To his surprise, his frustrated fretting was interrupted by the night supervisor sticking her head in through one of the round doors. Hadn't she been leaving?

“Lord Auditor Vorkosigan, may we see you for a moment?” she asked in a polite tone.

He excused himself to Nicol and floated after her, Roic trailing dutifully. She led the way back through a corridor to Venn's nearby office. Venn was finishing up a comconsole call, saying, “He's here, he's hot, and he's all over me. It's your job to handle him.” He glanced over his shoulder and cut the com. Above the vid plate, Miles just glimpsed Sealer Greenlaw's form, wrapped in what might be a bathrobe, vanish with a sparkle.

When the door hissed closed again behind them, the supervisor turned in midair and stated, “The patroller that you detailed to escort Postmaster Thorne last night reports that Thorne dismissed him when they got to the Joint.”

“The what?” said Miles. “When? Why? ”

She glanced at Venn, who opened a hand in a go-ahead gesture. “The Joint is one of our main corridor hubs on the free fall side, with a bubble-car transfer station and a public garden—a lot of people meet there, to eat or whatever after their work shifts. Thorne evidently encountered Garnet Five at about oh-one-hundred, coming the other way, and went off to have some kind of conversation.”

“Yes? They're friends, I believe.”

Venn shifted in what Miles recognized after a belated moment as embarrassment, and said, “Do you happen to know how good of friends? I didn't wish to discuss this in front of that distressed young lady. But Garnet Five is known to, um, favor exotic downsiders, and the Betan herm is, after all, a Betan herm. Simple explanations, after all.”

Half a dozen mildly outraged arguments coursed through Miles's mind, to be promptly rejected. He wasn't supposed to know Bel that well. Not that someone who did know Bel would be in the least shocked by Venn's delicate suggestion . . . no. Bel's sexual tastes might be eclectic, but the herm wasn't the sort to betray the trust of a friend. Had never been. We all change. “You might ask Boss Watts,” he temporized. He caught Roic's rolling eye and head-jerk in the direction of Venn's comconsole, affixed to the curving office wall. Miles continued smoothly, “Better still, call Garnet Five. If Thorne's there, the mystery is solved. If not, she might at least know where Thorne was headed.” He tried to decide which would be the worse cause for dismay. The memory of the hot rivets parting his hair inclined him to hope for the first result, despite Nicol.

Venn opened an upper hand in acknowledgment of the point, and half-turned to tap out a search-code on his comconsole with a lower. Miles's heart jumped as Garnet Five's serene face and crisp voice came on, but it was only an answering program. Venn's brows twitched; he left a brief request that she contact him at her earliest convenience, and cut the com.

“She could just be asleep,” said the night-shift woman wistfully.

“Send a patroller to check,” said Miles a little tightly. Remembering he was supposed to be a diplomat, he added, “If you please.”

Teris Three, looking as though a vision of her sleep sack was receding before her eyes, departed again. Miles and Roic returned to Nicol, who turned anxious eyes upon them as they floated back into the waiting chamber. Miles barely hesitated before reporting the patroller's sighting to her.

“Can you think of any reason for them to have met?” he asked her.

“Lots,” she answered without reserve, confirming Miles's secret judgment. “I'm sure she'd want news from Bel about Ensign Corbeau, or anything happening that might affect his chances. If she crossed trajectories with Bel coming home through the Joint, she'd be sure to grab the chance to try to get some news. Or she might have just wanted an ear to vent at. Most of her other friends are not too sympathetic about her romance, after the Barrayaran attack and the fire.”

“All right, that might account for the first hour. But no more. Bel was tired. Then what?”

She turned all four hands out in helpless frustration. “I can't imagine.”

Miles's own imagination was all too wildly active. Need data dammit was becoming his private mantra here. He left Roic to make more distracting small talk with Nicol and, feeling a trifle selfish, took himself to the side of the chamber to call Ekaterin on his wrist com.

Her voice was sleepy but cheerful, and she stoutly maintained that she'd been awake already, and just about to get up. They exchanged a few verbal caresses that were no one's business but their own, and he described what he'd found as a result of the gossip she'd collected about Solian's nosebleeds, which seemed to please her greatly.

“So where are you now, and what have you had for breakfast?” she asked.

“Breakfast is delayed. I'm at the Station Security HQ.” He hesitated. “Bel Thorne went missing last night, and they're putting together a search for it.”

A little silence greeted this, and her return remark was as carefully neutral in tone as his own. “Oh. That's very worrisome.”

“Yes.”

“You are keeping Roic with you at all times, aren't you?”

“Oh, yes. The quaddies have armed guards trailing me around now, too.”

“Good.” Her breath drew in. “Good.”

“The situation's getting pretty murky over here. I may have to send you home after all. We have four more days to decide, though.”

“Well. In four more days we can talk about it, then.”

Between his desire not to alarm her further, and hers not to distract him unduly, the conversation grew limping, and he mercifully tore himself from the calming sound of her voice to let her go bathe and dress and obtain her own breakfast.

He wondered if he and Roic ought, after all, to escort Nicol home, and perhaps after that try quartering the station themselves in the hope of some random encounter. Now, there was a tactically bankrupt plan if ever he'd evolved one. Roic would have a fully justifiable, painfully polite fit at the suggestion. It would feel just like old times. But suppose there was some way to make it less random . . .

The night supervisor's voice floated in from the corridor. Dear God, was the poor woman never to get home to sleep? “Yes, they're in here, but don't you think you ought to see the medtech next to—”

“I have to see Lord Vorkosigan!”

Miles jerked to full alertness as he identified the sharp, breathless female voice as Garnet Five's. The blond quaddie practically tumbled through the round door from the corridor. She was trembling and haggard, almost greenish, an unpleasant contrast to her rumpled carmine doublet. Her eyes, huge and dark-ringed, flicked over the waiting trio. “Nicol, oh, Nicol!” She flew to her friend in a fierce three-armed hug, the immobilized fourth wavering slightly.

Nicol, looking bewildered, dutifully hugged her back, but then pushed her away and asked urgently, “Garnet, have you seen Bel?”

“Yes. No. I'm not sure. This is just insane. I thought we were both knocked out together, but when I came to, Bel wasn't there any more. I thought Bel might have waked up first and gone for help, but the security crew”—she nodded to her escort—”says not. Haven't you heard anything?”

“Came to? Wait—who knocked you out? Where? Are you hurt?”

“I have the most horrible headache. It was some sort of drug mist. Icy cold. It didn't smell like anything, but it tasted bitter. He sprayed it in our faces. Bel yelled, 'Don't breathe, Garnet!' but of course had to breathe to yell. I felt Bel go all limp, and then everything sort of drained away. When I woke up, I was so sick I almost threw up, ugh!”

Nicol and Teris Three both grimaced in sympathy. Miles gathered this was the security woman's second time through this recitation, but her focus didn't flag.