"Yes, I could!"

"Sh! Keep your voice down!"

Her mouth went mulish. "If you don't take me along, I'll set up a screech, and they'll catch you and put you back in my room! And I won't let you out again, so there!"

He tried to decide if she was bluffing. No, probably not. Could he hit her on the head with something and knock her out while he made his getaway? He had a feeling that worked better in holovids than in real life. And if he hit her with one of Aunt Lorna's pots or pans, the only blunt instruments immediately available, it would make a hellish bong and wake everybody up anyway, defeating his purpose.

She interrupted his hostile mulling, in a practical tone that reminded him of Uncle Hikaru: "Besides, I have money and you don't."

"… How much?"

"Over five hundred nuyen," she answered proudly. "I saved it up from my birthday and chores."

Enough for a dozen tram fares, except that Jin had sworn off the tube system. He craned his neck for a look at the kitchen clock-maybe two hours till dawn, and everybody getting up and missing them. That wasn't very much of a headstart, compared to the last time. It was now or never. Jin surrendered to the inevitable. "All right, get ready. Quietly. Do you know where Aunt Lorna put my stuff?"

They found Jin's clothes in the plastic basket, along with his shoes, in the closet off the kitchen that harbored the launderizer. Mina knew which kitchen drawer hid the lunch bars, too, and stuck a dozen in a sack. Within minutes, they both edged out the sliding back door. Jin latched the patio gate as quietly as he could behind them, and led off up the alley.

The occasional streetlights made cold halos in the clammy night mist. "I've never been outside this late before," said Mina, still whispering, though they were well away from the row house. "It's weird. Are you afraid of the dark?" She made to walk closer to Jin; he strode faster.

"The dark's all right. It's people you have to be afraid of."

"I guess so."

A longer silence, while their feet thumped softly on the pavement. Then Mina said, "That thing Aunt Lorna said to you, about recid-recidiv… I can't pronounce it. Kids who run away over and over. They don't really freeze them, do they?"

Jin pondered it uneasily. "I never heard of it before. And it would cost a lot of money, I think."

"So she was just trying to scare you into being good?"

"Yeah." The scare part had sure worked, Jin had to allow that.

"But anyway, they don't freeze you the first time." Mina seemed to take undue satisfaction from this thought.

An unwelcome memory rose in Jin's mind. It wasn't the clammy smell of the night that triggered it, because the policewomen had come for his mother in the daytime, but the clammy chill in his gut that day had felt much like this. Mom kneeling down, gripping his shoulders, saying, Jin, help look after Mina, all right? Be a good big brother, and do what Aunt Lorna tells you.

Jin had given up on that last when Aunt Lorna had insisted that he get rid of all of his pets, yes, all, a clean sweep, there was no room and they smelled and pooped too much and that bird was homicidal and to top everything, Ken was supposedly allergic to Lucky, who was too lazy to scratch anyone. Jin just figured his cousin was doing all that sniffling and blowing on purpose, to be annoying, in which he certainly succeeded. Jin had forgotten the first part of that maternal parting…?blessing, curse, whatever it was, because, after all, nobody yelled at Mina they way they'd yelled at him and his pets.

He wished he hadn't remembered that.

They had a good long walk ahead of them just to get out of this area, which they needed to do before they were missed. Maybe they'd better lie up and hide during school hours. Jin selected a direction he was almost sure was south, and kept trudging.

Chapter Seven

Two days after his dawn return to the consulate, Miles's party assembled on the front walk and watched the WhiteChrys groundcar pull up to collect them. It was long, sleek, gleaming, and settled to the pavement with a sigh like a satisfied lover.

Roic's eyebrows rose. "Better t'n that bus-thing they ferried us conference delegates around in, I'll give it that."

"Indeed," said Miles. "Good job, Vorlynkin. It looks like WhiteChrys means to grovel in style."

This won an uncertain head-duck from the consul, who had spent a good part of yesterday in repeated calls to and from their would-be host to set all this up, while Miles played hard-to-get. At least the delay had given him time to recover from the induced seizure.

But while it would do no harm to Miles's cause if Barrayar's own diplomat plainly found him alarming, he was not altogether sure if the man was under control. Or sure whose control he's under? He favored the consul with a brief smile. "By the by, Vorlynkin, please refrain from commenting on anything you hear me say or see me do today. For the duration, you're the yes-man."

An unreadable pause. "Yes, my Lord Auditor."

Capable of irony, was he? Good. Probably.

"It'll be just like watching a play," Roic reassured him. Vorlynkin's brows quirked, albeit not in an especially reassured way. Dr. Durona, engaged in examining the variegated hostas lining the walk, straightened and turned his braided head with interest as the groundcar's rear compartment canopy rose and a woman exited.

She was as sleek as the groundcar, if considerably more delicate. Her long black hair was drawn back and bundled with enameled combs in an elegant construction that Miles was sure Raven must envy. Kibou natives wore a variety of fashions both local and galactic-inspired; Miles had been here just long enough to decode her garb as business-traditional, female version. A skin-skimming top, a fitted undercoat, and the loose cord-fastened outer coat might be worn by either men or women, but then, instead of the wide trousers tied in at the ankles adopted by men, she showed off trim calves with a short skirt and leggings. All in subtle autumnal shades that set off her deep brown eyes. The overall effect was simultaneously upper-class and sexy, like a very expensive courtesan-Miles had once had the geisha tradition explained to him on a visit to Earth itself, on its island of origin, a side-benefit of having a bride with a mania for gardens. The sense that this woman was a weapon aimed directly at him came mainly from her diminutive height, which nearly matched his own, and the fact that she wore flat sandals.

"Good morning, ohayo gozaimasu." She favored them all with a formal bow, but her smile zeroed in on Miles. "Lord Vorkosigan, Consul Vorlynkin, Durona-sensei, Roic-san. Wonderful, you're all here. I am Aida, Mr. Ron Wing's personal assistant for today. I will escort you to WhiteChrys's new facility, and answer any questions you may have along the way."

I'll bet not mine, thought Miles, but returned appropriate greetings and allowed the pretty young lady to shepherd them all into the spacious groundcar. Miles wondered how much her boss had scrambled to find a hostess of that height on such short, as it were, notice.

Ron Wing was the man Miles had been holding out for yesterday, while Vorlynkin fielded oblique messages and visibly refrained from tearing his hair. Wing's official title was Head of Development; he was one of WhiteChrys's chief operating officers, and the man in ultimate charge of the Komarr expansion effort. It was his underlings who had spent so much effort cultivating Miles, and vice versa, during the cryonics conference. Now we'll see what's on the other end of their string.

Roic, Aida, and Raven took the rear-facing seat; Miles and Vorlynkin settled opposite. No one even risked bumping heads with each other in the shuffle.

"Reminds me of my Da's old groundcar," Miles murmured to Roic.