Kibou-daini is a planet obsessed with cheating loss of life. Barrayaran Imperial Auditor Mls Vorkosigan can barely disapprove-he’s been cheating death his whole life, on the idea that turnabout is definitely fair play. But when a Kibou-daini cryocorp-an immortal business whose job it really is to shepherd its all-too-mortal frozen customers into an unidentified future-attempts to increase its franchise in to the Barrayaran Empire, Emperor Gregor dispatches his top troubleshooter, Miles, to check on it out.

On Kibou-daini, Mls discovers generational discord over cash and resources is heating up, even while refugees displaced in time skew this is of “generation” past repair. Here he finds a young boy having a enthusiasm for dogs and cats and a dangerous secret, a Snow White trapped within an icy coffin who burns up to rewrite her own tale, and a strange crone who is the very embodiment from the caution “Don’t mess with the secretary.” Bribery, problem, conspiracy, kidnapping-something is normally rotten on Kibou-daini, and it isn’t because of power outages in the Cryocombs. And Mls is within the middle-of problems.