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Miles looked at his mother, and at Mark, and shook his head in bemused exasperation. "You're not making proper use of your Barrayaran resources, Mark. Here you have, in-house, the most high-powered potential Baba on the planet, and you haven't even brought her into play!"

"But . . . what could she do? Under the circumstances?"

"To Kou and Drou? I hate to think." Miles rubbed his chin. "Butter, meet laser-beam. Laser-beam, butter. Oops."

His mother smiled, but then crossed her arms and stared thoughtfully around the great library.

"But, ma'am . . ." Mark stammered, "could you? Would you? I didn't presume to ask, after all the things . . . people said to one another that night, but I'm getting desperate." Desperately desperate.

"I didn't presume to intrude, without a direct invitation," the Countess told him. She waited, favoring him with a bright, expectant smile.

Mark thought it over. His mouth shaped the unfamiliar word twice, for practice, before he licked his lips, took a breath, and launched it into unsupported air. "Help . . . ?"

"Why, gladly, Mark!" Her smile sharpened. "I think what we need to do is to sit down together, the five of us—you and me and Kareen and Kou and Drou—right here, oh, yes, right here in this library, and talk it all over."

The vision filled him with inchoate terror, but he grasped his knees and nodded. "Yes. That is—you'll talk, right?"

"It will be just fine," she assured him.

"But how will you even get them to come here?"

"I think you can confidently leave that to me."

Mark glanced at his brother, who was smiling dryly. He did not look in the least dubious of her statement.

Armsman Pym appeared at the library door. "Sorry to interrupt, m'lady. M'lord, Count Vorbretten is arriving."

"Ah, good." Miles jumped to his feet, and hastened around to the long table, where he began gathering up stacks of flimsies, papers, and notes. "Bring him straight up to my suite, and tell Ma Kosti to start things rolling."

Mark seized the opportunity. "Oh, Pym, I'm going to need the car and a driver in about," he glanced at his chrono, "ten minutes."

"I'll see to it, m'lord."

Pym set off about his duties; Miles, a determined look on his face and a pile of documentation under his arm, charged out after his Armsman.

Mark looked doubtfully at the Countess.

"Run along to your meeting," she told him comfortably. "Stop up to my study when you get back, and tell me all about it."

She actually sounded interested. "Do you think you might like to invest?" he offered in a burst of optimism.

"We'll talk about it." She smiled at him with genuine pleasure, surely one of the few people in the universe to do so. Secretly heartened, he took himself off in Miles's wake.

* * *

The ImpSec gate guard passed Ivan through to Vorkosigan House's grounds, then returned to his kiosk at a beep from his comm link. Ivan had to step aside while the iron gates swung wide and the gleaming armored groundcar lumbered out into the street. A brief hope flared in Ivan's breast that he had missed Miles, but the blurred shape that waved at him through the half-mirroring of the rear canopy was much too round. It was Mark who was off somewhere. When Pym ushered him into Miles's suite, Ivan found his leaner cousin sitting by the bay window with Count René Vorbretten.

"Oh, sorry," said Ivan. "Didn't know you were enga—occupied."

But it was too late to back out; Miles, turning toward him in surprise, controlled a wince, sighed, and waved him to enter. "Hello, Ivan. What brings you here?"

"M'mother sent me with this note. Why she couldn't just call you on the comconsole I don't know, but I wasn't going to argue with a chance to escape." Ivan proffered the heavy envelope, Residence stationery sealed with Lady Alys's personal crest.

"Escape?" asked René, looking amused. "It sounded to me as though you have one of the cushiest jobs of any officer in Vorbarr Sultana this season."

"Hah," said Ivan darkly. "You want it? It's like working in an office with an entire boatload of mothers-in-law-to-be with pre-wedding nerves, every one