Memory

'Yeah.' Ivan didn't wait for a second invitation, but scooted past him.

'And Ivan?'

Ivan paused, suspiciously. 'Yeah?'

'Thanks.'

'Oh. No trouble.'

Miles took a deep breath, and entered Illyan s room. It was still very warm. He took off his tunic, and folded it over the back of a chair, and rolled up his silk sleeves, and sat. Illyan first ignored him for a bit, then stared at him in puzzlement, then his face cleared. It began again, Miles, what are you doing here . . . ? Simon, listen to me. Your chip has gone glitchy. . . .

Over and over.

It was a little bit like talking to someone with multiple personalities, Miles decided after a while. The thirty-year-old Illyan gave way to the Illyan of forty-six, each man profoundly different from the Illyan of sixty. Miles waited patiently for the card he desired to be dealt again from the deck, endlessly repeating the date, the facts, the situation. Would it ever reach the point where all the Illyan's had been informed, or would he continue to divide infinitesimally?

At last, the Illyan he was waiting for came around again.

'Miles! Did Vorberg find you? Shit, this is a nightmare. My damned chip has gone glitchy. It's turning to snot inside my head. Promise me—promise me by your word as Vorkosigan!—you won't let this go on.'

'Listen, Simon! I know all about it. But I'm not bloody going to cut your throat. We've scheduled surgery instead, to take the chip out. No later than tomorrow, if I have anything to say about it, and I do. It can't be fixed, so we're going to remove it.'

Illyan paused. 'Remove . . . ?' His hand touched his forehead. 'But how can I function without it?'

'Same as you did in the first twenty-seven years of your life before you ever had it installed, is the best medical guess.'

Illyan's eyes were solemn, and afraid. 'Will it take … all my memories? Will I lose my whole life? Oh, God, Miles.' He was silent for a time, then added, 'I think I'd rather have you cut my throat.'

'That's not an option, Simon.'

Illyan shook his head. And dissolved again, into another Illyan, another round of, 'Miles! What are you doing here? What am I doing here?' He stared down at his bland civilian clothes; Illyan either favored really boring fashions, or else did not trust his own taste. 'I'm supposed to be at the Council of Counts in full dress uniform right now. They must be told—they must be told.'

Miles couldn't decide if it constituted informed consent or not, under the circumstances. Was it informed? Was it even consent? But it seemed the best he could do. He repeated the drill. Again. Again.

At length, Dr. Ruibal escorted Lady Alys into the room. He'd briefed her as Miles had requested; Miles could see it in her set, disturbed face.

'Hello, Simon.' Her voice was quiet, a melodic alto.

'Lady Alys!' Illyan's face worked, as he searched his mind for Miles knew not what. 'I am so sorry about the death of Lord Vorpatril,' Illyan said at last. 'If I had only known where you were in the city. I was trying to get Admiral Kanzian out. If only I'd known. Did you save the child?'

Apologies and condolences on the murder of her husband, thirty years ago. Kanzian had been dead of old age for half a decade now. Alys glanced in suppressed anguish at Miles. 'Yes, Simon, it's all right,' she said. 'Lieutenant Koudelka brought us through Vordarian's lines. Its all right now.'

Miles nodded, and repeated the orienting drill, as a model for Alys. She listened to the exchange carefully, and watched Illyan's face go through the usual array of emotions, startlement, denial, distraught dismay. Illyan's blunter barracks language disappeared abruptly from his speech in her presence. Miles slipped out of the chair beside Illyan's and offered it to her. She sat without hesitation, and took Illyan's hand.

Illyan blinked, and looked up at her. 'Lady Alys!' His face softened. 'What are you doing here?'

Miles withdrew to the doorway, where Ruibal watched.

'That's interesting,' said Ruibal, checking a monitor readout on the wall. 'His blood pressure dropped a bit, there.'

'Yes, I'm . . . not surprised. Come out in the hall and talk to me. I want a word with Avakli, too.'

The three of them, Miles and Ruibal and Avakli all in shirtsleeves now, sat at the medtech's station, and drank coffee. It was deep night outside, Miles realized. He was becoming as temporally confused as Illyan, tasting his mechanistic eternity.

'So you've convinced me the surgical facility here is adequate,' Miles said. 'Tell me more about the man.'

'He's my second senior surgeon for installing and maintaining jump-pilots' neural implants,' said Avakli.

'Why aren't we having your first senior surgeon?'

'He's good too, but this one is younger, more recently trained. I feel he's the optimum trade-off between most recent training and maximum practical experience.'

'Do you trust him?'

'Let me put it this way,' said Avakli. 'If you've ever ridden in an Imperial fast courier vessel in the last five years, you've probably trusted him with your own life already, as surely as you've trusted it to the engineers who calibrated the ship's Necklin rods. He did the implant for the Emperor's personal pilot, too.'

'Very good. I accept your choice. So how soon can we get him here, and how soon can he go to work?'

'We could fly him in from Vordarian's District tonight, but I think it's better to let him get a good nights sleep at home first. I'd allow a day at least for him to study :he problem, and plan his surgical approach. After that—it will be up to him. We're likely looking at surgery the day after tomorrow at the earliest.'

'I see. Very well.' There was nothing more Miles could do to push that part of things along. 'That gives Dr. Avakli's team two more days to play with their part of the problem. Let me know if you come up with any new approaches that won't involve putting Illyan through more of … this. And oh! I have a suggestion. When the surgery is complete, Dr. Avakli's team will become the chip coroners. I want an autopsy done on the damned thing, even if it is dead. What caused the malfunction? ImpSec and I both want to know. I thought of a man to add to the team who might be able to lend you some interesting galactic expertise. He has a lab in the Imperial Science Institute biofacility just outside of Vorbarr Sultana, where he does some secured work for the Imperium. Name's Vaughn Weddell.' Once known is Dr. Hugh Canaba of Jackson's Whole. An early Dendarii mission had brought him incognito as a refugee :o a new life, face, and name on Barrayar, along with some of the most secret genetic research in the galaxy. Sergeant Taura had been one of his earlier and more ambiguous projects. 'He's a molecular biologist by trade and training, but his early experiences included an extraordinary range of … really oddball stuff. Kind of a wild card, and, ah, a bit of a prima donna in personality, but if nothing else, I think you'll find his ideas interesting.'

'Yes, my lord.' Avakli made a note. A Lord Auditors suggestions had the weight of an Imperial command, Miles realized anew. He really had to watch his mouth.

And that seemed to be all he could do for today. He longed to flee back to Vorkosigan House and sleep.

Instead, he bedded down for four hours in one of the adjoining patient rooms, then relieved Alys Vorpatril in the night watch to take turn about. Lieutenant Vorberg, coming on duty, seemed pleased to cede them the place by Illyan's bedside, and took up his own post by the clinic door. Illyan slept only fitfully, waking about every twenty minutes in a new burst of confusion and fear. It was going to be a very long two days till the surgery.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The two days stretched to three, agonizingly. For the last full day, Illyan was never coherent enough to beg for death, nor express his terror of the upcoming surgery, a respite to Miles of sorts. Illyan's flickering sequences of disorientation and distress passed too quickly now for reassurance; he became dumb, only his twitching face, not