Memory

he was simply becoming more accurate in identifying them, now that they were not masked by a stunner-migraine or suicidal depression. I have to see Chenko soon.

He carried a carafe of coffee up to his room, and locked himself in with his comconsole and Haroche's report. He spent, or wasted, the rest of the morning reviewing it, then re-reviewing it.

The very scantiness of the data made it all the more convincing. If this was supposed to be a double-frame, there ought to be more of it. It was strongly suggestive, but not quite proof. But try as he might, he could spot no flaw in its reasoning, no break in the flow of its logic.

With nothing more optimistic to report than this, he dreaded seeing Galeni again. ImpSec had held the Komarran-born officer overnight in the temporary cells at ImpSec HQ, a small section which had replaced the more extensive downstairs dungeons of Ezar's times. There Galeni sat, pending the formal leveling of charges, after which he would presumably be moved to some more official, and dreary, military prison. Held on suspicion. Barrayaran military law was a trifle unclear just how long one could be held on suspicion. Held on bloody paranoia is more like it.

His sour meditations were interrupted by a call from Dr. Weddell, plaintively demanding to know when he could go home. Miles promised to come take his report and let him out; if he couldn't spring one ImpSec prisoner, he at least might spring another. He donned a fresh, if second-best, House uniform and his Auditor's chain, daubed more stim-salve on his lacerated lip, and called Martin to bring his car around.

The medicinal and chemical odors of the ImpSec HQ clinic still gave Miles unpleasant fluttering sensations in his belly. He entered and found the laboratory chamber Weddell had taken over. A rumpled cot in the corner gave evidence that the galactic bioexpert was following orders, and had not left the sample or his data unattended. Weddell himself was still wearing his same clothes from yesterday morning, though he'd obviously managed to shave between times. He was somewhat less bleary than Miles, which wasn't saying much.

'Well, my Lord Auditor. You probably won't be surprised to learn I have positively identified your find as the same prokaryote that was used on Chief Illyan. It's even the same batch.' He led Miles to the lab's comconsole, and embarked on a detailed comparison of the two samples, with visual aids and highlights, and mild self- congratulations when the silent Imperial Auditor was not forthcoming with any.

'I spoke with Illyan,' said Miles. 'He reports no memory of ever having swallowed a small brown capsule in the last four months. Unfortunately, his memory isn't what it used to be.'

'Oh, it wasn't swallowed,' Weddell stated positively. 'It was never designed to be swallowed.'

'How do you know?'

'The capsule was neither permeable nor soluble. It was meant to be broken—a pinch of the fingers would do—and the sample mixed with air and breathed. The vector encapsulation design is obviously meant to be airborne. It's quite sporelike.'

'The which what?'

'Here.' Weddell banished the vid of the molecular chain presently occupying the vid plate, and brought up an image of an object that looked for all the world like a spherical satellite, bristling with antennae. 'The actual prokaryotes would have been unmanageably tiny, if someone had simply attempted to load them naked into those large capsules. Instead, they are contained in these hollow sporelike particles'—Weddell pointed to the vid plate —'which float in air until they contact a wet surface, such as mucous membrane or bronchia. At that point, the delivery units dissolve, releasing their load.'

'Could you see them in the air, like smoke or dust? Smell them?'

'If the light was strong I suppose one might see a brief puff as they were initially distributed, but then they would appear to vanish. They would be odorless.'

'How long . . . would they hang in the air?'

'Several minutes, at least. Depending on the efficiency of the ventilation.'

Miles stared in fascination at the malignant-looking sphere. 'This is new information.' Though he did not, offhand, see how it helped much.

'It was not possible to reconstruct it from the eidetic chip,' noted Weddell a bit stiffly, 'as no part of the vector encapsulation would ever reach the chip. There were several other potential means of administration.'

'I … quite understand. Yes. Thank you.' He pictured himself going back to Illyan: Can you remember every breath you took in the last four months? Once, Illyan might have.

A bleep from the comconsole interrupted his thoughts; the delivery-spore vanished and was replaced by the head of General Haroche.

'My Lord Auditor.' Haroche nodded diffidently at Miles. 'My apologies for interrupting you. But since you're in the building, I wonder if you could stop in and see me. At your convenience, of course, when you're done in the labs and so on.'

Miles sighed. 'Certainly, General.' At least it gave him an excuse to put off seeing Galeni for a few more minutes. 'I'll be up to your office shortly.'

Miles took possession of the code-card containing Weddell's report, and the resealed residue of the sample, and released the man, who departed gratefully. Miles s step quickened as he paced down the too-familiar hallways of ImpSec HQ, up and around to Illyan's old office, Haroche's new one. Maybe, pray God, Haroche had found something fresh to share, something to render this whole tangle less painful.

Haroche locked his office door behind Miles, and courteously pulled up a chair for the Imperial Auditor, close to his comconsole desk. 'Have you had any second thoughts since last night, my lord?' Haroche inquired.

'Not really. Weddell has identified the sample, all right. You'll probably want to make a copy of this.'

He handed Weddell's data card across to Haroche, who nodded and ran it through his comconsole s read- slot. 'Thank you.' He handed the original back to Miles and went on, 'I've been taking a closer look at the other four senior Komarran Affairs analysts in Allegre's department. None were as well positioned as Galeni to know of the existence of the Komarran sample, and two can be eliminated outright by that very test. The other two lack any motivation that I can uncover.'

'The perfect crime,' muttered Miles.

'Almost. The truly perfect crime is the one which is never discovered at all; this came very close. Your frame, now, was by all indications a backup plan of some kind, and necessarily less than perfect.'

'I never rammed a perfect tactical plan through to reality in my whole time with the Dendarii Mercenaries,' Miles sighed. 'The best I ever did was good enough.'

'You can be assured, Domestic Affairs never did much better,' Haroche admitted.

'This is all very circumstantial, without a confession.'

'Yes. And I'm not sure how to elicit one. Fast-penta is out. I wondered … if you might be able to help in that regard. Given your knowledge of the man. Use your noted powers of persuasion on him.'

'I might,' said Miles, 'if I thought Galeni was guilty.'

Haroche shook his head. 'We may want more evidence, but I'm not optimistic that we're going to get more. You often must proceed with the imperfect, because you must proceed. You can't stop.'

'Let the juggernaut roll on, regardless of what gets squashed underneath?' Miles's brows rose. 'How are you planning to proceed?'

'A court-martial, probably. The case must be closed properly. As you pointed out, this one can't be left hanging.'

What would a court-martial make of this, with ImpSec breathing down its neck urging swift decision? Guilty? Not guilty? Or a more foggy, Not proven? He must find a top military attorney, to evaluate the case. . . . 'No, dammit. I don't want a panel of military judges guessing, and then going home to dinner. If the outcome is to be guessed, I can guess myself, all day long. I want to know. You have to keep looking. We can't just stop with Galeni.'

Haroche blew out his breath, and rubbed his chin. 'Miles, you're asking me to unleash a witch-hunt, here. Potentially very damaging to my organization. You'd have me turn ImpSec upside down, and for what? If the Komarran is guilty—and I'm provisionally convinced he is—you'll have to go very far indeed to

Oil