"What are you going to do now, sir?" Miles jerked out stiffly.

Galeni spread his hands. "Send again."

"Send again. That's all?"

"I can't pull your eighteen million marks out of my pocket, Lieutenant."

Oh, no? We'll just see about that. . . . He had to get out of here, out of the embassy and back to the Dendarii. The Dendarii, where he had left his own fully professional information-gathering experts gathering dust, while he'd wasted twenty days in immobilized paralysis. . . . If Galeni had indeed diddled him to that extent, Miles swore silently, there wasn't going to be a hole deep enough for him to hide in with his eighteen million stolen marks.

Galeni straightened and cocked his head, eyes narrowed and absent. "It's a mystery to me." He added lowly, almost to himself, " . . . and I don't like mysteries."

Nervy . . . cool . . . Miles was struck with admiration for an acting ability almost equal to his own. Yet if Galeni had embezzled his money, why was he not long gone? What was he waiting around for? Some signal Miles didn't know about? But he would find out, oh, yes he would. "Ten more days," said Miles. "Again."

"Sorry, Lieutenant," said Galeni, still abstracted.

You will be. . . . "Sir, I must have a day with the Dendarii. Admiral Naismith's duties are piling up. For one thing, thanks to this delay we're now absolutely forced to raise a temporary loan from commercial sources to stay current with our expenses. I have to arrange it."

"I regard your personal security with the Dendarii as totally insufficient, Vorkosigan."

"So add some from the embassy if you feel you have to. The clone story surely took some of the pressure off."

"The clone story was idiotic," snapped Galeni, coming out of himself.

"It was brilliant," said Miles, offended at this criticism of his creation. "It completely compartmentalizes Naismith and Vorkosigan at last. It disposes of the most dangerous ongoing weakness of the whole scam, my . . . unique and memorable appearance. Undercover operatives shouldn't be memorable."

"What makes you think that vid reporter will ever share her discoveries with the Cetagandans anyway?"

"We were seen together. By millions on the holovid, for God's sake. Oh, they'll be around to ask her questions, all right, one way or another." A slight twinge of fear—but surely the Cetagandans would send somebody to pump the woman subtly. Not just snatch, drain, and dispose of her, not a publicly prominent Earth citizen right here on Earth.

"In that case, why the hell did you pick the Cetagandans as Admiral Naismith's putative creators? The one thing they'll know for sure is that they didn't do it."

"Verisimilitude," explained Miles. "If even we don't know where the clone really came from, they might not be so surprised that they hadn't heard of him till now either."

"Your logic has a few glaring weaknesses," sneered Galeni. "It may help your long-term scam, possibly. But it doesn't help me. Having Admiral Naismith's corpse on my hands would be just as embarrassing as having Lord Vorkosigan's. Schizoid or no, not even you can compartmentalize yourself to that extent."