forbarrayar | [ february ii log ]

Entry tags:

[ february ii log ]

Who: Everyone
What: Traitors exposed, celebrations had, sleight hands passing cards under the table. And so begin the preparations for what is soon to come.
When: February 18th - 28th
Where: Barrayaran camp / Cetagandan base
Warnings: Torture (interrogations thread)

Quick links:
Riverfall
Barrayar: Barrayaran camp / Party / Missions
Cetaganda: Cetagandan base / Moon-poetry party / Missions

The harsh weather rages on, which temperatures still averaging far below freezing, and the wind is still strong. But things are a little less dire for the outsiders, and for the exotics -- well, they have their own chills to deal with.

riverfall
Riverfall village is your typical Dendarii mountain village, which means it's small, humble, and mostly poor. This is the most rural of the rural around here, a little backwater even by Barrayaran standards. Most of the villagers live in houses of wood and stone built themselves or by ancestors. Despite the cold, there are plenty of people outside at any given time -- working, mostly, because the daily grind stops for no one, but even the occasional group of children taken over by fits of cabin fever. The village is built up against a rocky mountain face, from the top of which the eponymous waterfall flows into the river that borders the west edge of the village and continues down the mountain. The place isn't exactly hidden, but if you don't know your way around, it'd be hard to find without a native guide.

The villagers are wary of the outsiders at first, even more than the soldiers had been -- the rural Dendarii are as superstitious as they come -- but, slowly convinced of their good intentions, start to warm to them. They're a blunt, hardy people, largely uneducated and tending toward the most extreme of Barrayaran sensibilities, but they are undeniably fierce. The General Count trusts them, so they'll be more or less civil (by Barrayaran standards, anyway), but you might catch the occasional scrutinizing, watchful stare. With Cetagandans in camp and exotics among them, they border on hostile, especially those who are visibly nonhuman. They keep their heads down enough to keep from getting into trouble with the soldiers, but they do not like you at all.

Not everyone in Riverfall speaks English -- Russian is everyone's first language, and only about half the village has any passable command of English. Thankfully, the village's Speaker Yakiv Gura speaks English, if heavily accented. They're clearly stretching to the limit to help the camp, but to the Dendarii, there's no higher act than one in the Count's service, especially when it comes to fighting this war.

barrayar
Even after scoring themselves a little extra food, morale in the camp is at an all-time low. The miserably dangerous weather hasn't let up, food is still heavily rationed, and everyone is still at least a little tired, cold, and hungry all of the time. It doesn't help that they've lost a few soldiers in the last couple of weeks, and in Riverfall, too, some villagers have died of the cold despite their relative warmth and safety, mostly children. This is hardly the first harsh winter they've faced, but that doesn't stop the inexorable loss that comes with it. Some villagers may be somberly putting their loved ones to rest in the village graveyard when the outsiders are in town.

But Piotr finally calls Negri out as a spy sent by his aide-de-camp Captain Ezar Vorbarra, partly to deliver a message and partly to test Piotr, because Ezar loves coy bullshit. However, he does learn that both Ezar and Prince Xav Vorbarra, Olivia and Sonia's father, are en route to Vorkosigan's District with relief supplies from Beta Colony secured by Xav's ambassadorial connections and tireless lobbying. Once Piotr judges it safe to release this information, it bring with it a bit of hope -- and to seal the deal, Piotr and Olivia arrange a celebration of sorts in the village.

Finally outing the ring of reason in the camp helps to bolster morale, too. Vorhalas is interrogated, and the names of his co-conspirators are revealed: Lieutenant Boris Vortala, who killed himself in disgrace shortly after his fast-penta interrogation at ghem-General Zefyst's hand, and their commander Captain Aaron Vorbataille. Vorbataille has, of course, already started to make his escape -- but with the help out of the outsiders, he won't get very far. Once Piotr is satisfied with Vorbataille's interrogation as well, both men are put to execution, but not by beheading as Doctor ghem-Miko: the sentence for treason is death by public starvation and exposure, and in this weather, it doesn't take long. They are publicly and emphatically denounced as traitors with no honor to speak of, sending a very clear message. Although this might seem like a gruesome sight to the outsiders, to the Barrayarans this is simply how it goes, and very few of them are sorry to see these traitors suffer, particularly as Vorhalas was the one responsible for their food shortage in the first place.

