"Ah." Miles melted within, and smiled blindingly. "Thank you, sir. That is a very great relief."

Destang cocked his head curiously. "What have they been living on, the past month?"

"It's—been a bit complicated, sir."

Destang opened his mouth as if to ask more, then apparently thought better of it. "I see. Well, Lieutenant, you may return to your outfit. Your part here is done. You should never have appeared on Earth as Lord Vorkosigan in the first place."

"To which outfit—to the Dendarii Mercenaries, you mean, sir?"

"I doubt Simon Illyan was sending out urgent inquiries for them because he was lonely. It's a safe assumption that new orders will be following on as soon as your location is known to HQ. You should be ready to move out."

Elli and Elena, who had been conferring in very low tones in the corner during all this, looked up brightly at this news; Ivan looked more stricken.

"Yes, sir," said Miles. "What's going to happen here?"

"Since you have not, thank God, involved the Earth authorities, we're free to clear up this aborted bit of treason ourselves. I brought a team from Tau Ceti—"

The team was a cleanup crew, Miles guessed, Intelligence commandos ready, at Destang's order, to restore order to a treason-riddled embassy with whatever force or guile might be required.

"Ser Galen would have been on our most-wanted list long before this if we hadn't believed him already dead. Galen!" Destang shook his head as though he still couldn't believe it himself. "Here on Earth, all this time. You know, I served during the Komarr Revolt—it's where I got my start in Security. I was on the team that dug through the rubble of the Halomar Barracks, after the bastards blew it up in the middle of the night—looking for survivors and evidence, finding bodies and damned few clues . . . There were a lot of new openings for posts in Security that morning. Damn. How it all comes back. If we can find Galen again, after you let him slip through your hands," Destang's eyes fell without favor on Galeni, "accidentally or otherwise, we'll take him back to Barrayar to answer for that bloody morning if nothing else. I wish he could be made to answer for it all, but there's not enough of him to go around. Rather like Mad Emperor Yuri."

"A laudable plan, sir," said Miles carefully. Galeni had his jaw clamped shut, no help there. "But there are a dozen Komarran ex-rebels on Earth with pasts just as bloody as Ser Galen's. Now that he's been exposed, he's no more threat to us than they are."

"They've been inactive for years," said Destang. "Galen, clearly, has been quite the reverse."

"But if you're contemplating an illegal kidnapping, it could damage our diplomatic relations with Earth. Is it worth it?"

"Permanent justice is well worth a temporary offended protest, I can assure you, Lieutenant."