Mark pointed. "Kareen, put her on retainer."

Xia smiled warily. "My plate at work is actually rather full. I was only able to come here tonight because it's after hours."

"Partner or employee?"

"Me? I'm one of three associates in the galactic business law department of my firm. We work under a partner."

"The Durona Group will certainly be needing full-time local legal advice," murmured Kareen. "Perhaps we should talk instead about salary…?later."

Xia waved this away, provisionally. "In any case, Ms. Suzuki, I'd invite you to think about what is the better long-term practical result for your patrons. You serve one community; this technology has the potential to serve the planet. If the-"

An echoing boom from outside rattled the windows. Roic shot to his feet and peered into the night. "What t' hell…??"

"That sounded awfully close," said Xia uneasily.

"Was that us?" said Madame Suze. "Tenbury…"

"Could be the plastics fabricator next door," said Fuwa, joining Roic. "Though I can't think what they'd be doing over there at this hour. Or something from the street…?collision?"

But with the municipal traffic control net here, collisions were vanishingly rare, Miles had thought.

"It's hard to tell the direction," said Tenbury, craning his neck as well.

"Go up on the roof and look," directed Madame Suze.

Tenbury was halfway out the door when Miles's wristcom chimed, emergency secured channel. Vorlynkin. Not good. Miles found himself on his feet without remembering standing up. "Vorkosigan here."

"Lord Auditor." Vorlynkin sounded winded. "An arson team-I counted four men-just put a fire bomb through a ground-floor window of the heat exchanger building. Asterzine, I think-it was a two-part liquid fire-starter, anyway."

"Call the local fire guards!"

"Already did, sir." The cadence of Vorlynkin's language was reverting to old military training, Miles noted in passing. "Police, too. They should be here in moments."

"Good man."

"I'm looking now to see if there are more intruders. Haven't spotted any so far. I'm fairly sure there's no one left in the exchanger building-can't speak to under it."

"Keep this channel open."

"Right, sir."

Miles wheeled to find everyone staring at Fuwa, who stared back in horror.

"It wasn't me!" the contractor practically wailed. "Not this time! Why would it be me, now? I'm about to get rid of this mess!"

"My exchanger towers!" cried Tenbury, starting for the door again. "If they go down, everyone'll start to thaw!" Suze grabbed his sleeve.

"My exchanger towers!" cried Fuwa. "My facility!"

"Tenbury." Madame Suze shook the custodian's arm, for emphasis. "Tell everyone you see, get out of the buildings and assemble on that patch of open ground in front of the intake building. I'll wake up and warn everyone on this floor."

The front of the patron intake building was on the opposite side of the four-building complex from the fire-so-far, a map of the layout burning, so to speak, in Miles's mind's eye. So the arson had occurred as far as possible from the intake building, and the people now in it. This stank of diversion.

"Should we go to Vorlynkin?" asked Roic, jittering like a horse at the start of a race.

"No. To Leiber. Anything interesting will turn up at Leiber."

Roic's eyes widened as he took in the implications; Miles didn't have to spell them out. "Ah."

"Suze, we'll go warn them in the intake building," Miles added.

Madame Suze, already short of breath and with her hand pressed to her heart, nodded and said, "I know Vristi Tanaka is on the second floor. I think she just started a cryoprep."

"We'll get the word to her, as well as to our people."

She waved thanks and tottered out, Xia going with her in support and asking shrewd questions about where else all the sleeping residents were to be found at this hour. Tenbury sprinted ahead of them. Miles and Roic followed, turning in the opposite direction for the nearest stairs.

Through the office doors, Miles glimpsed Mark and Kareen braking Fuwa, one at each elbow providing a combined resistance that plainly surprised the big man, as he was yanked backward almost off his feet.

"Fuwa-san," Mark began in his most urbane voice, "let's talk fire sale."

?

Jin staggered up the last flight of stairs, puffing, lugging Nefertiti. For no discernable reason, she'd shied and bolted back past him in the alley below the exchanger building as Vorlynkin had disappeared around the corner, and Jin had caught her on a lucky tackle. Well, it had seemed lucky at the time. The sphinx seemed to have at least doubled in weight since then. She growled continuously, and shed fur and feathers on his shirt, but didn't try to scratch him.

"Get the door," Jin wheezed, and Mina nodded and swung it wide. It was labeled, on this side, Fire Door: Do Not Block. So did that mean it would stop a fire? Jin hoped they weren't about to find out.

Nefertiti wriggled some more, and finally lunged from Jin's sweaty, failing grip just as they made it down the corridor to the recovery room, so Jin was at least able to spill her into this more confined area. Leiber-sensei, who was slumped in a battered folding chair staring anxiously into space, jerked upright at their entry.

"I thought you went to get rid of that thing!" he said, eyeing the sphinx with disfavor.

His mother sat up in her bed. "Jin? Mina? What's going on?"

"It was ninjas, mommy!" Mina declared breathlessly. "We saw them! They set fire to Jin's hideout!"

"What?"

"It was not either ninjas," said Jin impatiently. "It was just some stupid guys dressed in black stuff."

"Was that anything to do with the strange thump we heard through the walls a few minutes ago?" asked his mother.

Jin nodded. "It was even louder close up. Consul Vorlynkin said it was some kind of liquid fire-starter."

His mother gasped. "How close were you?"

"We were on top of the roof, looking right down at them!" said Mina. "The fireball was all orange and black!"

Leiber-sensei stood up and gripped the back of his chair, looking very uneasy.

"Where's Raven-sensei?" said Jin. "Vorlynkin said we were supposed to tell him about the fire, and then do what he said."

"He went down to the second floor to help Medtech Tanaka with a cryoprep," said Leiber-sensei.

Jin's mother slid out of bed and came to the wall of her booth, standing with her hands pressed against the glass. "Jin, maybe you'd better run downstairs and tell them what's going on. Was the fire spreading very fast?"

"We couldn't tell yet."

"Maybe I'd better find a room with a window and look," said Leiber-sensei.

"Where's Stefin gone?" asked their mother. "He was supposed to look after you two!"

"I think he went to look for more ninjas," said Mina.

She touched her hand to her lips. "Isn't that the sort of thing that Armsman Roic fellow is supposed to do?"

"He's probably with Miles-san," Jin called over his shoulder, heading toward the door again. "Mina, don't let Nefertiti get out!"

Leiber-sensei followed close on Jin's heels. And then cringed backward as the door was kicked open from the corridor side. Mina shrieked.

So did Nefertiti. "Foes, foes!" she screamed, flapping madly around the room and up onto a table.

Oh, Nefertiti, you're so right, thought Jin, backing up as Chief Hans and Sergeant Oki shouldered into the recovery room.

The pair seemed out of breath, and angry, and much, much bigger when looming vertically than when they'd been laid out on the floor of the garage office, drooling as they snored. They'd changed their clothes from the rumpled blue medical smocks they'd worn earlier, and were now dressed in uniformlike gray trousers and heavy cloth jackets, with equipment belts and big clumping boots, but without any insignia or name tags or identifying markers.