Cetaganda

unmotivated armed attack by an Imperial slave upon the Barrayaran special representatives.'

The implied threat was obvious enough; despite Benin's face paint, Miles could tell that one had hit home. Even Vorreedi looked like he might be giving the pitch serious consideration.

'Can you . . . prove your assertions, Lord Vorkosigan?' asked Benin cautiously.

'We still have the captured nerve disruptor. Ivan?' Miles nodded to his cousin.

Gently, using only his fingertips, Ivan drew the weapon from his pocket and laid it gingerly on the table, and returned his hands demurely to his lap. He avoided Vorreedi's outraged eye. Vorreedi and Benin reached simultaneously for the nerve disruptor, and simultaneously stopped, frowning at each other.

'Excuse me,' said Vorreedi. 'I had not seen this before.'

'Really?' said Benin. How extraordinary, his tone implied. 'Go ahead.' His hand dropped politely.

Vorreedi picked up the weapon and examined it closely, among other things checking to see that the safety lock was indeed engaged, before handing it equally politely to Benin.

'I'd be glad to return the weapon to you, ghem-Colonel,' Miles went on, 'in exchange for whatever information you are able to deduce from it. If it can be traced back to the Celestial Garden, that's not much help, but if it was something the Ba acquired en route, well … it might be revealing. This is a check that you can make more easily than I can.' Miles paused, then added, 'Who did the Ba visit from the station the first time?'

Benin glanced up from his close contemplation of the nerve disruptor. 'A ship moored off-station.'

'Can you be more specific?'

'No.'

'Excuse me, let me re-phrase that. Could you be more specific if you chose to?'

Benin set the disruptor down, and leaned back, his expression of attention to Miles, if possible, intensifying.

He was silent for a long thoughtful moment before finally replying, 'No, unfortunately. I could not.' Rats. The three haut-governors' ships moored off that transfer station were Ilsum Kety's, Slyke Giaja's and Este Rond's. This could have been the final line of his triangulation, but Benin didn't have it. Yet. 'I'd be particularly interested in how traffic control, or what certainly passed for traffic control, came to direct us to the wrong, or at any rate the first, pod dock.'

'Why do you think the Ba entered your pod?' Benin asked in turn.

'Given the intense confusion of the encounter, I certainly would consider the possibility of it having been an accident. If it was arranged, I think something must have gone very wrong.'

No shit, said Ivan's silent morose look. Miles ignored him.

'Anyway, ghem-Colonel, I hope this helps to anchor your time-table,' Miles continued in a tone of finality. Surely Benin would be itching to run and check out his new clue, the nerve disrupter.

Benin didn't budge. 'So what did you and the haut Rian really discuss, Lord Vorkosigan?'

'For that, I'm afraid you will have to apply to the haut Rian. She is Cetagandan to the bone, and so all your department.' Alas. 'But I think her distress at the death of the Ba Lura was quite genuine.'

Benin's eyes flicked up. 'When did you see enough of her to gauge the depth of her distress?'

'Or so I deduced.' And if he didn't end this now he was going to put his foot in it so deep they'd need a hand-tractor to pull it out again. He had to play Vorreedi with the utmost delicacy; this was not quite the case with Benin. 'This is fascinating, ghem-Colonel, but I'm afraid I'm out of time for this morning. But if you ever find out where that nerve disruptor came from, and where the Ba went to, I would be more than glad to continue the conversation.' He sat back, folded his arms, and smiled cordially.

What Vorreedi should have done was announce loudly that they had all the time in the world, and let Benin continue to be his stalking-horse—Miles would have, in his place—but Vorreedi himself was clearly itching to get Miles alone. Instead, the protocol officer rose, signaling the official end to the interview. Benin, on embassy grounds as a guest, on sufferance—not his normal mode, Miles was sure—acceded without comment, rising to take his farewells.

'I will be speaking with you again, Lord Vorkosigan,' Benin promised darkly.

'I certainly hope so, sir. Ah—did you take my other piece of advice, too? About blocking interference?'

Benin paused, looking suddenly a little abstracted. 'Yes, in fact.'

'How did it go?'

'Better than I would have expected.'

'Good.'

Benin's parting semi-salute was ironic, but not, Miles felt, altogether hostile.

Vorreedi escorted his guest to the door, but turned him over to the hall guard and was back in the little room before Miles and Ivan could make good their escape.

Vorreedi pinned Miles by eye. Miles felt a momentary regret that his diplomatic immunity did not extend to the protocol officer as well. Would it occur to Vorreedi to separate the pair of them, and break Ivan? Ivan was practicing looking invisible, something he did very well.

Vorreedi stated dangerously, 'I am not a mushroom, Lieutenant Vorkosigan.'

To be kept in the dark and fed on horseshit, right. Miles sighed inwardly. 'Sir, apply to my commander,' meaning Illyan—Vorreedi's commander too, in point of fact—'be cleared, and I'm yours. Until then, my best judgment is to continue exactly as I have been.'

'Trusting your instincts?' said Vorreedi dryly.

'It's not as if I had any clear conclusions to share yet.'

'So … do your instincts suggest some connection between the late Ba Lura, and Lord Yenaro?'

Vorreedi had instincts too, oh, yes. Or he wouldn't be in this post. 'Besides the fact that both have interacted with me? Nothing that I … trust. I'm after proof. Then I will … be somewhere.'

'Where?'

Head down in the biggest privy you ever imagined, at the current rate. 'I guess I'll know when I get there, sir.'

'We too will speak again, Lord Vorkosigan. You can count on it.' Vorreedi gave him a very abbreviated nod, and departed abruptly—probably to apprise Ambassador Vorob'yev of the new complications in his life.

Into the ensuing silence, Miles said faintly, 'That went well, all things considered.'

Ivan's lip curled in scorn.

They kept silence on the trudge back to Ivan's room, where Ivan found a new stack of colored papers waiting on his desk. He sorted through them, pointedly ignoring Miles.

'I have to reach Rian somehow,' Miles said at last. 'I can't afford to wait. Things are getting too damned tight.'

'I don't want anything more to do with any of this,' said Ivan distantly.

'It's too late.'

'Yes. I know.' His hand paused. 'Huh. Here's a new wrinkle. This one has both our names on it.'

'Not from Lady Benello, is it? I'm afraid Vorreedi will count her off-limits now.'

'No. It's not a name I recognize.'

Miles pounced on the paper, and tore it open. 'Lady d'Har. A garden party. What does she grow in her garden, I wonder? Could it be a double meaning—referencing the Celestial Garden? Hm. Awfully short notice. It could be my next contact. God, I hate being at haut Rian's mercy for every setup. Well, accept it anyway, just in case.'

'It's not my first choice of how to spend the evening,' said Ivan.

'Did I say anything about a choice? It's a chance, we've got to take it.' He went on nastily, 'Besides, if you keep leaving your genetic samples all over town, your progeny could end up being featured in next year's art show. As bushes.'

Ivan shuddered. 'You don't think they would—that's not why—uh, could they?'

'Sure. Why, when you're gone, they could re-create the operative body parts that interest them, to perform