Memory

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

A scant hour before ImpSec HQ quitting time, at least for those men there so fortunate as to work day shift, Miles marshaled his little troop at the side door for what he mentally dubbed The Assault on Cockroach Central. He was grateful at last for the embarrassing dimensions of the Count's old groundcar, because he'd been able to fit everyone in the rear compartment, and finish his mission briefing on the way over from the Imperial Science Institute, thus saving a few more precious minutes. He'd pressed Ivan into service again, and Simon Illyan himself, in the undress greens with full insignia Miles had insisted he wear. Dr. Weddell followed, carefully carrying an old shipping carton labeled, but not containing, Petri-mice, frozen, lot #621A, 1 dozen. Last but by no means least important, Delia Koudelka swung out her long legs, and hurried to catch up.

The corporal on duty at the front desk looked up anxiously as Miles entered. Miles strode up to him, and smiled tightly. "General Haroche has left your station orders to report to his office when I go in and out, has he not?"

"Why . . . yes, my Lord Auditor." The corporal glanced around Miles and saluted Illyan, who returned the courtesy.

"Well, don't."

"Uh . . . yes, my Lord Auditor." The corporal looked faintly panicked, like a grain of wheat foreseeing itself about to be ground between two stones.

"It's all right, Smetani," Illyan assured him in passing; the corporal relaxed gratefully.

The cavalcade continued on into the corridors of ImpSec. Miles s first stop was the new detention area, now located in an inner quadrant of the second floor. Miles braced the officer in charge.

"In a short time, I'm coming back here to interview Captain Galeni. I expect to find him alive when I arrive, an outcome for which I will hold you personally responsible. In the meanwhile, Miss Koudelka here will be visiting him. You will permit no one else—no one, not even your own superiors," especially your own superiors, "to enter the prisoner's block until I return. Is that crystal clear?"

"Yes, my Lord Auditor."

"Delia, don't leave Duv alone for so much as a second till I get back."

"I understand, Miles." Her chin rose firmly. "And . . . thanks."

Miles nodded.

He hoped this blocked any chance of a last-minute convenient "suicide" attempt upon Galeni. Haroche had to be ready by now to move on that plan at a moments notice; the trick was to deny him the moment. Miles led the rest of his people onward, to Janitorial, where he cornered the department head, an aging colonel. Once the man was reassured that Miles's intense interest in the schedule of air filtration maintenance was no adverse reflection upon his departments services, he became very cooperative. Miles brought him along.

Miles wanted to be in four places at once, but the thing had to be taken in as strict an order as any proof in 5-space math. Inspiration was one thing, demonstration quite another. After collecting a tech from Forensics, he hurried his team along to the sub-sub-basement, and the Evidence Rooms. In a very few more minutes he had his array of impeccable witnesses lined up in Aisle 5, Weapons Room IV. Weddell set his box down and leaned against the shelf frame, arms crossed, his air of skeptical intellectual superiority for once almost masked by his fascination with the proceedings.

Shelf 9 was inconveniently out of reach; Miles had to have Ivan hand him down the familiar little bio-sealed box. His Auditors seal was unbroken. The two remaining brittle brown capsules waited demurely. He picked up one and rolled it between his thumb and forefinger.

"All right. Watch closely, all. Here goes." He pressed firmly, and the capsule snapped; he waved it twice over his head. A smoky tan comets-trail of exquisitely fine powder hung a moment in the air, then dissipated. A little smudge clung to his fingers. Ivan was holding his breath, Miles noticed.

"How long should we wait?" Miles asked Dr. Weddell.

"I'd give it at least ten minutes to get all over the room," Weddell advised.

Miles attempted to compose his soul in patience. Illyan stared at the air, his expression hard. Yes, thought Miles, here is the weapon that murdered you. You can't touch it, but it can touch you. . . . Brick-colored, Ivan gave up, and started breathing again before he turned altogether purple and passed out.

