The big bodyguard shot a worried glance at Sergeant Taura, looming over him; she smiled back, her fangs gleaming. “Hi, there. You’re kinda cute, you know?” she told him. He recoiled, and sidled closer to his master.

Fell hurried to the body, knelt by its right side, and held up the severed wrist. He hissed with disappointment. “Who has done this?”

“We don’t know yet,” said Miles. “That’s how I found him.”

“Exactly?” Fell shot him a sharp glance.

“Yes.”

Fell traced the black holes across the corpse’s forehead. “Whoever did this, knew what he was doing. I want to find the assassin.”

“To … avenge your brother’s death?” Elena asked cautiously.

“No. To offer him a job!” Fell laughed, a booming, jolly sound. “Do you realize how many people have been trying, for how many years, to accomplish this?”

“I’ve an idea,” said Miles. “If you can help—”

In the next room, Ryoval’s half-butchered comconsole chimed.

Fell looked up, eyes intent. “No one can call in here without the code-key,” he stated, and heaved to his feet. Miles barely beat him back into the study, and slid into the station chair.

He activated the vid plate. “Yes?” And almost fell out of his seat again.

Mark’s puffy face formed above the vid plate. He looked like he’d just come out of a shower, face scrubbed, hair wet and slicked back. He was wearing grey knits like Miles’s. Blue bruises, going greenish-yellow around the edges, made what skin Miles could see look like a patch-work quilt, but both eyes were open and very bright. His ears were still on. “Ah,” he said cheerfully, “there you are. I thought you might be. Have you figured out who you are yet?”

“Mark!” Miles almost tried to crawl through the vid image. “Are you all right? Where are you?”

“You have, I see. Good. I’m at Lilly Durona’s. God, Miles. What a place. What a woman. She let me have a bath. She put my skin back on. She fixed my foot. She gave me a hypo of muscle-relaxant for my back. With her own hands, she performed medical services too intimate and disgusting to describe, but very badly needed, I assure you, and held my head while I screamed. Did I mention the bath? I love her, and I want to marry her.”

All this was delivered with such dead-pan enthusiasm, Miles could not tell if Mark was joking. “What are you on?” he asked suspiciously.

“Pain killers. Lots and lots of pain killers. Oh, it’s wonderful!” He favored Miles with a weird broad grin. “But don’t worry, my head is perfectly clear. It’s just the bath. I was holding it together till she gave me the bath. It unmanned me. Do you know what a wonderful thing a bath is, when you’re washing off—never mind.”

“How did you get out of here, and back to the Durona Clinic?” Miles asked urgently.

“In Ryoval’s lightflyer, of course. The code-key worked.”

Behind Miles, Baron Fell drew in his breath. “Mark,” he leaned into the vid pick up with a smile. “Would you put Lilly on a moment, please?”

“Ah, Baron Fell!” said Mark. “Good. I was going to call you next. I want to invite you to tea, here at Lilly’s. We have a lot to talk about. You too, Miles. And bring all your friends.” Mark gave him a sharply meaningful glance.

Quietly, Miles reached down and pressed the “alert” button on Iverson’s comm link. “Why, Mark?”

“Because I need them. My own troops are much too tired for any more work today.”

“Your troops?”

“Please do as I ask. Because I ask it. Because you owe me,” Mark added, in a voice so low Miles had to strain to hear. Mark’s eyes burned, a brief spark.

Fell muttered, “He used it. He has to know—” He leaned in again, and said to Mark, “Do you know what you have in ah, hand, Mark?”

“Oh, Baron. I know what I’m doing. I don’t know why so many people have so much trouble believing that,” Mark added in a tone of hurt complaint. “I know exactly what I’m doing.” Then he laughed. It was a very disturbing laugh, edgy and too loud.

“Let me talk to Lilly,” said Fell.

“No. You come here and talk to Lilly,” said Mark petulantly. “Anyway, you want to talk to me.” He nailed Fell’s eye with a direct look. “I promise you will find it profitable.”

“I believe I do want to talk with you,” murmured Fell. “Very well.”

“Miles. You’re there in Ryoval’s study, where I was.” Mark searched his face, for what Miles could not guess, but then Mark nodded quietly to himself, as if satisfied. “Is Elena there?”

“Yes …”

Elena leaned forward on Miles’s other side. “What do you need, Mark?”

“I want to talk to you a moment. Armswoman. Privately. Would you clear the room of everyone else, please? Everyone.”

“You can’t,” Miles began. ”… Armswoman? Not—not leige-sworn? You can’t be.”

“Technically, I suppose she’s not, now that you’re alive again,” said Mark. He smiled sadly. “But I want a service. My first and last request, Elena. Privately.”

Elena looked around. “Everybody out. Please, Miles. This is between Mark and me.”

“Armswoman?” Miles muttered, allowing himself to be thrust back out into the corridor. “How can—” Elena shut the door on them all. Miles called Iverson to arrange transport, and other things. It was still a polite race with Fell, but it was clearly a race.

Elena emerged after a few minutes. Her face was strained. “You go on to Durona’s. Mark has asked me to find something for him here. I’ll catch up.”

“Collect all the data you can for ImpSec while you’re at it, then,” said Miles, feeling bewildered by the pace of events. Somehow, he seemed not to be in charge here. “I’ll tell Iverson to give you a free hand. But—Armswoman? Does that mean what I think it does? How can—”

“It means nothing, now. But I owe Mark. We all do. He killed Ryoval, you know.”

“I was beginning to realize it had to be so. I just didn’t see how.”

“With both hands tied behind his back, he says. I believe him.” She turned again toward Ryoval’s suite.

“That was Mark?” Miles muttered, heading reluctantly in the opposite direction. He couldn’t have acquired some other clone-brother while he was dead, could he? “It didn’t sound like Mark. For one thing, he sounded like he was glad to see me. That’s Mark?”

“Oh, yes,” said Quinn. “That was Mark all right.”

He quickened his pace. Even Taura had to lengthen her stride to keep up.

Chapter Thirty

The Dendarii’s little personnel shuttle kept pace with Baron Fell’s larger drop shuttle; they arrived at the Durona Group’s clinic almost simultaneously. A House Dyne shuttle belonging temporarily to ImpSec was waiting politely across the street from the entrance, by the little park. Just waiting.

As they were circling for a landing, Miles asked Quinn, who was piloting, “Elli—if we were flying along, in a lightflyer or an aircar or something, and I suddenly ordered you to crash it, would you?”

“Now?” asked Quinn, startled. The shuttle lurched.

“No! Not now. I mean theoretically. Obey, instantly, no questions asked.”

“Well, sure, I suppose so. I’d ask questions afterward though. Probably with my hands wrapped around your neck.”

“That’s what I thought.” Miles sat back, satisfied.

They rendezvoused with Baron Fell at the front entrance, where the gate guards prepared to code open a portal in the force screen. Fell frowned at the three Dendarii in their half-armor, Quinn and Bel and Taura, trailing Miles in his grey knits.

“This is my facility,” Fell pointed out. His own pair of green-clad men eyed them without favor.

“These are my bodyguards,” said Miles, “for whom I have a demonstrated need. Your force screen appears to have a malfunction.”

“He was taken care of,” said Fell grimly. “That won’t happen again.”

“Nevertheless.” By way of concession, Miles jerked his thumb at the shuttle by the park. “My other friends can wait outside.”