The guards marched him toward an entrance. They coded through some automatic doors, and walked to an electronic security chamber. It was up and running, humming blankly. "Vaj?" one guard called. "We're here. Scan us."

No answer. One of the guards went forward, looked around. Tapped a code into a wall pad. "Bring him through anyway."

The security chamber passed him. He was still wearing the gray knits the Duronas had given him; no interesting devices woven into the fabric, it seemed, alas.

The senior guard tried an intercom. Several times. "Nobody answers."

"What should we do?" asked his comrade.

The senior man frowned. "Strip him and take him to the boss, I guess. Those were the orders."

They pulled his ship-knits off him; he was far too out-massed to fight them, but he regretted the loss deeply. It was too damned cold. Even the ox-like guards stared a moment at his raked and scored chest. They re-fastened his hands behind him and marched him through the facility, their eyes shifting warily at every intersection.

It was very quiet. Lights burned, but no people appeared anywhere. A strange structure, not very large, plain and—he sniffed—decidedly medical in odor. Research, he decided. Ryoval's private biological research facility. Evidently, after the Dendarii raid of four years ago, Ryoval had decided his main facility wasn't secure enough. Miles could see that. This place did not have the business-air of the other locale. It felt military-paranoid. The sort of place where if you went there to work, you didn't come out again for years at a time. Or, considering Ryoval, ever. He glimpsed a few lab-like rooms, in passing. But no techs. The guards called out, a couple of times. No one answered.

They came to an open door, beyond which lay some sort of study or office. "Baron, sir?" the senior guard ventured. "We have your prisoner."

The other guard rubbed his neck. "If he's not here, should we go ahead and work him like the other one?"

"He hasn't ordered it yet. Better wait."

Quite. Ryoval was not the sort to reward initiative in subordinates, Miles suspected.

With a deep, nervous sigh, the senior man stepped across the threshold and looked around. The junior man prodded Miles forward in his wake. The study was finely furnished, with a real wood desk, and an odd chair in front of it with metal wrist-locks for the person who sat in it. Nobody ran out on a conversation with Baron Ryoval till Baron Ryoval was ready, apparently. They waited.

"What do we do now?"

"Don't know. This is as far as my orders went." The senior man paused. "Could be a test. . . ."

They waited about five more minutes.

"If you don't want to look around," said Miles brightly, "I will."