forbarrayar | [ february i log ]

Entry tags:

[ february i log ]

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"One or two," he admits, glancing over at her. He hesitates a moment, then admits, "In the...mezzo-soprano range, specifically." He feels a brief squirm of discomfort which he does not - absolutely does not - allow to surface in his expression. Instead, he continues on, blithe as anything, "Don't tell me you sing, as well. You're quite multi-talented, aren't you?"

"I can sing that," she answers promptly, though he doesn't seem quite as interested in that possibility. Beth assumes that's because it's easier to do, at least in theory, and thus he might actually have to pull out a violin, if he ever finds one. I'm very good at avoiding work.

If she wasn't already pink-cheeked from the cold, she probably would be now, as he directs the conversation back her way. "I just like music." And doodling, and collages, and interior design--if you can call pasting drawings and magazine cutouts onto the walls of a prison cell any of those things. She shrugs. "Do you sing at all?"

He hesitates a moment - just a moment - then admits, "Yes. A bit. I do." Another slight hesitation, then he admits, "I thought for a while that I might to go a music conservatory. When I was younger. It seems a phenomenally odd thought now. Good heavens, musicians have to work hard at their craft. It wouldn't have suited me at all."

It might have suited him, honestly. A bit. Music, he does love - music, dancing, all of it. In the early days, before Maman had really let herself go, she'd taught him and Nadine music of all sorts - because it had been Maman's passion. Somehow, in spite of everything, music is still a pleasure for him. He never learned the trick of hating it, as he learned to hate most everything else that he'd loved as a child. Ah, well. A terrible oversight.

Lest she think he's too respectable now, he adds, "Mostly I sing drinking songs. I'd sing a few, but they're a bit lewd for your delicate ears."

The way he says it, Beth believes him. It's shockingly easy to picture him studying music and--she imagines--skating by on talent where other students hack away at scores for weeks. And he decided to do nothing, or look convincingly like he does nothing, instead. It's kind of sad. But it does light her curiosity a bit, if only to know what he's capable of.

"I've been living here for a month and a half," she points out dryly. "I've probably heard them already."

And anyway, she spent her high-school career listening to a bunch of harsh-voiced old men sing about sex, love, and everything in between. She's heard lewd before.

"Ah, then you can sing them for me." He cocks his eyebrows at her, and sits back in his seat, and spreads his hands very slightly. "Go on," he says. "Let's hear something."

This is the second time someone's made her sing on command here, and it's more surprising than annoying. A little flattering, which is probably the real point, but if it kills time, it doesn't matter why Byerly's asking.

"Okay," she says after a moment or two, "but I'm not singing you a lewd one."

And as entertaining as it might be to draw on Leonard Cohen, at least in theory, she's not singing anything about hard-ons or oral sex in front of Byerly and a severed head. (Still not a walker.) Besides, her thoughts are too filled with her father today; she'd rather sing something he would have liked to hear. Bethy, sing Paddy Reilly for me. I haven't heard that, I think, since your mother was alive.

So when she draws in a breath, that's what she sings. "The garden of Eden has vanished, they say, but I know the lie of it still. Just turn to the left at the bridge of Finea, and stop when half way to Coote Hill..."

One verse and the chorus--come back, Paddy Reilly, to Ballyjamesduff, come home, Paddy Reilly, to me--is enough. After that, she stops, trying to decide if she wants to try to corner Byerly into singing something in turn.

Ah. Yes. Byerly closes his eyes as she sings, in sheer unselfconscious aesthetic enjoyment of a rare moment of beauty. And it is beautiful. By is friends with actors, opera directors, dance-hall girls - all sorts of low and despicable types - and so he knows technical perfection, and he knows talent, especially when it comes to music. Technically perfect this isn't: her voice is raw, imperfect. But it is also beautiful, earnest and lovely.

