“Bear with me. You have to understand who the Durona Group is. About ninety years ago, the present Baron Ryoval’s father was setting up his arcane little genetic slave-trade, the manufacture of humans to order. At some point it occurred to him: Why hire genius from outside? Grow your own. Mental properties are the most elusive to create genetically, but the old Ryoval was a genius himself. He started a project that culminated in the creation of a woman he named Lilly Durona. She was to be his medical research muse, his slave-doctor. In both senses.
“She grew, was trained, and put to work. And she was brilliant. About this time the old Baron Ryoval died, not too mysteriously, during an early attempt at a brain transplant.
“I say not too mysteriously because of the character his son and successor, the present Baron Ryoval, immediately revealed. His first project was to get rid of all his potential sibling-rivals. The old man had sired a lot of children. Ryoval’s early career is something of a Jacksonian legend. The eldest and most dangerous males, he simply had assassinated. The females and some of the younger males he sent to his body-modification laboratories, and thence to his very-private bordellos, to service the customers on that side of the business. I suppose they’re all dead by now. If they’re lucky.
“Ryoval also, apparently, used this direct management approach on the staff he had inherited. His father had handled Lilly Durona as a cherished treasure, but the new Baron Ryoval threatened to send her after his sisters, to satisfy the biological fantasies of his customers directly, if she didn’t cooperate. She began to plot her escape with a despised young half-brother of Ryoval’s by the name of Georish Stauber.”
“Ah! Baron Fell!” said Thorne. Thorne was looking enlightened, Taura fascinated, Quinn and Bothari-Jesek horrified.
“The same, but not yet. Lilly and young Georish escaped to the protection of House Fell. In fact, I gather that Lilly was Georish’s ticket in. They both set up in service to their new masters, with considerable negotiated autonomy, at least on Lilly’s part. It was the Deal. Deals are as semi-sacred as anything can be, on Jackson’s Whole.
“Georish began to rise through the ranks of House Fell. And Lilly began the Durona Research Group by cloning herself. Again and again. The Durona Group, which is now up to thirty or forty cloned sisters, serves House Fell in several ways. It’s sort of a family doctor for upper level Fell executives who don’t want to entrust their health to outside specialist houses like Bharaputra. And since House Fell’s stock in trade is weapons, they’ve done R&D on military poisons and biologicals. And their antidotes. The Durona Group made House Fell a small fortune on Peritaint, and a few years later made it a huge fortune on Peritaint’s antidote. The Durona Group is kind of quietly famous, if you follow that sort of thing. Which ImpSec does. There was a pile of stuff on ’em even in the stripped-down files they let me see. Though most of this is common knowledge on Jackson’s Whole.
“Georish, not least owing to the coup he brought House Fell in the person of Lilly, ascended to the pinnacle a few years back when he became Baron Fell. Now, enter the Dendarii Mercenaries. And now you have to tell
Bel whistled. “I knew some of this, but I don’t think I’d ever heard the whole story. No wonder Fell and Ryoval hate each other.” It glanced at Quinn: she nodded permission to proceed. “Well, about four years ago, Miles brought the Dendarii a little contract. It was for a pick-up. Our Employer—excuse me, Barrayar, I’ve been calling them Our Employer for so long it’s a reflex.”
“Keep that reflex,” Mark advised.
Bel nodded. “The Imperium wanted to import a galactic geneticist. I don’t quite know why.” It glanced at Quinn.
“Nor do you need to,” said she.
“But a certain Dr. Canaba, who was then one of House Bharaputra’s top genetics people, wanted to defect. House Bharaputra takes a lethally dim view of employees departing with a head full of trade secrets, so Canaba needed help. He struck a deal with the Barrayaran Imperium to take him in.”
“That’s where I come from,” Taura put in.
