Gregor cut the com; Miles stared unseeing into the empty space over the vid plate. The trouble with synopsized information was that it was always so nebulous. The devil was in the details, the raw data; embedded therein were all the tiny clues that fed the intuition demon until it became strong and fat and, sometimes, grew up to become an actual Theory, or even a Proof. Miles was at least three layers away from reality; the ImpSec physicians synopsized it to Haroche, who boiled it down for Gregor, who filtered it to Miles. There weren't enough facts left in the clarified drippings by that time to color an opinion.

Lady Alys Vorpatril returned from her official journey to Komarr the following morning; that afternoon, she called Miles on his comconsole. He braced himself for the impact of descending social duties; some repressed inner voice cried Incoming!, and dove for cover, uselessly. The inner man would simply have to be dragged out again by the heels and propped upright to march on her orders.

But instead her first words were, "Miles, how long have you known about this dreadful nonsense going on with Simon?"

"Um . . . a couple of weeks."

"Did it never occur to any of you three young louts that I would wish to be informed?"

Young louts—Ivan, Miles, and . . . Gregor? She was upset.

"There was nothing you could do. You were halfway to Komarr. And you already had a top-priority job. But no, I confess I didn't think of it."

"Fools," she breathed. Her brown eyes smoldered.

"Um . . . how did things go, by the way? On Komarr."

"Not terribly well. Laisa's parents are rather upset. I did what I could to soothe their fears, given that I judge some of their anxieties to be quite well founded. I asked your mother to stop on her way and speak to them some more."

"Mother's on her way home?"

"Soon, I hope."

"Ah . . . are you sure my mother is the best person for that job? She can be awfully blunt in her opinions of Barrayar. And she's not always the most diplomatic."

"No, but she's absolutely honest. And she has this peculiar trick of making the most outlandish things seem perfectly sensible, at least for the duration of the time she's talking to you. People end up agreeing with her, and then spending the next month wondering how it happened. I have, at any rate, accomplished all the proper forms and duties of Gregor's Baba."

"So . . . is Gregor's wedding on, or off?"