"Yes, Illyan and my coffee always used to arrive together. Sometimes, if he came in person, he'd bring the coffee himself. I always felt it was a polite hint: Sit up and pay attention."

Miles grinned. "That's Illyan. Once a day, yes?"

"Oh, very well. Look, I must go now."

"Thanks, Gregor."

The Emperor cut the com.

Miles sat back, partially satisfied. He had to give events and people time to sort themselves out. He thought of his own placid advice to Galeni about intuition versus proof. His intuition demon could just go back in its box—he pictured himself stuffing a small Naismith-shaped gnome into a trunk, and fastening the lid with straps. And little tiny meeping and banging noises coming from inside … I didn't become Illyan's top agent because I was better at following the rules than anybody else. But it was too damned early to say There's something wrong with this picture, or even to think it very loudly.

ImpSec would take care of its own; it always did. And he wasn't going to make a fool of himself in public again. He would wait.

The week dragged past. The daily short briefings via comconsole from Gregor seemed all right at first, but as each one fell atop the last with little sense of progress, ImpSec's caution began to seem downright glacial to Miles. He complained of this to Gregor.

"You're always impatient, Miles," Gregor pointed out. "Nothing ever goes fast enough to suit you."

"Illyan shouldn't have to wait on doctors. Other people must, maybe, but not him. Don't they have any conclusions yet?"

"They ruled out stroke."

"They ruled out stroke the first day. Then what? What about the chip?"

"There is apparently some evidence of deterioration or damage to the chip."

"We guessed that already, too. What kind? When? How? Why? What the hell are they doing in there all this time?"

"They're still working on ruling out other neurological problems. And psychological ones. Its apparently not easy."

Miles hunched, grouchily. "I don't buy the iatrogenic psychosis idea. He's had that chip in too long without any signs of problems like this before."

"Well . . . that's just the point, it seems. Illyan has had this particular neural augmentation in place and running for longer than any other human being ever. There are no standards for comparison. He's the baseline. No one knows what thirty-five years of accumulated artificial memory does to a personality. We may be finding out."

"I still think we ought to be finding out faster."

"They're doing all they can, Miles. You'll just have to wait like the rest of us."

"Yeah, yeah . . ."

Gregor cut the com; Miles stared unseeing into the empty space over the vid plate. The trouble with synopsized information was that it was always so nebulous. The devil was in the details, the raw data; embedded therein were all the tiny clues that fed the intuition demon until it became strong and fat and, sometimes, grew up to become an actual Theory, or even a Proof. Miles was at least three layers away from reality; the ImpSec physicians synopsized it to Haroche, who boiled it down for Gregor, who filtered it to Miles. There weren't enough facts left in the clarified drippings by that time to color an opinion.

Lady Alys Vorpatril returned from her official journey to Komarr the following morning; that afternoon, she called Miles on his comconsole. He braced himself for the impact of descending social duties; some repressed inner voice cried Incoming!, and dove for cover, uselessly. The inner man would simply have to be dragged out again by the heels and propped upright to march on her orders.

But instead her first words were, "Miles, how long have you known about this dreadful nonsense going on with Simon?"

"Um … a couple of weeks."

"Did it never occur to any of you three young louts that I would wish to be informed?"

Young louts—Ivan, Miles, and . . . Gregor? She was upset.

"There was nothing you could do. You were halfway to Komarr. And you already had a top-priority job. But no, I confess I didn't think of it."

"Fools," she breathed. Her brown eyes smoldered.

"Um . . . how did things go, by the way? On Komarr."

"Not terribly well. Laisa's parents are rather upset. I did what I could to soothe their fears, given that I judge some of their anxieties to be quite well founded. I asked your mother to stop on her way and speak to them some more."

"Mothers on her way home?"

"Soon, I hope."

"Ah . . . are you sure my mother is the best person for that job? She can be awfully blunt in her opinions of Barrayar. And she's not always the most diplomatic."

"No, but she's absolutely honest. And she has this peculiar trick of making the most outlandish things seem perfectly sensible, at least for the duration of the time she's talking to you. People end up agreeing with her, and then spending the next month wondering how it happened. I have, at any rate, accomplished all the proper forms and duties of Gregor's Baba."

"So … is Gregor's wedding on, or off?"

"Oh, on, of course. But there is a difference between things done in a scramble, and things done superbly well. There will be enough tensions that I can't ease. I don't intend to leave any hanging that I can eliminate. Goodwill is going to be at a premium." She frowned fiercely. "Speaking of goodwill, or the lack of it—they told me Simon was in the ImpSec Headquarters clinic, so of course I went immediately to see him. That idiot general what's-his-name wouldn't let me in!"

"Haroche?" ventured Miles.

"Yes, that was it. Not a Vor, that fellow, and it shows. Miles, can't you do something?"

"Me! I have no authority."

"But you worked with those, those, those . . . men for years. You understand them, presumably."

I am ImpSec, he'd once told Elli Quinn. He'd been quite proud to identify himself with that powerful organization, as if they'd flowed together to become some sort of higher cyborg. Well, he was amputated now, and ImpSec seemed to be stumping along without him in perfect indifference. "I don't work for them anymore. And if I did, I'd still be just a lowly lieutenant. Lieutenants don't give orders to generals, not even Vor lieutenants. Haroche wouldn't let me in either. I think you need to talk to Gregor."

"I just did. He was quite maddeningly vague about it all."

"Maybe he didn't want to distress you. I gather Illyan is in a pretty disturbing mental state right now, not recognizing people and so on."

"Well, how can he, if no one he knows is allowed to see him?"

"Um. Good point. Look, I have no intention of defending Haroche to you. I'm pretty annoyed at him myself."

"Not annoyed enough," snapped Lady Alys. "Haroche actually had the nerve to tell me—me!— that it was no sight for a lady. I asked him what he had been doing during the War of Vordarian's Pretendership." Her voice trailed off in a hiss—Miles's ear was not quite sure, but he thought it detected suppressed barracks language. "I can see Gregor is thinking he may have to work with Haroche for a long time yet. He didn't say it in so many words, naturally, but I gather Haroche has persuaded Gregor that his status as acting Chief of ImpSec is too new and fragile to bear interference from such dangerously unauthorized—and female—persons such as myself. Simon never had any such qualms. I wish Cordelia were here. She was always better than I at cutting through masculinist drivel."

"So to speak," said Miles, thinking of Vordarian's fate at his mothers hands. But Lady Alys was quite correct: Illyan had always treated her as a valued, though different, member of Gregor's support team. Haroche's new and tighter professional order must have come as a bit of a shock to her. Miles went on, "Haroche is in an excellent position to persuade Gregor. He's in total control of the flow of all information to him." Though you couldn't call that a change in how things were done; it had always been that way, but when Illyan had been the sluice keeper it had somehow never bothered Miles.