Jin's brow wrinkled.  "Why a crowbar?  The door around the next side after that is always left unlocked."

Vorlynkin blinked, then laughed, then winced, touching his scratched face.  "Just as well that none of us knew that, I suppose.  After I confiscated the crowbar, I was able to hold them till the police arrived.  Some of the firemen were more than eager to help.  The pair fingered the NewEgypt security guards as having engaged them, evidently just to create a diversion for Dr. Leiber's re-kidnapping, though I gather that some of the Liberators grew overeager and exceeded their instructions.  But it should lead back nicely to the senior men Lord Auditor Vorkosigan wished to target."

Their mother rubbed her forehead, frown-lines deepening around her eyes.  "If they don't manage to suppress it all, again."

"Not this time, I suspect," said Vorlynkin, smiling at her in reassurance.

"Where's Nefertiti?" asked Jin in sudden alarm.

Mina pointed at the desk built into the far wall, along with a lot of cupboards.  From the shadows beneath came a mumbling sort of growl.  "She's hiding.  Maybe you can get her to come out after she calms down.  I tried some food, but I don't think she's hungry right now."

Raven-sensei stepped around the tables to smile at Jin, peer into his eyes, thumb back his eyelids, and feel his pulse.  "Headache?  Nausea?"

"Not really."  Jin felt down his tingling face to find a strip of plastic bandage across his neck.

"Just a nick," Raven-sensei assured him.

"My face is a little numb."

"That's normal.  It'll pass in another hour.  If it doesn't, let me know."  Raven-sensei paused and cleared his throat.  "Lord Vorkosigan said to tell you when you woke up, those few minutes of delay you and Mina caused with those NewEgypt thugs made all the difference to us.  The rescue party, as it turned out."

"Oh," said Mina, sounding pleased.

Raven-sensei nodded.  "If they'd hustled you out of the building before we arrived, he said, it would have been a long stern chase—one of his military turns of phrase, that—meaning, we'd have had a hell of a time catching up with you.  Although I imagine he would have, somehow.  He, ah . . . tends to be persistent."

For the first time, Jin sat all the way up.  In the glass booth next to his mother's, the two big NewEgypt guys were penned, and Jin flinched in fear, till he saw that Hans was still out cold on the floor, and Oki was sitting with his hands fastened behind his back and his shoulders slumped, not paying attention to anything.

Jin pictured it—all of them dragged away in some windowless van to who-knew-where, and Mom taken away again . . .  He gulped, which made the bandage tug on his skin.  His desperate struggle with those big men hadn't seemed to do much good at the time, had seemed utterly futile in fact, but maybe . . .