He followed her gaze. He was tired; she'd spotted their contact before he had. The man coming toward them with the inquiring look on his face wore stylish Earther clothes, but his hair was clipped in a Barrayaran military burr. A non-com, perhaps. Officers favored a slightly less severe Roman patrician style. I need a haircut, thought Miles, his collar suddenly ticklish.

"My lord?" said the man.

"Sergeant Barth?" said Miles.

The man nodded, glanced at Elli. "Who is this?"

"My bodyguard."

"Ah."

So slight a compression of the lips and widening of the eyes, to convey so much amusement and contempt. Miles could feel the muscles coil in his neck. "She is outstanding at her job."

"I'm sure, sir. Come this way, please." He turned and led off.

The bland face was laughing at him, he could feel it, tell by looking at the back of the head. Elli, aware only of the sudden increase of tension in the air, gave him a look of dismay. It's all right, he thought at her, tucking her hand in his arm.

They strolled after their guide, through a shop, down a lift tube and then some stairs, then picked up the pace. The underground utility level was a maze of tunnels, conduits, and power optics. They traversed, Miles guessed, a couple of blocks. Their guide opened a door with a palm-lock. Another short tunnel led to another door. This one had a live human guard by it, extremely neat in Barrayaran Imperial dress greens, who scrambled up from his comconsole seat where he monitored scanners to barely resist saluting their civilian-clothed guide.

"We dump our weapons here," Miles told Elli. "All of them. I mean really all."

Elli raised her brows at the sudden shift of Miles's accent, from the flat Betan twang of Admiral Naismith to the warm gutturals of his native Barrayar. She seldom heard his Barrayaran voice, at that—which one would seem put-on to her? There was no doubt which one would seem a put-on to the embassy personnel, though, and Miles cleared his throat, to be sure of fully disciplining his voice to the new order.

Miles's contributions to the pile on the guard's console were a pocket stunner and a long steel knife in a lizard-skin sheath. The guard scanned the knife, popped the silver cap off the end of its jewelled hilt to reveal a patterned seal, and handed it back carefully to Miles. Their guide raised his brows at the miniaturized technical arsenal Elli unloaded. So there, Miles thought to him. Stuff that up your regulation nose. He followed on feeling rather more serene.

Up a lift tube, and suddenly the ambience changed to a hushed, plush, understated dignity. "The Barrayaran Imperial Embassy," Miles whispered to Elli.