“This panic may be premature,” Venn began after his own first swallow. “Portmaster Thorne's nonappearance may have some very simple explanation.”

And what were the top three complicated explanations in Venn's mind right now? The quaddie wasn't sharing, but then, neither was Miles. Bel had been missing for over six hours, ever since it had dismissed its quaddie guard at a bubble-car stop near its home. By now this panic might just as easily be posthumous, but Miles didn't care to say so aloud in front of Nicol. “I am extremely concerned.”

“Thorne could be asleep somewhere else.” Venn glanced somewhat enigmatically at Nicol. “Have you checked with likely friends?”

“The portmaster stated explicitly that it was heading home to Nicol to rest, when it left the Kestrel about midnight,” said Miles. “A well-earned rest by that time, I might add. Your own guards should be able to confirm the exact time of Thorne's departure from my ship.”

“We will, of course, provide you with another liaison officer to assist you in your inquiries, Lord Vorkosigan.” Venn's voice was a little distant; buying time to think, was how Miles read him. He might be playing deliberately obtuse as well. Miles did not mistake him for actually obtuse, not when he'd cut his sleep shift short and come in for this within little more than minutes.

“I don't want another. I want Thorne. You mislay too damned many downsiders around here. It's beginning to seem bloody careless.” Miles took a deep breath. “It has to have crossed your mind by now, as it has mine, that there were three persons in the line of fire in the hostel lobby yesterday afternoon. We all assumed that I was the obvious target. What if it was something less obvious? What if it was Thorne?”

Teris Three made a stemming motion at him with an upper hand, and interjected, “Speaking of that, the trace on that hot riveter came in a few hours ago.”

“Oh, good,” said Venn, turning to her with relief. “What have we got?”

“It was sold for cash three days back, from an engineering supply store near the free fall docks. Carried out, not delivered. The purchaser didn't fill out the warranty questionnaire. The clerk wasn't sure which customer took it, because it was a busy hour.”

“Quaddie or downsider?”

“He couldn't say. Could have been either, it seems.”

And if certain webbed hands had been covered with gloves as in the vid shot, they might well have been overlooked. Venn grimaced, his hopes for a break plainly frustrated.

The night supervisor glanced at Miles. “Lord Vorkosigan here also called, to request that we detain one of the passengers from the Rudra .”

“Find him yet?” asked Miles.

She shook her head.

“Why do you want him?” asked Venn, frowning.

Miles repeated his own night's news about his interrogation of the medtechs and finding traces of Solian's synthesized blood in the Rudra 's infirmary.

“Well, that explains why we were having no luck at the station hospitals and clinics,” grumbled Venn. Miles imagined him totting up his department's wasted quaddie-hours from the fruitless search, and let the grumble pass.

“I also flushed out one suspect, in the course of the conversation with the Rudra 's tech. All circumstantial speculation so far, but fast-penta is the drug to cure that.” Miles described the unusual Passenger Firka, his own insufficient but nagging sense of recognition, and his suspicions about the creative use of a floater. Venn looked grimmer and grimmer. Just because Venn reflexively resisted being stampeded by a Barrayaran dirtsucker, Miles decided, didn't mean he wasn't listening. What he made of it all, through his provincial Quaddiespace cultural filters, was much harder to guess.

“But what about Bel ?” Nicol's voice was tight with suppressed anguish.

Venn was obviously less immune to a plea from a beautiful fellow quaddie. He met his night supervisor's inquiring look and nodded agreement.

“Well, what's one more?” Teris Three shrugged. “I'll put out a call to all patrollers to start looking for Portmaster Thorne, too. As well as the fellow with the webs.”

Miles nibbled on his lower lip in worry. Sooner or later, that live cargo secreted aboard the Idris must draw the ba back to it. “Bel—Portmaster Thorne did get back to you people last night about resealing the Idris , did it not?”

“Yes,” said Venn and the night supervisor together. Venn gave her a short apologetic nod and continued, “Did that Betan passenger Thorne was trying to help get its animal fetuses taken care of all right?”

“Dubauer. Um, yes. They're fine for now. But, ah . . . I think I'd like to have you pick up Dubauer, as well as Firka.”

“Why?”

“It left its hostel and vanished yesterday evening close to the same time that Firka went out, and also hasn't returned. And Dubauer was the third of our little triumvirate of targets yesterday. Let's just call it protective custody, for starters.”

Venn screwed up his lips for a moment, considering this, and eyed Miles with shrewd disfavor. He'd have to be less bright than he appeared not to suspect Miles wasn't telling him everything. “Very well,” he said at last. He waved a hand at Teris Three. “Let's go ahead and collect the whole set.”

“Right.” She glanced at the chrono on her left lower wrist. “It's oh-seven-hundred.” Shift change, presumably. “Shall I stay?”

“No, no. I'll take over. Get the new missing-person traces started, then go get some rest.” Venn sighed. “Tonight may be no better.”

The night supervisor gave him an acknowledging thumbs-up with both lower hands and slipped out of the little office chamber.

“Would you prefer to wait at home?” Venn said suggestively to Nicol. “You'd be more comfortable there, I'm sure. We'll undertake to call you as soon as we find your partner.”

Nicol took a breath. “I would rather be here,” she said sturdily. “Just in case . . . just in case something happens soon.”

“I'll keep you company,” Miles volunteered. “For a little while, anyway.” There, let Venn try to shift his diplomatic mass.

Venn at least managed to get them shifted out of his office by conducting them to a private waiting space, advertising it as more undisturbed. More undisturbed for Venn, anyway.

Miles and Nicol were left regarding each other in troubled silence. What Miles most wanted to know was if Bel had any other ImpSec business in train at present that might have impinged unexpectedly last night. But he was almost certain Nicol knew nothing of Bel's second source of income—and risk. Besides, that was wishful thinking. If any business had impinged, it was most probably the current mess. Which was now messy enough to raise every hackle Miles owned to quivering attention.

Bel had escaped its former career very nearly unscathed, despite Admiral Naismith's sometimes-lethal nimbus. For the Betan herm to have come all this way, to have come so close to regaining a private life and future, only to have its past reach out like some blind fate and swat it down now . . . Miles swallowed guilt and worry, and refrained from blurting some ill-timed and incoherent apology to Nicol. Something had certainly come upon Bel last night, but Bel was quick and clever and experienced; Bel could cope. Bel had always coped before.

But even the luck you made for yourself ran out sometimes. . . .

Nicol broke the stretched silence by asking some random question of Roic about Barrayar, and the armsman returned clumsy but kind small talk to distract her from her nerves. Miles glanced at his wrist com. Was it too early to call Ekaterin?

What the bloody hell was next on his agenda, anyway? He'd planned to spend this morning conducting fast-penta interrogations. All the threads he'd thought he'd had in hand, winding in nicely, had come to these disturbingly similar cut ends; Firka vanished, Dubauer vanished, and now Bel vanished too. And Solian, don't forget him. Graf Station, for all its maze-like non-design, wasn't that big a place. Were they all sucked into the same oubliette? How many oubliettes could the damned labyrinth have?