"Just so." Illyan leaned back. "Ungari was a good, reliable operative. If you'd botched it, you'd have taken him down with you.

The man is now half-ruined."

Miles made little negative motions with his hands. "He made the correct decisions, for his level. You can't fault him. It's just . . . things got too important for me to go on playing ensign when the man who

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was needed was Lord Vorkosigan." Or Admiral Naismith.

"Hm," Illyan said. "And yet . . . who shall I assign you to now?

Which loyal officer gets his career destroyed next?"

Miles thought this over. "Why don't you assign me directly to

yourself, sir?"

"Thanks," said Illyan dryly.

"I didn't mean—" Miles began to sputter protest, stopped, detecting the oblique gleam of humor in Illyan's brown eyes. Roasting me for

your sport, are you?

"In fact, just that proposal has been floated. Not, needless to say, by me. But a galactic operative must function with a high degree of independence. We're considering making a virtue of necessity—" A light on Illyan's comconsole distracted him. He checked something,

and touched a control. The door on the wall to the right of his desk slid open, and Gregor stepped through. The emperor shed one guard

who stayed in the passageway, the other trod silently through the

office to take up station beyond the antechamber. All doors slid shut.

Illyan rose to pull up a chair for the emperor, and gave him a nod, a sort of vestigial bow, before reseating himself. Miles, who had also risen, sketched a salute and sat too.

"Did you tell him about the Dendarii yet?" Gregor asked Illyan.

"I was working around to it," said Illyan.

Gradually. "What about the Dendarii?" Miles asked, unable to keep the eagerness out of his voice, try though he might for a junior version of Illyan's impassive surface.

"We've decided to put them on a permanent retainer," said Illyan.

"You, in your cover identity as Admiral Naismith, will be our liaison officer."

"Consulting mercenaries?" Miles blinked. Naismith lives!

Gregor grinned. "The Emperor's Own. We owe them, I think,

something more than just their base pay for their services to us—and to Us—in the Hegen Hub. And they have certainly demonstrated the,

er, utility of being able to reach places cut off to our regular forces by political barriers."

Miles interpreted the expression on Illyan's face as deep mourning

for his Section budget, rather than disapproval as such.

"Simon shall be alert for, and pursue, opportunities to use them actively," Gregor went on. "We'll need to justify that retainer, after all."