Memory

CHAPTER FOUR

As was standard operating procedure for returning couriers, an ImpSec groundcar and driver picked up Miles at the military shuttleport outside Vorbarr Sultana, and whisked him directly to ImpSec headquarters downtown. He wished the driver would slow down, or circle the block a few more times, as HQ loomed up around the last corner. As if the frustrating weeks he had spent thinking about his dilemma aboard the government ship on the way home were not enough. He didn't need more thought, he needed action.

The driver passed the security checkpoint and pulled through the gates to the massive gray building, vast and grim and foreboding. The impression was not all due to Miles s state of mind; ImpSec HQ was one of the ugliest buildings in Vorbarr Sultana. Tourists from the backcountry, who might otherwise have been expected to avoid the place, drove by just to look at it, in honor of the interesting reputation of the architect, whom legend had it had died insane after the abrupt eclipse of his patron Emperor Yuri. The driver took Miles past the daunting facade, and around to the discreet side entrance reserved for couriers, spies, informers, analysts, secretaries, janitors, and others with real business in the place.

Miles dismissed driver and car with a wave, and stood in the autumn afternoon chill outside the door, hesitating one last time. He had a sinking conviction his carefully crafted plan was never going to work.

And even if it did work, I'd have my head cranked over my shoulder forever, waiting to be caught ex post facto. No. He would not go through with it. He would turn in the doctored cipher-card, yes, he'd left himself no choice there, but then (and before Illyan had a chance to review the thrice-damned thing) he would give Illyan his verbal report and tell him the exact truth. He could feign that he'd felt the news of his medical flaw was too hot to put on record even in cipher. As if he were tossing the problem, promptly and properly, into Illyan's lap for decision. It wasn't physically possible for Miles to have made it home any faster anyway.

If he stood here in the cold any longer, pretending to study the stylized granite monsters carved in low relief on the door lintel—pressed gargoyles, some wag had dubbed them—a guard would come up and make polite and pointed inquiries at him. Determined, he slid out of his military greatcoat and folded it neatly over his arm, clutched the cipher-case to his green tunic, and stepped inside.

The clerk at the desk checked him through the usual security ID procedures without comment. It was all very routine. He left his coat—which had never come from any military store, but instead had been tailor-made to fit his very nonstandard size—in the checkroom. It was a measure of his security clearance that he was sent off without an escort to find his own way to Illyan's not-very-accessible office. You had to go up two different lift tubes and down a third to get to that floor.

Once he'd arrived, and passed through the last scanner in the corridor, he found the door of the outer office open. Illyan's secretary was at his desk, talking with General Lucas Haroche, Head of Domestic Affairs. The general's title always put Miles in mind of a gigolo for bored wives, but in fact it was one of the nastier and more thankless jobs in the service, tracking would-be treason plots and antigovernment groups strictly on the Barrayaran side. His counterpart General Allegre had the full-time task of doing the same for restive, conquered Komarr.

Miles usually dealt with the Head of Galactic Affairs (a much more exotic and evocative title, in Miles's opinion) on the rare occasions when he didn't deal with Illyan directly. But the G.A. was stationed on Komarr, and Miles had been routed straight back to Barrayar this time without stopping at the planet that guarded Barrayar's only jump-point gateway to the wormhole nexus. One must assume it's urgent. Maybe it would even be urgent enough to divert Illyan's negative attentions from Miles's bad news.

"Hello, Captain. Hello, General Haroche." As the supposedly junior officer present, Miles greeted them both with a vaguely directed salute, which they returned as casually. Miles did not know Illyan's secretary well; the man had held this critical position for about two years, which gave Miles at least six years seniority on him as an Illyan-satellite, if one wanted to think of it in those terms.

The secretary held out his hand for the cipher-case. "Your report, good. Sign it in, please."

"I … sort of wanted to hand this one to the boss personally." Miles nodded to Illyan's closed inner door.

"Can't, today. He's not in."

"Not in? I expected . . . there were some things I needed to add verbally."

"I'll pass them on for you, as soon as he gets back."

"Will he be back soon? I can wait."

"Not today. He's out of town."

