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"Oh, Colonel," sighed Miles. "I predict there's going to b-be nothing p-public 'bout this incident. Wait 'n see."

Ghem-Colonel Benin, across the room, was bowing and scraping to the hauts Pel and Nadina, and supplying them with float-chairs, albeit lacking force-screens, extra robes, and ghem-lady attendants. Arresting them in the style to which they were accustomed?

Miles glanced up at Vorreedi. "Has Ivan, um, explained everything, sir?"

"I trust so," said Vorreedi, in a voice drenched with menace.

Ivan nodded vigorously, but then hedged, "Um . . . all I could. Under the circumstances."

Meaning, lack of privacy from Cetagandan eavesdroppers, Miles presumed. All, Ivan? Is my cover still intact?

"I admit," Vorreedi went on, "I am still . . . . assimilating it."

"What h-happened after I left the Star Crèche?" Miles asked Ivan.

"I woke up and you were gone. I think that was the worst moment of my life, knowing you'd gone haring off on some crazy self-appointed mission with no backup."

"Oh, but you were my backup, Ivan," Miles murmured, earning himself a glare. "And a good one too, as you have just demonstrated, yes?"

"Yeah, your favorite kind—unconscious on the floor where I couldn't inject any kind of sense into the proceedings. You took off to get yourself killed, or worse, and everybody would have blamed me. The last thing Aunt Cordelia said to me before we left was, 'And try to keep him out of trouble, Ivan.' "

Miles could hear Countess Vorkosigan's weary, exasperated cadences quite precisely in Ivan's parody.

"Anyway, as soon as I figured out what the hell was going on, I got away from the haut-ladies—"

"How?"

"God, Miles, they're just like my mother, only eight times over. Ugh! Anyway, the haut Rian insisted I go through ghem-Colonel Benin, which I was willing to do—he at least seemed like he had his head screwed on straight—"

Perhaps attracted by the sound of his name, Benin strolled over to listen in on this.

"—and God be praised he paid attention to me. Seemed to make more sense out of my gabble than I did at the time."

Benin nodded. "I was of course following the very unusual activities around the Star Crèche today—"

Around, not in. Quite.

"My own investigations had already led me to suspect something was going on involving one or more of the haut-governors, so I had orbital squads on alert."

"Squads, ha," said Ivan. "There's three Imperial battle cruisers surrounding this ship right now."

Benin smiled slightly, and shrugged.

"Ghem-General Chilian is a dupe, I believe," Miles put in. "Though you will p-probably wish to question him about the activities of his wife, the haut Vio."

"He has already been detained," Benin assured him.

Detained, not arrested, all right. Benin seemed exactly on track so far. But had he realized yet that all the governors had been involved? Or was Kety elected sole sacrifice? A Cetagandan internal matter, Miles reminded himself. It was not his job to straighten out the entire Cetagandan government, tempting as it would be to try. His duty was confined to extracting Barrayar from the morass. He smiled at the glowing white bubble still protecting the real Great Key. The hauts Nadina and Pel were consulting with some of Benin's men; it appeared that rather than attempting to get the force-screen down here they were making arrangements to transport it and its precious contents whole and inviolate back to the Star Crèche.

Vorreedi gave Miles a grim look. "One thing that Lord Vorpatril has not yet explained to my satisfaction, Lieutenant Vorkosigan, is why you concealed the initial incident involving an object of such obvious importance—"

"Kety was trying to frame Barrayar, sir. Until I could achieve independent corroborative evidence that—"

Vorreedi went on inexorably, "From your own side."

"Ah." Miles briefly considered a relapse of shock-stick symptoms, rendering him unable to talk. No, alas. His own motives were obscure even to him, in retrospect. What had he started out wanting, before the twisting events had made sheer