At last, Weddell bent down and opened his box. From it he drew a small transparent bottle of clear fluid, and an atomizer dispenser, which he filled. For custom-designing that precious liquid on three hours' notice, Miles was ready to forgive him all his sins of pride for the next five years, and kiss him to boot. Weddell himself seemed to regard it as trivial. Scientifically, perhaps it was. A simple chelation solution, he'd dismissed it. The vector encapsulation's exterior structure is nicely regular, specific, and unique. If you wanted something to detect the presence of the prokaryotes themselves, that would be a real challenge.

"Now," said Miles to the colonel in charge of Janitorial, "we go to the return-air vent and filters."

"This way, my Lord Auditor."

They all filed through the aisle and around to the far wall, where a small rectangular grille, about the size of a standard plastic flimsy, at ankle-height marked the return-air duct. "Go ahead and pull off the outer cover," Miles instructed the colonel. "It's the very top filter I'm interested in."

The whole crew of them ended up on their knees, watching over the colonel's shoulder. He pulled off the outer grille to reveal the sealed rectangle of fiber designed to catch dust, dirt, hairs, mold, spores, smoke particles, and the like; the tiny prokaryotes themselves, if freed from their sporelike cases, would have slipped right through this barrier and gone on, possibly, even to penetrate the electrolytic resin barrier behind it, only to be destroyed at the last when they reached the central flash-unit.

At Miles's nod the colonel gave way to Dr. Weddell, who sat cross-legged on the floor and earnestly saturated the air around the vent with his atomizer.

"So what's he doing?" the colonel whispered to Miles.

Miles suppressed the reply, Were spraying for traitors. Pesky vermin this time of year, don't you find? "Watch and see."

Weddell then pulled an ultraviolet hand-light from his box, and directed it at the filter. A pale red fluorescence slowly grew more brilliant as the black light played over the surface.

"There you are, my Lord Auditor," Weddell said. "The vector encapsulations were caught in the filter, all right."

"Just so." Miles scrambled to his feet. "That's our baseline, then. On to the next. You there"—he pointed to the forensics tech—"document, bag, label, and seal all that, and follow as quickly as you can."

The parade took their positions and followed him once more. This time he led them to the Department of Komarran Affairs, where Miles asked the disturbed General Allegre to join the procession. They all fetched up crowded into Captain Galeni's cubicle-sized office, fourth door down the Komarran analysts' corridor.

"Do you remember ever personally visiting Galeni in here in the last three months?" Miles asked Illyan.

"I'm sure I stopped in a few times. I came down here almost every week, to discuss items in his reports of particular interest."

As soon as the forensics tech arrived, out of breath, the colonel from Janitorial repeated his performance with the cubicle's return-air vent, identical to the one in Weapons Room IV. Weddell sprayed again, liberally. This time, Miles held his breath. The results of this test could force a major fork in his planned strategy. If Haroche had anticipated him—there had been two missing capsules, after all.

Weddell, on one hand and his knees, played his black light over the filter. "Huh." Miles's heart seemed to stop. "There's nothing here that I can see. Do you see anything?"

Miles inhaled, gratefully, as the other men bent to examine the filter also. It remained a slightly dirty and now-damp white.

"Can you ascertain that this hasn't been changed since the last scheduled maintenance at Midsummer?" Miles asked the colonel.

The colonel shrugged. "The filters are not individually numbered, my lord. They're interchangeable, of course." He checked the report panel he carried. "No one in my department has done so, anyway. It's not due to be changed again till next month at Winterfair. It looks to have about the normal amount of accumulation for this point in its cycle."

"Thank you, Colonel. I appreciate your precision." He rose, and glanced at Illyan, who was watching stony-faced. "Your old office is next, Simon. Would you care to lead the way?"

Illyan shook his head, politely declining. "There isn't much joy for me in this, Miles. Either way your results come out, I lose a trusted subordinate."

"But wouldn't you rather lose the one who's actually guilty?"

"Yes." Illyan's snort was not wholly ironic. "Carry on, my Lord Auditor."

They trooped up three floors and down one to the level of Illyan s old office. If Miles had managed to surprise Haroche with his arrival in force, the general showed no sign of it. But was there maybe just a little discomfort in his eyes, as Haroche greeted his old boss and offered Illyan a chair?

"No, thanks, Lucas," said Illyan coolly. "I don't think we'll be here very long."

