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Ivan Vorpatil began sorting through his mail with a yawn. His new post as Barrayaran ambassador to Earth was prestigious, well paid, and dull as dirt. The embassy had already been operating at peak efficiency when he arrived. The staff was startlingly effective and apparently without vices. Not one of them, not even the soldiers, had so much as made a drunken spectacle of themselves in public in the entire year that he had been on Earth. And no one, it seemed, wanted to make a diplomatic incident on Earth. The last major event--and they were still talking about it decades later--was the incident with Mark, Miles, and Komarran plot. There was some minor amusement to be had in deflecting questions about his role in the event, but the staff and other embassies quickly learned that they would get no sensible statement from him on the matter and gave up.
He scrolled through the messages. An invitation to a reception at the Escobaran embassy--he'd have to go and watch everyone loudly not mention history while he failed to mention current events such as whatever it was Mark and the biologists he was bankrolling were doing. Only Mark would embark on the elusive quest for immortality not out of desire for fame, fortune, or even longevity, but out of spite. Well, it kept him out of entomology and the group made major breakthroughs in medicine on practically a weekly basis, so it was all to the good. Something from the Cetagandan empire--he'd read that after he'd had coffee. It was likely to be at least briefly interestingly subtle and insulting.
He continued to scroll, past more invitations, announcements, and the occasional ad that somehow got through his generally excellent filter. Suddenly he stopped. There was a message from Gregor. Specifically from Gregor, Emperor of three planets. It was a brief video message. That could be good--or bad.He hoped it wasn't a crisis back home or announcement of--anything bad.
He opened the message quickly before his imagination could come up with more complicated disasters. Gregor's face appeared on the screen. He looked angry. Gregor never looked angry. Not like ordinary people. His anger was subtle. Not now.
"Ivan, what the hell?" Gregor's image said.
Ivan backed up instinctively, even as he reminded himself that the message was recorded weeks ago and lightyears away and there was no need to distance himself from the explosion. He searched his conscience and memory and came up blank.
"I didn't do it," he muttered. Nothing like relatives to make him feel like a five year old with his hand in the cookie jar.
On the screen, Gregor sighed and visibly calmed himself. "It occurs to me that there's a chance you don't know yet," he said. "Information only travels so quickly and Earth is further from Cetaganda than Barrayar. Read the news. See how the Cetagandans are spinning this. Talk to Padma Shiv. Get back to me when you know what's what."
With that, the screen went blank.
What the hell was his son up to?
Ivan scrolled rapidly through his messages, looking for, hoping for, something from his son. Had the message, if it existed, gone to his home address? Been lost in transit?
Where was Padma Shiv anyway?
He found it at last: a very short written note. "Don't worry, everything's under control. It'll be fine."
As reassurances went, it was a total failure.
The news. Gregor had said to read the news. Ivan tried to do so regularly, but various what with various receptions and events and the need to be diplomatic and charming at all of them, he had missed the past few days. Still, if something major had been there, surely someone would at least have hinted...
He opened the first paper he could find: it was an old, respected publication not given to exaggeration or sensationalization. The top headline, in bold, very large text read, "Barrayarans Overthrow the Cetagandan Government!"
"Nobody tells me anything," Ivan muttered to himself, snorting. He wasn't sure what the paper was talking about, but if a coup of the Cetagandan empire, of all places, was planned surely someone would have notified him. At least to tell him what to say about it. There was no way this was an actual coup. Probably an internal coup that they were--somehow--blaming on Barrayar. Maybe the new emperor had a gene from cousin Miles or something. He read on.
Then he saw it. The name of the new emperor: His Highness, Padma Shiv. Ivan's jaw dropped.
"Not possible," he told the empty room. "Simply not possible."
He read on.
It was not possible. But it had happened. Padma Shiv had taken over the Cetagandan empire. With, it seemed, the help of his great grandmother, whom he had named Chief Geneticist. Ivan thanked any god willing to take credit that Padma had not chosen to call her the Empress. It was true that the title came with no assumption of--Ivan pushed that thought out of his head. Hard.
The article went on and on. Pronouncements of changes in policy. Speculation about what this meant to the universe.
A message popped up on the screen. Cousin Miles was calling.
"Get it over with," Ivan said to himself, accepting the call.
"It's not my fault," Ivan said.
"This is my fault," Miles said, simultaneously.
"Huh?" Ivan asked, unable to formulate a more coherent question. "I'm sorry," Miles said. "I never thought he'd really..."
"Miles, what did you do?" Ivan asked when Miles trailed off, apparently unable to finish the sentence.
"I was trying to be a good uncle," Miles said. "Padma was bored, out of sorts, feeling wronged by the world and needing to show the world that he was good enough. In short, a teenager. He reminded me of myself at that age. All frustrated ambition and a desire to prove himself."
"And?" Ivan prompted as Miles paused again.
"He kept asking questions about the Barrayaran imperial succession. I had to distract him from that. I told him to forget about it. No good was ever going to come of that line of thought. I said--it was a joke, really it was--that he might as well try for the Cetagandan throne instead."
"And?" Ivan prompted again.
"It appears," Miles sighed, "That he did."