Half-dressed, Miles wandered across the spacious bedchamber-sitting room the Barrayaran embassy had assigned to him, turning the glittering rod in his hand. "So if I'm meant to have this, am I meant to stash it here, or am I meant to carry it on my person?"

Ivan, neat and complete in the high-collared tunic, side-piped trousers, and half-boots of fresh undress greens, rolled his eyes ceiling-ward. "Will you quit fooling with that thing and get dressed, before you make us late? Maybe it's a fancy curtain-weight, and it's meant to drive you crazy trying to assign it some deep and sinister significance. Or drive me crazy, listening to you. Some ghem-lord's practical joke."

"A particularly subtle practical joke, if so."

"Doesn't rule it out," Ivan shrugged.

"No." Miles frowned, and limped to the comconsole desk. He opened the top drawer, and found a stylus and a pad of plastic flimsies embossed with the embassy seal. He tore off a flimsy and pressed it against the bird-figure on the rod's cap-lock, then traced the indentations with the stylus, a quick, accurate, and to-scale sketch. After a moment's hesitation, he left the rod in the drawer with the pad of flimsies, and closed it again.