"What are you doing?" Haroche asked, as the colonel, practiced, went straight for the grille low on the wall to the right of his comconsole desk. The increasingly burdened forensics tech followed him.

"Air filters," said Miles. "You didn't think of the air filters. You've never been on space duty, have you, Lucas?"

"No, unfortunately."

"Believe me, it makes you very conscious of things like air circulation systems."

Haroche s brows rose as Weddell began vigorously spraying around the vent. He rocked back in his station chair, as-if-casually. He sucked thoughtfully on his lower lip, and did not ask, Have you considered my offer, Miles? He was a cool hand, and patient, and perfectly capable of waiting for the answer to emerge. No reason for him to flinch yet; whether the filters here were jammed full of vector encapsulations or not, it would prove nothing. Lots of people went in and out of Illyan s office.

"No," said Weddell after a moment. "Take a look for yourselves, gentlemen." He passed the black light along to Ivan and General Allegre.

"You'd think it would be here," commented Allegre, peering over Ivan's shoulder.

Miles had given it about a twenty-five-percent chance, personally, though he'd upped the odds after finding Galeni's vent clear. That left one of the conference chambers, or …

"Find anything?" asked Haroche.

Miles made a small show of going over and borrowing the hand-light from Ivan. "Not in here, dammit. I was hoping it would be simple. If the prokaryote vectors are caught in the filters, they show up bright red, y'see. We tested one, downstairs."

"What are you going to do next?"

"There's nothing for it but to start at the top of the HQ building and check every filtered air vent till I get to the basement. Tedious, but I'll get there in the end. You know I said if I knew why, I'd know who. I've changed my mind. I now think if I know where, I'll know who."

"Oh, really. Have you tried Captain Galeni's office?"

"First place we looked. It's clear."

"Hm. Perhaps . . . one of the briefing rooms?"

"I'd give odds." Bite, Haroche. Bite my hook. Come on, come on. …

"Very good."

"If you want to save steps," put in Ivan, on cue, "you ought to start with the places Illyan went most, and work out from there. Rather than from the top down."

"Good thinking," said Miles. "Shall we start with the outer office? Then—excuse me, General Allegre, but I must be complete—the offices of the department heads. Then the briefing rooms, then all the affairs analysts' offices. We should probably have done the whole of Komarran Affairs while we were first down there. After that we'll see."

From the look on the forensics techs face, he was mentally kissing his dinner good-bye, a regret perhaps blunted by his obvious fascination with the proceedings. Allegre nodded; they all straggled back out, and the colonel began the drill again with the grille in the outer office. Miles wondered if anyone had noticed yet that Weddell didn't have nearly enough chelation solution to check every air filter in ImpSec HQ. Illyan exchanged abstracted greetings with his old secretary. After a few moments, General Haroche excused himself. Illyan did not look up.

Miles watched out of the corner of his eye as Haroche exited into the corridor. Hook set, yes, now the line plays out. . . . He began counting in his head, timing out how a man in a suppressed panic might walk to one room, then another. He motioned Weddell to desist with his spray; when he reached one hundred, he spoke. "All right, gentlemen. If you will follow me one more time. Quietly, please."

He led them out into the corridor and turned left, and right again at the second intersection. In the middle of that hallway, he met the commodore who had taken over Domestic Affairs from Haroche.

"Oh, my Lord Auditor," the commodore hailed him. "How fortunate. General Haroche just sent me to get you."

"Where did he tell you to look for me?"

"He said you'd gone down to the Evidence Rooms. You've just saved me some steps."

"Oh, yes. Tell me, was Haroche carrying anything?"

"A flimsy-folder. Did you want it?"

"I rather think so. He's just in here, eh? Come along. …" Miles led the way back up the corridor and into the Domestic Affairs outer office. The door to Haroche's old inner office was locked. Miles overrode its codes with his Auditor's seal. It hissed aside.

Haroche was crouched to the left of his old comconsole desk, just levering the vent grille out of the wall. In the opened flimsy-folder on the floor by his side lay another fiber filter. Miles laid a small bet with himself that they would find a disemboweled grille awaiting Haroche's return in one of the briefing rooms on a direct line between Illyan's old office and this one. A quick switch, very cool. You think fast, General. But this time I had a head start.

