Memory (32 page)

"There won't be any consequences from leaving them all in there?"

"No. They'll just sit there, inert and harmless. Like any other sort of cut wire, there's no circuit now. Nothing flows."

The anesthetist inquired of Dr. Ruibal and the surgeon, "Are you ready for me to administer the antagonist now?"

Ruibal took a deep breath. "Yes. Wake him up. Let's find out what we've done."

A hiss of a hypospray; the anesthetist watched Illyan's quickening breathing, then at a nod from the surgeon removed the tubes from Illyan's mouth, and loosened the head-restraints. A little more color warmed Illyan's pale features, the death-warmed-over look of unconsciousness fading.

Illyan's brown eyes opened; he squinted, and his gaze flicked from face to face. He moistened his dry lips.

"Miles?" he husked. "Where the hell am I? What are you doing here?"

Miles's heart sank, momentarily, at this instant replay of the opening of most of Illyan's conversations of the last four days. But Illyan's gaze, though uncertain, remained steady on his face.

Miles shouldered forward through the medical mob, who gave way to him. "Simon. You're in surgery at ImpSec HQ. Your eidetic memory chip broke down, irreparably. We've just removed it entirely."

"Oh." Illyan frowned.

"What is the last thing you can remember, sir?" Ruibal asked, watching closely.

" . . . remember?" Illyan winced. His right hand twitched, rose to the side of his head, waved forward, clenched, and fell back. "I . . . it's like a dream." He was silent a moment. "A nightmare."

Miles thought this an admirable demonstration of coherence and correct perception, though Ruibal's forehead wrinkled.

"Who," Illyan added, "decided . . . this?" A vague wave at his head.

"Me," Miles admitted. "Or rather, I advised Gregor, he consented."

"Did he. Gregor put you in charge here?"

"Yes." Miles quailed inwardly.

"Good," Illyan sighed. Miles breathed again. Illyan's eyes grew more intent. "And ImpSec? What's happening? How long . . . ?"

"General Haroche is flying your comconsole right now."

"Lucas? Oh, good."

"He has everything under control. No major crises aside from yours. You can rest."

"I admit," murmured Illyan, "I'm tired."

He looked absolutely beaten. "I'm not surprised," said Miles. "This has been going on for over three weeks."

"Has it, now." Illyan's voice went lower, even more tentative. Once more, his hand made that strange gesture beside his face, as if calling up . . . as if trying to call up a vid image that failed to appear, before his mind's eye. His hand jerked again, then closed; he almost seemed to force it back to his side.

Ruibal the neurologist stepped in then, and administered his first few tests; Illyan reported no worse overt effects than a slight headache, and some muscle pain. Illyan studied his own bruised knuckles with some bemusement, but did not inquire about them, nor about the marks on his wrists. Miles trailed after as they trundled Illyan back to the patient room in the clinic.

Ruibal briefed Miles in the corridor, after Illyan was put back to bed. "As soon as his physical recovery is established—as soon as he's eaten, eliminated, and slept—I'll start the battery of cognitive tests."

"How soon can he . . . no, I suppose it's too early to ask that," Miles began. "I was about to ask, how soon could he go home." Such as home was, for Illyan. Miles remembered his own long-ago sojourn in those windowless witness apartments downstairs, and shuddered inwardly.

Ruibal shrugged. "Barring new developments, I'd be willing to release him after two days of close observation. He would need to come back in for daily follow-up testing, of course."

"That soon?"

"As you saw, the surgery was not very invasive. It almost qualified as minor. Physically."

"And nonphysically?"

"We'll have to find that out."

Miles returned his sterile gear to a tech, and hunted up his tunic and its assorted decorations again. As soon as he'd dressed, he poked his head around the corner to a side office. Lady Alys Vorpatril sat patiently there; she looked up at the motion.

"All done," Miles reported. "It's all right so far. He seems to be back to something like normal, on track. Though he's a bit subdued. I don't see why you couldn't see him, if you want."

"Yes. I want." Lady Alys rose, and swept past him.

Miles paid a visit to the secured lab down the corridor that Avakli's team had taken over.

Avakli had the chip under a scanner already, but he'd not yet started to take it apart. A new face in the team, a tall lean man who hung back apart from the others, caught Miles's eye at once.

