The next morning Mehta called early on the comconsole, to tell Cordelia cheerily she could relax; something had come up, and their session that afternoon was canceled. She did not refer to Cordelia's absence the previous afternoon.

Cordelia was relieved at first, until she began thinking about it. Just to be sure, she absented herself from home again. The day might have been pleasant, but for a dust-up with some journalists lurking around the apartment shaft, and the discovery about mid-afternoon that she was being followed by two men in very inconspicuous civilian sarongs. Sarongs were last year's fashion; this year it was exotic and whimsical body paint, at least for the brave. Cordelia, wearing her old tan Survey fatigues, lost them by trailing them through a pornographic feelie-show. But they turned up again later in the afternoon as she puttered through the Silica Zoo.

At Mehta's appointed hour the next afternoon the door chimed. Cordelia slouched reluctantly to answer it. How am I going to handle her today? she wondered. I'm running low on inspiration. So tired …

Her stomach sank. Now what? Framed in the doorway were Mehta, Commodore Tailor, and a husky medtech. That one, Cordelia thought, staring up at him, looks like he could handle Bothari. Backing up a bit, she led them into her mother's living room. Her mother retreated to the kitchen, ostensibly to prepare coffee.

Commodore Tailor seated himself and cleared his throat nervously. "Cordelia, I have something to say that will be a little painful, I'm afraid."

Cordelia perched on the arm of a chair and swung her leg back and forth, baring her teeth in what she hoped was a bland smile. "S—sticking you with the dirty work, eh? One of the joys of command. Go ahead."

"We're going to have to ask you to agree to hospitalization for further therapy."

Dear God, here we go. The muscles of her belly trembled beneath her shirt; it was a loose shirt, maybe they wouldn't notice. "Oh? Why?" she inquired casually.

"We're afraid—we're very much afraid that the Barrayaran mind programming you underwent was a lot more extensive than anyone realized. We think, in fact …" he paused, taking a deep breath, "that they've tried to make you an agent."

Is that an editorial or an imperial "we," Bill?

"Tried, or succeeded?"

Tailor's gaze wavered. Mehta fixed him with a cold stare. "Our opinion is divided on that—"

Note, class, how sedulously he avoids the "I" of personal responsibility—it suggests the worst "we" of all, the guilty "we"—what the hell are they planning?

"—but that letter you sent day before yesterday to the Barrayaran admiral, Vorkosigan—we thought you should have a chance to explain it, first."

"I s—see." You dared! "Not an official l—letter. How could it be? You know Vorkosigan's retired now. But perhaps," her eye nailed Tailor, "you would care to explain by what right you are intercepting and reading my private mail?"

"Emergency security. For the war."

"War's over."

He looked uncomfortable at that. "But the espionage goes on."

Probably true. She had often wondered how Ezar Vorbarra came by the knowledge of the plasma mirrors, until the war the most closely guarded new weapon in the Betan arsenal. Her foot was tapping nervously. She stilled it. "My letter." My heart, on paper—paper wraps stone … She kept her voice cool. "And what did you learn from my letter, Bill?"

"Well, that's a problem. We've had our best cryptographers, our most advanced computer programs, working on it for the better part of two days. Analyzed it right down to the molecular structure of the paper. Frankly," he glanced rather irritably at Mehta, "I'm not convinced they found anything."

No, Cordelia thought, you wouldn't. The secret was in the kiss. Not subject to molecular analysis. She sighed glumly. "Did you send it on, after you were done?"

"Well—I'm afraid there wasn't anything left, by then."

Scissors cut paper … "I'm no agent. I g—give you my word."

Mehta looked up alertly.

"I find it hard to believe, myself," Tailor said.

Cordelia tried to hold his eyes; he looked away. You do believe it, she thought. "What happens if I refuse to have myself committed?"

"Then as your commanding officer, I must order you to do so."

I'll see you in hell first—no. Calm. Must stay calm, keep them taking, maybe I can talk my way out of this yet. "Even if it's against your private judgment?"

"This is a serious security matter. I'm afraid it doesn't admit private judgments."

"Oh, come on. Even Captain Negri has been known to make a private judgment, they say."

She'd said something wrong. The temperature in the room seemed to drop suddenly.

"How do you know about Captain Negri?" said Tailor frozenly.

"Everybody knows about Negri." They were staring at her. "Oh, c—come on! If I were an agent of Negri's, you'd never know it. He's not so inept!"

"On the contrary," said Mehta in a clipped tone, "we think he's so good that you'd never know it."

"Garbage!" said Cordelia, disgusted. "How do you figure that?"

Mehta answered literally. "My hypothesis is that you are being controlled—unconsciously, perhaps—by this rather sinister and enigmatic Admiral Vorkosigan. That your programming began during your first captivity and was completed, probably, during the late war. You were destined to be the linchpin of a new Barrayaran intelligence network here, to replace the one that was just rooted out. A mole, perhaps, put in place and not activated for years, until some critical moment—"

"Sinister?" Cordelia interrupted. "Enigmatic? Aral? I could laugh." I could weep …

"He is obviously your control," said Mehta complacently. "You have apparently been programmed to obey him unquestioningly."

"I am not a computer." Thump, thump, went her foot. "And Aral is the one person who has never constrained me. A point of honor, I believe."

"You see?" said Mehta. To Tailor; she didn't look at Cordelia. "All the evidence points one way."

"Only if you're s—standing on your head!" cried Cordelia, furious. She glared at Tailor. 'That's not an order I have to take. I can resign my commission."

"We need not have your permission," said Mehta calmly, "even as a civilian. If your next of kin will agree to it."

"My mother'd never do that to me!"

"We've already discussed it with her, at length. She's very concerned for you."

"I s—see." Cordelia subsided abruptly, glancing toward the kitchen. "I wondered why that coffee was taking so long. Guilty conscience, eh?" She hummed a snatch of tune under her breath, then stopped. "You people have really done your homework. Covered all the exits."

Tailor summoned up a smile and offered it to her, placatingly. "You don't have anything to be afraid of, Cordelia. You'll have our very best people working for– with—"

On, thought Cordelia.

"—you. And when you're done, you'll be able to return to your old life as if none of this had ever happened."

Erase me, will you? Erase him … Analyze me to death, like my poor timid love letter. She smiled back at him, ruefully. "Sorry, Bill. I just have this awful vision of being p—peeled like an onion, looking for the seeds."

He grinned. "Onions don't have seeds, Cordelia."

"I stand corrected," she said dryly.

"And frankly," he went on, "if you are right and, uh, we are wrong—the fastest way you can prove it is to come along." He smiled the smile of reason.

"Yes, true …" But for that little matter of a civil war on Barrayar—that tiny stumbling block—that stone—paper wraps stone …

"Sorry, Cordelia." He really was.

"It's all right."

"Remarkable ploy of the Barrayarans," Mehta expounded thoughtfully. "Concealing an espionage ring under the cover of a love affair. I might even have bought it, if the principals had been more likely."