Counts and their heirs, honorably retired from more active Imperial service, were permitted by ancient custom to wear their military decorations on their House uniforms, in recognition of the Vor s official and historical status as—what was that dippy phrase? "The Sinews of the Imperium, the Emperor's Right Arm." Nobody'd ever called them the Brains of the Imperium, Miles noted dryly. So how come no one had ever claimed to be, say, the Gall Bladder of the Imperium, or the Emperors Pancreas? Some metaphors were best left unexamined.

Miles had never once worn all his accumulated honors, in part because four-fifths of them related to classified activities, and what fun was a decoration you couldn't tell a good story about, and in part because . . . why? Because they'd belonged to Admiral Naismith?

Ceremoniously, he laid them all out on the brown tunic in what would be the correct order. The bad luck badges like the one Vorberg had just won for getting wounded filled one whole row and part of another. His very first medal ever was from the Vervani government. His most recent high honor had drifted in rather belatedly from the grateful Marilacans, by jump-mail. He'd loved covert ops; it had taken him to such very strange places. He laid out no less than five Barrayaran Imperial Stars in metals of various denominations, depending more on how much salt Illyan had sweated back at HQ during the particular missions they represented than the amount of blood Miles personally had shed on the front lines. Bronze only represented his commander's nails bitten to the second knuckle; gold signified gnawing to the wrist.

He hesitated, then arranged the gold medallion of the Cetagandan Order of Merit on its colorful ribbon, properly, around the tunic's high collar. It was cool and heavy under his hand. He could be one of the few soldiers in history ever to be decorated by both sides in the same war . . . though to be truthful, the Order of Merit had come later, and actually had been presented to Lord Vorkosigan, not the little Admiral for a change.

When they were all arranged, the effect was just short of looney.

Separated into all the little secret compartments, he hadn't realized just how much he'd accumulated, till he put it all together again. No, not again. For the first time.

Let's lay it all on the line. Smiling grimly, he fastened them down. He donned the white silk shirt that went underneath, the silver-embroidered suspenders, the brown trousers with the silver side-piping, the gleaming riding boots. Lastly, the heavy tunic. He fastened his grandfather's dagger in its cloisonne sheath, with the Vorkosigan seal in the jeweled hilt, on its proper belt around his waist. He combed his hair, and stepped back to regard himself, glittering in his mirror.

Going native, are we? The sarcastic voice was growing fainter.

"If you expect to open a can of worms," he spoke aloud for the first time, "you'd best trouble to pack a can-opener."

Martin, engrossed in reading a hand-viewer, looked up at the sound of Miles's booted step, and did a gratifying double-take.

"Bring my car round to the front portico," Miles instructed him coolly.

"Where are we going? My lord."

"To the Imperial Residence. I have an appointment."

Gregor received Miles in the serene privacy of his office in the Residence's north wing. He was seated behind his comconsole desk, perusing some visual display, and didn't look up till after the majordomo had announced Miles and withdrawn. He tapped a control and the holovid vanished, revealing the small, smoldering, brown-uniformed man standing across from him.

"All right, Miles, what's this all ab—good God." Gregor sat up, startled; his brows climbed as he began to take in the details. "I don't think I've ever seen you come the Vor lord with intent."

"At this point," said Miles, "intent should be steaming out both my ears. I would bet"—his catch-phrase used to be, I would bet my ImpSec silver eyes— "anything you please that there is a bigger mess with Illyan than Haroche has reported to you."

Gregor said slowly, "His reports are necessarily synopses."

"Ha. You've sensed it too, haven't you. Did Haroche ever once pass on the word that Illyan had requested to see me?"

"No . . . has he? And how do you know?"

"I had it from a, how shall I say it, a reliable anonymous source."

"How reliable?"

"To imagine he set me up with a false tale would be to attribute a mind bordering on the baroque to a person I judge to be almost painfully straightforward. And then there's the problem of motivation. Let's just say, reliable enough for practical purposes."

Gregor said slowly, "As I understand it, Illyan is at present . . . well, to be blunt, dangerously out of his mind. He's been demanding a lot of impractical things. A jump-ship raid on the Hegen Hub to turn back an imaginary invasion was mentioned to me."

"It was real once. You were there."

"Ten years ago. How do you know this isn't just more of the same hallucinatory raving?"

"That's just the point. I can't judge, because I haven't been permitted to see him. No one has. You heard from Lady Alys."

"Er, yes."

"Haroche has now blocked me twice. This morning he offered to have me stunned if I continued to make a pest of myself."

"How much of a pest were you?"

"You can doubtless request—I'd make that request and require, if I were you—a review of Haroche's comconsole recording of our last conversation. You might even find it entertaining. But Gregor—I have a right to see Illyan. Not as his ex-subordinate, but as my father's son. A Vor obligation that passes completely around ImpSec's military hierarchy and comes in through another door. To their dismay, no doubt, but that's their problem. I suspect … I don't know what I suspect. But I can't sit still till I figure it out."

"Do you think there's something smoky?"

"Not . . . necessarily," Miles said more slowly. "But stupidity can be just as bad as malice, sometimes. If this chip crash is anything like my cryo-amnesia, it has to be hell for Illyan. To lose yourself inside your own head … it was the loneliest I've ever been in my life. And nobody came for me, till Mark bulled through. At the very least, Haroche is mishandling this due to nerves and inexperience, and needs to be gentry, or maybe not so gently, straightened out. At the worst—the possibility of deliberate sabotage has to have crossed your mind, too. Even though you haven't talked about it much with me."

Gregor cleared his throat. "Haroche asked me not to."

Miles hesitated. "Finally read my files, has he?"

"I'm afraid so. Haroche has . . . rigorous standards of loyalty."

"Yeah, well . . . it's not his standards of loyalty I'm questioning. It's his judgment. I still want in."

"To see Illyan? I can order that, I suppose. It's getting to be time, in my estimation."

"No, more than that. I want to go over every scrap of raw data pertaining to the case, medical or otherwise. I want oversight."

"Haroche will not be pleased."

"Haroche will go mulish, I expect. And I can't be calling you every fifteen minutes to reiterate your backup. I want some real authority. I want you to assign me an Imperial Auditor."

"What?!"

"Even ImpSec has to bend and spread 'em for an Imperial Auditor. An Auditor can legally requisition anything, and all Haroche or anyone else can do is fume—and hand it over. An Auditor speaks with your Voice. They have to listen. You can't pretend this isn't important enough to justify an Auditors attentions."

"No, indeed, but . . . what would you be looking for?"

"If I knew already, I wouldn't have to look. All I know is that this thing has a . . ."—he spread his hands—"a wrong shape. The reasons may turn out to be trivial. Or not. Don't know. Gotta know."