The food took a long time in coming from the kitchen. Finally Felice helped roll it in, followed by a scandalized Ma Kosti. "She tasted all the food, all right," the cook muttered, for Miles's ears only. "But she didn't have to put it through that infernal machine of hers!"

Felice could only shrug, embarrassed. "All these food deliveries are new. In Vorkosigan House, they were from our own stores, which were already secured. Certain types of poison are genetically specific; it wouldn't affect a food taster. The only way to detect them is to scan each dish for tell-tale chemical markers."

The mood was tense at the breakfast table. Raina and Alex sat at opposite ends of the table, and barely spoke to anyone. Miles supposed that it was to keep an eye on both the room's exits, but it seemed like they were still avoiding each other. Felice and Cora questioned the Viceroy and Vicereine about Sergyar; no one wanted to talk about the future.

Then Cora's beeper went off. 'Another feeding?' Miles thought. She stood up quickly, knocking over her chair. The headset snapped on.

Her expression went from surprised to abstracted to dazed. Raina caught her before she collapsed.

"There's been another attack," gasped Cora.

"Where? When?" asked Alex.

"Guardians... oh damn, here comes another one..." They waited while she processed the next message. To Miles it seemed like the walls were closing in. Then he realized that the lines of the room were shuddering slightly.

"Temporal disturbance," explained Raina.

Cora's eyes snapped open. "Sebastian's allies have bombed another Guardian station. It's the one overseeing our nexus with Komarr."

Alex swore. "Is its structure holding?" Everyone looked stunned; were they facing another Time of Isolation?

"For now. But there's another problem."

Raina paled. "Oh God, Cora, tell me they won't pull the plug on Leo..."

Cora touched her sister's cheek. "I'm sorry, dear. I got immediate word from Nikolai. The stasis pod was inside the nexus, it's fine, Leo's fine, but the Guardians have to clear it out to reinforce the structure. Leo's still suspended, but he is no longer protected."

"Double the guard on the replicator," ordered Raina. "Pentacrine be damned."

"I guess I'll have to risk that 'secure line' to Allegre," said Alex. "Felice, come with me."

"Let me get my tools..." said Felice, as they exited.

"Pym," called Raina. The Armsman came to her side. "Get in touch with all the guards. Personally, no comm links. Pair up the way Alex arranged it. And don't make a fuss about it. Keep things quiet, we don't want to give any advantages away."

As Pym strode out, Raina started pacing. "Not that we have any advantages left. Damn it, we were counting on the Guardians to get their factions under control."

"They did their best," said Cora. "But there was a long time when Guardian-Human contact was unregulated. Sebastian probably insinuated himself then."

"He was always a charmer," said Raina, looking out the window. No, checking her scanner to see if the newly installed force shield was holding. "This is just his style. Wear you out then knock you down."

Miles nodded. Not a bad strategy. He could hear Tung now, quoting Sun-Tzu: Attack what they love first. Do not fix any time for battle. Sebastian had managed to keep them under siege with just a few pinpoint attacks. In the first place, there had been siblings' temporal kidnapping. And then Kapas's assassination attempt, and... "Hold on."

Raina snapped to attention. "I know that tone. What is it, Miles?"

"...it's just not artistic enough. The comconsole explosion--"

Cora's eyes widened. "What comconsole explosion?"

"--Ekaterin and I... just after you and Alex left, that first afternoon," Miles finished weakly. Ekaterin caught his eyes, dismayed. The scene of the explosion was still vivid in their minds: the damaged wall, the shattered book-discs and scorched carpet. In two weeks no trace had been left, since ImpSec had cleaned the mess.

Raina wasted no time. "Alex!" She practically screamed into her private comm. "Abort! Allegre's dosed. Don't use the comconsole!" Her hands were shaking violently, and she clenched them until the knuckles whitened.

They heard a squeal: Felice. "Alex, that hurt--!"

Alex's voice came back, low and commanding. "Out of the room, Fia. Damn, that means he's got lockpicks. Even Jackson's Whole banned those."

"And we sent an ImpSec advance team to prepare the Surleau. Alex, check for traps." Raina turned to Miles. "Sebastian would have wanted to play around with me first. He wouldn't have harmed you and Ekaterin at the onset. I would have ceased to exist, right then; too soon for his purposes. It was just bait, so you would report us to ImpSec."

Which was the first thing I did.

Cora rubbed her temples. "This family could use a little work on its communication skills. Two whole days, and no one mentioned anything?"

"We can't separate," said Raina urgently. "We should stay here. He might have dosed any of us, and planted some subconscious suggestion. If he gained access to Allegre..." She crossed the length of the room in four strides, then paced back, her hands twisting at her side.

"Except you, me, and Alex," said Cora. "It would kill us immediately. He might have ruled out Miles too, given his idiosyncratic reaction to fast-penta."

"That only means the three of us are expendable."

"Remember the genetic samples. Our trump card."

Raina nodded. "But right now... next move is to let Sebastian in, with minimal loss of life."

"Here?!" Ekaterin burst out. "Let him in?"

Miles looked up at his father, checking for reactions. Aral only nodded, his eyes lidded with concentration. Father thinks the strategy's all right. Yet somewhere in this twisted strategy tree, Miles had lost track of things. Were they the bait, and Raina the trap? Or was it the other way around? He tightened his grip over the stunner.

"Keep him in," amended Raina grimly. "The window force shields just spiked on the power meter. We can't get out. He must be inside the house."

The comm link buzzed. "Raina, we need to move," said Alex. Exactly, get out of here, now! thought Miles. They had bided their time long enough.

"No..." Raina talked quickly into the comm link, in a language Miles couldn't place. Then he realized he had heard it before, in the firefight at the Imperial Residence. She had cried out in that strange tongue when the nerve disruptor bolt hit Alex.

"Their private lingua," explained Cora. "They invented it before they learned to talk properly. Alex sent a recording to his cipher staff once, and they couldn't break it after a month of trying. He said it was because the basic vocabulary and rules of grammar can shift during the course of a conversation. Until only the meaning's left, I suppose."

Raina touched her sister's shoulder. "I'm going."

"Alone?"

"It's me Sebastian wants. Get the rest of them out of here."

There was a yelp over the comm link. Raina switched it off quickly.

"What was that?" said Ekaterin tightly. Miles captured her hand as they rose to leave.

"Felice," said Raina tiredly. "She's invented a dozen anti-lockpick programs, in her time. The comconsoles she might have missed, but not the force shields. She set them up herself. Must have been dosed at the Residence, it was already thick with pentacrine stink."

So Felice had been dosed with pentacrine, all this time. Miles's head hurt. 'Good thing no one expected me to be at the Residence,' he thought. 'She could have cut my throat right then and there, so many times over.'

Raina lifted a fold in her dress to reveal a holster. A pair of nerve disruptors flipped out. Cora caught hers easily; Miles looked down at his in surprise. What about the pentacrine...?

But Raina had already crept out. Miles handed his stunner to Ekaterin. Aral and Cordelia had their own in hand. Thus armed, the party went out the other exit.

They got as far as the spacious front room when interior force shields went up.