“If you’re not too busy, we’d like to speak to you concerning your investigation,” the man said. “My name is—”

“Barrayar.”

Barrayar didn’t react visibly. He obviously knew what I was. “If you’d come with me?”

I rose and let Barrayar lead the way across the floor. He didn’t speak, and I didn’t either. Looking at Barrayar reminded me of . . . dancing? Music? Something involving the Council . . .

We reached the doors that Haken had disappeared through. The men guarding the position were Council security; they gave Barrayar a glance but didn’t challenge him. We passed through into more corridors, branching left and right. There seemed to be fewer people around this time. Barrayar led me around a corner, towards a junction . . .

And suddenly I remembered where I’d met Barrayar before. I stopped dead. Barrayar paused, turned. “Is there a problem?”

I stared back at him for a second, then gave him a smile that didn’t touch my eyes. “No,” I said. “No problem.” I kept walking.

We turned right at the T junction. I was searching through the futures in which I tried to open the doors we were passing, making myself a mental map of the place. The door on the right led into the back rooms of a courtroom, maybe the same one Haken was in. That could be useful. The one on the left led to an interview room. The one behind was some sort of cell. Next left was locked. Next right . . .

There you are. Next question: how was Barrayar going to react to what I was about to do? He didn’t look physically imposing—he was shorter than average and on the slim side—but I’d already checked out the futures in which I attacked the guy, and I knew he was faster than he looked.

But then, so am I. Barrayar halted at the door on the right. “If you’d just . . .”

I walked past without slowing. “Excuse me,” Barrayar said to my retreating back. “It’s this way.”

“I know.”

Barrayar started to follow me. “Your meeting’s in here.”

I pointed forward. “Tell your boss I’ll be in the . . . conservatory? Whatever you call the room with the water feature and the plants.”

I kept walking. My back itched and I knew Barrayar was staring at me. Watching the futures, I caught a few fleeting glimpses of action, there and gone too fast to see, then they cleared away and there was nothing. I reached the end of the corridor and turned the corner. Barrayar didn’t follow.

You have to give the Council credit; they do build nice architecture. The conservatory was a large room with a high ceiling, structured as a kind of ceremonial garden. Small trees grew from carefully cultivated squares of earth, flowering bushes and shrubs grew up around raised sections of floor, and water bubbled up from a fountain into an indoor pool. There was enough greenery to provide concealment, and I had to scan through the futures to see whether I was alone in the room. I was, but I could tell that others were within earshot, close enough to hear a shout or scream. Good.