He'd sat in on every program m'lord had attended, in the back of the room where he could watch all the exits, and been hard-put to stay awake, though m'lord recorded everything indiscriminately.  He followed m'lord to meals with other attendees and to lavish evening parties provided by the conference's sponsors, at varying distances from looming over m'lord's short shoulder to leaning against the far wall, as m'lord signaled.  He learned far more about cryonics and the people who dealt with it than he had ever wanted to know.

And he had just about come to the conclusion that the entire jaunt was a put-up job between Lady Vorkosigan and Empress Laisa, to give Ekaterin a much-needed holiday from a spouse who diagnosed all complaints as a sign of boredom, to be alleviated with an exciting new task.  Since Lady Vorkosigan already ran an enormous household, rode herd on four children under the age of six and a teenage son from a prior marriage, played political hostess for her husband in his roles both as an Imperial Auditor and as a Count's heir, had undertaken supervisory responsibilities for agriculture and terraforming in the Vorkosigan's District, and tried desperately, in her spare seconds, to maintain a garden design business, bets were on below-stairs as to when she would break and respond to m'lord's idea of husbandly help by defenestrating the little man from the fourth floor of Vorkosigan House.  This trip seemed a reasonable substitute to Roic.

But even the most loyal Armsman had to go to the loo sometimes, which was why, economy be hanged, Roic argued constantly for a backup man, or better, two, on these excursions.  He'd returned . . . night before last?—or had he lost more than one day in this dazed captivity?—to the main room of the reception to discover m'lord gone, though a quick ping found him up a floor, past some winding stairs, in an even more private section of the party.  Their wristcoms ran a scrambled security channel; no come-here-I-want-you code called, so Roic jittered impatiently and controlled his nerves.  When m'lord at last trod back down the winding stairs, spotted Roic, and joined him, tugging down his cuffs in a self-satisfied way, his appearance was anything but reassuring.  To anyone who knew him well, that is.  It was the manic glitter in his eyes, and the fleeting smile, and the general air of elation.  The damndest things could elate him.

"What?" Roic had murmured in alarm, and "Later," m'lord had replied.  "The walls have ears."

Roic had to grind his teeth till midnight found them back in their shared room, where m'lord unpacked the anti-bug silencer for the first time, and his message encoder as well.  He sat at the room's sole desk and began typing.

"And so?" asked Roic.  "Why do you look so happy all of a sudden?"

"I've had my very first break in this case, after days of dead time.  Someone just tried to bribe me."