“Several things, but first, a question. When was the last murder on Graf Station?”

Venn's brows twitched. “There was one about seven years ago.”

“And, ah, before that?”

“Three years before, I believe.”

A veritable crime wave . “Did you have charge of those investigations?”

“Well, they were before my time—I became security chief for Graf Station about five years back. But there wasn't that much to investigate. Both suspects were downsider transients—one killed another downsider, the other murdered a quaddie he'd got into some stupid dispute over a payment with. Guilt confirmed by witnesses and fast-penta interrogation. It's almost always downsiders in these affairs, I notice.”

“Have you ever investigated a mysterious killing before?”

Venn righted himself, apparently in order to frown more effectively at Miles. “I and my people are fully trained in the appropriate procedures, I assure you.”

“I'm afraid I must reserve judgment on that point, Chief Venn. I have some rather curious news. I had the Barrayaran fleet surgeon reexamine Solian's blood sample. It appears that the blood in question was artificially produced, presumably using an initial specimen or template of Solian's real blood or tissue. You may wish to have your forensics people—whoever they are—retest your own archived evidence from the freight bay and confirm this.”

Venn's frown deepened. “Then . . . he was a deserter—not murdered after all! No wonder we couldn't find a body!”

“You run—you hurry ahead, I believe. I grant you the scenario has grown extremely murky. My request, then, is that you locate all possible facilities on Graf Station where such a tissue synthesis could be carried out, and see if there is any record of such a batch being run off, and who for. Or if it could have been slipped through off the record, for that matter. I think we can safely assume that whoever had it done, Solian or some unknown, was keenly interested in concealment. The surgeon reports the blood likely was generated not much more than a day before it was spilled, but the inquiry had better be run back to the time the Idris first docked, to be sure.”

“I . . . follow your logic, certainly.” Venn held his coffee bulb to his mouth and squeezed, then transferred it absently to his lower left hand. “Yes, certainly,” he echoed himself more faintly. “I'll see to it myself.”

Miles felt satisfied that he'd rocked Venn off-balance to just the right degree to embarrass him into effective action, yet not freeze him into defensiveness. “Thank you.”

Venn added, “I believe Sealer Greenlaw wished to speak with you this morning, also, Lord Vorkosigan.”

“Very well. You may transfer my call to her, if you please.”

Greenlaw was a morning person, it appeared, or else had drunk her coffee earlier. She appeared in the holovid dressed in a different elaborate doublet, stern, and fully awake. Perhaps more by diplomatic habit than any desire to please, she twitched herself around right-side-up to Miles.

“Good morning, Lord Auditor Vorkosigan. In response to their petitions, I have arranged you an appointment with the Komarran fleet's stranded passengers at ten-hundred. You may meet with them to answer their questions at the larger of the two hostels where they are presently housed. Portmaster Thorne will meet you at your ship and conduct you there.”

Miles's head jerked back at this cavalier arrangement of his time and attention. Not to mention blatant pressure move. On the other hand . . . this delivered him a room full of suspects, just the people he wished to study. He split the difference between irritation and eagerness by remarking blandly, “Nice of you to let me know. Just what is it that you imagine I will be able to tell them?”

“That, I must leave to you. These people came in with you Barrayarans; they are your responsibility.”

“Madam, if that were so, they would all be on their way already. There can be no responsibility without power. It is the Union authorities who have placed them under this house arrest, and therefore the Union authorities who must free them.”

“When you finish settling the fines, costs, and charges your people have incurred here, we will be only too happy to do so.”

Miles smiled thinly, and laced his hands together on the tabletop. He wished the only new card he had to play this morning were less ambiguous. Nevertheless, he repeated to her the news about Solian's manufactured blood sample, well-larded with complaint about quaddie Security not having determined this peculiar fact earlier. She bounced it back instantly, as Venn had, as evidence more supporting of desertion than murder.

“Fine,” said Miles. “Then have Union Security produce the man. A foreign downsider wandering about in Quaddiespace can't be that hard for a competent police force to locate. Assuming they're actually trying.”

“Quaddiespace,” she sniffed back, “is not a totalitarian polity. As your Lieutenant Solian may perhaps have observed. Our guarantees of freedom of movement and personal privacy could well have been what attracted him to separate himself here from his former comrades.”

“So why hasn't he asked for asylum like Ensign Corbeau? No. I greatly fear what we have here is not a missing man, but a missing corpse. The dead cannot cry out for justice; it is a duty of the living to do so for them. And that is a responsibility of mine for mine, madam.”

They closed the conversation on that note; Miles could only hope he'd made her morning as aggravating as she'd made his. He cut the com and rubbed the back of his neck. “Gah. That ties me down for the rest of the day, I'll bet.” He glanced up at Roic, whose guard stance by the door had segued into at ease, his shoulders propped against the wall. “Roic.”

Roic quickly drew himself upright. “My lord?”

“Have you ever conducted a criminal investigation?”

“Well . . . I was just a street guard, mostly. But I got to go along and help the senior officers on a few fraud and assault cases. And one kidnapping. We got her back alive. Several missing persons. Oh, and about a dozen murders, though like I said, they weren't hardly mysteries. And the series of arsons that time that—”

“Right.” Miles waved a hand to stem this gentle tide of reminiscence. “I want you to do the detail work for me on Solian. First, the timetable. I want you to find out every documented thing the man did. His watch reports, where he was, what he ate, when he slept—and who with, if anyone—minute by minute, or as nearly as you can come to it, from the time of his disappearance right on back as far as you can take it. Especially any movements off the ship, and missing time. And then I want the personal slant—talk to the crew and captain of the Idris , try to find out anything you can about the fellow. I take it I don't need to give you the lecture on the difference between fact, conjecture, and hearsay?”

“No, m'lord. But . . .”

“Vorpatril and Brun will give you full cooperation and access, I promise you. Or if they don't, let me know.” Miles smiled a bit grimly.

“It's not that, m'lord. Who'll run your personal security on Graf Station if I'm off poking around Admiral Vorpatril's fleet?”

Miles managed to swallow his airy, I won't need a bodyguard , upon the reflection that by his own pet theory, a desperate murderer might be floating around, possibly literally, on the station. “I'll have Captain Thorne with me.”

Roic looked dubious. “I can't approve, m'lord. He's—it's—not even Barrayaran. What do you really know about, um, the portmaster?”

“Lots,” Miles assured him. Well, I used to, anyway. He placed his hands on the table and pushed to his feet. “Solian, Roic. Find me Solian. Or his trail of breadcrumbs, or something .”