Vorlynkin's jaw tightened, but he nodded.  After Jin and Mina could eat no more, and Johannes offered more wipes and put the leftovers away in the refrigerator for breakfast, just like at home, Miles-san leaned back in his chair and said, "I suggest we repair downstairs.  The seats will be more comfortable."

The other Barrayarans all gave Miles-san funny looks, but recalling Uncle Hikaru's daily after-dinner saying, when shifting into his big chair, of Out of the bleachers and into the box seats!, Jin saw no objection to this.  Yet when they'd all shuffled down the stairs after Miles-san, the room into which he led them only boasted four chairs, all officey-looking swivel types.  Miles-san gestured Mina and Jin into a seat each, took one himself, and left the other three men to sort themselves out.  Johannes parked one haunch on the long table shoved up to the wall, Raven-sensei copied him, and Vorlynkin, mouth pinched, dropped into the remaining chair.

"This is a funny vid room," Mina remarked, staring around and swinging her feet, now encased in a pair of Miles-san's socks donated to keep her bandages clean.  When Roic closed the door and blandly sat cross-legged on the floor beside it, the air grew awfully hushed, and for the first time Jin wondered if this was a safe place to have brought her, and not just from the risk of being betrayed to the authorities.  He kind of trusted Miles-san, or he would have been inclined to grab her and bolt.  Though given Roic and that thick door, would that impulse have come too late . . . ?

Miles-san laced his hands together between his knees, and said, "Suze the Secretary told me something of the story of your mother, Jin, Mina.  So when I got back here I looked up what I could about her on the planetary net.  It made me very curious.  I really don't understand how it was she came to be frozen, when she wasn't sick or dying, or even convicted of any crime."

Jin's tasty dinner suddenly felt like lead in his stomach.

"What do you—either of you—remember about your mother?" Miles-san went on.  "Not personal things, but about her work, her cause.  Especially anything that might have happened about the time of the riot at her rally, or just before she was arrested?"

Jin and Mina looked at each other uneasily.  Jin said, "Mom didn't talk to us much about her work.  When she was doing anything, she mostly left us at Aunt Lorna's unless I was in school.  Then she just left Mina."

"Aunt Lorna wasn't too happy about all the babysitting," Mina said.

"Yah, she said she hadn't volunteered for this and didn't much like being drafted."

"And she was sorry about daddy, but maybe if mommy really cared that much she'd do better to stay home and look after his kids herself."  Mina looked away, frowning.