He issued orders. Cancel further work contracts by individual Dendarii or their groups. All personnel presently scattered downside on work or leave to go on a six hour recall alert. All ships to begin their twenty-four hour preflight checks. Send Lieutenant Bone to me. It gave him a pleasantly megalomanic sense of drawing all things toward a center, himself, though that humor cooled when he contemplated the unsolved problem waiting for him in his Intelligence division.

Quinn in tow, Miles went to pay Intelligence a visit. He found Bel Thorne manning the security comconsole. If manning was the right term; Thorne was one of Beta Colony's hermaphrodite minority, hapless heirs of a century-past genetic project of dubious merit. It had been one of the lunatic fringe's loonier experiments, in Miles's estimation. Most of the men/women stuck to their own comfortable little subculture on tolerant Beta Colony; that Thorne had ventured out into the wider galactic world bespoke either courage, terminal boredom, or most probably if you knew Thorne, a low taste for unsettling people. Captain Thorne kept soft brown hair cut in a deliberately ambiguous style, but wore hard-earned Dendarii uniform and rank with crisp definition.

"Hi, Bel." Miles pulled up a station chair and hooked it into its clamps; Thorne greeted him with a friendly semi-salute. "Play me back everything the surveillance team picked up from Galen's house after Quinn and I rescued the Barrayaran military attache and left to deliver him back to their embassy." Quinn kept her face quite straight through this bit of revisionist history.

Thorne obediently fast-forwarded through a half hour of silence, then slowed through the disjointed conversation of the two unhappy Komarran guards awakening from stun. Then the chime of the comconsole; a somewhat degraded image resynthesized from the vid beam; the slow toneless voice and face of Galen himself, requesting a report on the guard's murderous assignment; the sharp rise in tone, as he heard of the dramatic rescue instead—"Fools!" A pause. "Don't attempt to contact me again." Cut.

"We traced the source of the call, I trust," said Miles.

"Public comconsole at a tube station," said Thorne. "By the time we got someone there, the potential search radius had widened to about a hundred kilometers. Good tube system, that."

"Right. And he never returned to the house after that?"

"Abandoned everything, apparently. He's had previous experience evading security, I take it."

"He was an expert before I was born," sighed Miles. "What about the two guards?"

"They were still at the house when the surveillance guys from the Barrayaran embassy arrived and took over and we packed our kit and went home. Have the Barrayarans paid us for this little job yet, by the way?"

"Handsomely."

"Oh, good. I was afraid they'd hold it up till after we'd delivered Van der Poole too."

"About Van der Poole—Galen," said Miles. "Ah—we're no longer working for the Barrayarans on that one. They've brought in their own team from their Sector headquarters on Tau Ceti."

Throne frowned puzzlement. "But we're still working?"

"For the time being. But you'd better pass the word along to our downside people. From this point on, contact with the Barrayarans is to be avoided."

Thorne's brows rose. "Who are we working for, then?"

"For me."

Thorne paused. "Aren't you playing this one a tad close to your chest, sir?"

"Much too close, if my own Intelligence people are to remain effective." Miles sighed. "All right. An odd and unexpected personal wrinkle has turned up in the middle of this case. Have you ever wondered why I never speak of my family background, or my past?"

"Well—there are a lot of Dendarii who don't. Sir."

"Quite. I was born a clone, Bel."

Thorne looked only mildly sympathetic. "Some of my best friends are clones."

"Perhaps I should say, I was created a clone. In the military laboratory of a galactic power that shall remain nameless. I was created for a covert substitution plot against the son of a certain important man, key of another galactic power—you can figure out who with a very little research, I'm sure—but about seven years ago I declined the honor. I escaped, fled, and set up on my own, creating the Dendarii Mercenaries from, er, materials found ready to hand."

Thorne grinned. "A memorable event."

"But this is where Galen comes in. The galactic power abandoned their plot, and I thought I was free of my unhappy past. But several clones had been run off, so to speak, in the attempt to generate an exact physical duplicate, with certain mental refinements, before the lab finally came up with me. I thought they were all long dead, callously murdered, disposed of. But apparently, one of the earlier, less-successful efforts had been put into cryo-suspension. And somehow, he has fallen into Ser Galen's hands. My sole surviving clone-brother, Bel." Miles's hand closed in a fist. "Enslaved by a fanatic. I want to rescue him." His hand opened pleadingly. "Can you understand why?"

Thorne blinked. "Knowing you … I guess I do. Is it very important to you, sir?"

"Very."

Thorne straightened slightly. "Then it will be done."

"Thank you." Miles hesitated. "Better have all our downside patrol leaders issued a small medical scanner. Keep it on themselves at all times. As you know, I had my leg bones replaced with synthetics a bit over a year ago. His are normal bone. It's the quickest way to tell the difference between us."

"Your appearance is that close?" said Thorne.

"Our appearances are identical, apparently."

"They are," confirmed Quinn to Thorne. "I've seen him."

"I … see. Interesting possibilities for confusion there, sir." Thorne glanced at Quinn, who nodded ruefully.

"Too right. I trust the dissemination of the medical scanners will help keep things dull. Carry on—call me at once if you get a break in the case."

"Right, sir."

In the corridor, Quinn remarked, "Nice save, sir."

Miles sighed. "I had to find some way to warn the Dendarii about Mark. Can't have him playing Admiral Naismith again unimpeded."

"Mark?" said Elli. "Who's Mark, or dare I guess? Miles Mark Two?"

"Lord Mark Pierre Vorkosigan," said Miles calmly. Anyway, he hoped he appeared calm. "My brother."

Elli, alive to the significances of Barrayaran clan claims, frowned, "Is Ivan right, Miles? Has that little sucker hypnotized you?"

"I don't know," said Miles slowly. "If I'm the only one who sees him that way, then maybe, just maybe—"

Elli made an encouraging noise.

A slight smile turned one corner of Miles's mouth. "Then maybe everybody's wrong but me."

Elli snorted.

Miles turned serious again. "I truly don't know. In seven years, I never abused the powers of Admiral Naismith for personal purposes. That's not a record I'm anxious to break. Well, perhaps we'll fail to turn them up, and the question will become moot."

"Wishful thinking," said Elli disapprovingly. "If you don't want to turn them up, maybe you'd better stop looking for them."

"Compelling logic."

"So why aren't you compelled? And what do you plan to do with them if you do catch 'em?"

"As for what," said Miles, "it's not too complicated. I want to find Galen and my clone before Destang does, and separate them. And then make sure Destang doesn't find them until I can send a private report home. Eventually, if I vouch for him, I believe a cease-and-desist order will come through countermanding my clone's assassination, without my having to appear directly connected with it."

"What about Galen?" asked Elli skeptically. "No way are you going to get a cease-and-desist order on him."

"Probably not. Galen is—a problem I have not solved."

Miles returned to his cabin, where his fleet accountant caught up with him.