"Hold on that," said Metzov. He stared around the cross-corridors, almost jittering. "Do you have a guard who's deaf and mute?"

"Hardly!" Cavilo stared indignantly at her mysteriously agitated subordinate. "To the brig, then."

"No," said Metzov sharply. Hesitating to throw the Emperor into a cell, Miles realized. Metzov turned to Gregor and said with perfect seriousness, "May I have your parole, sire—sir?"

"What?" cried Cavilo. "Have you stripped a gear, Stanis?"

"A parole," Gregor noted gravely, "is a promise given between honorable enemies. Your honor I am willing to assume. But are you thus declaring yourself Our enemy?" Excellent bit of weaseling, Miles approved.

Metzov's eye fell on Miles. His lips thinned. "Perhaps not yours. But you have a poor choice of favorites. Not to mention advisors." Gregor was now very hard to read. "Some acquaintances are imposed on me. Also some advisors."

"To my cabin," Metzov held up his hand as Cavilo opened her mouth to object, "for now. For our initial conversation. Without witnesses, or Security recordings. After that, we decide, Cavie."

Cavilo, eyes narrowing, closed her mouth. "All right, Stanis. Lead off." Her hand curved open ironically, and gestured them onward. Metzov posted two guards outside his cabin door, and dismissed the rest. When the door had sealed behind them, he tied Miles with a tangle-cord and sat him on the floor. With helplessly ingrained deference, he then seated Gregor in the padded station chair at his corn-console desk, the best the spartan chamber had to offer.

Cavilo, seated cross-legged on the bed watching the play, objected to the logic of this. "Why tie up the little one and leave the big one loose?"

"Keep your stunner drawn, then, if he worries you," Metzov advised. Breathing heavily, he stood hands on hips and studied Gregor. He shook his head, as if still not believing his eyes.

"Why not your stunner?"

"I have not yet decided whether to draw a weapon in his presence."

"We're alone now, Stanis," Cavilo said in a sarcastic lilt. "Would you kindly explain this insanity? And it had better be good."

"Oh yes. That—" he pointed to Miles, "is Lord Miles Vorkosigan, the son of the Prime Minister of Barrayar. Admiral Aral Vorkosigan—I trust you've heard of him."

Cavilo's brows lowered. "What was he doing on Pol Six in the guise of a Betan gunrunner, then?"

"I'm not sure. The last I'd heard he was under arrest by Imperial Security, though of course no one believed they were serious about it."

"Detainment," Miles corrected. "Technically."

"And he—" Metzov swung to point to Gregor, "is the Emperor of Barrayar. Gregor Vorbarra. What he's doing here, I cannot imagine."

"Are you sure?" Even Cavilo was taken aback. At Metzov's stern nod, her eye lit with speculation. She looked at Gregor as if for the first time. "Really. How interesting."

"But where is his security? We must tread very cautiously, Cavie."

"What's he worth to them? Or for that matter, to the highest bidder?"

Gregor smiled at her. "I'm Vor, ma'am. In a sense, the Vor. Risk in service is the Vorish trade. I wouldn't assume my value was infinite, if I were you."

Gregor's complaint had some truth to it, Miles thought; when he wasn't being emperor he seemed hardly anyone at all. But he sure did the role well.

"An opportunity, yes," said Metzov, "but if we create an enemy we can't handle—"

"If we hold him hostage, we ought to be able to handle them with ease," Cavilo commented thoughtfully.

"An alternate and more prudent course," Miles interjected, "would be to help us swiftly and safely on our way, and collect a lucrative and honorable thank-you. An, as it were, win-win strategy."

"Honorable?" Metzov's eyes burned. He fell into a brooding silence, then muttered. "But what are they doing here? And where's the snake Illyan? I want the mutant, in any case. Damn! It must be played boldly, or not at all." He stared malignantly at Miles. "Vorkosigan … so. And what is Barrayar to me now, a Service that stabbed me in the back after thirty-five years. . . ." He straightened decisively, but still did not, Miles noticed, draw a weapon in the emperor's presence. "Yes, take them to the brig, Cavie."

"Not so fast," said Cavilo, looking newly pensive. "Send the little one to the brig, if you like. He's nothing, you say?"

The only son of the most powerful military leader on Barrayar kept his mouth shut for a change. If, if, if …

"By comparison," Metzov temporized, looking suddenly fearful of being cheated of his prey.

"Very well." Cavilo slid her stunner, which she had stopped aiming and started playing with some time back, soundlessly into her holster. She moved to unseal the door and beckon to the guards. "Put him," she gestured to Gregor, "in Cabin Nine, G Deck. Cut the outgoing comm, lock the door, and post a guard with a stunner. But supply him with any reasonable comfort he may request." She added aside to Gregor, "It's the most comfortable visiting officer's quarters the Kurin's Hand can supply, ah—"

"Call me Greg," Gregor sighed.

"Greg. Nice name. Cabin Nine is next to my own. We will continue this conversation shortly, after you, ah, freshen up. Perhaps over dinner. Oversee his arrival there, will you, Stanis?" She favored both men with an impartial, glittering smile, and wafted out, a neat trick in boots. She stuck her head back in and indicated Miles. "Bring him along to the brig."

Miles was removed by the second guard with a wave of a stunner and the prod of a blessedly inactivated shock-stick, to follow in her wake.

The Kurin's Hand, judging from his passing glimpses, was a much larger command ship than the Triumph, able to field bigger and punchier combat drop or boarding forces, but correspondingly sluggish in maneuver. Its brig was larger too, Miles discovered shortly, and more formidably secured. A single entrance opened onto an elaborate guard monitor station, from which led two dead-end cell bays.

The freighter captain was just leaving the guard station, under the watchful eye of the squadman detailed to escort him. He exchanged a hostile look with Cavilo.

"As you see, they remain in good health," Cavilo said to him. "My half of the bargain, Captain. See that you continue to complete your own part."

Let's see what happens. . . . "You saw a recording," Miles piped up. "Demand to see 'em in the flesh."

Cavilo's white teeth clenched rigidly, but her annoyed grimace melted seamlessly into a vulpine smile as the freighter captain jerked around. "What? You . . ." he planted himself mulishly. "All right which of you is lying?"

"Captain, that's all the guarantee you get," said Cavilo, gesturing to the monitors. "You chose to gamble, gamble you shall."

"Then that—" he pointed to Miles, "is the last result you get." A subtle hand motion down by her trouser seam brought the guards to the alert, stunners drawn. "Take him out," she ordered "No!"

"Very well," her eyes widened in exasperation, "take him to Cell Six. And lock him in." As the freighter captain turned, torn between resistance and eagerness, Cavilo motioned the guard to open distance from his prisoner. He fell away, brows rising in question. Cavilo glanced at Miles and smiled very sourly, as if to say, All right, Smartass, watch me. In a cold smooth motion Cavilo flipped open her left side holster seal, brought up a nerve disrupter, took careful aim, and fried the back of the captain's head. He convulsed once and dropped, dead before he hit the deck.

She walked over and pensively prodded the body with the pointed toe of her boot, then glanced up at Miles, whose jaw was gaping open. "You will keep your mouth shut next time, won't you, little man?" Miles's mouth shut with a snap. You had to experiment. … At least now he knew who'd killed Liga. The rabbity Polian's reported death seemed suddenly real and vivid. The exalted look flashing over Cavilo's face as she blew the freighter captain away fascinated even as it horrified Miles. Who did you really see in your gunsights, darling?