Memory

'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?'