Dr. Vaughn Weddell, nee Dr. Hugh Canaba of Jackson's Whole, had paler skin now, darker hair, and light hazel eyes in place of the original dark brown color he'd sported when Miles had first met him. A higher arch to his cheekbones and nose lent him an even more distinguished look. His air of earnest intellectual superiority was still the same, though.

Weddell's eyes widened, seeing Miles. Miles smiled grimly. He hadn't thought the good doctor would have forgotten "Admiral Naismith." Miles stepped aside with him, and lowered his voice.

"Good morning, Dr. Weddell. And how are you enjoying your new identity these days?"

Weddell processed his surprise smoothly. "Well, thank you. And, uh . . . how are you enjoying yours?"

"This is my
old
identity, actually."

"Really?" Weddell's eyebrows rose, as he studied and decoded the meanings of Miles's Barrayaran House uniform and its decorations, and the flashy chain around his neck. "Hm. Do I understand then that you are the Imperial Auditor I have to thank for this interruption of my work at the Science Institute?"

"Correct. We subjects of the Imperium do have our surprise duties sometimes, you must realize by now. The price of being Barrayaran. One of the prices."

"At least," sighed Weddell, "your climate is an improvement."

Over Jackson's Whole, indeed. And Weddell was not referring only to the weather. "I'm very pleased things have worked out satisfactorily for you," said Miles. "If I had realized I was going to be seeing you, I'd have brought greetings from Sergeant Taura."

"My word, is she still alive?"

"Oh, yes."
No thanks to you.
"Admiral Avakli has presumably briefed you on the very delicate problem I've assigned to his team. I'm hoping, should it yield any interesting galactic connections, your somewhat eclectic background might help pick them out. Do you have any ideas yet?"

"Several."

"Do they tend to natural causes, or sabotage?"

"I'll be looking for signs of sabotage. If I can't find any, we may end up dubbing it natural causes by default. The analysis will take several days, if it's done thoroughly."

"I want you to be thorough. Molecule by molecule, if necessary."

"Oh, it will have to be."

"And, um . . . remember that while you are inside ImpSec's labs, and certainly part of a team, you are not inside ImpSec's chain of command. You'll be reporting directly to me."

Weddell's brows drew down, thoughtfully. "That's . . . very interesting."

"Carry on, then."

Weddell tilted his chin in slightly ironic acknowledgment. "Yes, my lord, ah . . . Vorkosigan, is it?"

"Or 'my Lord Auditor' would be correct, this week."

"Rarefied."

"I could scarcely go higher here without risking a nosebleed."

"Is that a warning to me?"

"Orientation only. A courtesy."

"Ah. Thank you." Weddell nodded, and drifted back to watch the proceedings over Avakli's shoulder.

Weddell/Canaba was still an ass at heart, Miles reflected. But he did know his molecular biology.

After a conversation with Admiral Avakli, Miles called Gregor to report the success of the surgery. He then returned to see Illyan one more time. He found the ImpSec chief sitting up in bed, dressed again, with Lady Alys seated nearby. Illyan actually smiled slightly as he entered, the first unharrowed expression Miles had seen on his features for days.

"Hello, sir. It's good to have you back."

"Miles." Illyan nodded, carefully, then touched his hand to his head as if to make sure it was going to stay on. "How long have you been here? Come over here."

"Only about four days, I guess. Or five." Miles went to his other side.

Illyan too studied his House uniform and its assorted ornaments. He reached out to lightly tick the gold Auditor's chain across Miles's shoulders. It rang with a faint, pure note. "Now that's . . . rather unexpected."

"General Haroche didn't want to let me in. Gregor decided this would save argument."

"How creative of Gregor." Illyan vented a brief surprised laugh, which Miles was not quite sure how to interpret. "I would never have thought of it. But waste not, want not."

"If you seem to be able to watch out for yourself now, sir, I thought I'd take a break, and go home for a bit."

"I'll stay for a while," Alys volunteered, then added, "You did a good job, Miles."

Miles shrugged. "Hell,
I
didn't do that much. Just got the tech boys into motion, I suppose." With an effort, he converted a parting salute into a more civilian polite nod, and half-bowed himself out.