Shit. "Well . . ." Reluctantly, Miles handed over the case to its proper recipient, and pressed his palm four times to the comconsole's read-pad to affirm and document delivery. "So . . . did he leave any orders for me? He must have known when I would arrive."

"Yes, Lieutenant. You are to take leave until he calls you in."

"I thought this was urgent, or why rush me home on the first ship? I've just had several weeks of time off, cooped up on board."

"What can I say?" The secretary shrugged. "Occasionally, ImpSec remembers it is the military. Hurry up and wait."

Miles would get no unauthorized information out of him. But if there was that much time … his clever little plan to skin off to Escobar for secret treatment, so recently suppressed, reared up out of the mire again. "Leave, huh? Do I have time and permission to visit my parents on Sergyar?"

"I'm afraid not. You are to hold yourself ready to report back here on a one-hour notice. You'd better not depart the city." At Miles's dismayed look, he added, "Sorry, Lieutenant Vorkosigan."

Not half as sorry as I am. He was put forcibly in mind of his own sententious motto about no battle plan surviving first contact with the enemy. "Well . . . tell Illyan I'd like to see him, at his earliest convenience."

"Of course." The secretary made a note.

"And how are your parents, Lieutenant Vorkosigan?" inquired General Haroche cordially. Haroche was a graying man of fifty-odd, who wore slightly rumpled undress greens. Miles liked Haroche's voice, which was deep and rich and sometimes humorous, with a faint provincial accent from the western districts that his years in the capital hadn't quite smoothed away. Haroche's work had gained him a formidable reputation in ImpSec's inner circles, though it was practically unknown to outsiders, a dilemma Miles appreciated. He predated Miles as a fixture at ImpSec HQ by a year or so; but a decade in Haroche's job, Miles reflected, would give anybody gray hairs, and stomach trouble too.

"You probably have more recent information on them than I do, sir. I think my mail is chasing me back home from the drop at Galactic Affairs HQ on Komarr."

Haroche turned his hands palm-out, and shrugged. "No, not really. Illyan has split out Sergyar from my department, and created a separate Department for Sergyaran Affairs equal with the Komarran."

"Surely there's not that much for a separate department to do," said Miles. "The colony's less than thirty years old. The population isn't even up to a million yet,

"Just barely," put in the secretary.

Haroche smiled a bit grimly. "I thought it was premature, but what the illustrious Viceroy Count Vorkosigan requests . . . has a way of happening." He half-lidded his eyes, as if casting Miles a significant look.

Don't you give me that nepotism crap, Haroche. You know what my real work is. And how well I do it. "Sounds like another cushy ImpSec desk job to me. The colonists are too busy working their tails off to foment rebellion. Maybe I ought to apply for it."

"It's already been filled, I'm afraid. By Colonel Olshansky."

"Oh? I've heard he's a steady man. Sergyar is certainly in a critical strategic position in the wormhole nexus, but I thought that aspect came under Galactic Affairs. Illyan's looking to the future, I suppose." Miles sighed. "I guess I may as well go on home. The office can find me at Vorkosigan House, when it decides it wants me."

The secretary's lips stretched in a sinister smile. "Oh, we can find you wherever you are."

It was an ImpSec-ish in-joke. Miles laughed dutifully, and escaped.

Miles arrived at the last lift-tube foyer on the way back to the exit simultaneously with a captain in undress greens, a dark-haired, middle-aged fellow with intense, hooded, nutmeg-brown eyes and a fleshy blade of a nose sweeping down his roman profile: a familiar but entirely unexpected face.

"Duv Galeni!" said Miles. "What are you doing here?"

"Well, hello, Miles." Galeni smiled as much as Galeni ever smiled, a pleased grimace. He was a little older and a little thicker than when Miles had last seen him, but seemed relaxed and confident. "Working, of course. I requested reassignment here."

"Last we met you were doing that stint in counter-intelligence on Komarr. Is this a promotion? Did you develop a sudden hankering for desk work over field work? Did you come to bask in the somewhat radioactive glow from the centers of Imperial power?"

"All of the above, plus …" Galeni glanced around, as if to be sure they were alone. What secret was so sensitive it must be whispered here, in the very center of the labyrinth? "There's this woman."

"Good God, that sounds like one of my cousin Ivan's lines. You, a woman, and what?"