Reports from those soldiers and outsiders who were in the village at the same time as the Cetagandan field science team present the General Count with another troubling problem, however: the implications of the Cetagandans building a device that could control this phenomenon are terrifying, particularly to this threadbare resistance movement. But sabotage seems hardly a worthy solution, either. This is the only lead they have on sending the outsiders home, and so many of them have already put their lives on the line for the cause of a planet that otherwise nothing to most of them. There would be no honor in robbing them of their only chance to return home. But whether they should continue to allow the Cetagandans to proceed with their research or try to find a way to copy their plans themselves, a dubiously possible venture at best, weighs heavily on his mind. It only complicates his strategic concerns further, but by his military orders in the next couple of weeks, at least one thing is clear: he wants Cetagandan bodies.

camp
Morale is critically low among the soldiers, particularly after a few casualties during a recent skirmish with a Cetagandan patrol, but spirits definitely begin to lift with news of relief. The soldiers are now more or less accustomed to the outsiders' place in the camp, and they're even starting to become a little friendlier toward them, particularly those who've been involved in the war effort. They might invite outsiders to play card or dice games with them, or share a conversation over an admittedly meager meal, or better still, bond with them in the true Barrarayan form: over a lot of alcohol.

Negri has more or less built himself a niche in the camp, and doesn't look like he's going anywhere any time soon. But he isn't the only spy around. They desperately need a man on the inside, particularly with the troubling news about the wormhole device, and right now, that man is Byerly Vorrutyer. Starting next month, Piotr is sending him on assignment to infiltrate the Cetagandan base under the cover of a cowardly collaborator.

party
By the time they have the party on the 21st, the villagers have warmed up to the outsiders a little, but they don't really bond until the party. With what little they have to share, they scrape together as much of a feast as they can: not much, but by this month's standards, any hot meal prepared with fresh ingredients seems absolutely decadent. And because this is Barrayar there is, of course, plenty of liquor, that Barrayaran moonshine maple mead not the least among them, and there's no shortage of wine or vodka, either.

The hillfolk light lanterns all around the village and raise large tarps to cover the open center of the village where they usually hold gatherings. Inside, protected from the wind and lit by the bonfire and braziers placed around the perimeter, it's actually almost warm. Every villager who's ever laid hand to an instrument seems to gather there to play music all night long, an energetic mix of lively folk music and raucous drinking songs. Anyone with any musical talent would be welcome to join them as well. There's plenty of dancing, too, very little of it formal or complicated, but everyone's having a good time for the first time in weeks, maybe months, and the mood is infectious. By the end of the night, morale seems to have risen overall, and people in camp have something real to look forward to. The partygoing visitors are put up in warmed tents within the tarped village center or in the villagers' homes where they have room. Come morning, they'll head back, but for just one night, it's almost like there isn't even a war on.

missions
Outsiders have been assisting with moving supplies between the camp and Riverfall all throught he rest of the month, and it mostly goes smoothly. Vorbataille is caught on the 20th, although he and Vorhalas aren't publicly executed until a few days later, when Piotr is satisfied with the intelligence he's extracted. By the time he gets Vorbataille's name out of Vorhalas, the traitorous Captain has already fled -- but thanks to Carolina, Duv and Zarya, he's dragged back to camp for his interrogation.

That evening, Maine and William have the misfortune of encountering a dragon -- Darkstalker is on a mission with a Cetagandan patrol, and they run right smack into each other. A fight breaks out, but ultimately Darkstalker and the Cetagandans come out on top, and the outsiders and Barrayarans are forced to retreat -- but not before managing to kill a Cetagandan soldier or two, just barely escaping with one of the bodies.