“Yes,” said Thorne. “Taura was one of his pet projects. He, um, insisted on taking her along. Unfortunately, the super-soldier project had recently been canceled, and Taura sold to Baron Ryoval, who collects genetic, excuse me Sergeant, oddities. So we had to break her out of House Ryoval, in addition to breaking Canaba out of House Bharaputra. Um, Taura, you’d better say what happened next.”
“The Admiral came and rescued me from Ryoval’s main biologicals facility,” the big woman rumbled. She heaved a large sigh, as if at some sweet memory. “In the process of escaping, we totally destroyed House Ryoval’s main gene banks. A hundred-year-old tissue collection went up in smoke. Literally.” She smiled, baring her fangs.
“House Ryoval lost about fifty percent of its assets that night, Baron Fell estimated,” Thorne added. “At least.”
Mark hooted, then sobered. “
“Mark,” said Thorne desperately, “if Ryoval finds Miles first, he’ll have him revived just so he can kill him again. And again. And again. That’s why we were all so insistent that you play Miles, when we were pulling out of Jackson’s Whole. Ryoval has no motive to take revenge on the clone, just on the Admiral.”
“I see. Gee. Thanks. Ah, whatever happened to Dr. Canaba? If I may ask.”
“He was delivered safely,” said Quinn. “He has a new name, a new face, a new laboratory, and a salary that ought to keep him happy. A loyal new subject for the Imperium.”
“Hm. Well, that brings me to the other cross-connection. It’s not a new or secret one, though I don’t know yet what to make of it. Neither does ImpSec, incidentally, though as a result of it they’ve sent agents to check the Durona Group twice. Baronne Lotus Bharaputra, the Baron’s wife, is a Durona clone.”
Taura’s clawed hand flew to her lips. “That girl!”
“Yes,
“The Baronne is one of the oldest of Lilly Durona’s clone daughters, or sisters, or whatever you want to call the tribe. Hive. She didn’t sell herself cheaply. Lotus went renegade for one of the biggest bribes in Jacksonian history—co-control, or nearly so, of House Bharaputra. She’s been Baron Bharaputra’s mate for twenty years. And now it seems she’s getting one other thing. The Durona Group among them have an astonishing range of bio- expertise, but they refuse to do clone-brain transplants. It was written right into Lilly Durona’s foundation-deal with House Fell. But Baronne Bharaputra, who must be over sixty-standard, apparently plans to embark on her second youth very shortly. Judging from what we witnessed.”
“Rats,” muttered Quinn.
“So that’s another cross-connection,” said Mark. “In fact, it’s a damned cat’s cradle of cross-connections, once you get hold of the right thread. But it doesn’t explain, to me at least, why the Durona Group would conceal Miles
“If they have him,” Quinn said, gnawing on her cheek.
“If,” Mark conceded. “Although,” he brightened slightly, “it would explain why that incriminating cryo- chamber ended up in the Hegen Hub. The Durona Group wasn’t trying to hide it from ImpSec. They were trying to hide it from other Jacksonians.”
“It almost all fits,” said Thorne.
Mark opened his hands and held them apart palm to palm, as if invisible threads ran back and forth between them. “Yeah. Almost.” He closed his hands together. “So here we are. And there we’re going. Our first trick will be to re-enter Jacksonian space past Fell’s jump point station. Captain Quinn has brought along quite a kit for doctoring our identities. Coordinate your ideas with her on that one. We have ten days to play with it.”
The group broke up, to study the new problems each in his, her, or its own way. Bothari-Jesek and Quinn lingered as Mark rose, and stretched his aching back. His aching brain.
“That was quite a pretty piece of analysis, Mark,” said Quinn grudgingly. “If it’s not all hot air.”
She ought to know. “Thank you, Quinn,” he said sincerely. He too prayed it wouldn’t all turn out to be hallucinatory, an elaborate mistake.
“Yes … he’s changed a bit, I think,” Bothari-Jesek observed judiciously. “Grown.”
“Yeah?” Quinn’s gaze swept him, up and down. “True …”
Mark’s heart warmed in hungry anticipation of a crumb of approval.