"Don't you dare hoot at me. Don't you still have that, ah, enviable arrangement with the formidable Quinn?"

Miles controlled a wince, thinking of his and Quinn s last argument. "More or less." He had to get back and fix it with Quinn at his earliest opportunity. She'd relented enough to come to see him off at the Peregrine's shuttle hatch, but their good-byes had been formal and strained.

"There you go," said Galeni tolerantly. "She's a Komarran. From the Toscane family. After she took a doctoral degree in business theory on Komarr, she went into the family transhipping concern. She's now stationed in Vorbarr Sultana as a permanent lobbyist with the trade group representing all the Komarran shipping concessions, as sort of an interface between them and the Imperium. A brilliant woman."

Coming from Galeni, who'd taken an academic doctorate in history himself before becoming one of the first Komarrans ever admitted to the Imperial military service, this was high praise. "So . . . are you romancing her, or thinking of hiring her for your department?"

Miles swore Galeni almost blushed. "This is serious, Vorkosigan."

"Ambitious, too. If she's a scion of those Toscanes."

"I was a scion of those Galens, once. Back when the Galens rated that particular inflection."

"Thinking of rebuilding the family fortunes, are you?"

"Mm . . . times have changed. And they aren't changing back. But they are changing onward. It's time for a little ambition in my life, I think. I'm almost forty, you know."

"And tottering on the brink of complete decrepitude, obviously." Miles grinned. "Well, congratulations. Or should I say, good luck?"

"I'll take the luck, I believe. Congratulations are still premature. But they will be in order soon, I hope. And you?"

My love-life is entirely too complicated at the moment. Or at any rate . . . Admiral Naismith's is. "Oh! You mean, work. I'm, ah … not working, at present. I just got back from a little galactic tour."

Galeni twitched an eyebrow in understanding; his own encounter several years past with the Dendarii mercenaries and "Admiral Naismith" was certainly still vivid in his memory. "Are you headed up and in, or down and out?"

Miles pointed to the down tube. "I'm headed home. I have a few days leave."

"Maybe I'll see you around town, then." Galeni swung into the down tube, and rendered Miles a cheerful parting semi-salute.

"I hope so. Take care." Miles descended in turn, exiting at the ground floor.

At the side entrance's security desk, Miles paused in a minor dilemma. Every time he'd ever gone home after a final ImpSec mission debriefing, he'd either called for a car from the Counts garage, driven by an Armsman or servant, or more often found one waiting for him when he emerged from Illyan's lair. But Armsmen, servants, vehicles, and all the rest of the household had decamped with the Count and Countess for the Viceroys Palace on Sergyar (though his mother had written him dryly that the term "palace" was most misleading). So should he requisition a ride from ImpSec HQ's motor pool? Or order a commercial cab? Though one might be certain that any cab which came here had been vetted by Security first. He'd sent his sparse luggage directly home from the shuttleport.

It was chill and gray out, but not raining. And he'd just spent a great many days stuck aboard a decidedly cramped (if fast) jump-ship. He collected his greatcoat and stepped outside. He was only under orders to keep a bodyguard on duty at all times during his galactic travels, after all.

It was about four kilometers from ImpSec HQ to Vorkosigan House, both centrally located in the Old Town. I do believe I'll walk home.

He turned the last corner onto the street Vorkosigan House faced just as the gray afternoon darkened into drizzle, and congratulated himself on his timing. Four kilometers in … well, maybe it wasn't the fastest time he'd ever done, but at least he wasn't gasping for breath as he would have been six months ago.

The brisk walk had been a … nonevent. The streets of the central capital were thick with afternoon traffic and clogged with pedestrians, who hurried past on their various businesses, sparing barely a glance for the striding little man in military dress. No long stares, no rude gestures or comments, not even one covert old hex sign against mutation. Had getting rid of his uneven limp, leg braces, and most of the crookedness in his back made that much difference? Or was the difference in the Barrayarans?

Three old-style mansions had once shared the city block. For security reasons the one on this end had been bought up by the Imperium during the period Miles's father had been Regent, and now housed some minor bureaucratic offices. The one on the other end, more dilapidated and with bad drains, had been torn down and replaced only by a little park. In their day, a century and a half ago, the great houses must have loomed magnificently over the horse-drawn carriages and riders clopping past. Now they were overshadowed by taller modern buildings across the street.

