One of the Barrayarans helped another load up the stunned one for a shoulder-carry; it had to have been the biggest man who'd been hit, Boots himself. They were close enough to the fisheye that Miles could make out the carrier's legs shake slightly as he straightened and began staggering south under his burden, two men taking the point before and the remaining one the rear guard behind.

The doomed little army had gone perhaps four steps when another pair of Cetagandans appeared around the south curve. One was firing his stunner back over his shoulder as he ran. His attention was so divided, he did not see his partner go down to the Barrayaran point men's stunner fire until he tripped over the sprawling body and fell headlong. He kept his clutch on his own stunner, turned his fall into a controlled roll, and snapped off return fire. One of the Barrayaran point men went down.

The Barrayaran rear guard leapfrogged forward around the burdened middle man and helped his partner zap the rolling Cetagandan, then ran forward with him, hugging the wall. Unfortunately, they overshot the arc of concealment at the same moment as a blast of massed, unaimed stunner fire from beyond the curvature was clearing the corridor for some forward push from the unknowns—police combat team, Miles deduced both from the tactic and the fact that the Cetagandan had been firing in that direction. Men met energy wave with predictable results.

The remaining Barrayaran stood in the corridor bending under the weight of his unconscious comrade and cursing steadily, his eyes squeezed shut as if to shut out the sheer overwhelming embarrassment of it all. When the police appeared behind him he clumped in a circle to face them and raised his bands in surrender as best he could, flipping his empty palms out and letting his stunner clatter to the floor.

Ivan's voice was choked. "I can just see the vid call to Commodore Destang now. 'Uh, sir? We ran into this little problem. Will you come get me . . . ?'"

"He may prefer to desert," commented Miles.

The two converging police squads came within a breath of repeating the mutual annihilation of their fleeing suspects, but managed to get their true identities communicated just in time. Miles was almost disappointed. Still, nothing could go on forever; at some point the corridor would have become impassable due to the piles of bodies, and the havoc trail off according to the typical senescence curve of a biological system choked on its own waste. It was probably too much to ask that the police clear themselves, as well as the nine assassins, out of the path to escape. Miles was clearly in for another wait. Blast it.