Memory

pester my staff any more. Whatever the Emperor chooses to pass on to you is his business. My only duty is to report to him. Good day.' He cut the com with a firm swipe; the cone of silence vanished from around Miles, leaving him in the lobby again, with the clerk staring earnestly at him.

That did not go well.

The first thing he did upon returning to Vorkosigan House was lock himself in his bedroom and call Gregor. It took forty-five minutes to get through. If it had taken forty-five hours, he would have persisted just the same.

'Gregor,' Miles began without preamble, when the Emperor's face appeared over his vid plate. 'What the hell is going on with Illyan?'

'Where did you hear about it?' asked Gregor, unconsciously echoing Haroche, and looking worried.

Miles summed up Illyan's call to him, and his call to Haroche, of two days ago. He again left Galeni out of it. 'And then what happened? Something's happened, obviously.'

Gregor gave him a brief precis of Illyan s breakdown, minus most of the harrowing details supplied by Galeni. 'Haroche had him admitted to ImpSec's own clinic, which makes sense under the circumstances.'

'Yes, I tried to see Illyan this morning. Haroche wouldn't let me in.'

'They can bring whatever equipment or experts they need in there. I've personally granted funds and authority for anything Haroche wants to requisition.'

'Gregor, track this for a moment. Haroche wouldn't let me in. To see Illyan.'

Gregor's fingers spread in a frustrated gesture. 'Miles, give the man a break. He has his hands full, suddenly taking over all Illyan's duties, transferring his own department to the administration of his second—let him settle for a few days, without jogging his elbow, please. When he feels more in control, I'm sure he will relax. You have to admit, Simon would be the first to approve a cautious approach to such an emergency.'

'True. Simon would prefer to be in the hands of people who really cared about security. But I'm beginning to think I would prefer it if there were any signs he was in the hands of people who really cared about Simon Illyan.' He remembered the lingering nightmare of his own bout of post-cryo-revival amnesia. It had been one of the most terrifying periods of his life, to have so lost his memories, himself. . . was Illyan experiencing something like that right now? Or something even more grotesque? Miles had been lost among strangers. Illyan seemed lost among what should have been friends.

Miles sighed. 'All right, I'll leave poor Haroche alone. God knows I don't envy him his job. But would you keep me posted on the medical bulletins? I find all this . . . unexpectedly dismaying.'

Gregor looked sympathetic. 'Illyan really was a mentor to you, wasn't he?'

'In his own acerbic and demanding way, yes. It was an excellent way, in retrospect. But before that, even … he served my father for thirty years, my whole life. Until I was eighteen years old, I called him 'Uncle Simon,' till I was admitted to the Service Academy, after which I just called him 'Sir.' He had no surviving family of his own by then, and his job and, I'm beginning to think, that damned chip in his head ate any chance of his starting a new one for himself.'

'I didn't realize you thought of him as some sort of foster father, Miles.'

Miles shrugged. 'A foster uncle, anyway. It's … a family matter. And I am Vor.'

'Pleased to hear you admit it,' murmured Gregor. 'One wonders if you realize the fact, sometimes.'

Miles flushed. 'What I owe to Illyan is something all mixed up between a foster uncle and a family retainer . . . and I'm the only Vorkosigan on the planet at the moment. It feels like . . . no, it is my responsibility.'

'The Vorkosigans,' granted Gregor, 'were always nothing if not loyal.'

'It gets to be kind of a habit.'

Gregor sighed. 'Of course I'll keep you informed.'

'Once a day? Haroche will be giving you bulletins once a day, I know, with your morning ImpSec briefing.'

'Yes, Illyan and my coffee always used to arrive together. Sometimes, if he came in person, he'd bring the coffee himself. I always felt it was a polite hint: Sit up and pay attention.'

Miles grinned. 'That's Illyan. Once a day, yes?'

'Oh, very well. Look, I must go now.'

'Thanks, Gregor.'

The Emperor cut the com.

Miles sat back, partially satisfied. He had to give events and people time to sort themselves out. He thought of his own placid advice to Galeni about intuition versus proof. His intuition demon could just go back in its box—he pictured himself stuffing a small Naismith-shaped gnome into a trunk, and fastening the lid with straps. And little tiny meeping and banging noises coming from inside … I didn't become Illyan's top agent because I was better at following the rules than anybody else. But it was too damned early to say There's something wrong with this picture, or even to think it very loudly.

ImpSec would take care of its own; it always did. And he wasn't going to make a fool of himself in public again. He would wait.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The week dragged past. The daily short briefings via comconsole from Gregor seemed all right at first, but as each one fell atop the last with little sense of progress, ImpSec's caution began to seem downright glacial to Miles. He complained of this to Gregor.

'You're always impatient, Miles,' Gregor pointed out. 'Nothing ever goes fast enough to suit you.'

'Illyan shouldn't have to wait on doctors. Other people must, maybe, but not him. Don't they have any conclusions yet?'

'They ruled out stroke.'

'They ruled out stroke the first day. Then what? What about the chip?'

'There is apparently some evidence of deterioration or damage to the chip.'

'We guessed that already, too. What kind? When? How? Why? What the hell are they doing in there all this time?'

'They're still working on ruling out other neurological problems. And psychological ones. Its apparently not easy.'

Miles hunched, grouchily. 'I don't buy the iatrogenic psychosis idea. He's had that chip in too long without any signs of problems like this before.'

'Well . . . that's just the point, it seems. Illyan has had this particular neural augmentation in place and running for longer than any other human being ever. There are no standards for comparison. He's the baseline. No one knows what thirty-five years of accumulated artificial memory does to a personality. We may be finding out.'

'I still think we ought to be finding out faster.'

'They're doing all they can, Miles. You'll just have to wait like the rest of us.'

'Yeah, yeah . . .'

Gregor cut the com; Miles stared unseeing into the empty space over the vid plate. The trouble with synopsized information was that it was always so nebulous. The devil was in the details, the raw data; embedded therein were all the tiny clues that fed the intuition demon until it became strong and fat and, sometimes, grew up to become an actual Theory, or even a Proof. Miles was at least three layers away from reality; the ImpSec physicians synopsized it to Haroche, who boiled it down for Gregor, who filtered it to Miles. There weren't enough facts left in the clarified drippings by that time to color an opinion.

Lady Alys Vorpatril returned from her official journey to Komarr the following morning; that afternoon, she called Miles on his comconsole. He braced himself for the impact of descending social duties; some repressed inner