"What bothers me most, of course," Illyan went on, "is not your seizures themselves, but the fact that you concealed them from the ImpSec physicians who were trying to return you fit for duty. You lied to them, and through them, to me."

Miles swallowed, searching his paralyzed consciousness for a defense for the indefensible. What couldn't be defended could only be denied. He pictured himself chirping brightly, What seizures, sir? No. "Dr. Durona . . . said they would go away on their own." She had, dammit, she had. "Or . . . they might," he corrected. "At that time, I thought they had."

Illyan grimaced. He picked a cipher-card from his desktop, and held it up between thumb and forefinger. "This," he stated, "is my latest independent report from the Dendarii. Including your fleet surgeons medical reports. The ones she kept in her cabin, not in her sick bay office. They were not easy to obtain. I've been waiting for them. They came in last night."

He had a third observer. I might have known. I should have figured it.

"Do you want to try to play any more little guessing games about this?" Illyan added dryly.

"No, sir," Miles whispered. He hadn't meant it to come out a whisper. "No more games."

"Good." Illyan rocked slightly in his station chair, and tossed the card back to the desktop. His face looked like death itself. Miles wondered what his own face looked like. As wide-eyed as an animal in the headlights, as viewed from a groundcar traveling toward it at a hundred kilometers an hour, he suspected.

"This"—Illyan pointed to the cipher-card—"was a betrayal of the subordinates who depended on you as well as of the superiors who trusted you. And it was a knowing betrayal, proved on Lieutenant Vorberg's body. Do you have anything to say in your defense?"

If the tactical situation was bad, change your ground. If you can't win, change the rules. Miles s internal tension shot him up out of his chair, to pace back and forth before Illyan's desk. His voice rose. "I have served you, body and blood—and I've bled plenty—for nine years, sir. Ask the Marilacans how well I've served you. Ask a hundred others. Over thirty missions, and only two that could remotely be classified as failures. I've laid my life on the line dozens of times, I've literally laid it down. Does that suddenly count for nothing now?"

"It counts"—Illyan inhaled—"for much. That's why I am offering you a medical discharge without prejudice, if you resign now."

"Resign? Quit? This is your idea of a favor? ImpSec has made worse scandals than this disappear—I know you can do more than that, if you choose!"

"It's the best way. Not just for you, but for your name's sake. I have thought this through from every angle. I've been thinking about it for weeks."

This is why he called me home. No mission. There never was. Only this. I was screwed from before the beginning. No chance.

"After serving your father for thirty years," Illyan continued, "I can do no less. And no more."

Miles froze. "My father . . . asked for this? He knows?"

"Not yet. Apprising him is a task I leave to you. This is one last report I do not care to make."

Rare cowardice on Illyan's part, and a fearsome punishment. "My father's influence," said Miles bitterly. "Some favor."

"Believe me, without your record you so justly quote, even your father could not gain you this mercy from me. Your career will end quietly, with no public scandal."

"Yeah," Miles panted. "Real convenient. It shuts me up, and gives me no appeal."

"I advise—with all my heart—against your forcing this to a court-martial. You will never get a more favorable judgment than this private one, between us. It is with no intent to be humorous that I tell you, you haven't a leg to stand on." Illyan tapped the cipher-card, for emphasis. Indeed, there was no amusement at all in his face. "On the documented evidence here alone, never mind the rest of it, you'd be lucky to get out with only a dishonorable discharge, and no further sentence atop it."

"Have you discussed this with Gregor?" Miles demanded. Imperial favor, his last emergency defense, the one he'd sworn he'd die rather than call upon—

"Yes. At great length. I was closeted with him all this morning over nothing but this."

"Oh."

Illyan gestured at his comconsole. "I have your records ready, for you to sign out here and now. Palm-print, retina-scan, and it's done. Your uniforms . . . didn't come from military stores, so need not be returned, and it is traditional to keep one's insignia, but I'm afraid I must ask you to hand in your silver eyes."

Miles, turning on his heel, aborted the half-gesture of his agitated hands reaching to clamp defensively to his collar. "Not my eyes! It's . . . not true, I can explain, I can—" The edges and surfaces of the objects in the room, the comconsole desk, the chairs, Illyan's face, seemed suddenly sharper than before, as if imbued with some heightened measure of reality. A nimbus of green fire broke up into colored confetti, closing over him, No—!

He came to consciousness flat on his back on Illyan's carpet. Illyan's blood-drained face hovered over him, tense and worried. Something was lodged in Miles's mouth—he turned his head and spat out a stylus, a light-pen from Illyan's desk. His collar was unfastened—his hand reached to touch it—but his silver eyes were still in place. He just lay there, for a moment.

"Well," he said thinly at last. "I imagine that was quite a show. How long?"

"About"—Illyan glanced at his chrono—"four minutes."

"About standard."

"Lie still. I'll call a medic."

"I don't need a goddamn medic. I can walk." He tried to get up. One leg buckled, and he went down again, face mashed in the carpet. His face was sticky—he'd evidently hit his mouth, which was swelling, on the first fall, and his nose, which was bleeding. Illyan handed him a handkerchief, and he pressed it to his face. After about a minute, he suffered Illyan to help him back into the chair.

Illyan half-sat on the edge of his desk, watching him. Watching over him, always. "You knew," said Illyan. "And you lied. To me. In writing. In that damned falsified report, you pissed away . . . everything. I'd have mistrusted my memory chip before I mistrusted you. Why, Miles? Were you that panicked?" The anguish leaked into that level voice like blood into a bruise.

Yes. I was that panicked. I didn't want to lose Naismith. I didn't want to lose . . . everything. "It doesn't matter now." He fumbled at his collar. One pin tore the green fabric, coming off in his shaking hands. He thrust the pins blindly at Illyan. "There. You win."

Illyan's hand closed over them. "God save me," he said softly, "from another such victory."

"Fine, good, give me the read-pad. Give me the retinal scan. Let's get this the hell over with. I'm sick of ImpSec, and eating ImpSec shit. No more. Good." The shaking didn't stop, radiating outward in hot waves from the pit of his belly. He was terrified he was about to start crying in front of Illyan.

Illyan sat back, his closed hand turning inward. "Take a couple of minutes to compose yourself. Take as long as you need. Then go into my washroom and wash your face. I'm not unlocking my door till you're fit to go out."

Strange mercies, Illyan. You kill me so courteously. But he nodded, and stumbled to Illyan's little lavatory. Illyan followed him to the door, then, apparently deciding he would stay on his feet this time, left him alone. The face in the mirror was indeed unfit to be seen, bloody and ravaged. It was very like the face he had last seen looking back at him the day Sergeant Beatrice had been killed, except about a hundred years older now. Illyan will not shame a great name. Neither should I. He washed carefully, though he failed to get all the bloodstains out of his torn collar and the cream-colored shirt opened under it.