Back in his bedroom at Vorkosigan House, Miles hung up his House uniform to await attention from a laundry, and divested it of its decorations, which he put away carefully. It would likely be a long time before he wore them again, if ever. Still, they'd finally served a useful purpose. Lastly, he held up the gold chain of his ersatz Auditor's office, and let it turn in the light, studying its exquisite detail.

Well. That was amusing, while it lasted.

He supposed he ought to take the chain back promptly to the Residence, to be returned to the vault from which it had come. It seemed a little careless to leave an object of that much historical and artistic value lying around in one's bureau drawer. Still . . . a job was never over till the reports were written; a decade in ImpSec had taught him
that
, if nothing else. And until Avakli and his merry men turned in
their
report, Miles could not very well offer his final one to Gregor.

He tucked the chain away atop a stack of shirts.

Reluctantly but firmly, Miles seated himself at his comconsole the next day and rang up the Imperial Military Hospital's veterans treatment division, and scheduled a preliminary examination for the diagnosis of his seizures. ImpMil was the most logical place to go; they had as much experience with cryo-revival cases as anybody else on Barrayar, and they had immediate and privileged access to all his medical records, classified or not. His Dendarii Fleet surgeon's notes alone should save weeks of repetitive horsing around. Sooner or later, Ivan would remember his threats to drag Miles bodily to the clinic of his choice, or worse, rat about Miles's foot-dragging to Gregor. This spiked Ivan's guns.

Mission accomplished, Miles sighed, pushed back from his comconsole, and rose for an aimless ramble around the echoing corridors and chambers of Vorkosigan House. It wasn't that he missed Ivan's company, exactly, it was just that . . . he missed company, even Ivan's. Vorkosigan House wasn't meant to be this quiet. It had been designed to host a full-time roaring circus, with its complement of guardsmen and staff, maids and grooms and gardeners, hurrying couriers and languid courtiers, Vor visitors trailing their retinues, children . . . with the successive Counts Vorkosigan as ringmasters, the hubs around which the whole great gaudy wheel turned. Counts and Countesses Vorkosigan. The party had been at its height in his great-grandparents' day, Miles supposed, just before the end of the Time of Isolation. He paused before a window overlooking the curving drive, and pictured horses and carriages pulling up below, officers and ladies disembarking with a glitter of swords and swirl of fabrics.

Running the Dendarii Mercenaries had been something like that, at least the roaring-circus aspect. Miles wondered if the Dendarii Fleet would outlast its founder by as long as Vorkosigan House had outlasted the first Count, eleven generations ago. And if it would be knocked down and completely rebuilt as often. Strange to think he might have created something so organic and alive that it would continue in his absence, without him to prop and push. . . . the way children went on living, without any further act of will on the parents' part.

Quinn was surely his worthy successor. He ought to give up any pretense of his return to the Dendarii and just promote her to Admiral, period. Or would personnel assignments now be Haroche's job? Miles would have trusted Illyan to handle Quinn. But did Haroche have the insight, the imagination required? He sighed unease.

His peregrinations brought him to the second-floor succession of rooms with the best view of the back garden, that had been his formidable grandfather's lair for the last years of the old man's life. Miles's father and mother had not chosen to move into them after the old Count's death, instead retaining their own extensive chambers on the floor above. But they'd had the old Count's rooms refurbished as a sort of Imperial-grade guest suite: bedroom, private bath, sitting room, and study. Even Ivan, a connoisseur of comfort, had not had the nerve to claim the elegantly appointed space on his recent sojourn. He'd taken instead a small bedroom down the hall from Miles, though that might have been for convenience in keeping an eye on his erratic cousin.

Staring around the silent chambers, Miles was seized with an inspiration.

"Kidnapping?" murmured General Haroche, eyeing Miles over Illyan's comconsole desk the following morning.

Miles smiled blandly. "Hardly that, sir. An invitation to Illyan to enjoy the hospitality of Vorkosigan House during his convalescence, offered by me in my father's name and place. I've no doubt he would approve."

"Admiral Avakli's team has not yet ruled out sabotage of the chip, though I find I'm drifting more and more to the natural explanation myself. But given that uncertainty, is Vorkosigan House really secure enough? Compared to ImpSec HQ?"