Memory (31 page)

Alys straightened. "I told you
that
yesterday!"

"Yes, milady," said Haroche meekly. "You were right. May I send a car to your residence for you? And how soon?"

"For this," Alys stated, "I can be ready in fifteen minutes."

Miles wondered if Haroche appreciated what an awesome statement this was. It could take a high Vor lady fifteen
hours
to get ready to go places, sometimes.

"Thank you, milady. I think this could be a great help."

"Thank you, General." She hesitated. "And thank Lord Vorkosigan too." She cut the com.

"Huh," said Haroche; his mouth twitched lopsidedly. "She
is
sharp."

"In certain areas within her personal expertise, one of the sharpest."

"One wonders how Lord Ivan . . . ah, well. How was that, my Lord Auditor?"

Extraordinary
. "A noble apology. She had to accept. You won't be sorry."

"As hard as it may be for you to grasp, considering the history of your attitude to most of your commanding officers"—Haroche tapped his comconsole—just
which
files had he been reading?—"I do want to do a good job.
Do your duty
is not enough. The lower ranks are filled with men who merely do their duty, and no more. I know I'm not a suave man—never have been—"

"Neither was Illyan's predecessor Captain Negri, I've heard," Miles offered.

Haroche smiled bleakly. "I didn't ask for this emergency. I will likely never be as smooth and polished as Illyan. But I mean to do as good a job."

Miles nodded. "Thank you, General."

Miles returned to the clinic level to relieve Ivan. Miles found him still sitting next to Illyan, though as far back in his chair as he would go, smiling in a pained way; one boot tapped softly on the floor in a nervous pattern.

Ivan rose hastily, and came to the door when he saw Miles leaning there watching. "Thank God. It's about time you got back," he muttered.

"How's it been going?"

"What d'you think? I can see why they sedated him, even without his trying to tear their heads off. Just so they didn't have listen to hour after hour of this. Miles, this is a nightmare."

"Yes. I know." He sighed. "I have some help on the way for this part, though. I've asked your mother to come in and sit with him."

"Oh," said Ivan. "Good idea. Better her than me, anyway."

Miles's mouth twisted. "You're not afraid it'll be too hard on her?"

"Oh. Um. Hell, she's tough."

"Tougher than you?"

"She'll be good at this," Ivan promised somewhat desperately.

"Take a break, Ivan."

"Yeah." Ivan didn't wait for a second invitation, but scooted past him.

"And Ivan?"

Ivan paused, suspiciously. "Yeah?"

"Thanks."

"Oh. No trouble."

Miles took a deep breath, and entered Illyan's room. It was still very warm. He took off his tunic, and folded it over the back of a chair, and rolled up his silk sleeves, and sat. Illyan first ignored him for a bit, then stared at him in puzzlement, then his face cleared. It began again,
Miles, what are you doing here . . . ?
Simon, listen to me. Your chip has gone glitchy. . . .

Over and over.

It was a little bit like talking to someone with multiple personalities, Miles decided after a while. The thirty-year-old Illyan gave way to the Illyan of forty-six, each man profoundly different from the Illyan of sixty. Miles waited patiently for the card he desired to be dealt again from the deck, endlessly repeating the date, the facts, the situation. Would it ever reach the point where all the Illyans had been informed, or would he continue to divide infinitesimally?

At last, the Illyan he was waiting for came around again.

"Miles! Did Vorberg find you? Shit, this is a nightmare. My damned chip has gone glitchy. It's turning to snot inside my head. Promise me—promise me by your word as Vorkosigan!—you won't let this go on."

"Listen, Simon! I know all about it. But I'm not bloody going to cut your throat. We've scheduled surgery instead, to take the chip out. No later than tomorrow, if I have anything to say about it, and I do. It can't be fixed, so we're going to remove it."

Illyan paused. "Remove . . . ?" His hand touched his forehead. "But how can I function without it?"

"Same as you did in the first twenty-seven years of your life before you ever had it installed, is the best medical guess."

Illyan's eyes were solemn, and afraid. "Will it take . . . all my memories? Will I lose my whole life? Oh, God, Miles." He was silent for a time, then added, "I think I'd rather have you cut my throat."

"That's not an option, Simon."

Illyan shook his head. And dissolved again, into another Illyan, another round of, "Miles! What are you doing here? What am
I
doing here?" He stared down at his bland civilian clothes; Illyan either favored really boring fashions, or else did not trust his own taste. "I'm supposed to be at the Council of Counts in full dress uniform
right now.
They must be told—they must be told. . . ."

Miles couldn't decide if it constituted informed consent or not, under the circumstances. Was it informed? Was it even consent? But it seemed the best he could do. He repeated the drill. Again. Again.

At length, Dr. Ruibal escorted Lady Alys into the room. He'd briefed her as Miles had requested; Miles could see it in her set, disturbed face.

"Hello, Simon." Her voice was quiet, a melodic alto.

"Lady Alys!" Illyan's face worked, as he searched his mind for Miles knew not what. "I am so sorry about the death of Lord Vorpatril," Illyan said at last. "If I had only known where you were in the city. I was trying to get Admiral Kanzian out. If only I'd known. Did you save the child?"

Apologies and condolences on the murder of her husband, thirty years ago. Kanzian had been dead of old age for half a decade now. Alys glanced in suppressed anguish at Miles. "Yes, Simon, it's all right," she said. "Lieutenant Koudelka brought us through Vordarian's lines. It's all right now."

Miles nodded, and repeated the orienting drill, as a model for Alys. She listened to the exchange carefully, and watched Illyan's face go through the usual array of emotions, startlement, denial, distraught dismay. Illyan's blunter barracks language disappeared abruptly from his speech in her presence. Miles slipped out of the chair beside Illyan's and offered it to her. She sat without hesitation, and took Illyan's hand.

