He shrugs. "None of my business. They're damned useful, but any useful thing can be used for things you might wish it couldn't."

"Yeah. So where are we going?"

"Away. Not back to my hotel room; he knows where that is. I'd be tempted to ask you to whip up a jumpship, if I had a pilot and if I could think of anywhere we could go in the next couple of hours to pull a jumpship out of thin air without anyone noticing... eh. I'll just find us a nice quiet corner for now. Probably in yet a third hotel."

"I mean, I can make spaceships that I know how to fly, but they do not 'jump', describe to me 'jumping'."

"Transiting wormholes. Jump pilots need a lot of delicate neural circuitry whose installation is one of the highest-paid jobs in the wormhole nexus in order to interface with their ships to accomplish a jump, and on top of that they need to have the right kind of brain to begin with. I don't think you can make either of us into a jump pilot. We could hire one, if we had a jumpship, but that would involve more direct interaction with people than I'd like."

"Huh. Okay then. And you want to avoid people because the security folks who are about to be very puzzled by my former extremities are looking for you...?"

"That's one reason, yeah."

"And I don't count as direct interaction with people because, what, I'm a demon? Hate to break it to you, Mark, but demons are people."

Snort. "You sure?"

"Very. If the revelation is too shocking I can wander off and leave you be, although I would like a way to look you up in case I ever wish to be sent home."

"Nah," he says. "There's room for exceptions. And if we became separated somehow, the fastest way to look me up would probably be to travel to Barrayar, convince my brother you urgently needed to talk to me, and get him to find me for you. Which could take up to several months, depending where each of us is at the time and how fast you convince Miles."

"You're not in even remotely close touch with your brother and he's still the fastest way to find you?"

"He has access to the ImpSec reports. It's not fast but it beats the hell out of wandering the wormhole nexus trying to find me by yourself, unless you have more magic you haven't told me about."

"I'd have access to the ImpSec reports, too, probably, if I knew just a tiny bit more about how they're organized. But I couldn't necessarily do much with them."

"And you couldn't pass the word down the line for the closest agent to try to get in touch with me. Well, you could if you were very clever and didn't mind falsifying official communications. Don't falsify official communications, please. It'd be more of a headache than I want to give 'em."

"Noted."

"Swanky," comments Cam in the lift tube. "So what is it that you do besides leave little mysteries for your pursuers?"

"Not a whole lot."

"Doodling on the floor and such takes up most of your time?"

"By time the thing I do most is probably read."

"Reading's a lot less depressing than you're making it sound, in my experience."

"It's not the reading that's depressing."

"You're being cryptic," Cam observes.