"Timing," said Miles, "is everything."

Haroche jerked upright, on his knees. "My Lord Auditor," he began quickly, and stopped. His eye took in the small army of ImpSec men crowding into the doorway behind Miles. Even then, Miles thought, Haroche might have been capable of some brilliantly extemporized explanation, to Miles, to the whole damned mob, but then Illyan shouldered forward. Miles fancied he could almost see the glib lies turning to clotted ashes on Haroche's tongue, though the only outward sign was a little twitch at the corner of his mouth.

Haroche had avoided facing his victims, Miles had noticed. He'd never once visited Illyan in ImpSec's own clinic, had tried unsuccessfully to avoid Miles back when he'd doubtless been planning the original version of the frame-up, and had been careful to enter the Imperial Residence only after Galeni had been arrested and removed. He was not, perhaps, an evil man, but only an ordinary smart man tempted to one evil act, and then overwhelmed when its consequences proliferated beyond control. When you chose an act, you chose the consequences of that act.

"Hello, Lucas," Illyan said. His eyes were amazingly cold.

"Sir …" Haroche scrambled up, and stood, empty-handed.

"Colonel, Dr. Weddell, if you please . . ." Miles waved them forward, and motioned the forensics tech in their immediate wake. He himself stood back a little, on the other side of the group from where Haroche stood. When he looked up, their eyes accidentally met, and both looked quickly away, avoiding an unfortunate intimacy. This is my moment of triumph. Why isn't it more fun?

The motions were all as choreographed and practiced as a dance, by now. The colonel finished dislodging the grille, Weddell sprayed. An excruciating few seconds' wait. Then the red fluorescence glowed, bright and malicious, as the black light transmuted the invisible into something resembling blood.

"General Allegre," Miles sighed, "you are now the acting chief of ImpSec, pending Emperor Gregor's approval. I am sorry to inform you that your first duty is the arrest of your predecessor, General Haroche. By my order as an Imperial Auditor, on the serious charge of . . ." What? Sabotage? Treason? Stupidity? The criminal secretly wants to get caught, so ran the popular wisdom. Not true, Miles thought; the criminal just wants to get away. It was the sinner who sought to be brought to light, on the long crawl back through confession, to absolution and some sort of grace, however shattered. Was Haroche a criminal or a sinner?

"On the capital charge of treason," Miles finished. Half the men in the room flinched at that last word.

"Not treason," Haroche whispered hoarsely. "Never treason."

Miles opened his hand. "But … if he is willing to confess and cooperate, possibly a lesser charge of assault on a superior officer. A court-martial, a year in prison, a simple dishonorable discharge. I think … I will let the Service court sort that one out."

By the looks on their faces, both Haroche and Allegre caught the nuances of that speech. Allegre was Galeni's superior, after all, and doubtless had been following the case against his subordinate in detail. Haroche's jaw tightened; Allegre smiled in acid appreciation.

"May I suggest," Miles went on to Allegre, "that you march him downstairs and have him trade places with your top analyst, for the moment, while you play catchup."

"Yes, my Lord Auditor." Allegre's voice was firm and determined, though he had a moments pause when he realized he had no husky sergeants to do the official hands-on arresting. Miles thought eight-to-one was odds enough, but he forbore making suggestions. It was Allegre's job now.

Allegre, after a quick glance at Illyan gave him no clues, solved his problem by drafting Ivan—what was it about Ivan?—the colonel, and the commodore. "Lucas, are you going to give me any trouble?"

"I think . . . not," sighed Haroche. His eyes surveyed the room, but there were no handy high windows inviting a quick resolution, four floors headfirst to the pavement. "I'm too old to be that athletic anymore."

"Good. Me too." Allegre escorted him out.

Illyan watched them go. He remarked in an undertone to Miles, "This is a damned sad business. ImpSec really needs to start some new traditions for changing its chiefs. Assassination and retribution is so disruptive to the organization."

