembling breath, trying to calm himself. Again, he rubs at his face, though this time his movements are jerky, unsteady.

[littlemissfutility]

"I'm sorry." I didn't ask to show up here. I didn't mean to-- But that's not going to help. Even apologizing isn't going to do much. If she's damned all of Barrayar, nothing she can do now can fix it. "I--I don't know how it spreads. Maybe I didn't bring it with me."

But even with an abbreviated science education, she knows how unlikely that is. Everyone thought it was airborne at home. Maybe waterborne, but it spread so quickly--and now another planet might end up overrun with walkers.

"I'm sorry," she says again, her nails digging into her palms. The horror in Byerly's face looks like it belongs someplace else; he's suddenly a different man, staring at her like he just discovered the Cetagandans weren't Barrayar's biggest threat after all.

[vorrutyer]

But after a moment more of staring, he presses his hands to his temples, and squeezes shut his eyes - and then takes in a single quick breath and drops his hands. He still doesn't look entirely the same. There's a focus in his face and his manner, a brisk sort of intelligence that isn't exactly at odds with his earlier arch nastiness, but which certainly didn't show up before. His voice is quick and his manner firm as he says to her, "You didn't ask to be brought here. Don't apologize to anyone, least of all to me."

And then he takes a breath, folding his hands on the table in front of him. There's a moment of quiet, and then he says, "The easiest thing to do would to be to kill someone in a way that would cause this sickness to activate. To see if they'll do this...thing." He doesn't look like he's joking.

[littlemissfutility]

It's the other kind of sorry, she wants to say--the I'm sorry your world is in danger rather than I'm sorry I put it there. Both are true, admittedly, but it's hard not to have sympathy for someone who might be staring down the end of everything he knows. Wouldn't it be worse to realize it could be happening? Worse than school closing and neighbors huddling near, murmuring how the CDC will have an answer any day now, they'll have a solution for everyone quarantined in the barn. They'd had hope, even if they'd had no idea what was going on. She'd thought her mother and brother would get better.

That's not it, she realizes, not worse to see the possibility spread before him. It's harder, but at least it's not blindness to reality.

When he brings up killing a person, she perks up, her eyes sharp. Byerly's absolutely right--and more importantly, they don't even have to do the killing. Count Vorkosigan, for all his other faults, did them a favour.

"What do they do with corpses?" she asks, her voice taking on a certain, somewhat urgent quality. They can do something, and that always makes her feel a little better. "After they execute somebody."

[vorrutyer]

"I...don't know," he admits, rubbing at his mouth. A moment, and then he says, "If they're Barrayaran, then Vorkosigan might exert himself to return the body to the family. More likely with Vor than with proles. Cetagandans...Hm. Most likely disposing of the body somewhere, holding onto the head as a trophy. Or just the scalp." Byerly's mouth twists. "They liked to take Cetagandan scalps during this era."

He blows out a breath, then says, "But the standard mode of execution is death by decapitation. As you saw. Which would prevent these changes which you predict, wouldn't it?" He hesitates, then says, "What we need is someone to die for the crime of treason. Those who commit treason...The standard punishment for that is death by exposure and starvation. That would leave the body intact to rise from death again if it has been infected."

Byerly falls silent. And then, abruptly, he gives a short but heartfelt laugh. What else can you do? The absurdity of it - the dire, bleak hilarity - it's simply too much. "Good heavens," he says thereafter, and rubs at his eyes.

[littlemissfutility]

"Not if they didn't get the brain. That's all you need." Considering how many walkers she's seen who are falling apart, there's no reason to hope a dead skull with an intact brain would escape that fate. I'm sorry we left you that way, Daddy. "Sometimes it takes an hour or two. We have to find the corpse."

Nobody's freaking out here, which says they still have time. She kind of doubts everything would be so calm if a grey-skinned monster had woken while somebody sliced off its hair. (Which is incredibly gross, by the way, but they don't have time to ponder just how gross right now.)

"So if they take the scalp. What then? Do you burn them or leave them out for the animals or what?" She's getting up as she asks. As loath as she is to leave the scant warmth of the tent, they need to find those remains. "We should probably get it away from camp--just to be safe."

[vorrutyer]

"I don't know," he admits reluctantly. He's distracted - dangerously distracted - and so, without thinking, he starts, "This isn't exactly my - " Time period, he was about to admit; he clamps his teeth shut on it. Miles wheedled an oath out of him that he'd make no allusions to time travel; By might think this prohibition stupid, but, well...one's word is one's word.

"In any case. I - don't know, but I can find out." He rubs at his forehead a moment, then sighs - "Give me...fifteen minutes. I'll speak with my contacts. And then we'll meet up at the entrance to camp. Agreed?"

[littlemissfutility]

Tell him you want to come.