Miles finds himself in a terrible position when a guard patrol shift goes horribly wrong in a skirmish against some Cetagandans, resulting in the death of their squad leader and a very ugly aftermath.

Zarya, William, Beth and Miles are in Riverfall with some Barrayaran soldiers on a supply run when a Cetagandan field science team arrives with a few exotics in tow. This is a rare chance to learn more about the Cetagandans' scientific exploits, and among other things, they find out that whatever it is that brought them here, the Cetagandan scientists are convincede it has something to do with the wormhole that collapsed 700 years ago.

The unabridged mission writeup is here.

cetaganda
The Cetagandans are a notoriously tight-lipped bunch, but they're blowing away most of the smoke surrounding their wormhole science research. As has been alluded, they're currently working on a device to harness the phenomenon that brought all the exotics here in the first place, and hopefully find a way to send them all home with it. They invite any exotics with scientific expertise to a series of interviews about neurology, astrophysics, and mechanical engineering. None of the advisement they receive helps to solve one of their most critical problems -- that of generating a Necklin field to match the one that must have surrounded each exotic -- but it certainly puts them closer to their goal, particularly in the area of neurology, and they're hardly going to stop there. But it's clear that the mathematicians and astrophysicists on base don't have sufficient expertise to solve the most complex equations before them. But on the brighter side of things, in the interest of this scientific exchange, they're letting the lab techs help a little more beyond just grunt work.

Meanwhile, the genetics project that seems so strange and arcane to the exotic carries on, largely behind the scenes, although Diya is increasingly at odds with her husband and even some of her senior staff, particularly the precocious Amai ghem-Soren. But there is very real purpose behind it -- and far more than just one -- and Diya d'Zefyst is a woman of great ambition. And more than anything else, she is haut.

Unfortunately, the relative peace on base is abruptly broken when Daryl, Lakshmi and Wash all manage to escape in a wild breakout attempt on the 25th. York and Ratchet are left behind, and as a result, some of their privileges revoked. They're now being watched a little more closely as a result.

base
Overall, despite simmering tensions under the surface and the miserable weather, life on base seems to be going more or less smoothly around them. The Cetagandans have had some recent victories against the Barrayarans, so morale is high. Unfortunately, after the breakout they begin cracking down on security with the exotics -- going back to treating the exotics a little more like they did when they first arrived. They aren't under guard, but after the 25th, they are being watched.

They still maintain that insistent veneer of civility, however, breaking only in cases where they feel the need or security risk is significant enough. The ghem on base remain overall cordial and courteous to the exotics as they ever were, which is to say considerably and always with a touch of smug superiority. With her success at the party earlier this month followed by her performance in the moon-poetry garden, the often-sequestered Amai ghem-Soren is seen more around the base.

moon-poetry party
The moon-poetry party is about three hours long and steeped in ceremony, each participant taking their turn to recite. This is, apparently, not a recitation of one's own work, but rather selections of classical Cetagandan poems, and in so referencing something culturally ubiquitous, each makes a statement in its mere selection and juxtapositions. If you pay close enough attention, you might notice that each participant has very subtly coordinated their outfits to further complement the theme of their recitation. Although there is a definite dignity to the party, it doesn't take much to pick up on the fact that this is yet another arena ghem use to try and socially one-up one another. Among the participants are both the Chief Medical Officer Colonel Faro ghem-Naru and Doctor Amai ghem-Soren, whose performance was especially well-received, the theme apparently being something about subtle passions.

missions
The science interviews with the exotics go more or less well, although not quite so hopeful as the Cetagandans were hoping. They do, however, learn some things about FTL travel in other worlds as well as other kinds of neural implants.

On the evening of the 21st, York, Natasha and Kaidan accidentally bear witness to what is clearly some kind of travesty: clearly a human being, but both overgrown and underdeveloped, and exhibiting powers of hydrokinesis and psychic empathy, referred to only as a ba.

