The afternoon's political-social event was a reception and dinner in honor of a visit to Earth of the Baba of Lairouba. The Baba, hereditary head-of-state of his planet, was combining political and religious duties. After completing his pilgrimage to Mecca he had come to London for participation in the right-of-passage talks for the Western Orion Arm group of planets. Tau Ceti was the hub of this nexus, and Komarr connected to it through two routes, hence Barrayar's interest.

Miles's duties were the usual. In this case he found himself partnering one of the Baba's four wives. He wasn't sure whether to classify her as a dread dowager or not—her bright brown eyes and smooth chocolate hands were pretty enough, but the rest of her was swathed in yards of creamy silk edged with gold embroidery that suggested a zaftig pulchritude, like a very enticing mattress.

Her wit he could not gauge, as she spoke neither English, French, Russian nor Greek in their Barrayaran dialects or any other, and he spoke neither Lairouban nor Arabic. The box of keyed translator earbugs had unfortunately been mis-delivered to an unknown address on the other side of London, leaving half the diplomats present able only to stare at their counterparts and smile. Miles and the lady communicated basic needs by mime—salt, ma'am?—with good will through dinner, and he made her laugh twice. He wished he knew why.

Even more unfortunately, before the after-dinner speeches could be cancelled a box of replacement ear-bugs was delivered by a panting caterer's assistant. There followed several speeches in a variety of tongues for the benefit of the press corps. Things broke up, the zaftig lady was swept off Miles's hands by two of her co-wives, and he began to make his way across the room back to the Barrayaran ambassador's party. Rounding a soaring alabaster pillar holding up the arched ceiling, he came face to face with the lady journalist from Euronews Network.

"Mon Dieu, it's the little admiral," she said cheerfully. "What are you doing here?"

Ignoring the anguished scream inside his skull, Miles schooled his features to an—exquisitely—polite blankness. "I beg your pardon, ma'am?"

"Admiral Naismith. Or . . ." She took in his uniform, her eyes lighting with interest. "Is this some mercenary covert operation, Admiral?"

A beat passed. Miles allowed his eyes to widen, his hand to stray to his weaponless trouser seam and twitch there. "My God," he choked in a voice of horror—not hard, that—"Do you mean to tell me Admiral Naismith has been seen on Earth?"

Her chin lifted, and her lips parted in a little half-smile of disbelief. "In your mirror, surely."

Were his eyebrows visibly singed? His right hand was still bandaged. Not a burn, ma'am, Miles thought wildly. I cut it shaving. . . .