"I've just spent the morning attending to Admiral Naismith's duties," the clone told him. Smugly, Miles fancied. "Your bodyguard thought she was handing me back to Barrayaran embassy security. The Barrayarans will think my Komarran guard is a Dendarii. And I win myself a little slice of unaccounted time. Neat, no?"

"Risky," remarked Miles. "What do you hope to gain that's worth it? Fast-penta doesn't exactly work on me, y'know." In fact, Miles noticed, the hypospray was nowhere in sight. Missing, like Ser Galen. Curious.

"It doesn't matter." The clone made a sharp throwaway gesture, another piece torn from Miles, twang. "I don't care if you talk truth or lies. I just want to hear you talk. To see you, just once. You, you, you—" the clone's voice dropped to a whisper, twang, "how I've come to hate you."

Miles cleared his throat again. "I might point out that, in point of fact, we met for the very first time three nights ago. Whatever was done to you was not done by me."

"You," said the clone, "screwed me over just by existing. It hurts me that you breathe." He spread a hand across his chest. "However, that will be cured very shortly. But Galen promised me an interview first." He wheeled off the desk and began to pace; Miles's feet twitched. "He promised me."

"And where is Ser Galen this morning, by the way?" Miles inquired mildly.

"Out." The clone favored him with a sour grin. "For a little slice of time."

Miles's brows rose. "This conversation is unauthorized?"

"He promised me. But then he reneged. Wouldn't say why."

"Ah—hm. Since yesterday?"

"Yes." The clone paused in his pacing to regard Miles through narrowed eyes. "Why?"

"I think it may have been something I said. Thinking out loud," Miles said. "I'm afraid I figured out one too many things about his plot. Something even you weren't supposed to know. He was afraid I'd spill it under fast-penta. That suited me. The less you were able to pump from me, the more likely you'd be to make a mistake." Miles waited, barely breathing, to see which way this bait would be taken. A whiff of the exhilarated hyperconsciousness of combat thrilled along his nerves.

"I'll bite," said the clone agreeably. His eyes gleamed, sardonic. "Spill it, then."

When he was seventeen, this clone's age, he'd been—inventing the Dendarii Mercenaries, Miles recalled. Perhaps it would be better not to underestimate him. What would it be like to be a clone? How far under the skin did their similarity end? "You're a sacrifice," Miles stated bluntly. "He does not intend for you to make it alive to the Barrayaran Imperium."

"Do you think I haven't figured that out?" the clone scoffed. "I know he doesn't think I can make it. Nobody thinks I can make it—"

Miles's breath caught as from a blow. This twang bit bone-deep.