"First things first. Johannes, what vehicles does the consulate maintain?"

Johannes jerked, as if he'd been a watcher of a play unexpectedly addressed by one of the characters. "Uh, the official groundcar, of course. And we have a lift van. I have a float bike, myself."

"Lift van, perfect. Tomorrow, then, we'll take Jin and Raven and go pick up Jin's creatures, and bring them back here to the consulate, so that'll be off his mind and my conscience."

Jin looked up, caught between thrilled and bewildered. Didn't these Barrayarans mean to let him go…?? On the other hand, as long as he had his animals back, and didn't have to go back to Aunt Lorna and school, did it matter where he stayed?

"My consulate isn't exactly set up to host a menagerie," said Vorlynkin.

"No, they'll be fine here!" Jin assured him, panicked at the thought of being separated yet again from all his pets. "There's so much room. And your back garden is all walled in. They won't bother you a bit."

"What kind of-no, never mind. Go on, Lord Vorkosigan."

"At the same time, I will take Raven to meet Suze and company, and inspect the facilities. We might avoid having to retool the consulate laundry room into a cryo revival facility-" though he did not sound as if this proposed renovation gave him much pause "-if, like the installation we saw today, her old place already has one. And it's still in good shape, not stripped."

Jin said doubtfully, "If you want any favors from Suze-san, you better catch her early in the day. When she's still sober."

"Not a problem," Miles-san said. "Then, if everything proves workable, we can go on to the next step."

"What is the next step?" asked Consul Vorlynkin, in fascinated tones. He looked like a man staring at a groundcar wreck. In slow motion. That he was in.

"Securing Madame Sato."

"How?"

"I'm going to have to do a spot more research first, to devise the optimum ploy. According to the public records, she's being kept at the NewEgypt facility out in the Cryopolis here in Northbridge, which is actually pretty convenient." Miles-san's lips drew back on a peculiar grin. "It could be just like old times."

Armsman Roic sat up in alarm. He put in, with some urgency, "What about those commodified contracts Ron Wing was going on about? Maybe you could work out a way to just, I dunno, buy her. All peaceable and aboveboard." He added after a moment, "Or under the table, but peaceable, anyway."

Miles-san paused again in his pacing, as if arrested by this notion. "Shrewd idea, Roic. But she's not just any cryo-patron. I suspect that any interest in her is likely to send up a big red flag." He fell into motion again. "Still, hold that thought. It might be useful later, for the retroactive tidying up."

Roic sighed.

"The ideal," Miles-san went on, "would be to arrange things so that she wasn't missed at all."

"These commercial cryochambers are all continuously monitored," said Raven-sensei. "You'd need some way to fudge the readouts." He hesitated. "Or go low tech, and just swap in another cryo-corpse. That way, all the readings would be naturally right. They wouldn't know the difference unless they pulled it out and unwrapped it."

Miles-san tilted his head, like Gyre the Falcon contemplating a choice morsel of meat. "The old shell game, eh? That…?might actually be highly feasible. I wonder if I could borrow a spare from Suze? God knows, cryo-corpses are not an item in short supply around here."

Vorlynkin choked. "Do you have any idea how many different crimes you've just rattled off?"

"No, but it might not hurt to make up a list, should your lawyer need it. Could speed things up, in a pinch."

"I thought the task of an Imperial Auditor was to uphold the law!"

Miles-san's eyebrows flew up. "No, whatever gave you that idea? The task of an Imperial Auditor is to solve problems for Gregor. Those greasy cryocorps bastards just tried to steal a third of his empire. That's a problem." Despite his smiling lips, Miles-san's eyes glittered, and Jin realized with a start that underneath, he was really angry about something. "I'm still considering the solution."

Jin wondered who Gregor was. Miles-san's insurance boss?

Mina had scrunched her chair closer and closer to where Jin rocked in his. An audible sniffle escaped her, which made both Miles-san and Vorlynkin crank their heads around. Miles-san lurched and lifted a hand toward her, stopped short, and gestured at Jin instead, who, thus compelled, gave his sister a clumsy pat on the shoulder that only made her eyes fill up and overflow for real.

"Lord Vorkosigan, for pity's sake, enough for tonight," said Consul Vorlynkin. "These children have to be exhausted. Both of them."

Jin could wish he hadn't added that last. His eyes stung in contagion with Mina's. Now he was offered it, Jin wasn't so sure he wanted sympathy-it eroded his resolve as annoying bracing remarks never did.

"To be sure," said Miles-san immediately. "Baths, I think, and we can give them both Roic's room. He can bunk in with me. I expect some clean T-shirts would do for nightclothes. Toothbrushes?"

Miles-san and Vorlynkin arguing, Jin discovered, were not nearly so daunting as the pair of them united in sudden agreement. The ordinary business of bedtime blocked further tears. Jin expected Mina found the consulate house stranger than he did. He'd slept in parks, after all, and in all sorts of odd crannies at Suze-san's. Vorlynkin even donated a fancy sonic toothbrush, though Jin and Mina had then to share it, with a trip through its sterilizing holder between customers.

At last they were tucked up in clean sheets in a warm, quiet room. Jin waited for the door to softly shut, and the grownups' feet to clump away back downstairs, before wriggling up and switching on the bedside lamp. Mina threw back her covers and helped him extract Lady Murasaki's box from her backpack. She watched closely as Jin opened the lid to give their pet a breath of fresh air, and helped by tossing in one of the little powdery beige moths they'd collected earlier, while Jin's fingers blocked the prisoner from escaping. He set the plastic box back on the table between their beds.

"Is she going to eat it?" Mina asked, peering through the lid.

"I'm not sure. She might only go for live prey."

Mina frowned thoughtfully. "They have that big garden out back. I bet we could catch more bugs tomorrow."

A reassuring notion. Jin lay back down and pulled up his sheets, and Mina reached to turn out the lamp again before any betraying line of light showed under the bedroom door.

After a while, Mina's whisper came out of the dark: "Do you really think your galactic can get Mommy back? No one else ever could."

Had anyone else even tried? Jin didn't know. Miles-san, all dapper and alert and concentrated and never sitting still, was proving an alarming acquaintance. Jin wasn't sure but what he'd liked the grubby lost druggie better. Jin had a disconcerting feeling of having set a force in motion that he could not now stop, which wasn't made better by not even knowing whether he wanted to.

"I don't know, Mina," he said at last. "Be quiet and go to sleep." He rolled over and hid from it all under his covers.

?

Roic followed Consul Vorlynkin into the tight-room, where m'lord was already deeply involved with the comconsole, Johannes at his side, Raven leaning over and kibitzing. They all seemed to be examining some engineering schematics for the NewEgypt facility, pulled up from God knew where. Roic was relieved m'lord had finally decided to involve Johannes, if only by necessity. Backup at last! Inexperienced, but not untrained, and judging from his wide eyes it looked as if he was getting a tutorial in covert ops that would have done his ImpSec instructors proud.

M'lord wheeled in his station chair to take in the new arrivals. "Ah, Vorlynkin, good. Your clerk, Matson-he'll be back to work in the morning, right?"