And make him rethink the whole idea?

What if he's planning to get some people together and kill you? To see whether you're going to screw things up for Barrayar?

It's Byerly. He probably wouldn't.

It's Byerly. Why wouldn't he?

Because I'm the only one with any experience with it. Anyway, you weren't worried before.

That was before he decided we should split up and he should go talk to...whoever.

She's torn, and that strange, weary look on his face doesn't give her a lot to go on. The only thing she has over him is her knife, and that's not going to make much difference if she isn't careful. But if she has more than just a knife...

"Okay," she says, firm, and again, "okay. I'll see you there."

And in the meantime, she's going to make a stop at the armory and wheedle a sword out of them.

[vorrutyer]

And Byerly...will simply be fulfilling his promise, nothing more than that. Stopping by to chat with a soldier, to split a few swallows of mead with him, and to gossip about where that corpse ended up. Oh, yes, I've got a girl I want to show it to, is his cover story, and what a marvel; that's not even a lie, is it? So, only about ten minutes later than promised, he shows up. By this time, he's recovered from his initial shock, and so his expression is once again a leer of arrogance and half-drunk ill intent...

Though that fades again when he sees she's armed. Startlingly heavily. "A sword?" he mutters incredulously. "Do you even know how to fight with a sword? Won't a knife suffice to put the creature down if it rises again?"

[littlemissfutility]

Beth waits at the entrance to camp--and worries and debates going back inside, where it's almost warm, and worries some more--until Byerly finally shows up. He's alone, thank God, and he looks more confused than anything by the fact that she has more than her knife at her waist. Maybe worried.

"Yeah," she says, meeting his gaze. There's no way in hell she's explaining the sword; the word she gave to the guard at the armory was that she needed to practice and would bring it back in an hour. All true, especially now that it looks like Byerly was a man of his word about what he was up to. (One of these days, maybe she'll learn to trust him. Maybe.) "Did you find out where the body is?"

[vorrutyer]

She looks at him, fierce and intense, and he spreads his hands in a shrug. Very well, then. Carry your sword and refuse explanations.

"In theory," he responds. "Who know how to sort truth from lies." And with that unhelpful comment, he takes off, striding in the direction of the little glade where they have apparently stored the corpse. "The rumor is that Count Vorkosigan wants it for something. Wants to preserve it. One shudders to consider why."

[littlemissfutility]

Beth follows with quick strides, in hopes of matching his long ones. The sword taps quietly against her thigh with every step.

"You don't normally do that here?" It's not normal at home, either, but plenty of what Barrayarans do isn't normal by Earth standards. "What do you think he wants it for?"

Mostly, she wants his opinion--since he's likely to have an educated guess or two--but letting him voice that opinion kind of feels like doing him a favour. He loves to talk, if he loves anything.

[vorrutyer]

"Cannibalism? We're quite hungry, after all." He cocks an eyebrow at her, but then pushes his hands into his pockets and says, "Sending a message, would be my guess. Returning their scientist in pieces, perhaps. It would be - hm - an unambiguous message, to be sure. And certainly the sort that old Piotr would want to send."

[littlemissfutility]

"We're not that hungry," she answers, not without some amusement. Not a lot, admittedly, but as long as there are horses, they don't have to start frying up enemies. His other idea is a more solid one--grotesque, but believable. Beth nods, mulling it over, and eventually, she asks, "What do you usually do? With the dead."

[vorrutyer]

He shoots her a wry glance when he hears that amusement - hah, score one for him - and then takes a breath to address her question. "Burial," he says. "Our planet was, ah, very badly terraformed for a very long time. We didn't want to waste any earth-descended organic matter. So - burial." A small shrug. "We burn offerings to the dead at their gravesites. If we care to."

[littlemissfutility]

"We bury ours," she offers in return. Fair's fair--if she wants to ask him, she can stand to offer something in answer. And after refusing to trust him (the sword bumps against her knee), she feels like she kind of owes it to him to try to trust him now, just a little bit. "If they aren't, we burn them. We'd never stop digging graves otherwise."

And it seems like a bad idea to put too much sickened flesh into the ground. Everything rots eventually, that's just common sense--but not everything rots like walkers.

"Up there?" she asks, nodding to a place where the trees grow a little thinner.

[vorrutyer]

He glances over, a little surprised when she volunteers that information. Not that he lets it show, of course - oh, no, someone smooth and suave like himself certainly wouldn't ever be showy about being startled; rather, he simply raises an eyebrow at her. He answers her question first - "So they say" - and then takes a moment before asking his own. Admittedly, he...doesn't know if he wants to know the answer to this.

"If...indeed, this sickness will create...living dead," he says. He hesitates, then says, "Does death en masse so inevitably follow? Why have so many been killed where you are from?"