A synthacrete kiosk cloaked with bushes and vines hopeful of concealing its blunt utility squatted near the main path to the pedestrian underpass. At first Miles took it for a public latrine, but a closer look revealed only one blank locked door. The spotlights that should have illuminated that side were knocked out. As Miles watched, the door began to slide slowly aside. A weapon in a pale hand glittered faintly in the blackness. Miles aimed his stunner and held his breath. The dark shape of a man slipped out.

Miles exhaled. "Captain Galeni!" he hissed.

Galeni jerked as though shot, crouched, and scurried toward them, joining them in their concealment on hands and knees. He swore under his breath, discovering, as Miles had, that this grouping of ornamental shrubs had thorns. His eyes took instant inventory of the ragged little group, Miles and Mark, Ivan and Elli. "I'll be damned. You're still alive."

"I'd sort of been wondering about you, too," Miles admitted.

Galeni looked—Galeni looked bizarre, Miles decided. Gone was the blank witnessing stillness that had absorbed Ser Galen's death without comment. He was almost grinning, electric with a slightly off-center exhilaration, as if he'd overdone some stimulant drug. He was breathing heavily; his face was bruised, mouth bloody. His swollen hand flexed on his weapon—last seen weaponless, he was now carrying a Cetagandan military-issue plasma arc. A knife hilt stuck out of his boot top.

"Have you, ah, run into a guy wearing blue face paint yet?" Miles inquired.

"Oh yes," said Galeni in a tone of some satisfaction.

"What the hell happened to you? Sir."

Galeni spoke in a rapid whisper. "I couldn't find an entrance in the Barrier near where I'd left you. I spotted that utilities access over there," he jerked his head toward the kiosk, "and thought there might be some power optic or water line tunnels back to the Barrier. I was half-right. There are utility tunnels all under this park. But I got turned around underground, and instead of coming out in the Barrier, I ended up coming out a port in the pedestrian crossing under the Channel Highway. Where I found guess who?"

Miles shook his head. "Police? Cetagandans? Barrayarans?"

"Close. It was my old friend and opposite number from the Cetagandan Embassy, Ghem-lieutenant Tabor. It actually took me a couple of minutes to realize what he was doing there. Playing outer-perimeter backup to the experts from HQ. Same as I would have been doing if I hadn't been," Galeni snickered, "confined to quarters.

"He was not happy to see me," Galeni went on. "He couldn't figure what the hell I was doing there either. We both pretended to be out viewing the moon, while I got a look at the equipment he had packed in his groundcar. He may have actually believed me; I think he thought I was drunk or drugged."

Miles politely refrained from remarking, I can see why.