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Ivan sighed. "All right. I'll talk to him. Just this once." With a tired grunt, he heaved himself out of his chair, and wandered toward the door. He looked back over his shoulder. "The trouble, coz, with your playing the spider in the center of this web, pulling all the strings, is that sooner or later all the interested parties are going to converge back along those strings to you. You do realize that, don't you? And what are you going to do then, O Mastermind?" He bowed himself out with all-too-effective irony.

Miles hunched down in his station chair, and groaned, and keyed up his list again.

* * *

The next morning, Ambassador Vorob'yev was called away from what was becoming his customary breakfast with Barrayar's young envoys in his private dining room. By the time he returned, Miles and Ivan had finished eating.

The ambassador did not sit down again, but instead favored Miles with a bemused look. "Lord Vorkosigan. You have an unusual visitor."

Miles's heart leapt. Rian, here? Impossible . . . His mind did a quick involuntary review of his undress greens, yes, his insignia were on straight, his fly was fastened—"Who, sir?"

"Ghem-colonel Dag Benin, of Cetagandan Imperial Security. He is an officer of middle rank assigned to internal affairs at the Celestial Garden, and he wants to speak privately with you."

Miles tried not to hyperventilate. What's gone wrong . . . ? Maybe nothing, yet. Calm down. "Did he say what about?"

"It seems he was ordered to investigate the suicide of that poor ba-slave the other day. And your, ah, erratic movements brought you to his negative attention. I thought you'd come to regret getting out of line."

"And . . . am I to talk to him, then?"

"We have decided to extend that courtesy, yes. We've shown him to one of the small parlors on the ground floor. It is, of course, monitored. You'll have an embassy bodyguard present. I don't suspect Benin of harboring any murderous intentions, it will merely be a reminder of your status."

We have decided. So Colonel Vorreedi, whom Miles still had not met, and probably Vorob'yev too, would be listening to every word. Oh, shit. "Very good, sir." Miles stood, and followed the ambassador. Ivan watched him go with the suffused expression of a man anticipating the imminent arrival of some unpleasant form of cosmic justice.

The small parlor was exactly that, a comfortably furnished room intended for private tête-à-têtes between two or three persons, with the embassy security staff as an invisible fourth. Ghem-Colonel Benin apparently had no objection to anything he had to say being recorded. A Barrayaran guard, standing outside the door, swung in behind Miles and the ambassador as they entered, and took up his post stolidly and silently. He was tall and husky even for a Barrayaran, with a remarkably blank face. He wore a senior sergeant's tabs, and insignia of commando corps, by which Miles deduced that the low-wattage expression was a put-on.

Ghem-Colonel Benin, waiting for them, rose politely as they entered. He was of no more than middle stature, so probably not over-stocked with haut-genes in his recent ancestry—the haut favored height. He had likely acquired his present post by merit rather than social rank, then, not necessarily a plus from Miles's point of view. Benin was very trim in the dark red Cetagandan dress uniform that was everyday garb for security staff in the Celestial Garden. He wore, of course, full formal face paint in the Imperial pattern rather than that of his clan, marking his primary allegiance; a white base with intricate black curves and red accents that Miles thought of as the bleeding-zebra look. But by association, it was a pattern that would command instant and profound respect and total, abject cooperation on eight planets. Barrayar, of course, was not one of them.

Miles tried to judge the face beneath the paint. Neither youthful and inexperienced nor aged and sly, Benin appeared to be a bit over forty-standard, young for his rank but not unusually so. The default expression of the face seemed to