On the 23rd, Jasper, Lapis, Pearl and Darkstalker accompany some soldiers and a field science team to Riverfall village, coinciding with a visit from some outsiders and soldiers. They encounter some outsiders while there but also pick up a bit on what it is the Cetagandans are doing -- that the Necklin field problem still remains their biggest problem, and they've been getting conflicting orders from the higher ups lately.

The unabridged mission writeup is here.

Note: Negri and Zahal are available for threads by request only this round. Please hit up Madi or Ammay respectively if you want threads with either of those NPCs. You can also request a thread with Village Speaker Yakiv Gura if you want, in which case hit up Madi.

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Byerly, whatever his other (many, many) faults, is at least not controlling. His response to that is not to scold, or to command, or to push - instead he just sighs sharply and responds, "Well, I suppose he might be more tolerable there. A horse's ass would blend in amongst the horses."

And then, with a small wave of his hand, he says, "Let us leave the topic of that foul fellow. He isn't even worth gossiping about. Surely there's someone who merits our scurrilous attentions."

"Who?" she asks, purposely wide-eyed now, as if she's never thought of talking about anybody behind their backs in her life. Her own answer remains you, Byerly, let's talk about you, but that's a suggestion he might need to make himself. Say something too pointed and he backs away.

Of course, if you don't say anything, then he still gets to hold himself at arm's length. It's kind of a lose-lose situation.

"Good question." He taps his finger on his lower lip thoughtfully, making a great show of pondering this question. For a moment he does consider suggesting himself - purely to torment the girl, since she'd made no secret of her irritation at his charmingly self-deprecating persiflage on previous occasions...But, instead, he suggests -

"How about the Princess Countess Olivia?"

Her brows furrow, just a little, at the suggestion. There's so little to gossip about, when it comes to the countess. Even after knowing her for a few weeks, she seems a little unreadable to Beth--a capable woman who does everything right to hold the camp together. She must have worries and flaws, but Beth doesn't think she's seen them. Not really. "What about her?"

"Well, I don't know," he laughs. His eyes watch her, though, for her reaction. "I barely know the woman. You know her far better than I do, as a matter of fact. So I supplied the gossip about Tucker; you supply the gossip about Olivia. Come."

"There's not much to gossip about," Beth answers, aware in a vague sort of way that she probably shouldn't be passing on rumors about the woman who sort of employs her. "She's so busy, I don't think she has time to do anything you'd think was interesting."

Especially not since the you in question is Byerly. What he finds interesting is probably a little wilder than the average person.

"Beth." He sighs as he regards her, one hand on his hip. "My dear girl. You are absolutely atrocious at this." He drops his hand, then, and gestures towards her. "I know you spent at least some time in school. And in that school, you were a teenaged girl. No? So you must have some understanding of how this works. I'll walk you through it. Step one. Let's begin. What does she do in a typical day?"

Beth screws up her mouth, staring up at Byerly. He's not wrong, he's just condescending. Which isn't surprising, really. It's Byerly--he's doing it on purpose. And at least he's not being anywhere near as much of a jackass as he can be.

"I'm not going to gossip about the countess." I need her--but that's too serious an explanation, and it says more than she really wants it to. The countess is the difference between having a knife and not having a knife. After a moment or two, lighter, "There's nothing to gossip about anyway. Not like if you told me what you do all day."

It's not the most graceful attempt at trying to get him to back off, certainly, but it's not dreadful, either. She does a good job with the lightness of her voice, the general attitude of bantering cheer - definitely not bad. His lip curls up before he sighs mournfully. "You'd just be disappointed if I did," he sighs. "There is no proper sin to engage in here in this camp. I drink, I...drink. And shovel shit. And try to avoid thinking about how high up in the mountains we are. That's all. This really is the worst place to be."

