"So I knew you could buy documented pasts there—one of the little high-profit-margin services certain laboratories sell to go along with the new faces and voices and finger- and retina-prints they offer. One of the planets they frequently use for this is Frost IV, on account of the tectonic disaster having wrecked their computer net—not to mention the rest of the place—twenty-eight years ago. A lot of perfectly legitimate people who left Frost IV then have uncheckable documentation. If you're over twenty-eight years old, Jackson's Whole can fit you right in. So whenever I see somebody above a certain age who claims to be from Frost IV, I'm automatically suspicious. Van der Poole was Galen, of course."

"Of course. My clone was another fine product of Jackson's Whole, by the way."

"Ah. It all fits, how nice."

"My congratulations to you and the whole Intelligence department. Remind me to make that an official commendation, when I next make it back to the Triumph."

"Which is when?" She crunched a piece of ice from the bottom of her glass and swirled the remainder around, trying to look only professionally interested.

Her mouth would taste cool, and tangy. . . . Miles blinked back into professional mode himself, conscious of the curious eyes of embassy personnel upon them. "Dunno. We're sure not done here yet. We should certainly transfer all the new data the Dendarii collected back to embassy files. Ivan's working now on what we pulled from Galen's comconsole. It's going to be harder this time. Galen—Van der Poole—will be hiding. And he's had a lot of experience at serious disappearing. But if and when you do turn him up—ah—report directly to me. I'll report to the embassy."

"Report what to the embassy?" Elli inquired, alert to his undertones.

Miles shook his head. "I'm not sure yet. I may be too tired to think straight. I'll see if it seems to make any more sense in the morning."

Elli nodded and rose.

"Where are you going?" asked Miles in alarm.

"Back to the Triumph, to put the mass in motion, of course."

"But you can tight-beam— Who's on duty up there right now?"

"Bel Thorne."

"Right, all right. Let's go find Ivan, we can tight-beam the data swap right from here, and the orders as well." He studied the dark circles under her luminous eyes. "And how long have you been on your feet, anyway?"

"Oh, about the last, um," she glanced at her chrono, "thirty hours."

"Who has trouble delegating work, Commander Quinn? Send the orders, not yourself. And take a sleep shift before you start making mistakes too. I'll find you a place to bunk here at the embassy—" she met his eyes, suddenly grinning, "if you like," Miles added hastily.

"Will you, now?" she said softly. "I'd like that fine."