"Which Auditor did you have in mind?"

"Um . . . can I have Vorhovis?"

"My top man."

"I know. I think I could work with him."

"Unfortunately, he's on his way to Komarr."

"Oh. Nothing too serious, I hope."

"Preventive maintenance. I sent him along with Lord and Lady Vorob'yev to help grease the arrangements with the Komarran oligarchy for announcing my upcoming marriage. He has considerable diplomatic talents."

"Hm." Miles hesitated. He'd really had Vorhovis in mind, when this inspiration had struck. "Vorlaisner, Valentine, and Vorkalloner are all a trifle . . . conservative."

"Afraid they'd side with Haroche against you?"

"Um."

Gregor's eyes glinted. "There's always General Vorparadijs."

"Oh, God. Spare me."

Gregor rubbed his chin, thoughtfully. "I foresee a problem here. Whatever Auditor I assign to you, there's about a fifty percent chance you'd be back here the following morning demanding another one to keep the first one under control. You don't really want an Auditor; you want an Auditor-shaped shield to cover your back while you do your very own investigating."

"Well . . . yes. I don't know. Maybe . . . maybe I could do something with Vorparadijs after all." His heart sank, contemplating this vision.

"An Auditor," said Gregor, "is not just my Voice. He's my eyes and ears, as well, very much in the original sense of the word. My listener. A probe, though most surely not a robot, to go places I can't, and report back with an absolutely independent angle of view. You"—Gregor's lip twisted up—"have the most independent angle of view of any man I've ever met."

Miles's heart seemed to stop. Surely Gregor couldn't be thinking of—

"I think," said Gregor, "it will save ever so many steps if I simply appoint you as an acting Imperial Auditor. With the usual broad limits on a Ninth Auditor's powers of course; whatever you do has to be at least dimly related to the event you are assigned to evaluate, in this case, Illyan's breakdown. You can't order executions, and in the unlikely event you direct any arrests . . . well, I would appreciate it if they came attached to sufficient evidence for successful prosecutions. One expects a certain, um, traditional decorum in an Imperial Auditors investigations, and due care."

"Anything worth doing," Miles quoted Countess Vorkosigan, "is worth doing well." He wondered if his eyes were starting to glow. They felt like embers.

Gregor recognized the source, and smiled. "Just so."

"But Gregor—Haroche will know it's a scam."

Gregor's voice went soft. "Then Haroche will be dangerously mistaken." He added, "I was not happy with the way events seemed to be progressing either, but short of going down there in person, I didn't see what to do. Now I do. Does that satisfy you—Lord Vorkosigan?"

"Oh, Gregor. You can't begin to guess how much. Working in the chain of command for the last thirteen years has been like trying to waltz with an elephant. Slow, lumbering, ready to step on you at any moment and reduce you to grease. D'you have any idea how nice it would be just once to be able to dance on top of the damned elephant, instead of under it?"

"I thought you'd like it."

"Like it? It'll be downright orgasmic."

"Don't get carried away," Gregor cautioned, his eyes crinkling.

"No." Miles caught his breath. "But … I think this will work just fine. Thank you. I accept your charge, my liege."

Gregor called in his majordomo, and sent him off to the Residence's vault for an Auditor's symbolic chain of office, and the very nonsymbolic electronic seal that went with it. While they were waiting for him to return, Miles ventured, "It's traditional for an Auditor to make his first visit unannounced." He added reflectively, "Probably a hell of a lot of fun for them, too."

"I have long suspected it," agreed Gregor.

"But I would rather not be stunned walking through ImpSec's front gate. D'you think you ought to personally call Haroche, and set up my first appointment?"

"Do you want me to?"

"Mm . . . I'm not sure."

"In that case … go with tradition." Gregor's voice took on a cool scientific tinge. "Let's see what happens."

Miles stopped, seized with suspicion. "You sound just like my mother when you say that. What do you know that I don't?"

"I know less than you do right now, I'm increasingly sure. But . . . I've been thinking about Haroche. Watching him. Except for this business with Illyan, about which he seems understandably rattled, he seems to be taking over ImpSec's normal routine smoothly. If Illyan . . . does not recover, sooner or later I must be faced with the decision of whether to confirm Haroche in his job, or appoint another man. I'm curious to see what he's made of. You could be a test for him on more than one level."

"Are you saying you want to give him an opportunity to screw up?"

"Better sooner than later."

Miles grimaced. "Does that work in reverse, as well? Are you giving me a chance to screw up too?"

A very slight smile curved Gregor's mouth. "Lets just say … a parallax view of the problem could be most revealing." He added, "I did have a thought about the question of sabotage versus some natural deterioration in Illyan's neural augmentation."

"Yes?"

"Sabotage ought to have been followed up promptly by some sort of attack, during the confusion immediately after Illyan went down."

"Or better still, just before he went down," said Miles.

"Right. But nothing out of the ordinary except Illyan's, I'm not sure what to call it … illness, indisposition?"

"Indisposed is a good term," Miles allowed. "Illness implies an internal cause. Injury implies an external cause. I'm not sure I could use either word with certainty right now."

"Quite. Anyway, nothing else unusual except Illyan's indisposition has so far occurred."

Illyan's destruction. "Noted," said Miles. "Unless the motivation was something like, say, personal revenge. Not a one-two punch, just a one-punch."

"Have you started to develop a list of potential suspects, by chance?"

Miles groaned. "If you start allowing personal motivations, as well as political ones—it could have been in return for anything ImpSec has done to anyone any time in the last thirty years. It doesn't even have to be sane—someone could have been nursing a grudge all out of proportion to the original injury. That is not the end of the problem to start with, it's too damned vast. I'd prefer to start with the chip. There's only one of it." He cleared his throat. "There's still the problem of not getting stunned at the door. I hadn't intended to take on ImpSec single-handed. I'd assumed I'd have a real Auditor to hide behind, one of those portly retired admirals, say—and I still think I would like to have a witness. An assistant, to be sure, but really, a witness. Someone I can trust, and you can trust, someone with the requisite amount of security clearance but who is not himself in ImpSec's hierarchy."

"Do you have someone in mind?" asked Gregor.

"My God," said Ivan, unconsciously echoing Gregor, as he gaped at Miles. "Is that real?" His finger reached out to tick the heavy gold chain of the Imperial Auditor's rank and office now hanging around Miles's neck. Its thick links connected big square enameled plaques chased with the Vorbarra arms and logos. It ran over Miles's shoulders and dipped across his chest, and weighed about a kilo, Miles judged. The electronic seal appended from the center in a gold clasp, also engraved with Gregor's arms.

"You want to try to peel off the foil wrapping and eat the chocolate inside?" Miles inquired dryly.

"Urgh." Ivan looked around Gregor's office. The Emperor sat on the edge of his comconsole desk, one leg swinging. "When Gregor's liveried man came galloping into HQ and yanked me off work, I thought the damned Residence was burning down, or my mother'd had a heart attack, or something. But it was only you, coz?"