He lets the subject drop, thank God, and they move on to the fascinating world of Byerly Vorrutyer. Which really isn't so fascinating, when you get down to it. She can't blame him for finding it so dull--for all she doesn't think he's nearly the drunk he says he is, she can believe him lusting after all the drugs they don't have here.

"I mean, it's not the worst," she offers, though it's not really orneriness this time. "Everyone's pretty nice." And then her lip curls a little. "Guess that's boring, though."

"Hideously boring!" he complains. Complains honestly, too. That pout is, for once, totally unfeigned. "God help me, there's no greater blight on the world than nice people. Give me rude people. Give me people who break the rules and cause scandals. These disciplined soldiers are breaking my soul into splinters."

"If you have time to be bored, you have it pretty good." She's said it before--another time, a worse place. Tonight, it's almost a joke, instead of an accusation, her mouth twisting up a little. "Means you feel safe."

"Oh, I don't know," he says a bit breezily. "It seems as though the two can coexist. What's that they say about the soldier's life? That it's boredom interspersed with bursts of terror?"

He smiles a bit, then, wryly. Dryly. "Do you get bored here, Miss Greene?"

"That's not the same. Bored in a watchtower--you aren't waiting for scandals." Not that she knows, exactly, what that's like; she wasn't anyone's first pick for guard duty. But she's seen it in other people, and she's felt the tedium of other small, dangerous jobs.

He's not actually asking are you bored?, she doesn't think. Not after the weird, tense conversations they've had. Even in that tone, she thinks it's do you feel safe enough to be bored? Part of her doesn't want to answer, but it's an unreasonable sensation, the one that still says don't give him anything. The rest of her shrugs at it--and at Byerly--figuring that if she answers as indifferently as he asks, it won't count for anything. (Is that more or less reasonable than wanting to clam up? She can't decide.) "Not much. There's a lot to do."

"Not quite an answer to the question I asked," he says, fluttering a hand at her. Indeed, he goes to pin her down, saying, "Your proposition is that safety is a prerequisite for boredom. So my question is: do you get bored? Can you get bored?"

Are you doing all right here? Emotionally? - That's a question he'd never ask, God knows. God help him. Heaven forfend. This question is, instead, mocking. Arch. Safe.

Beth rolls her eyes. Not when jackasses are asking questions.

The truth is something more fragile; she's not sure it's fit for Byerly's sarcastic gaze. But she can't think of a way to evade the question again. "Of course I can. We've lived here two months, and we've barely even seen the enemy."

"Well, I'm still scared of them," he drawls. In truth, inwardly, he's thinking: good. This poor girl deserves a bit of peace, with her dreadful circumstances, that dreadful life. He hopes desperately that she feels all right. Feels safe.

He sighs and pouts, following that heartfelt confession with an admission of, "But, then again, I'm a professional coward. I suppose you might be made of sterner stuff."

"I mean, they don't stop being scary." She's heard what they can do and seen just how intense their compound is. Only an idiot wouldn't be concerned about that. "But it's not like they know where we sleep."

Not right now, anyway. Someday, that'll probably change, and maybe that will be terrible enough that she won't be bored for a long damn time--that's how it always goes, eventually. But right now, she's living in the middle of a forest without fear, and that's more than she's had since the funeral home.

Professional coward makes her want to roll her eyes again, but she doesn't. You used to be afraid. Maybe he hasn't learned how not to be. It doesn't sit quite right, and she doesn't know if it's because it's another lie or because for once, he's actually telling the truth. Either seems equally possible, after a month and a half around him. And that's why her answer's earnest, and less impatient than it could be. "Nothing says you have to stay afraid, just because you think you're a coward now. You can change."

"Why, Miss Greene," Byerly mocks, putting a hand on his heart, "you're trying to inspire me, aren't you? My word. You do a decent job of it, too. You could be a mascot."

His grin at her isn't exactly nasty. There are times when he's furious and uses mockery to lash out. This is comparatively harmless. But it's not nice, either, really.

"No, I fear you're completely incorrect. Fear is fear. It passes. It can be overcome. But cowardice is forever."