Miles could only shrug agreement. He led the way for a quick survey of nearby briefing rooms, and found the opened vent, missing its filter, in the second they tried. He oversaw the forensics tech's careful bagging and documenting of the last pieces of evidence, and sealed the whole set with his Auditors seal, and sent them down to wait in the Evidence Rooms for whatever aftermaths eventually unfolded.

Everything from here on out was, thank God, beyond his mandate as an acting Imperial Auditor. His responsibilities ended with his report to Gregor, and the turning over of any evidence he'd accumulated to the proper prosecuting authorities, in this case, in all probability, the Service court. I only have to find the truth. I don't have to figure out what to do with it. Though, he supposed, any recommendations he made would bear weight.

Finished in the Office of Domestic Affairs, and unhurried at last, he and Illyan strolled side by side down the corridor after the tech. "I wonder how Haroche will try to play this?" Miles wondered aloud. "Hope to be assigned a good defender and try to tough it out? He spent so much time and effort himself doctoring the comconsole evidence—which was, I think, all that distracted him from thinking of those damned filters before I did—I thought he'd cry Plant! first thing. Or will he fall back on the Old Vorish solution? He looked . . . pretty pale, there at the end. He folded quicker than I thought he would."

"You hit him harder than you thought you had. You don't know your own strength, Miles. But no. I don't think suicide is Lucas's way," said Illyan. "And anyway, it's difficult to arrange without cooperation from his jailers."

"Do you believe … I ought to hint for such cooperation?" Miles asked delicately.

"Dying's easy." Illyan's drawn features grew distant. How much did he remember of his agonized pleading to Miles for an easy death, so few weeks ago? "Living's hard. Let the son of a bitch stand his court-martial. Every last eternal minute of it."

"Ah," breathed Miles.

The new ImpSec HQ detention area was a lot smaller than the old one, but shared the design of a single entrance and prisoner processing area. At the front comconsole desk they found Captain Galeni, Delia Koudelka by his side, just completing his exit documentation under the eye of General Allegre and the duty officer. Ivan looked on. Haroche, it appeared, had already been processed in; Miles hoped he'd been given Galeni's cell.

Galeni was still in the dress greens he'd worn to Gregor s reception, now very rumpled. He was unshaven, red-eyed, and pale from lack of sleep. A dangerous tension still hung about him, like a fog.

He swung on his heel to face Miles, as he and Illyan entered. "Goddammit, Vorkosigan, where were you all this time?"

"Ah . . ." Miles ticked his Auditor's chain, to remind Galeni he was still on duty.

Galeni snapped, "Goddammit, my Lord Auditor, where the hell were you all this time? You said last night you'd follow on. Thought you were going to let me out. Then I didn't know what the hell to think. I'm quitting this frigging paranoid stupid organization just as soon as I get out of this rat-tank. No more."

Allegre winced. Delia touched Galeni's hand; he grasped hers, and his roiling boil visibly settled to a milder simmer.

Well, I had this seizure, and then I had to sort through Haroche's misdirection with the comconsole report, and then I had to get Weddell from his lab at the Imperial Science Institute, and he took forever, and I didn't dare contact anyone by comconsole from Vorkosigan House, I had to go in person, and . . . "Yes. I'm sorry. I'm afraid it took me all day to assemble the evidence to clear you."

"Miles . . ." said Illyan, "it's only been five days since this was discovered to be sabotage. It's going to take you longer to assemble your Auditor's report than it did for you to solve the case."

"Reports," sighed Miles. "Yech. But Duv, see, it wasn't enough for me to order your release. I'd have been accused of favoritism."

"That's true," murmured Ivan.

"At first I thought Haroche was just being clumsy, to have you arrested at the Imperial Residence in front of so many people. Ha. Not him. It was beautifully choreographed to destroy your reputation. After that, neither release nor acquittal for insufficient evidence would have removed suspicion from most men's minds. I had to nail the real culprit. It was the only way."

"Ah . . ." Galeni's brows drew down. "Miles, just who was the real culprit?"

"Oh, didn't you tell him yet?" Miles asked Delia.

"You told me not to say anything about it till you were done," Delia protested. "We just now got out of that dreadful little cell."

