Their luggage and its guards arrived just as they finished their drinks, experienced timing on Vorob'yev's part, Miles judged. When the ambassador rose to oversee its stowage and their departure, Ivan leaned across the table to whisper urgently to Miles, "Aren't you going to tell him about it?"

"Not yet."

"Why not?"

"Are you in such a hurry to lose that nerve disrupter? The embassy'd take it away from you as fast as the Cetagandans, I bet."

"Screw that. What are you up to?"

"I'm . . . not sure. Yet." This was not the scenario he'd expected to unfold. He'd anticipated bandying sharp exchanges with assorted Cetagandan authorities while they made him disgorge his prizes, and trading for information, consciously or unconsciously revealed. It wasn't his fault the Cetagandans weren't doing their job.

"We've got to at least report this to the embassy's military attache."

"Report it, yes. But not to the attache. Illyan told me that if I had any problems—meaning, of the sort our department concerns itself with—I was to go to Lord Vorreedi. He's listed as a protocol officer, but he's really an ImpSec colonel and chief of ImpSec here."

"The Cetagandans don't know?"

"Of course they know. Just like we know who's really who at the Cetagandan embassy in Vorbarr Sultana. It's a polite legal fiction. Don't worry, I'll see to it." Miles sighed inwardly. He supposed the first thing the colonel would do was cut him out of the information-flow. And he dared not explain why Vorreedi shouldn't.

Ivan sat back, temporarily silenced. Only temporarily, Miles was sure.