Quinn sucked on her lower lip, but did not speak. After a long pause, Bothari-Jesek nodded. "All right. You have my word on it. But you give us your total cooperation, understood?"

"Your word as what?"

"Just my word."

" . . . Yes. All right."

Quinn rose and stared down at him. "But is he even fit to play the part right now?"

Bothari-Jesek followed her look. "Not in that condition, no, I suppose not. Let him clean up, eat, rest. Then we'll see what can be done."

"Baron Fell may not give us time to coddle him."

"We'll tell Baron Fell he's in the shower. That'll be true enough."

A shower. Food. He was so ravenous as to be almost beyond hunger, numb in the belly, listless in the flesh. And cold.

"All I can say," said Quinn, "is that he's a damned poor imitation of the real Miles Vorkosigan."

Yes, that's what I've been trying to tell you. 

Bothari-Jesek shook her head in, presumably, exasperated agreement. "Come on," she said to him.

She escorted him to an officer's cabin, small but thank-God private. It was disused, blank and clean, military-austere, the air a little stale. He supposed Thorne must now be similarly housed nearby.

"I'll get some clean clothes sent over for you from the Ariel. And send some food."

"Food first—please?"

"Sure."

"Why are you being nice to me?" His voice came out plaintive and suspicious, making him sound weak and paranoid, he feared.

Her aquiline face went introspective. "I want to know . . . who you are. What you are."

"You know. I'm a manufactured clone. Manufactured right here on Jackson's Whole."

"I don't mean your body."

He hunched in an automatic defensive posture, though he knew it emphasized his deformities.

"You are very closed," she observed. "Very alone. That's not at all like Miles. Usually."

"He's not a man, he's a mob. He's got a whole damned army trailing around after him." Not to mention the harrowing harem. "I suppose he likes it like that."

Her lips curved in an unexpected smile. It was the first time he'd seen her smile. It changed her face. "He does, I think." Her smile faded. "Did."

"You're doing this for him, aren't you. Treating me like this because you think he'd want it." Not in his own right, no, never, but all for Miles and his damned brother-obsession.

"Partly."

Right. 

"But mostly," she said, "because someday Countess Vorkosigan will ask me what I did for her son."

"You're planning to trade Baron Bharaputra for him, aren't you?"

"Mark . . ." her eyes were dark with a strange . . . pity? irony? He could not read her eyes. "She'll mean you."

She turned on her heel and left him by himself, sealed in the cabin.