Vorkosigan House sat in the center, set off from the street by a narrow green strip of lawn and garden in the loop of the semicircular drive. A stone wall topped with black wrought-iron spikes surrounded it all. The four stories of great gray stone blocks, in two main wings plus some extra odd architectural bits, rose in a vast archaic mass. All it needed was window slits and a moat. And a few bats and ravens, for decoration. Earth-descended bats were rare on Barrayar, as there were not enough earth-descended insects for them to eat, and the native creatures incorrectly called bugs were usually toxic when ingested. A force screen just inside the wall provided the real protection, and eliminated the romantic possibility of bats. A concrete kiosk beside the gate housed the gate guards; in the heyday of the Regency three full platoons of ImpSec guards had traded shifts around the clock, in posts all around the building and for several blocks beyond, watching the important government men hurry in and out.

Now there was one lone gate guard, a young ImpSec corporal who poked his head out the open door at the sound of Miles's steps, emerged, and saluted him. A new man, no one Miles recognized.

"Good afternoon, Lieutenant Vorkosigan," the young man said. "I was expecting you. They brought your valise a couple of hours ago. I scanned it and everything; it's ready to go in."

"Thank you, Corporal." Gravely, Miles returned his salute. "Been any excitement around here lately?"

"Not really, sir. Not since the Count and Countess left. About the most action we've had was the night a feral cat somehow got past the scanner beams and ran into the tangle-field. I never knew cats could make such a racket. She apparently thought she was about to be killed and eaten."

Miles's eye took in an empty sandwich wrapper on the floor, shoved against the far wall, and a small saucer of milk. A flicker of light from the banks of vid displays for the perimeter monitors in the kiosks second tiny room cast a chilly glow through the narrow doorway. "And, er . . . was she? Killed, I mean."

"Oh, no, sir. Fortunately."

"Good." He retrieved his valise, after an awkward scramble with the guard as he belatedly tried to hand it to Miles. From the shadows under the guards chair beside the saucer, a pair of yellow-green eyes glinted in feline paranoia at him. The young corporal had an interesting collection of long black cat hairs decorating the front of his uniform, and deep half-healed scratches scoring his hands. Keeping pets on duty was highly un-regulation. Nine hours a day stuck in this tiny bunker … he must be bored out of his mind.

"The palm-locks have all been reset for you, sir," the guard went on helpfully. "I've rechecked everything. Twice. Can I carry that for you? Do you know how long you will be here? Will there be anything . . . going on?"

"I don't know. I'll let you know." The kid was clearly longing for a little conversation, but Miles was tired. Maybe later. Miles turned to trudge up the drive, but then turned back. "What did you name her?"

"Sir?"

"The cat."

A look of slight panic crossed the young man's face, as that regulation about pets no doubt recalled itself to his mind. "Er . . . Zap, sir."

He was honest, at least. "How appropriate. Carry on, Corporal." Miles gave him a parting ImpSec HQ Analyst's salute, which was a sort of wave of two fingers in the general vicinity of one's temple; ImpSec analysts tended not to have a great deal of respect for anyone whose measured IQ was lower than their own, which included most of the rest of the Imperial Service. The guard returned a snappier grateful version.

When did ImpSec start sending us children for gate guards? The grim men who'd patrolled the place in Miles s father's day would have executed the unfortunate cat on the spot, and sifted its remains for scanning devices and bombs afterwards. The kid must be all of… at least twenty-one years old, if he's ImpSec and that rank in the capital. Miles controlled a slight twinge of disassociation, and strode up the drive and under the porte cochere, out of the drizzle that was becoming outright rain.

He pressed the palm-lock pad to the right of the front door; its two halves swung out with stately grace to admit him, and closed again behind him as he stepped across the threshold. It felt quite odd, to open the door himself; there had always been a Vorkosigan Armsman in the House uniform of brown and silver on duty to admit him. When did they automate that door?

The great entry hall with its black-and-white paved floor was chill and shadowy, as the rain and gloom of early evening leached away the light. Miles almost spoke, Lights!, to bring up the illumination, but paused, and set down his valise. In his whole life, he'd never had Vorkosigan House entirely to himself.

