Memory

piping, the gleaming riding boots. Lastly, the heavy tunic. He fastened his grandfather's dagger in its cloisonne sheath, with the Vorkosigan seal in the jeweled hilt, on its proper belt around his waist. He combed his hair, and stepped back to regard himself, glittering in his mirror.

Going native, are we? The sarcastic voice was growing fainter.

'If you expect to open a can of worms,' he spoke aloud for the first time, 'you'd best trouble to pack a can-opener.'

Martin, engrossed in reading a hand-viewer, looked up at the sound of Miles's booted step, and did a gratifying double-take.

'Bring my car round to the front portico,' Miles instructed him coolly.

'Where are we going? My lord.'

'To the Imperial Residence. I have an appointment.'

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Gregor received Miles in the serene privacy of his office in the Residence's north wing. He was seated behind his comconsole desk, perusing some visual display, and didn't look up till after the majordomo had announced Miles and withdrawn. He tapped a control and the holovid vanished, revealing the small, smoldering, brown-uniformed man standing across from him.

'All right, Miles, what's this all ab—good God.' Gregor sat up, startled; his brows climbed as he began to take in the details. 'I don't think I've ever seen you come the Vor lord with intent.'

'At this point,' said Miles, 'intent should be steaming out both my ears. I would bet'—his catch-phrase used to be, I would bet my ImpSec silver eyes— 'anything you please that there is a bigger mess with Illyan than Haroche has reported to you.'

Gregor said slowly, 'His reports are necessarily synopses.'

'Ha. You've sensed it too, haven't you. Did Haroche ever once pass on the word that Illyan had requested to see me?'

'No . . . has he? And how do you know?'

'I had it from a, how shall I say it, a reliable anonymous source.'

'How reliable?'

'To imagine he set me up with a false tale would be to attribute a mind bordering on the baroque to a person I judge to be almost painfully straightforward. And then there's the problem of motivation. Let's just say, reliable enough for practical purposes.'

Gregor said slowly, 'As I understand it, Illyan is at present . . . well, to be blunt, dangerously out of his mind. He's been demanding a lot of impractical things. A jump-ship raid on the Hegen Hub to turn back an imaginary invasion was mentioned to me.'

'It was real once. You were there.'

'Ten years ago. How do you know this isn't just more of the same hallucinatory raving?'

'That's just the point. I can't judge, because I haven't been permitted to see him. No one has. You heard from Lady Alys.'

'Er, yes.'

'Haroche has now blocked me twice. This morning he offered to have me stunned if I continued to make a pest of myself.'

'How much of a pest were you?'

'You can doubtless request—I'd make that request and require, if I were you—a review of Haroche's comconsole recording of our last conversation. You might even find it entertaining. But Gregor—I have a right to see Illyan. Not as his ex-subordinate, but as my father's son. A Vor obligation that passes completely around ImpSec's military hierarchy and comes in through another door. To their dismay, no doubt, but that's their problem. I suspect … I don't know what I suspect. But I can't sit still till I figure it out.'

'Do you think there's something smoky?'

'Not . . . necessarily,' Miles said more slowly. 'But stupidity can be just as bad as malice, sometimes. If this chip crash is anything like my cryo-amnesia, it has to be hell for Illyan. To lose yourself inside your own head … it was the loneliest I've ever been in my life. And nobody came for me, till Mark bulled through. At the very least, Haroche is mishandling this due to nerves and inexperience, and needs to be gentry, or maybe not so gently, straightened out. At the worst—the possibility of deliberate sabotage has to have crossed your mind, too. Even though you haven't talked about it much with me.'

Gregor cleared his throat. 'Haroche asked me not to.'

Miles hesitated. 'Finally read my files, has he?'

'I'm afraid so. Haroche has . . . rigorous standards of loyalty.'

'Yeah, well . . . it's not his standards of loyalty I'm questioning. It's his judgment. I still want in.'

'To see Illyan? I can order that, I suppose. It's getting to be time, in my estimation.'

'No, more than that. I want to go over every scrap of raw data pertaining to the case, medical or otherwise. I want oversight.'

'Haroche will not be pleased.'

'Haroche will go mulish, I expect. And I can't be calling you every fifteen minutes to reiterate your backup. I want some real authority. I want you to assign me an Imperial Auditor.'

'What?!'

'Even ImpSec has to bend and spread 'em for an Imperial Auditor. An Auditor can legally requisition anything, and all Haroche or anyone else can do is fume—and hand it over. An Auditor speaks with your Voice. They have to listen. You can't pretend this isn't important enough to justify an Auditors attentions.'

'No, indeed, but . . . what would you be looking for?'

'If I knew already, I wouldn't have to look. All I know is that this thing has a . . .'—he spread his hands—'a wrong shape. The reasons may turn out to be trivial. Or not. Don't know. Gotta know.'

'Which Auditor did you have in mind?'

'Um . . . can I have Vorhovis?'

'My top man.'

'I know. I think I could work with him.'

'Unfortunately, he's on his way to Komarr.'

'Oh. Nothing too serious, I hope.'

'Preventive maintenance. I sent him along with Lord and Lady Vorob'yev to help grease the arrangements with the Komarran oligarchy for announcing my upcoming marriage. He has considerable diplomatic talents.'

'Hm.' Miles hesitated. He'd really had Vorhovis in mind, when this inspiration had struck. 'Vorlaisner, Valentine, and Vorkalloner are all a trifle . . . conservative.'

'Afraid they'd side with Haroche against you?'

'Um.'

Gregor's eyes glinted. 'There's always General Vorparadijs.'

'Oh, God. Spare me.'

Gregor rubbed his chin, thoughtfully. 'I foresee a problem here. Whatever Auditor I assign to you, there's about a fifty percent chance you'd be back here the following morning demanding another one to keep the first one under control. You don't really want an Auditor; you want an Auditor-shaped shield to cover your back while you do your very own investigating.'

'Well . . . yes. I don't know. Maybe . . . maybe I could do something with Vorparadijs after all.' His heart sank, contemplating this vision.

'An Auditor,' said Gregor, 'is not just my Voice. He's my eyes and ears, as well, very much in the original sense of the word. My listener. A probe, though most surely not a robot, to go places I can't, and report back with an absolutely independent angle of view. You'—Gregor's lip twisted up—'have the most independent angle of view