Indeed. Miles had been deeply alarmed, earlier in his fatherhood, by what seemed Sasha's-Alex's-delay in verbal development, compared to his age-mate Helen, till Ekaterin had pointed out that the boy's sister never let him ask a question for himself or get a word in edgewise after. He wasn't delayed, merely amiable, and had caught up with complete sentences soon enough thereafter, as long as Helen wasn't in the same room translating for him.

"Come to think of it," Ekaterin went on, "didn't you once have some trouble deciding what you wanted to be called? And at a much older age. History does not so much repeat as echo, I suppose.

"But he loves you, whatever he's named. We all do. Take care out there, Miles, and hurry home when you can." The vid went dark.

If only I could crawl through that vid plate and have myself beamed back to Barrayar at the speed of light… Miles sighed. All his life, his home had been something he couldn't wait to escape. How had his polarity become so profoundly reversed?

Roic's remark stung: If only you'd quit while you were winning… Well, this tangle on Kibou-daini wasn't all of his own making.

He wished Leiber would show the hell up. Now would be a good time. Miles was surprised he was taking so long. He might have to send someone to collect the man after all. Or if Lisa Sato woke up with temporary cryo-amnesia, or simply didn't know the answers. No, she has to know whatever Leiber knows. Because I'd bet Betan dollars to sand he's the one who told her in the first place.

Leiber's evident alarm niggled at Miles. Why should he have been so afraid of us? He didn't even know us. Leiber was obviously responding to some local threat, perhaps the very one that Miles wanted to know all about. But Miles was still having some trouble guessing what it might be.

Just as Sato was bait for Leiber, the pair of them would be bait for…?who? Why? Miles had staked people out like goats to draw the tiger du jour in the past, but not, knowingly, when they had children in tow. Or had you just never noticed their webs of relationships, before? He couldn't remember. But if he didn't have the personnel here to chase down Leiber, he surely didn't have the personnel to put a round-the-clock guard on the consulate and the people it sheltered. Roic and Johannes between them weren't enough, even if they hadn't had other duties-handing the task to them without support would be downright abusive. Raven wasn't the only one who didn't like being set up to fail.

Despite the distance it put between him and his family, Miles felt a little shiver of gratitude to Gregor for sending him so far afield on his sporadic Auditorial labors. Because it put that same distance between his family and whoever his investigations managed to piss off. Pissing off bad guys for the greater glory of Barrayar, that would be my job description, just about. Speaking of being happy in one's work.

He bent to the comconsole and began composing an Auditorial requisition to the Barrayaran embassy on Escobar for a security team, to be dispatched immediately, with a heads-up to put an ImpSec forensic accountant and, perhaps, legal team on stand-by. He knew nothing of his invisible enemy but that they played for keeps. Five days for the squad to get here, at their best speed. Had he known enough, five days ago, to ask for this? I suppose not.

Miles called up the background data on NewEgypt Cryonics once more, and began to slog through it. Lisa Sato could not regain her voice soon enough.

Chapter Fourteen

By mid-morning of the day after Madame Sato's successful revival, when Dr. Leiber still hadn't contacted the consulate, m'lord allowed as how he might have been mistaken, and dispatched Roic and Johannes to find the man. Roic thought it might have made his job easier if m'lord had come to that conclusion earlier. He began with the two obvious first ploys, calling the man's residence-no answer-and his work, where he learned that the researcher had called in sick the morning before, some stomach bug, he'd told his assistant, and he'd likely be out for a couple of days. Right.

Roic then had Johannes pack up some of the consulate's better surveillance equipment and drive him back out to Leiber's townhouse. A complex under construction that had caught his eye the previous trip did so again, as they passed. Roic cranked his head around to study the sign. Century Estates, it read, and Were you born between 150 and 130 years ago? See us! "What's that all about?" he asked Johannes.

"A generational cohort enclave," said Johannes. "You see them here and there in the bigger cities. Revives, at least those who wake up with enough money and health for it, often find they don't like the new Kibou so much after all, and end up clustering together trying to recreate their youths."

"Huh," said Roic. "A sort of do-it-yourself historical reenactment? At least you'd have someone to talk to who gets all your jokes."

"I guess," said Johannes, a little doubtfully.

Roic had Johannes pull in the van at the back of the house row while he tried Dr. Leiber's front door. No answer. After a few minutes Johannes opened it from within. "He left the garage unlocked. Float bike's gone."

"Right. Let's take a look around, then visit his comconsole."

No room, closet, shower, cupboard, or dustbin large enough to hold a body did so. M'lord's thoughtful burglar's note was gone from the refrigerator, which was still stocked with an assortment of bachelor rations. The kitchen was tidied, the bed upstairs more-or-less made, or at least the quilt pulled up. Clothes and shoes might have been taken-enough to fit in a duffle strapped to the back of a float bike?-but there was still a good bit left. Toiletries were absent.

Johannes had started on Leiber's comconsole, sucking a copy of its contents through the umbilicus of the secured cable onto his ImpSec recorder, watching the progress on his holoscreen.

"Hey!" he said after a moment. "This thing is monitored. I wonder if Leiber knew that?"

Roic leaned in. Hey, indeed! "This process won't stir up his watchers, will it?"

"It shouldn't," said Johannes.

Not very reassuring. "Can you trace the bug?"

"Partly. I might be able to finish the job from the tight-room."

"Give us a look at his communications over the past two days, since our first visit."

There were only three. Yesterday morning, Leiber had called in sick, purchased a jumpship passage to Escobar, and emptied most of his remaining savings account onto a couple of universal credit chits. There were no personal messages to relatives or friends. He might have left a door key or instructions with the folks next door, Roic supposed, but on the whole he thought not, and he was unwilling to go stir up trouble by asking around. People might remember their visit from day before yesterday. He wondered what tale Leiber had told his neighbor lady about them. Not the truth, he suspected.

"This jumpship doesn't leave till tomorrow evening," Johannes pointed out.

"Yeah, I see."

"Think he might have gone aboard already?"

Roic frowned at the schedule. "Ah. No. That one doesn't even make inbound orbit till this afternoon." He thought a moment. "The minute he passes inside shuttleport security, he's back on the grid, lit up for anyone who can look. And if we can spot him then, belike his enemies can, too-I don't think they're operating on a shoestring, not if they're backed by one of those cryocorps. He'll wait to the last to board. So he has to have gone to ground somewhere."

"With a friend, maybe? Could be hard to find." Johannes squinted at the comconsole. "Although this could help."

"If he's in as much fear for his life as this flight suggests, he might not want to endanger a friend," said Roic slowly. "He didn't strike m'lord as the ruthless type, he said."