Miles wheeled to see Haroche round the corner, led by one of Gregor's Armsmen. Haroche's face was no less heavy than his tread. He strode up to the group and gave Gregor a formal nod, "Sire, and a more abbreviated one to Miles, "My Lord Auditor. I came as quickly as I could."

"What the hell is going on, Lucas?" Gregor said quietly. "ImpSec has just arrested one of my guests from the middle of my reception. I trust you can explain why." Did Haroche know Gregor well enough to detect the anger under that slight emphasis on the my ?

"My profound apologies, Sire. And to you too, Dr. Toscane. I fully appreciate the awkwardness. But ImpSec's mandate is to keep you—and yours"—a small nod to Laisa—"safe. I was given reason just this evening to suspect the loyalty of the man, and then discovered to my alarm that he was actually in your presence. I may err on the side of caution many times, but I dare not err on the side of carelessness even once. My first priority had to be the physical removal Captain Galeni; everything else, including explanations, could wait." He glanced at the women, and meaningfully away. "For those, I am now at your disposal, Sire."

"Oh." Gregor turned to Countess Vorkosigan, and made a vague frustrated gesture at Delia and Laisa. "Cordelia, would you . . . ?"

Countess Vorkosigan smiled very dryly. "Come, ladies. The gentlemen need to go talk."

"But I want to know what's going on!" protested Laisa.

"We can get it later. I'll explain the system to you. It's really stupid, but it can be made to work. Which, come to think of it, could also sum up a great many other Vor customs. In the meantime, we need to keep the show going out there"—she nodded toward the reception rooms—"and repair what damages we can from this, ah"—a sharp glance at Haroche, which should have made him wince—"unfortunate exercise in caution."

"Repair damages, how?" asked Laisa.

"Lie, dear. Alys and I will show you the drill. . . ." Countess Vorkosigan shepherded them away; Delia looked back over her shoulder at Miles, and mouthed, Do something, dammit!

"We'd better continue this in your office, Sire,"

Haroche murmured. "We'll want the comconsole. I brought copies of my security system team's report for each of you." He touched his tunic, and smiled grimly at Miles. "I figured you'd want to see it as soon as possible, my Lord Auditor."

"Oh. Good. Yes," admitted Miles. He fell in behind the two men as they paced down the corridor, and descended the turning stairs at its end; the Armsman brought up the rear, and took up his post outside Gregor's office. Gregor sealed the door behind them.

"My short list shrank abruptly, and unexpectedly," said Haroche. "If you will, Sire . . ." He nodded to the comconsole; Gregor turned it on. Haroche slotted one secured data card into the read-slot, and handed its twin to Miles. "I'm sure you'll want to study this in more detail later, but I can give you the quick synopsis now.

"As frames go, Miles, yours was very nearly perfect. The insertion of your false visit into the Evidence Rooms' log was extremely well executed; my team had the damnedest time finding any trace of how it was done. I was really starting to wonder. Then it occurred to me to have them recheck your retina scan. Your retina scan was subtly altered by your cryo-revival, were you aware?"

Miles shook his head. "Though I'm not surprised." A lot of me was subtly altered by my cryo-revival.

"It's said that every criminal makes one mistake. In my experience, this isn't necessarily true, but it happened this time. The retina scan on the Evidence Rooms' log was a copy from one made last year, not identical to your current one. As you can see on this overlay." Haroche made the two scans coalesce above the vid plate of Gregor's comconsole; the alterations sprang out, highlighted in purple, a malignant hungover cyclops stare. "And so you are cleared, my Lord Auditor." Haroche opened his hand.

"Thanks," growled Miles. I was never accused. "What does this have to do with Duv Galeni?"

"Bear with me. From the evidence, or lack of it, my team says that the Evidence Room comconsole record had to have been altered by a mole program Galeni physically inserted via its read-slot. That machine is one of the isolated ones. There was no other way."

"Galeni or someone," Miles corrected.

Haroche shrugged. "That's not how we tagged Galeni, however. The other point of attack I turned them loose on was of course the buildings own admittance-log. That proved more fruitful. The log wasnot altered on-site, but at a remove, via its data links to other ImpSec HQ systems. My team had to peel it right down to the undercode level to find this one; I commend their dedication and patience to you, Sire, as well as their expertise." Haroche zipped though screen after screen of logic-links. "The significant items are highlighted in red; you can follow it out yourselves. They traced the alteration through to the section-head level—the system has lockouts in sections up to that level, y'see. Which the section-heads can override—myself, or rather my second-in-charge at Domestic Affairs, now—Allegre, Olshansky, the Galactic Affairs chief when he's here. They traced it through Allegre's comconsole, down to his Analysts' level. To Captain Galeni's comconsole."

Haroche sighed. "The affairs analysts in all our departments have an enormous amount of discretion as to the data they can access. I can't say too much, in all honesty; it's their job to review everything, since vital decisions are taken at higher levels based upon their reports and recommendations and opinions. I spent a couple of years in that job myself, in Domestic. But Galeni apparently used his analysts codes to gain access to his superior's comconsole, and from there to leapfrog into the larger system."

"Or somebody using Galeni's comconsole did," Miles suggested. He felt sick to his stomach. The highlights on the vid display looked like smears of blood. "Is this really evidence?" If one frame, why not two? Or . . . as many as necessary, till they came up with a suspect Miles neither knew nor liked?

Haroche looked glum. "It may be all we can get. I'd give my arm to be able to question the man under fast-penta, but he was given the allergy treatment when he was promoted to his current position. Fast-penta would kill him. So we have to build our case the old hard way. Any physical evidence for the crime went up in smoke long ago. We're back to your motivations after all, my Lord Auditor. Which men in the Komarran Affairs analysis department had both access to knowledge of the bioengineered prokaryote, and some reason to do this? He had the access; he met with his father, Ser Galen, on Earth just before the original Komarran plot came to grief."

"I know," said Miles shortly. "I was there." Oh, God, Duv . . .

"I don't know how much weight to give the fact that your clone-brother shot Galeni's father—"

"If that were going to be a problem, it would have been a problem before this."

"Perhaps. But it must have left some residue of feeling. Then, on top of that, you recently became instrumental in destroying his marital plans."

"He's over that."

"What marital plans?" asked Gregor.

Miles gritted his teeth. Haroche, you idiot. "At one time, Duv was rather interested in Laisa. Which is how he came to escort her to your ambassadorial reception, where you met. Duv has since, um, found another love interest."

"Oh," said Gregor, looking stricken. "I didn't quite realize . . . things were that serious between Laisa and Galeni."

"It was one-sided."

Haroche shook his head. "I'm sorry, Miles. But the man called you, and I quote, a 'smarmy goddamn little pimp.' Haroche's gaze grew abstracted, his expression for a moment so like Illyan giving one of his verbatim quotes from his chip that Miles drew in his breath. "And went on to declaim quite passionately, 'Vor does mean thief. And you goddamn Barrayaran thieves stick together all right. You and your fucking precious Emperor and the whole damn pack of you.' And you seriously expect me to construe he merely felt mild inconvenience?"