"Someday, my son, all this will be yours," he whispered experimentally into the shadows. The hard-edged echo of his words seemed to rasp back up from the tessellated pavement. He suppressed a slight shudder. He turned to the right, and began a slow tour of the premises.

The carpet in the next room muffled the lonely clump of his boots. All the remaining furniture—about half seemed to be missing—was covered with ghostly white sheeting. He circled the entire first floor. The place seemed both larger and smaller than he'd remembered, a puzzling paradox.

He checked out the garage occupying the whole eastern wing's sub-basement level. His own lightflyer was tucked neatly into a corner. A barge of an armored groundcar, polished and luxurious but elderly, occupied another. He thought of his combat armor. I probably ought not to attempt to drive or fly, either, till this damned glitch in my head gets straightened out. In the lightflyer, he risked killing himself in a seizure; in the land-barge, anyone else on the road. Last winter, before he'd convinced himself that he was healing as promised, he'd gotten really good at apparently casually cadging rides.

He ascended one of the back stairways to the huge kitchen on the lower level. It had always been a lucrative locale for treats and company when he was a child, full of interesting, busy people like cooks and Armsmen and servants, and even an occasional hungry Imperial Regent, wandering through looking for a snack. Some utensils remained, but the place had been stripped of food, nothing left in the pantries or the walk-in freezer or refrigerators, which were tepid and disconnected.

He reset the smallest refrigerator. If he was going to be here very long, he would have to get food. Or a servant. One servant would certainly do. Yet he didn't want a stranger in here . . . maybe one of the recently pensioned folks lived in retirement nearby, and might be persuaded to come back for a few days. But he might not be here very long. Maybe he would buy some ready-meals—not military service issue, thank you. There was an impressive amount of wine and spirits left to age undisturbed in the climate-controlled cellar, the lock of which opened to his Vorkosigan palm. He brought up a couple of bottles of a particularly chewy red, laid down in his grandfathers day.

Not troubling to switch on the lift-tube, he hauled both bottles and the valise up the curving stairs to his third-floor bedroom in the side wing, which overlooked the back garden. This time he called up the lights, as true night was lending more danger than melancholy angst to his stumbling around in the dark. The chamber was exactly as he'd left it … only four months ago? Too neat and tidy; no one had really lived here for a long time. Well, Lord Vorkosigan had dragged in for a good period last winter, but he hadn't been in condition then to make many waves.

I could order in some food. Split it with the gate guard. But he really didn't feel that hungry.

I could do anything I wanted. Anything at all.

Except for the one and only thing he did want, which was to depart tonight aboard the fastest jump-ship available bound for Escobar, or some equally medically advanced galactic depot. He growled, wordlessly. What he did instead was unpack his valise and put everything neatly away, shed his boots and hang up his uniform, and shuck on some comfortable old ship-knits.

He sat on his bed and poured some wine into his bathroom tumbler. He'd avoided alcohol and every other possible drug or druglike substance all the way out to that last mission with the Dendarii; it seemed not to have made any difference to the rare and erratic seizures. If he stayed here quietly alone inside Vorkosigan House until his meeting with Illyan, if an episode occurred again at least no one could witness it.

I'll have a drink, then order some food. Tomorrow, he must form another plan of attack on the . . . the damned saboteur lurking in his neurons.

The wine slid down smoky, rich, and warming. Self-sedation seemed to require more alcohol than it used to, a problem easily remedied; the desensitization might be yet another side effect of the cryo-revival, but he was glumly afraid it was simply due to age. He slipped into sleep about two-thirds through the bottle.

By noon the next day the problem of food was becoming acute, despite a couple of painkillers for breakfast, and the absence of coffee and tea turning downright desperate. I'm ImpSec trained. I can figure out this problem. Somebody must have been going for groceries all these years . . . no, come to think of it, kitchen supplies had been delivered daily by a lift-van; he remembered the Armsmen inspecting it. The chief cook had practically had the duties of a company quartermaster, handling the nutritional logistics of Count, Countess, a couple dozen servants, twenty Armsmen, an assortment of their dependents, peckish ImpSec guards not above cadging a snack, and frequent State dinners, parties, or receptions where guests might number in the hundreds.