When she finishes, he opens his eyes and smiles honestly. He's a nasty, cruel sort of person most of the time, someone who'll mock anyone for just about anything, but that's not the sort of thing he'd ever mock her for.

"Thank you," he says. "Marvelous stuff. Is there more?"

Byerly is a generous audience when he wants to be; she can see, in the way he lets his eyes slip closed, how he can seem charming to other people. As selfish and pompous as he means to come off, he knows how to give people what they want. What singer doesn't want to see someone rapt at their voice?

Beth's not sure it's what he really thinks, but it's flattering. She smiles back, pleased and a little sheepish.

"A couple verses," she owns. "But it's your turn, not mine."

"My turn?" He raises an eyebrow very slightly. A slight hesitation, and then he bows his head in acknowledgment. "If you wish. What sorts of songs do you like? Sad? Happy? As we've said, lewd songs are out of the question, of course."

She does wish, not least because that, in its way, seems like it surprises him, too. She shrugs at his question, though; what he sings doesn't really matter, especially since there's a good chance she won't know it. "Sing something that matters to you."

"Something that matters to me?" His voice curls in a protective sort of irony. It is impossible, of course, that she would get a straight answer to that. Something that matters immediately triggers a retreat, a stepping back behind a layer of defense. He will not, as a matter of course, actually ever share anything that truly matters to him. Not sober, at least. And so he says, "I told you I won't sing the lewd songs. And that's all that matters to me, dear girl. Songs about liquor, drugs, and sex."

He lifts one eyebrow, and gives a little sigh, and says, "I suppose I could sing a song popular in my District, though. It's rather charming. Might be something you'd like."

It was worth a try, at least, but she can see him fold back up behind a smirk. Which is kind of sad, really, if it's really him retreating. She takes it as one, a vague pang of disappointment in herself for making it happen--even if, as she believes, it was worth a shot.

(The smirk, at least, is fake. She's pretty sure about that. Declaring that the only things that matter to him are addictions and women seems like a big show.)

"Then sing me that one." Pretty is such a subjective thing that she's not sure what to expect, but she'd curious nonetheless.

He doesn't look at her when he raises his eyebrows and tips his head downwards in an as you wish gesture. He stares, instead, at the motionless gruesome head, the body beyond it. But there's no more commentary before he starts to sing.

His voice isn't quite what it once was, no. A decade and a half of hard living has roughened his once-clear baritone. Not a lot, though; the sound is still even and pleasing to the ear, his pitches precise, his breathing deep and regular. He's had training, even if he doesn't have quite the natural talent he once did, and so his technical skill is considerable.

The song he sings is in Barrayaran French - a language that does not fully sound like the French of Earth, but which has the same general shape of it. He looks maybe just a bit wistful as he sings, his eyelids half-lowered over his dark eyes. He leaves off after about a minute, falling silent.

Beth watches him as he sings. She can't follow the words, but the melody moves smoothly in his voice, and after a moment, her eyes light up. It's an old song, but not an unfamiliar one. Coming up with it takes a little effort, but she remembers eventually. This feels slower than her wavery memories of some American guy in the 50s or 60s.

"You could have gone to music school," she tells him. Not in a disappointed kind of way--more like it could still be a possibility, if he wanted to. If Bob Dylan can have a career, anybody with talent can. Byerly doesn't have to live his life as a drunk (fake drunk, whatever). He's going to, but he doesn't have to. "I know that one. In English, though."

Sweet of her to say. He wonders if she means it. He couldn't have, of course - going to music school takes money, after all, and money was never something his family was rich in. No, no, they were always rich in...well, not love, either. Neuroses and passive-aggression, that was the one.

Curious thing, though. "You know it? How odd. I thought it was a Barrayaran folk song." His lips twitch in a philosophical sort of interest. "I suppose...well. I suppose folk songs always get their start somewhere. Being an Old Earth song is as good a start as any."

