“Naturally.” A brief grin flickered over the captain’s face. “Timing?” “I want to make it a night drop. Not so much for cover, because here’s no way we’re going to make a combat drop shuttle inconspicuous, but because that’s the one time all the clones are together in a mall area. In the day they’re all spread out in the exercise and play areas, the swimming pool and what-not.”

“And classrooms?”

“No, not exactly. They don’t teach ’em much beyond the minimum necessary for socialization. If a clone can count to twenty and read signs, that’s all they need. Throw-away brains.” That had been the other way he’d known he was different from the rest. A real human tutor had introduced him to a vast array of virtual learning programs. He’d lost himself for days at a time in the computer’s patient praise. Unlike his Komarran tutors later, they repeated themselves endlessly, and never punished him, never swore or raged or struck or forced him to physical exertion till he grew sick or passed out… . “The clones pick up a surprising amount of information despite it all, though. A lot from their holovid games. Bright kids. Damn few of these clones have stupid progenitors, or they wouldn’t have amassed a sufficient fortune to buy this form of life-extension. Ruthless, maybe, but not stupid.”

Thorne’s eyes narrowed as it dissected the area on the vid, taking apart the buildings layer by later, studying the layout. “So a dozen full-kit Dendarii commandos wake fifty or sixty kids out of a sound sleep in the middle of the night … do they know we’re coming?”

“No. By the way, make sure the troops realize, they won’t look exactly like kids. We’re taking them in their last year of development. They’re mostly ten or eleven years old, but due to the growth accelerators they will appear to have the bodies of late teenagers.”

“Gawky?”

“Not really. They get great physical conditioning. Healthy as hell. That’s the whole point of not just growing them in a vat till transplant time.”

“Do they … know? Know what’s going to happen to them?” Thorn e asked with an introspective frown.

“They’re not told, no. They’re told all kinds of lies, variously. They’re told they’re in a special school, for security reasons, to save them from some exotic danger. That they’re all some kind of prince or princess, or rich man’s heir, or military scion, and someday very soon their parents or their aunts or their ambassadors are going to come and take them away to some glamorous future … and then, of course, at last some smiling person comes, and calls them away from their playmates, and tells them that today is the day, and they run …” he stopped, swallowed, “and snatch up their things, and brag to their friends… .”

Thorne was tapping the vid control unconsciously in its palm, and looking pale. “I get the picture.”

“And walk out hand-in-hand with their murderers, eagerly.”

“You can stop with the scenario-spinning, unless you’re trying to make me lose my last meal.”

“What, you’ve known for years that this was going on,” he mocked. “Why get all squeamish about it now?” He bit off his bitterness. Naismith. He must be Naismith.

Thorne shot him a sharp glare. “I was ready to fry them from orbit the last time, as you may recall. You wouldn’t let me.”

What last time? No time in the last three years. He’d have to scan the mission logs back even further, dammit. He shrugged, ambiguously.

“So,” said Thorne, “are these … big kids … all going to decide we’re their parents’ enemies, kidnapping them just before they go home? I see trouble, here.”

He clenched, and spread, the fingers of his right hand. “Maybe not. Children … have a culture of their own. Passed down from year to year. There are rumors. Boogeyman stories. Doubts. I told you, they aren’t stupid. Their adult handlers try to stamp out the stories, or make fun of them, or mix them up with other, obvious lies.” And yet … they had not fooled him. But then, he had lived in the creche much longer than the average. He’d had time to see more clones come and go, time to see stories repeated, pseudo-biographies duplicated. Time for their handlers’ tiny slips and mistakes to accumulate in his observation. “If it’s the same—” If it’s the same as it was in my time, he almost said, but saved himself, “I should be able to persuade them. Leave that part to me.”

“Gladly.” Thorne swung a console chair into clamps close beside his, settled down, and rapidly entered some notes on logistics and angle of attack, point-men and back-ups, and traced projected routes through the buildings. “Two dormitories?” it pointed curiously. Thorne’s fingernails were cut blunt, undecorated.

“Yes. The boys are kept segregated from the girls, rather carefully. The female—usually female—customers expect to wake up in a body with the seal of virginity still on it.”

“I see. So. We get all these kids loaded, by some miracle, before the Bharaputrans arrive in force—”

“Speed is of the essence, yes.”

“As usual. But the Bharaputrans will be all over us if there is any little hitch or hold-up. Unlike with the Marilacans at Dagoola IV, I haven’t had weeks and weeks to drill these kids on shuttle-loading procedures. What if, then?”

“Once the clones are loaded into the shuttle they become in effect our hostages. We’ll be safe from lethal fire with them aboard. The Bharaputrans won’t risk their investment as long as any chance of recovery remains.”

“Once they decide all chance is lost, they’ll seek vigorous retribution, to discourage imitators, though.”

“True. We must cloud their minds with doubt.”

“Then their next move—if we get the shuttle airborne—must be to try to blow up the Ariel in orbit before we get there, cutting off our escape.”

“Speed,” he repeated doggedly.

“Contingencies, Miles dear. Wake up. I don’t usually have to restart your brain in the morning—do you want some more tea? No? I suggest, if we suffer dangerous delay downside, that the Ariel take refuge at Fell Station, and we rendezvous with it there.”

“Fell Station? The orbital one?” He hesitated. “Why?”

“Baron Fell is still in a state of vendetta with Bharaputra and Ryoval, isn’t he?”

Jacksonian internecine House politics; he was not as current on them as he should be. He had not even thought of looking for an ally among the other Houses. They were all criminal, all evil, tolerating or sabotaging each other in shifting patterns of power. And here was Ryoval, mentioned again. Why? He took refuge in another wordless shrug. “Getting pinned, trapped on Fell Station with fifty young clones while Bharaputra hustles for control of the jumppoint stations, would not improve our position. No Jacksonian is to be trusted. Run and jump as fast as we can is still the safest strategy.”

“Bharaputra won’t swing Jumpstation Five into line, it’s Fell-owned.”

“Yes, but I want to return to Escobar. The clones can all get safe asylum there.”

“Look, Miles, the jump back on this route is held by the consortium already dominated by Bharaputra. We’ll never get back out the way we jump in, unless you’ve got something up your sleeve—no? Then may I suggest our best escape route is via Jumppoint Five.”

“Do you really see Fell as so reliable an ally?” he inquired cautiously.

“Not at all. But he is the enemy of our enemies. This trip.”

“But the jump from Five leads to the Hegen Hub. We can’t jump into Cetagandan territory, and the only other route out of the Hub is to Komarr via Pol.”

“Roundabout, but much safer.”

Not for me! That’s the damned Barrayaran Empire! He swallowed a wordless shriek.

“The Hub to Pol to Komarr to Sergyar and back to Escobar,” Thorne recited happily. “You know, this could really work out.” It made more notes, leaning across the comconsole, its nightgown shifting and shimmering in the candy lights of the vid display. Then it put its elbows on the console and rested its chin in its hands, breasts compressing, shifting beneath the thin fabric. Its expression grew gently introspective. It glanced up at him at last with an odd, rather sad smile.