The comconsole in the cook's cubicle off the kitchen soon yielded up the data Miles sought. There had been a regular supplier—the account was now closed, but he could surely open it again. Their list of offerings was astonishing in its scope, their prices even more so. How many marks had they been paying for eggs?—oh. That was twelve dozen eggs to a crate, not twelve eggs. Miles tried to imagine what he could do with a hundred and forty-four eggs. Maybe back when he'd been thirteen years old. Some opportunities just came too late in life. Instead he turned to the vid directory. The closest purveyor was a small midtown grocery about six blocks away. Another quandary: dare he drive? Walk there. Take a commercial cab home.

The place turned out to be an odd little hole in the wall, but it supplied coffee, tea, milk, a reasonable number of eggs, a box of instant groats, and an array of prepackaged items labeled Reddi-Meals! He stacked up two of each of the five flavors. On impulse, he also snagged a half-dozen foil packets of expensive squishy cat food, the smelly stuff cats liked. So … should he slip it to the gate guard? Or attempt to seduce Zap the Cat to his own following? After the incident with the tangle-field, the beast probably would not be hanging around the back door of Vorkosigan House much.

He gathered up his spoils and took them to the checkout, where the clerk looked him up and down and gave him a peculiar smile. He braced himself inwardly for some snide remark, Ah, mutant? He should have worn his ImpSec uniform; nobody dared sneer at that Horus-eye winking from his collar. But what she said was, "Ah. Bachelor?"

His return home and mid-afternoon breakfast occupied another hour. Five hours till dark. More hours till bedtime. It did not take nearly all that time to look up every cryo-neurology clinic and specialist on Barrayar, and arrange the list in two orders; medical reputation, and the probability of keeping his visit secret from ImpSec. That second requirement was the sticking point. He really didn't want any but the best messing around with his head, but the best were going to be depressingly hard to convince to, say, treat a patient and keep no records. Escobar? Barrayar? Or should he wait until he got out on his next galactic mission assignment, as far from HQ as possible?

He paced the house, restlessly, turning over memories in his mind. This had been Elena's room. That tiny chamber had belonged to Armsman Bothari, her father. Here was where Ivan had slipped through the safety-railing, fallen half a story, and cut his head open, with no discernible effects on his intellect. It had been hoped the fall would make him smarter. . . .

For his evening meal, Miles decided to keep up the standards. He donned his dress greens, pulled all the covers off the furniture in the State dining room, and set up his wine with a proper crystal glass at the head of the meters-long table. He almost hunted up a plate, but reflected he could save the washing up by eating the Reddi-Meal! out of its packet. He piped in soft music. Other than that, dinner took about five minutes. When he'd finished, he dutifully put the covers back on the polished wood and fine chairs.

If I'd had the Dendarii here, I could have had a real party.

Elli Quinn. Or Taura. Or Rowan Durona. Or even Elena, Baz and all. Bel Thorne, whom he still missed. All of the above. Somebody. The inner vision of the Dendarii occupying Vorkosigan House gave him vertigo, but there was no doubt they'd know how to liven the place up.

By the next evening, he was desperate enough to call his cousin Ivan.

Ivan answered his comconsole promptly enough. Lieutenant Lord Ivan Vorpatril was still wearing undress greens, identical to Miles's except for the symbol of Ops instead of ImpSec pinned to his collar in front of the red lieutenants rectangles. At least Ivan hadn't changed, still holding down the same desk at Imperial Service headquarters by day, and leading the pleasant life of a Vor officer in the capital by night.

Ivan's handsome, affable face brightened into a genuine smile when he saw Miles. "Well, coz! I didn't know you were back in town."

"I got in a few days ago," Miles confessed. "I've been sampling the somewhat bizarre sensations of having Vorkosigan House to myself."

"Dear God, you're all alone in that mausoleum?"

"Except for the gate guard, and Zap the Cat, who keep to themselves."

"It ought to suit you, back from the dead as you are," said Ivan.

Miles touched his chest. "Not really. I never noticed before how much the old place creaks at night. I spent this afternoon . . ." He couldn't very well tell Ivan he'd spent the day plotting a secret medical foray without Ivan asking why, he continued smoothly, "looking through the archives. I got to wondering how many people had actually died on the premises, over the centuries. Besides my grandfather, of course. There were a lot more than I'd thought." A fascinating question, actually; he would have to scan the archives.

