Illyan frowned. "I don't know, Milady. I can try to find out, but every extra communication endangers our people up there."

"Mm."

"The treatment's interrupted anyway," Vaagen muttered. His hand fiddled with the edge of his sheet. "Bitched to hell."

"I realize you've lost your notes, but could you . . . reconstruct your work?" Cordelia asked diffidently. "If you got the replicator back, that is. Take up where you left off."

"It wouldn't be where we left off, by the time we got it back. And it wasn't all in my head. Some of it was in Henri's."

Cordelia took a deep breath. "As I recall, these Escobaran portable replicators run on a two-week service cycle. When did you last recharge the power, and change the filters and add nutrients?"

"Power cell's good for months," Vaagen corrected. "Filters are more of a problem. But the nutrient solution will be the first limiting factor it'll hit. At its hyped-up metabolic rate, the fetus would starve a couple of days before the system choked on its waste. Breakdown products might overload the filters pretty soon after lean-tissue metabolism began, though."

She avoided Aral's gaze and looked straight at Vaagen, who looked straight back with his one good eye, more than physical pain in his face. "And when did you and Henri last service the replicator?"

"The fourteenth."

"Less than six days left," Cordelia whispered, appalled.

"About . . . about that. What day is this?" Vaagen looked around in an uncharacteristic uncertainty that hurt Cordelia's heart to watch.

"The time limit applies only if it's not being properly taken care of," Aral put in. "The Residence physician, Kareen and Gregor's man—wouldn't he realize something was needed?"

"Sir," Illyan said, "the Princess's physician was reported killed in the first day's fighting at the Residence. Two cross-confirmations—I have to consider it certain."

"They could let Miles die out of sheer ignorance up there," Cordelia realized in dismay. "As well as on purpose." Even one of their own secret loyalists, under the heroic impression he was defusing a bomb, could be a menace to her child.

Vaagen twisted in his sheets. Aral caught Cordelia's eye, and jerked his head toward the door. "Thank you, Captain Vaagen. You have done us extraordinary service. Beyond duty."

"Screw duty," Vaagen muttered. "Bitched to hell . . . damned ignorant goons . . ."

They withdrew, to leave Vaagen to his unrestful recovery. Vorkosigan dispatched Illyan to his multiplied duties.

Cordelia faced Aral. "Now what?"

His lips were a flat, hard line, his eyes half-absent with calculation, the same calculations she was running, Cordelia guessed, complicated by a thousand added factors she could only imagine. He said slowly, "Nothing's changed, really. From before."

"It is changed. Whatever the difference there is between being in hiding, and being a prisoner. But why did Vordarian wait till now for this capture? If he was ignorant of Miles's existence before this, who told him of it? Kareen, maybe, when she decided to cooperate?"

Droushnakovi looked sick at this suggestion.