Don't you give me that nepotism crap, Haroche. You know what my real work is. And how well I do it. "Sounds like another cushy ImpSec desk job to me. The colonists are too busy working their tails off to foment rebellion. Maybe I ought to apply for it."

"It's already been filled, I'm afraid. By Colonel Olshansky."

"Oh? I've heard he's a steady man. Sergyar is certainly in a critical strategic position in the wormhole nexus, but I thought that aspect came under Galactic Affairs. Illyan's looking to the future, I suppose." Miles sighed. "I guess I may as well go on home. The office can find me at Vorkosigan House, when it decides it wants me."

The secretary's lips stretched in a sinister smile. "Oh, we can find you wherever you are."

It was an ImpSec-ish in-joke. Miles laughed dutifully, and escaped.

Miles arrived at the last lift-tube foyer on the way back to the exit simultaneously with a captain in undress greens, a dark-haired, middle-aged fellow with intense, hooded, nutmeg-brown eyes and a fleshy blade of a nose sweeping down his roman profile: a familiar but entirely unexpected face.

"Duv Galeni!" said Miles. "What are you doing here?"

"Well, hello, Miles." Galeni smiled as much as Galeni ever smiled, a pleased grimace. He was a little older and a little thicker than when Miles had last seen him, but seemed relaxed and confident. "Working, of course. I requested reassignment here."

"Last we met you were doing that stint in counter-intelligence on Komarr. Is this a promotion? Did you develop a sudden hankering for desk work over field work? Did you come to bask in the somewhat radioactive glow from the centers of Imperial power?"

"All of the above, plus . . ." Galeni glanced around, as if to be sure they were alone. What secret was so sensitive it must be whispered here, in the very center of the labyrinth? "There's this woman."

"Good God, that sounds like one of my cousin Ivan's lines. You, a woman, and what?"

"Don't you dare hoot at me. Don't you still have that, ah, enviable arrangement with the formidable Quinn?"

Miles controlled a wince, thinking of his and Quinn's last argument. "More or less." He had to get back and fix it with Quinn at his earliest opportunity. She'd relented enough to come to see him off at the Peregrine's shuttle hatch, but their good-byes had been formal and strained.

"There you go," said Galeni tolerantly. "She's a Komarran. From the Toscane family. After she took a doctoral degree in business theory on Komarr, she went into the family transhipping concern. She's now stationed in Vorbarr Sultana as a permanent lobbyist with the trade group representing all the Komarran shipping concessions, as sort of an interface between them and the Imperium. A brilliant woman."