Thank you, napkins the bar, dryly.

Miles shrugs. "Sorry, Linya. Looks like you're out of luck."

"Should I know," says Ivan, "what arbitrage is?"

"Imagine, as is in fact the case, that maple sugar is three times as expensive on Tau Ceti as it is on Barrayar. This is stable because it takes a lot of hassle to get maple sugar from Barrayar to Tau Ceti, and the people involved in that hassle mark it up. Now imagine that," she pats the bar, "the economies of Tau Ceti and Barrayar are right next to each other, and you have an intermediary who doesn't cheat you at the currency exchange, and further that there are several trillion other economies also right next to each other, and quintupling your money starts to sound trivial."

"Unfortunately, there seem to be rules about that sort of thing. So unless we can get Mark in on a scheme to smuggle valuable objects between Barrayar and wherever he's currently holed up hiding from ImpSec... and manage to sneak said objects in and out of your girlfriend's parents' house... nothing doing."

"Ah-huh. How do you even think of that sort of thing?"

"Economics lessons from Tsipis, although I might have come up with it on my own, I imagine."

"It's not that obscure an idea, is it?"

"I wouldn't've thought of it or I might have dabbled in imports when I got assigned to Earth."

"Oh, when I travel for business I bring a case of maple butter with me to give to various people as gifts. It's a nice blend of personal, usable, and expensive. But I don't sell it. Arbitrage is the sort of thing you need to do at scale or with special advantages of some kind to get much of anywhere."

"And I am pretty sure we are unlikely to get Mark in on such a scheme."

"Unless you make it sound as much like a barrel of laughs as the beans thing."

"It might be worth asking, I suppose. He can take his cut in beans if he likes."

"It would involve letting us know where he was, even if only indirectly. I'm not sure even dried beans could tempt him."

"It could be very indirect. We could operate against the same currency you gave him his original chit in, and looking up the prices of whatever he walked out with would be more indeterminate and less entertaining than just waiting for ImpSec to find him again."

"No harm in asking," he says. "I'm just not getting my hopes up."

"Nor I," Linya agrees.

...He can't help glancing at the stairs, wondering how Mark and Stalas are doing. (Mark and Stalas. Wow.)

"There is no need to dwell on the thing you are probably dwelling on," opines Ivan.

"I'm not dwelling exactly," he says. "I'm—wondering."

"Also unnecessary!"

"I just - I hope they're okay," he says. "Those are not the two happiest people I know up there."

"Unless you are planning to go check on them..."

"No."