"They aren't as dreadful as the old cells," Illyan objected mildly. "I remember those. Spent a month under arrest in 'em myself, thirteen years ago." He cast a slightly sour smile at Miles. "Something about the Lord Regent's son's private army, and a certain treason charge."

"With all the things you've forgotten, I could wish you'd have forgotten that," murmured Miles.

"No such luck," Illyan murmured back. "I had them converted to evidence storage and the new detention area built right after. Much upgraded. Just in case I ever ended up in them again."

Galeni stared at Illyan. "I'd never heard that story."

"In retrospect—much later—I came to consider it a salutary experience. I fancied afterwards that every senior ImpSec officer ought to undergo something similar, for the same reason every doctor ought just once to be a patient. It sharpens one's perspectives."

Galeni was silent a moment, obviously processing this. His dangerous air of rage was almost fully dissipated. Ivan covertly let out his breath. Allegre, after directing a grateful half-smile at Illyan, looked on.

"It was Haroche," Miles added. "He wanted a promotion."

Galeni's brows shot up; he wheeled to General Allegre, who nodded confirmation.

"As soon as those bioengineered prokaryotes were discovered," Miles went on, "Haroche lost his chance of his sabotage passing undetected, which I'm sure was his first-choice scenario. At that point, he had to have a goat. It didn't have to be a perfect goat, as long as he was able to generate enough fog to justify stopping the search for another. He disliked me, you had the right profile, he hit upon a way to take us both down at once. Sorry I made Delia keep you in the dark, but arresting the acting head of ImpSec in the middle of ImpSec HQ proved to be a bit tricky. I didn't want to make any promises till I was sure how it was going to come out."

Galeni's eyes were wide. "Forget . . . what I said."

"Does that include the part about resigning your commission?" Allegre asked anxiously.

"I … don't know. Why me? I'd never thought Haroche was particularly prejudiced against Komarrans. How much longer am I going to have to wade through this kind of crap, what more do they want from me to prove my loyalty?"

"I expect you'll be wading for the rest of your life," Illyan answered seriously. "But every Komarran who follows you will have less crap to deal with, because of you."

"You've come so far," Miles pleaded. "Don't let a cockroach like Haroche waste your sacrifices. The Imperium needs your perspectives. ImpSec particularly desperately needs your perspectives, because it's part of ImpSec's job to give much of the Imperial government its picture of the world. If we get straight truth in, maybe we've got half a chance of getting good judgment out. No damn chance otherwise, that's for sure."

Allegre seconded this with a nod.

"Besides"—Miles glanced at Delia, who was following all this in deep alarm—"Vorbarr Sultana is a very nice posting for any ambitious officer. Look at the people you meet here, for one thing. And the opportunities." Ivan nodded vigorously; Miles went on, "Um . . . not to interfere in ImpSec's internal business or anything, but I think the department of Komarran Affairs is going to need a new head man very soon." He glanced at Allegre. "The old one being about to inherit a much worse job, y'see."

Allegre looked startled, then thoughtful. "A Komarran, to head Komarran Affairs . . . ?"

"Radical," Miles purred, "but it just might work."

Both Allegre and Illyan gave him the same quelling look. Miles subsided.

"Besides," Allegre went on, "I think you're premature, Lord Vorkosigan. It's by no means assured that Gregor will confirm me as permanent chief of ImpSec."

"Who else is there?" Miles shrugged. "Olshansky isn't seasoned enough yet, and the Galactic Affairs head likes his old job very well, thank you. With this Imperial marriage coming up, at long last, your depth of experience in Komarran matters makes you nearly ideal, I'd say."

"Be that as it may." Allegre looked a little daunted; were the full implications just starting to seep in? "That's tomorrow's worry. I have enough for today. Gentlemen, will you excuse me. I think I had better start with a quick survey of Haroche's . . . Illyan's … of whatever's waiting in the in-file of that comconsole upstairs. And . . . and a meeting of department heads, to apprise them of, hm, events. Any suggestions, Simon?"

Illyan shook his head. "Carry on. You'll be fine."

"Duv," Allegre continued to Galeni, "at least go home and get dinner, and a good night's sleep, before you make any important decisions, will you promise me that?"

