"Yes. And that's the curious thing . . ." She hitched a hip over the tabletop and let one long booted leg swing. "Shock or no shock, Mark hasn't blown Miles's deep cover. The name Vorkosigan hasn't passed his lips, has it?"

"No," Quinn admitted.

Bothari-Jesek twisted up her mouth, and studied him. "Why not?" she asked suddenly.

He crouched down a little further in his station chair, trying to escape the impact of her stare. "I don't know," he muttered. She waited implacably for more, and he mustered in an only slightly louder voice, "Habit, I guess." Mostly Ser Galen's habit of beating the shit out of him whenever he'd screwed up, back in the bad old days. "When I do the part, I do the part. M-Miles would never have slipped on that one, so I don't either."

"Who are you when you're not doing the part?" Bothari-Jesek's gaze was narrowed, calculating.

"I . . . hardly know." He swallowed, and tried again for more volume in his voice. "What's going to happen to my—to the clones?"

As Quinn began to speak, Bothari-Jesek held up her hand, stopping her. Bothari-Jesek said instead, "What do you want to have happen to them?"

"I want them to go free. To be set free somewhere safe, where House Bharaputra can't kidnap them back."

"A strange altruism. I can't help wondering, why? Why this whole mission in the first place? What did you hope to gain?"

His mouth opened, but no sound came out. He couldn't answer. He was still clammy, weak and shaking. His head ached blackly, as though draining of blood. He shook his head.

"Peh!" snorted Quinn. "What a loser. What a, a damned anti-Miles. Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory."

"Quinn," said Bothari-Jesek quietly. There was a profound reproof in her voice, just in that single word, which Quinn heard and acknowledged with a shrug of her shoulder. "I don't think either one of us knows quite what we have hold of, here," Bothari-Jesek continued. "But I know when I'm out of my depth. However, I know someone who wouldn't be."

"Who?"

"Countess Vorkosigan."

"Hm." Quinn sighed. "That's another thing. Who's going to tell her about—" A downward jerk of her thumb indicated Jackson's Whole, and the fatal events that had just passed there. "And gods help me, if I'm really in command of this outfit now, I'm gonna have to report all this to Simon Illyan." She paused. "Do you want to be in command, Elena? As senior shipmaster present, now that Bel's under quasi-arrest, and all that. I just grabbed 'cause I had to, under fire."

"You're doing fine," said Bothari-Jesek with a small smile. "I'll support you." She added, "You've been more closely involved with intelligence all along; you're the logical choice."

"Yes, I know." Quinn grimaced. "You'll tell the family, if it comes to that?"

"For that," Bothari-Jesek sighed, "I am the logical choice. I'll tell the Countess, yes."