The thought of "Beyond the Sea," treasured folk song, broadens her smile. Maybe they sing some version of "Over the Rainbow" or "New York, New York," too. Maybe that's what we'll have in twenty years at home. If anyone's still alive. A bunch of pop songs that people pass down to each other.

"It was a hit when my father was a kid." She can't remember the details beyond that, but the point is that it was, like, fifty or sixty years old. She sings a bar or two, just enough to prove it. "Somewhere beyond the sea--somewhere, waiting for me--I don't remember the rest."

"Ah." He touches his chin thoughtfully. "That's not quite what the lyrics are saying in French. In French, it's not saying anything about being beyond the sea - it's about the sea itself. Dancing in the rain - silvery - all those metaphors. The sea as the shepherdess of the clouds. It's quite lovely, really." He gives a little wave of his hand. "Not that your version isn't lovely as well, of course."

"Yours sounds better," she says. The American song is a love song to a person. Writing a love song to the sea is a little more interesting. Shrugging, Beth glances down at the severed head, which is the same lifeless corpse it has been this whole time. There's the ugly, inexplicable urge to nudge it with the toe of her foot, which she decidedly does not do. "How long do you think it's been?"

"A lifetime and a half," he answers with a sigh. He goes over, then, crouching immediately in front of it, studying its slack features. A pity. He'd have liked to have continued talking about music. It's a nice escape from their current surreality.

"Is it possible that cold kills the virus?"

"I don't know." It was never this cold in Georgia--not for so long, anyway--and she isn't sure whether that's how the pathogen works. If people in cold weather could survive it, wouldn't somebody in Sweden or Russia or somewhere have found a way to broadcast that?

The Cetagandan hasn't turned, though. And he was in camp long enough that, if it spread, it would have had it. She bends down toward the head, reaching out a mitten as if to touch it, but not quite letting her hand come that close. "But he hasn't changed."

"It seems not." He hesitates for a long moment, then takes a deep bracing breath and steps forward. Swallowing down his gorge, he kneels by the head, reaches out, and wrenches its eyes open. Its gaze remains glassy, motionless, dead, the eyes dull and unnatural. He stares another moment before he realizes that he can't quite take it; he flinches away, then, snatching back his hands. Then he takes a breath, and collects himself.

"Definitely not. Very dead."

"Maybe," she offers, after a moment or two of watching Byerly shudder, "it doesn't spread here."

For that matter, maybe it's not here at all. What if the pathogen disappeared somewhere on the way to Barrayar? There's no way to know, but she can hope. It bubbles up in her, the possibility that it could be gone. That Byerly won't have to stab her in the eye when (if) she dies.

"I'll come back later," she promises, to Byerly and the head alike. "So we're sure."

"Sounds an excellent plan," he says. Horrible. He'll need to change out this pair of gloves for a different one, he thinks. Or simply burn these... He sighs and resists the urge to rub his face. Hell. "And I shall watch our new set of traitors as they die. Die with their heads intact. That will be pleasant."

Her expression folds up darkly at the thought of more deaths. It's appalling, and if she says so, there's a good chance that somebody might tell her to stop expecting Barrayaran morality to match her own. So she keeps silent, but her disgust isn't quite camouflaged in her face.

It's quiet in the clearing where they stand, and she knows she's got to fill it with something. "But Barrayar's safe for now."

"Well," he says, a little quietly, just a hint of rough unhappiness creeping into his voice. "Safe from this."

He's quiet a moment. Then he stands up, unfolding himself from his crouch beside that head to his normal lanky height. "One's mind," he says, rather carefully - carefully meaning that he very deliberately adopts a tone of vague unconcern, "cannot help but also go to the prospects of this. If whatever brought you through time and space to this planet, if that is what it was, eliminated the virus, that could potentially have - hm - implications for those you left behind."

Of course, it seems rather more likely at this point that the whole thing was a cruel joke created by some monstrous people - that the dead do not indeed rise, that this poor girl has been lied to and deluded. But he'll not bring up that possibility.

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