"Yech."

"So . . , what's happening in Town? Any chance of you stopping by?"

"I'm on duty all day, of course . . . there's not too much going on, really. We're at that odd cusp, done with the Emperor's Birthday and not time yet for Winterfair."

"How was the Birthday bash this year? I just missed it. I was still en route, three weeks out. Nobody even got drunk to celebrate."

"Yes, I know. I got stuck delivering your District's bag of gold. It was the usual crush. Gregor retired early, and things sort of trickled off to nothing before dawn." Ivan pursed his lips, looking like he was being seized with a bright idea. Miles braced himself.

"I tell you what, though. In two nights Gregor is having a State dinner. There's two or three major new galactic ambassadors, and a couple of minor counsels, who've presented their portfolios in the last month, and Gregor figured to round them up all at once and get it over with. As usual, Mother is playing hostess for him."

Lady Alys Vorpatril was widely acknowledged as the premier social arbiter of Vorbarr Sultana, not least because of her frequent duties at the Imperial Residence as official welcomer for wifeless, motherless, sisterless Emperor Gregor.

"There's going to be dancing, after. Mother asked me if I couldn't round up some younger people to warm up the ballroom. By younger I gather she means under forty. Appropriate ones, you know the drill. If I had known you were in town, I'd have nailed you before this."

"She wants you to bring a date," Miles interpreted this. "Preferably, a fiancee."

Ivan grinned. "Yeah, but for some reason most fellows I know won't lend me theirs."

"Would I be supposed to provide a dance partner too? I hardly know any women here anymore."

"So, bring one of the Koudelka girls. I am. Sure, it's like taking your sister, but they are decorative as hell, especially en masse."

"Did you ask Delia?" said Miles thoughtfully.

"Yeah. But I'll cede her to you if you like, and take Martya. But if you're escorting Delia, you have to promise not to make her wear high heels. She hates it when you make her wear high heels."

"But she's so … impressive in them."

"She's impressive out of them, too."

"True. Well . . . yes, all right." Miles entertained a brief flashing vision of himself having a seizure right on the Imperial ballroom floor, in front of half the Vorish social cream of the capital. But what was the alternative? Stay home by himself yet another night with nothing to do but dream about his after-the-next-mission escape to Escobar, evolve nineteen more impractical ways to defeat ImpSec s observation of him on ImpSec's home turf, or brainstorm how to steal the gate guard's cat for company? And Ivan might solve his transportation dilemma.

"I don't have a car," Miles said.

"What happened to your lightflyer?"

"It's … in the shop. Adjustments."

"Want me to pick you up?"

His brains were lagging. That would leave Ivan driving, to the terror of all prudent passengers, unless Miles could bully Delia Koudelka into taking over. Miles sat up, seized with a bright idea of his own. "Does your mother really want extra bodies?"

"She says so."

"Captain Duv Galeni is in town. I saw him the other day at ImpSec HQ. He's stuck down in the Analysis section, except that he seems to regard it as a rare treat."

"Oh, yeah, I knew that! I would have remembered to tell you eventually. He came over to our side of town a few weeks ago in tow of General Allegre, for some consultation by the upper-ups. I meant to do something to welcome him to Vorbarr Sultana, but I hadn't got around to it yet. You ImpSec boys tend to keep to yourselves over there in Paranoia Central."

"But anyway, he's trying to impress this Komarran girl," Miles forged on. "Not girl, woman I suppose, some kind of high-powered wheel in a trade delegation. She's strong on brains rather than beauty, I gather, which doesn't surprise me, knowing Galeni. And she has interesting Komarran connections. How many points d'you think he would score for getting her into an Imperial State dinner?"

"Many," said Ivan decisively. "Especially if it's one of my mother's exclusive little soirees."

"And we both owe him one."

"More than one. And he's not nearly as sarcastic as he used to be, either, I noticed. Maybe he's mellowing out. Sure, invite him along," said Ivan.

"I'll give him a call, and get back to you, then." Happy in his inspiration, Miles cut the com.