"All right, sir," said Galeni, in a neutral tone. Delia squeezed his hand. He had not loosened his grip upon her, Miles noticed, the whole time they'd been standing there talking. He wasn't risking letting this one get away. Once he relaxed a bit, he would perhaps realize that it would take at least four large men with hand-tractors to pry her off his arm. Foolhardy large men. Ivan, noting this byplay at last, frowned faintly.

"Do you wish to report to Gregor first, my Lord Auditor, or shall I?" Allegre added.

"I'll take care of it. You should check in with him as soon as you've triaged your situation upstairs, though."

"Yes. Thank you." They exchanged sketchy salutes, and Allegre hurried out.

"Are you calling Gregor now?" asked Galeni.

"Right from here," Miles said. "It's urgent I let him know what's happened, since I couldn't give him any hint of it earlier. The ImpSec chief's office monitors all of his communications."

"When you do . . ." Galeni glanced at Delia, and away, though his grip on her hand tightened again, "will you be sure to … will you please ask him to be sure to let Laisa know that I am no traitor?"

"First thing," Miles promised. "My word on it."

"Thank you."

Miles detailed a guard to make sure Galeni and Delia got to the outer door without any last-straw harassment, and lent Delia the use of Martin and the groundcar to convey them to Galeni's nearby flat. Miles retained Ivan, spiking Ivan's ingenuous offer to see Galeni settled and take Delia on to her home by pointing out that Ivan's groundcar was still parked at Ops HQ. Then he booted the duty officer from his comconsole station and took it over. Illyan drew up another station chair by his side to look on. Miles entered a particular code-card into the comconsole's read-slot.

"Sire," Miles said formally, when Gregor's upper body appeared over the vid plate; the emperor was wiping his mouth with a dinner napkin.

Gregor's brows twitched up at the officiality; Miles had all his attention. "Yes, my Lord Auditor. Progress? Problems?"

"I'm finished."

"Good God. Ah . . . would you care to elaborate on that?"

"You'll get all the details"—Miles glanced aside at Illyan—"in my report, but briefly, you're out one provisional chief of ImpSec. It was never Galeni. It was Haroche himself. I figured out that the prokaryote vector encapsulations had to be trapped in the air filters."

"Did he confess this?"

"Better. We caught him trying to switch the filter in his old office, which was where he'd apparently dosed Illyan."

"I … take it this event did not occur by chance."

Miles s lips drew back in a wolfish grin. "Chance," he intoned, "favors the prepared mind, as somebody or another said. No. Not by chance."

Gregor sat back, looking very disturbed. "He delivered my ImpSec daily report to me in person just this morning, and all the time, he knew. … I was almost ready to confirm him as ImpSec's permanent chief."

Miles's lips twisted. "Yeah. And he would have been a good one, almost. Look, um … I promised Duv Galeni I would have you tell Laisa he was no traitor. Will you redeem my word for me?"

"Of course. She was extremely distressed by last nights scene. Haroche's explanations threw us all into the most painful doubt."

"Lucas always was smooth," murmured Illyan.

"Why did he do it?" asked Gregor.

"I have a great many questions I still want answers to before I sit down to assemble my report," said Miles, "and most of them seem to start with why. It's the most interesting question of all."

"And the hardest to answer," Illyan warned. "Where, what, how, who; for those I could at least sometimes make physical evidence speak. Why was almost theological, and often proved beyond my scope."

"There's so much that only Haroche can tell us," said Miles. "But we can't use fast-penta on the bastard, mores the pity. I think . . . we might get something out of him, if we hit him tonight, while he's still off-balance. By tomorrow, he'll have recovered his considerable wits, and be demanding a military defender, and standing pat. No … not we. It's clear he hates my guts, though once again why . . . Simon, can you . . . are you up to running an interrogation for me?"

Illyan rubbed his hand over his face. "I can try. But if he was willing to take me out, I don't see why he won't be willing to stand up to any moral pressure I can bring to bear."

Gregor seemed to study his hands, interlaced before him on his comconsole, then looked up. "Wait," he said. "I have a better idea."