And he knew his galactics, no question there. And he had just successfully concluded, in his other hat as the-Count-his-father’s voting proxy to the Council of Counts, several years on committees devoted to upgrading Barrayaran law on reproductive technologies to galactic standards. Cryonics, Roic supposed, was the other end of these life-tech issues, and so a logical extension. But the Northbridge Invitational Conference on Cryonics, hosted by a consortium of Kibou-daini cryorevival corporations, had proved as harmless a hotel-full of misty-eyed science boffins and well-fed lawyers as Roic had ever seen.

“Don’t underestimate the viciousness of academics when funding is at stake,” m’lord had said, when Roic had pointed this out. “Nor attorneys’ command of ambush tactics.”

“Yeah, but they don’t generally use stunners or needlers,” Roic had returned. “It’s all words. My skills seem wasted. When they start firing off those paragraph grenades, I’d rather hunker down behind you.”

He’d spoken too soon, it seemed.

He’d sat in on every program m’lord had attended, in the back of the room where he could watch all the exits, and been hard-put to stay awake, though m’lord recorded everything indiscriminately. He followed m’lord to meals with other attendees and to lavish evening parties provided by the conference’s sponsors, at varying distances from looming over m’lord’s short shoulder to leaning against the far wall, as m’lord signaled. He learned far more about cryonics and the people who dealt with it than he had ever wanted to know.

And he had just about come to the conclusion that the entire jaunt was a put-up job between Lady Vorkosigan and Empress Laisa, to give Ekaterin a much-needed holiday from a spouse who diagnosed all complaints as a sign of boredom, to be alleviated with an exciting new task. Since Lady Vorkosigan