Nikki returned breathlessly, "I'll scream. I'll tell everybody you're kidnapping me. I'll tell them you're not my father. And it'll all be true!"

Hugo looked increasingly alarmed. "For God's sake, don't drive the boy into hysterics, Vassily. They can keep it up for hours . And everybody stares at you as if you were the reincarnation of Pierre Le Sanguinaire. Little old ladies come up and threaten you—"

"Like this one," Aunt Vorthys interrupted. "Gentlemen, let me dissuade you—"

The harassed and reddening Vassily made another grab, but Nikki was quicker, dodging around the Professora this time. "I'll tell them you're kidnapping me for `moral purposes' !" he declaimed from behind this ample barrier.

Vassily asked Hugo in a shocked voice, "How does he know about that sort of thing?"

Hugo waved this away. "He probably just heard the phrase. Children repeat things like that, you know."

Vassily clearly didn't. A poor memory, perhaps?

"Nikki, look," said Hugo, in a voice of reason, bending a little to peer at the boy in his refuge behind the seething Professora. "If you don't want to go with Vassily, suppose you come and visit me and Aunt Rosalie, and Edie and the boys, for a little while instead?"

Nikki hesitated. So did Ekaterin. This ploy might have been made to work, with another push, but Vassily took advantage of the momentary distraction to make another grab at Nikki's arm.

"Ha! Got you!"

"Ow! Ow! Ow!" screamed Nikki.

Perhaps it was because Vassily didn't have the trained parental ear that could instantly distinguish between real pain and noise for effect, but when Ekaterin started grimly forward, he flinched back, his grip unconsciously loosening. Nikki broke away, and ran for the hall stairs.

"I'm not going!" Nikki yelled over his shoulder, scrambling up the stairs. "I'm not, I won't! You can't make me. Mama doesn't want me to go!" At the top he whirled to fling frantically back, as Vassily, baited into chasing him, reached the bottom, "You'll be sorry you made my mama unhappy!"

Hugo, ten years older and vastly more experienced, shook his head in exasperation and followed more slowly. Aunt Vorthys, looking very distressed and a little gray, brought up the rear. From above, a door slammed.

Ekaterin arrived, her heart hammering, in the upper hallway as Vassily bent over the door to her uncle's study and rattled the knob.

"Nikki! Open this door! Unlock it at once, do you hear me?" Vassily turned to look beseechingly at Ekaterin. "Do something!"

Ekaterin leaned her back against the opposite wall, folded her arms again, and smiled slowly. "I only know one man who was ever able to talk Nikki out of a locked room. And he isn't here."

"Order him out!"

"If you are indeed insisting on taking custody of him, Vassily, this is your problem," Ekaterin told him coolly. She let The first of many stand implied.

Hugo, stumping breathlessly up the stairs, offered, "Eventually, they do calm down and come out. Sooner if there's no food in there."

"Nikki," said Aunt Vorthys distantly, "knows where the Professor hides his cookies."

Vassily stood up, and stared at the heavy wood and old iron hardware. "We could break it down, I suppose," he said hesitantly.

"Not in my house, Vassily Vorsoisson!" Aunt Vorthys said.

Vassily gestured at Ekaterin. "Fetch me a screwdriver, then!"

She didn't move. "Find it yourself." She didn't add, you blundering nitwit aloud, quite, but it seemed to be understood.

Vassily flushed angrily, but bent again. "What's he doing in there? I hear voices."

Hugo bent too. "He's using the comconsole, I think."

Aunt Vorthys glanced briefly down the hallway toward her bedroom door. From which there was a door to the bath, from which there was another door into the Professor's study. Well, if Aunt Vorthys wasn't going to point out this alternate and unguarded route to the two men now pressing their ears to the door, why should Ekaterin?

"I hear two voices. Who in the world could he be calling on the comconsole?" asked Vassily, in a dismissive tone that didn't invite an answer.

Suddenly, Ekaterin thought she knew. Her breath caught. "Oh," she said faintly, "dear ." Aunt Vorthys stared at her.

For a hysterical moment, Ekaterin considered dashing around and diving through the alternate doors, to shut down the comconsole before it was too late. But the echo of a laughing voice drifted through her mind . . . Let's see what happens.

Yes. Let's.

* * *

One of Boriz Vormoncrief's allied Counts droned on in the Speaker's Circle. Miles wondered how much longer these delaying tactics could continue. Gregor was starting to look mighty bored.

The Emperor's personal Armsman appeared from the little conference chamber, mounted the dais, and murmured something into his master's ear. Gregor looked briefly surprised, returned a few words, and motioned the man off. He made a small gesture to the Lord Guardian of the Speaker's Circle, who trod over to him. Miles tensed, expecting Gregor was about to call a halt to the filibuster and command the voting to begin, but instead the Lord Guardian merely nodded, and returned to his bench. Gregor rose, and ducked through the door behind the dais. The speaking Count glanced aside at this motion, hesitated, then carried on. It might not be significant, Miles told himself; even Emperors had to go to the bathroom now and then.

Miles seized the moment to key his wristcom again. "Pym? What's up with Dono?"

"Just got a confirmation from Vorrutyer House," Pym returned after a moment. "Dono's on his way. Captain Vorpatril is escorting him."

"Only now ?"

"He apparently only arrived home less than an hour ago."

"What was he doing all night?" Surely Dono hadn't picked the night before the vote to go tomcatting with Ivan—on the other hand, maybe he'd wanted to prove something. . . . "Never mind. Just be sure he gets here all right."

"We're on it, m'lord."

Gregor indeed returned in about the amount of time it would have taken him to take a leak. He settled back in his seat without interfering with the Speaker's Circle, but he cast an odd, exasperated, faintly bemused glance in Miles's direction. Miles sat up and stared back, but Gregor gave him no further clue, returning instead to his usual impassive expression that could conceal anything from terminal boredom to fury.

Miles would not give his adversaries the satisfaction of seeing him bite his nails. The Conservatives were going to run out of speakers very soon, unless more of their men arrived. Miles did another head count, or rather, survey of empty desks. The turnout was high today, for this important vote. Vortugalov and his deputy remained absent, as Lady Alys had promised. Also missing, more inexplicably, were Vorhalas, Vorpatril, Vorfolse, and Vormuir. Since three and possibly all four of these were votes secured and counted on by the Conservative faction, this was no loss. He began doodling a winding garland of knives, swords, and small explosions down the other margin of his flimsy, and waited some more.

* * *

" . . . one hundred eighty-nine, one-hundred-ninety, one-hundred ninety-one," Enrique counted, in a tone of great satisfaction.

Kareen paused in her task at the laboratory comconsole, and leaned around the display to watch the Escobaran scientist. Assisted by Martya, he was finishing the final inventory of recovered Vorkosigan liveried butter bugs, simultaneously reintroducing them into their newly cleaned stainless steel hutch propped open on the lab bench.

"Only nine individuals still missing," Enrique went on happily. "Less than five percent attrition; an acceptable loss for an accident of this unfortunate nature, I think. As long as I have you , my darling."