Miles tried to burrow underneath his fur. "All right, y'can have your bed," he muttered. "Y'don't need me to tuck you in . . ."

"Get up, Miles!"

Miles stuck his head out, eyes scrunched against the light. "Why? What time is it?"

"About midnight."

"Ergh." He went back under. Three hours sleep hardly counted, after what he'd been through the last four days. Displaying a cruel and ruthless streak Miles would never have suspected, Ivan pulled the live far from his twitching hands and tossed it aside.

"You have to get up," Ivan insisted. "Dressed. Peel off the face fungus. I hope you've got a clean uniform in here somewhere—" Ivan was rooting through his closet. "Here!"

Miles clutched numbly at the green cloth Ivan flung at him. ''Embassy on fire?" he inquired.

"Damn near. Elena Bothari-Jesek just blew in from Tau Ceti. I didn't even know you'd sent her!"

"Oh!" Miles came awake. Quinn was by now fully dressed, including boots, and checking her stunner in its holster. "Yes. Gotta get dressed, sure. She won't mind the beard, though."

"Not being subject to beard burn," Elli muttered under her breath, scratching a thigh absently. Miles suppressed a grin; one of her eyelids shivered at him.

"Maybe not," said Ivan grimly, "but I don't think Commodore Destang will be too thrilled by it."

"Destang's here?" Miles came fully awake. He still had a little adrenalin left, apparently. "Why?" Then he thought back over some of the suspicions he'd included in his report sent with Elena, and realized why the Sector Two Security chief might have been inspired to investigate in person. "Oh, God . . . gotta get him straightened out before he shoots poor Galeni on sight—"

He ran the shower on cold, needle-spray; Elli shoved a cup of coffee into his working hand as he exited, and inspected the effect when he was dressed.

"Everything's fine but the face," she informed him, "and you can't do anything about that."

He ran a hand over his now-naked chin. "Did I miss a patch with the depilator?"

"No, I was admiring the bruises. And the eyes. I've seen brighter eyes on a strung-out juba freak three days after the supplies ran out."

"Thanks."

"You asked."

Miles considered what he knew of Destang, as they descended the lift tubes. His previous contacts with the commodore had been brief, official, and as far as Miles knew, satisfactory to both sides. The Sector Two Security commander was an experienced officer, accustomed to carrying out his varied duties—coordinating intelligence-gathering, overseeing the security of Barrayaran embassies, consulates, and visiting VIP's, rescuing the occasional Barrayaran subject in trouble—with little direct supervision from distant Barrayar. During the two or three operations the Dendarii had conducted in Sector Two areas, orders and money had flowed down, and Miles's final reports back up, through his command without impediment.

Commodore Destang was seated centrally in Galeni's office chair at Galeni's lit-up comconsole as Miles, Ivan, and Elli entered. Captain Galeni was standing, though extra chairs were available by the wall; his stiff posture worn like armor, his eyes hooded and face blank as a visor. Elena Bothari-Jesek hovered uncertainly in the background, with the worried look of one witnessing a chain of events they had started but no longer controlled. Her eyes lit with relief as she saw Miles, and she saluted—improperly, as he was not in Dendarii uniform; it was more an unstated transfer of responsibility, like someone ridding herself of a bag of live snakes, Here, this one's all yours. . . . He returned her a nod, All right. "Sir." Miles saluted.

Destang returned the salute and glowered at him, reminding Miles in a faint twinge of nostalgia of the early Galeni. Another harried commander. Destang was a man of about sixty, lean, with grey hair, shorter than what was middle height for a Barrayaran. Doubtless born just after the end of the Cetagandan occupation, when widespread malnutrition had robbed many of their full growth potential. He would have been a young officer at the time of the Conquest of Komarr, of middle rank during its later Revolt; combat-experienced, like all who had lived through that war-torn past.

"Has anyone brought you up to date yet, sir?" Miles began anxiously. "My original memo is extremely obsolete."

"I've just read Captain Galeni's version." Destang nodded at the comconsole.

Galeni would insist on writing reports. Miles sighed inwardly. It was an old academic reflex, no doubt. He restrained himself from craning his neck to try and see.

"You don't seem to have made one yet," Destang noted.

Miles waved his bandaged left hand vaguely. "I've been in the infirmary, sir. But have you realized yet the Komarrans must have had control of the embassy's courier officer?"

"We arrested the courier six days ago on Tau Ceti," Destang said.

Miles exhaled in relief. "And was he—?"

"It was the usual sordid story." Destang frowned. "He committed a little sin; it gave them leverage to extract larger and larger ones, until there was no going back."

A curious mental judo, that sort of blackmail, reflected Miles. In the final analysis, it was fear of his own side, not fear of the Komarrans, that had delivered the courier into the enemy's hands. So a system meant to enforce loyalty ended by destroying it—some flaw, there . . .

"He's been owned by them for at least three years," continued Destang. "Anything that's gone in or out of the embassy since then may have passed before their eyes."

"Ouch." Miles suppressed a grin, substituting, he hoped, an expression of proper horror. So the subversion of the courier clearly predated the arrival of Galeni on Earth. Good.

"Yeah," said Ivan, "I just found copies of some of our stuff a little while ago in that mass data dump you pulled from Ser Galen's comconsole, Miles. It was quite a shock."

"I thought it might be there," said Miles. "There weren't too many other possibilities, once I realized we were being diddled. I trust the interrogation of the courier has cleared Captain Galeni of all suspicion?"

"If he was involved with the Komarran expatriates on Earth," said Destang neutrally, "the courier didn't know of it."

Not exactly an affirmation of heartfelt trust, that. "It was quite clear," Miles said, "that the captain was a card Ser Galen thought he was holding in reserve. But the card refused to play. At the risk of his life. It was chance, after all, that assigned Captain Galeni to Earth—" Galeni was shaking his head, lips compressed, "wasn't it?"

"No," said Galeni, still at parade rest. "I requested Earth."

"Oh. Well, it was certainly chance that brought me here," Miles scrambled over the gap, "chance and my wounded and cryo-corpses who needed the attention of a major medical center as soon as possible. Speaking of the Dendarii Mercenaries, Commodore, did the courier divert the eighteen million marks Barrayar owes them?"

"It was never sent," said Destang. "Until Captain Bothari-Jesek here arrived at my office, our last contact with your mercenaries was the report you sent from Mahata Solaris wrapping up the Dagoola affair. Then you vanished. From the viewpoint of Sector Two Headquarters, you've been missing for over two months. To our consternation. Particularly when the weekly requests for updates on your status from Imperial Security Chief Illyan turned into daily ones."

"I—see, sir. Then you never received our urgent requests for funds?—Then I was never actually assigned to the embassy!"

A very small noise, as of deep and muffled pain, escaped the otherwise deadpan Galeni.

Destang said, "Only by the Komarrans. Apparently it was a ploy to keep you immobilized until they could make their attempted switch."

"I'd guessed as much. Ah—you wouldn't by chance happen to have brought my eighteen million marks with you now, have you? That part hasn't changed. I did mention it in my memo."