"Was that smart?" Elli, breaking off a rapid fill-in from Ivan, worried as he settled in beside her. "Just letting him go like that?"

"I don't know," sighed Miles. " 'If you can't help, don't hinder.' I can't help him; Galen's made him too crazy. I am his obsession. I suspect I'll always be his obsession. I know all about obsessions. The best I can do is get out of his way. In time he may calm down, without me to react against. In time he may—save himself."

His own weariness flooded in. Elli was warm against him, and he was very, very glad of her. Reminded, he keyed his wrist comm and dismissed Nim and his patrol back to the shuttleport.

"Well," Ivan blinked after a full minute of wiped-out silence from all present, "where now? D'you two want to go back to the shuttleport too?"

"Yeah," breathed Miles, "and flee the planet. . . . Desertion is not practical, I'm afraid. Destang would catch up with me sooner or later anyway. We may as well all go back to the embassy and report. The true report. There's nothing left to lie for, is there?" He squinted, trying to think.

"For all of me, there's not," rumbled Galeni. "I do not care for doctored reports anyway. Eventually, they become history. Embedded sin."

"You . . . know I didn't mean it to work out that way," Miles said to him after a silent moment. "The confrontation last night." A damned sorry weak apology that sounded, for getting the man's father blown away. . . .

"Did you imagine you controlled it? Omniscient and omnipotent? Nobody appointed you God, Vorkosigan." Ghostly faint, one corner of his mouth turned up. "I'm sure it was an oversight." He leaned back and closed his eyes.

Miles cleared his throat. "Back to the embassy then, Ivan. Ah . . .  no rush. Drive slowly. I wouldn't mind seeing a last bit of London, eh?" He leaned on Elli and watched the early summer dawn creep over the city, time and all times jumbled and juxtaposed like the light and shadow between one street and the next.

* * *

When they all lined up in a row in Galeni's Security office at the embassy, Miles was put in mind of the set of Chinese monkeys his Dendarii chief of staff Tung kept on a shelf in his quarters. Ivan was unquestionably See-no-evil. From the tight set of Galeni's jaw, as he returned Commodore Destang's glower, he was a prime candidate for Speak-no-evil. That left Hear-no-evil for Miles, standing between them, but putting his hands over his ears probably wouldn't help much.

Miles had expected Destang to be furious, but he looked more disgusted. The commodore returned their salutes and leaned back in Galeni's station chair. When his eye fell on Miles his lips thinned in a particularly dyspeptic line.