Ugh. That impatience surfaces again as she stares up at him, flatly unamused. She crosses her arms. "No, I'm just telling you. Nothing lasts forever."

Anyone can change. It's hard--it sucks, really--but that doesn't mean it's impossible.

"Quite right," he says, and presses a hand to his chest and bows. His manner is still mocking and ironic. "In time, I will die. And my cowardice will go with me."

He straightens up, then, grinning at her. "You really want to think the best of people, don't you? That's terribly cute."

"It's not about wanting anything," she mutters defensively. Next time, she thinks, she'll leave before Byerly gets too comfortable in a conversation. Even when a conversation starts out okay, there's always a point where he decides he needs to be a jerk. And here they are, in the middle of it again. He makes expecting people not to be dicks to each other sound like saddle shoes and Seventh Heaven reruns--when it's all just surviving as well as possible. "Just seems like being a coward's a crappy way to live when you don't have to."

"Don't have to?" He taps his chin, smiling. "Spoken like someone oppressively, irritatingly courageous. Being a coward is not about having the will to be a coward, my dear Beth. I did not choose to be a coward. I was born to it, as you were born to that prickly courage of yours."

He presses a hand to his heart, and tries to pretend for a moment as though he's not lying. As though he's not about to march off to...whatever it is. Death. Misery. Betrayal of the cruelest sort. To the nest of the enemy. For a moment, he just wants to make-believe that he's truly a coward. That he'll go back to the tent tonight, and sleep off his hangover, and for the next day - week - month - year - he'll do nothing but endure the menial labor of the camp, and keep teasing her, and flirting with Sonia, and ducking more serious duties. That it can all stay like this.

Will you be wounded when I am brave, Beth? He doubts it very much. Beth, at least, is someone he won't have to worry about - thank God. Sonia will be wounded, Lakshmi, but practical Beth who doesn't even like him...She'll be all right. That's something. That's something that gives him strength.

"So don't blame me."

She believes him, inasmuch as she ever believes anything he says. He believes what he's saying--that much is obvious. He's wrong, of course, but try convincing Byerly Vorrutyer that he's wrong.

I don't want to argue with him. This is a party.

"Think that if you want," she says lightly, shrugging like it's no big deal. Which it isn't, if he's this determined to be a coward for the rest of his life. What's one conversation at a party while he slips in and out of fake drunkenness? Turning to escape the conversation, she adds, "Thanks for the spice cake."

"It wasn't mine to give." He wonders, inwardly, if this would be the last time they ever spoke. Quite likely, isn't it? They don't see so much of each other in camp. He wonders if he's done everything he can for her. Not whether he's done everything humanly possible - no, useless man that he is, he never was able to help her. But has he done everything in his power? He's tried to arm her with knowledge, and he's given her some. He's tried to keep her spirits up, and at least he made her annoyed. Annoyed is better than frightened. It seems to him as though surely, surely there was more he could have done, things he could have said, ways he could have put her feet more firmly on the ground, ways he could have guided her...

But ah, this is the game he always plays with himself. Why-didn't-I-say-that. Even now, as she walks away, he plays that game in the present tense: why-can't-I-say-that. Why can't he tell her that she'll be all right, or tell her that this world will be good to her, tell her to continue on with the fight. Something graceful, something that she'll hold onto when she thinks of him later. So that her last memory won't be of him nattering on about his cowardice, but something better. He has a dozen things he can say, a dozen things that are sweet or inspirational or just good. A dozen things that cast him in the light he wants to be remembered in: as someone snarky, devastatingly witty, but someone who still fought the good fight. A dozen things that would make her think back on him, and when she thought back on him, she'd remember how much he believed in her.

He doesn't, though. No. None of that comes out of his mouth. Instead he just stands, one hand in his pocket, the other one twisting around the rough-hewn cup of wine, smiling awkwardly and looking at the roof of the tent. And that is all. That's what he'll leave her with. Only that.

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[ february ii log ]

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