Illyan blinked, and looked up at her. "Lady Alys!" His face softened. "What are you doing here?"

Miles withdrew to the doorway, where Ruibal watched.

"That's interesting," said Ruibal, checking a monitor readout on the wall. "His blood pressure dropped a bit, there."

"Yes, I'm . . . not surprised. Come out in the hall and talk to me. I want a word with Avakli, too."

The three of them, Miles and Ruibal and Avakli all in shirtsleeves now, sat at the medtech's station, and drank coffee. It was deep night outside, Miles realized. He was becoming as temporally confused as Illyan, tasting his mechanistic eternity.

"So you've convinced me the surgical facility here is adequate," Miles said. "Tell me more about the man."

"He's my second senior surgeon for installing and maintaining jump-pilots' neural implants," said Avakli.

"Why aren't we having your first senior surgeon?"

"He's good too, but this one is younger, more recently trained. I feel he's the optimum trade-off between most recent training and maximum practical experience."

"Do you trust him?"

"Let me put it this way," said Avakli. "If you've ever ridden in an Imperial fast courier vessel in the last five years, you've probably trusted him with your own life already, as surely as you've trusted it to the engineers who calibrated the ship's Necklin rods. He did the implant for the Emperor's personal pilot, too."

"Very good. I accept your choice. So how soon can we get him here, and how soon can he go to work?"

"We could fly him in from Vordarian's District tonight, but I think it's better to let him get a good night's sleep at home first. I'd allow a day at least for him to study the problem, and plan his surgical approach. After that—it will be up to him. We're likely looking at surgery the day after tomorrow at the earliest."

"I see. Very well." There was nothing more Miles could do to push that part of things along. "That gives Dr. Avakli's team two more days to play with their part of the problem. Let me know if you come up with any new approaches that won't involve putting Illyan through more of . . . this. And oh! I have a suggestion. When the surgery is complete, Dr. Avakli's team will become the chip coroners. I want an autopsy done on the damned thing, even if it is dead. What caused the malfunction? ImpSec and I both want to know. I thought of a man to add to the team who might be able to lend you some interesting galactic expertise. He has a lab in the Imperial Science Institute biofacility just outside of Vorbarr Sultana, where he does some secured work for the Imperium. Name's Vaughn Weddell." Once known as Dr. Hugh Canaba of Jackson's Whole. An early Dendarii mission had brought him incognito as a refugee to a new life, face, and name on Barrayar, along with some of the most secret genetic research in the galaxy. Sergeant Taura had been one of his earlier and more ambiguous projects. "He's a molecular biologist by trade and training, but his early experiences included an extraordinary range of . . . really oddball stuff. Kind of a wild card, and, ah, a bit of a prima donna in personality, but if nothing else, I think you'll find his ideas interesting."

"Yes, my lord." Avakli made a note. A Lord Auditor's suggestions had the weight of an Imperial command, Miles realized anew. He really had to watch his mouth.

And that seemed to be all he could do for today. He longed to flee back to Vorkosigan House and sleep.

Instead, he bedded down for four hours in one of the adjoining patient rooms, then relieved Alys Vorpatril in the night watch to take turn about. Lieutenant Vorberg, coming on duty, seemed pleased to cede them the place by Illyan's bedside, and took up his own post by the clinic door. Illyan slept only fitfully, waking about every twenty minutes in a new burst of confusion and fear. It was going to be a very long two days till the surgery.

The two days stretched to three, agonizingly. For the last full day, Illyan was never coherent enough to beg for death, nor express his terror of the upcoming surgery, a respite to Miles of sorts. Illyan's flickering sequences of disorientation and distress passed too quickly now for reassurance; he became dumb, only his twitching face, not his words, reflecting the kaleidoscopic chaos inside his head.

Even Alys found it unbearable. Her rest breaks lengthened, and her visits to Illyan grew shorter. Miles stuck it out, wondering why he was doing so. Would Illyan remember any of this?
Will I ever be able to forget it?

Illyan was no longer combative, but his lurching movements were abrupt and unpredictable. It was decided no attempt would be made to keep him conscious during the surgery. Monitoring of his higher neural functions would have to wait till after the fact. It was a profound relief to Miles when the techs came to anesthetize Illyan and prep him, and he became still at last.

As Gregor's appointed observer, Miles followed the procession right into the surgery, near the labs a few steps down the corridor from the patient rooms. No one even suggested he stay out.
Where does the forty kilo Imperial Auditor sit? Anywhere he wants to.
A tech assisted him into only slightly oversized sterile garb, and provided him with a comfortable stool with a good view of the holovid monitors that would record every aspect of the procedure, inside Illyan's skull and out, and a reasonable glimpse of the top of Illyan's head past the surgeon's shoulder. On the whole, Miles thought he would rather watch the monitors.

The tech depilated a little rectangular patch in the center of Illyan's scalp, almost unnecessary in the thinning hair. Miles felt he ought to be inured to bloodshed of all kinds by now, but his stomach still turned as the surgeon deftly cut through scalp and bone and peeled them back for access. The incision was tiny, really, a mere slot. Then the computer-aided microwaldoes were moved into place, concealing the cut, and the surgeon leaned into his vid enhancers, hunching over Illyan's head. Miles switched his attention back to the monitors.

The rest of it took barely fifteen minutes. The surgeon laser-cauterized the tiny arterioles that fed the chip with blood and kept its deteriorating organic parts alive, and swiftly burnt through the cilia-like array of neural connectors, finer than spider silk, across the chip's surface. The most delicate surgical hand-tractor lifted the chip neatly from its matrix. The surgeon dropped it into a dish of solution held out for it by the anxious Dr. Avakli, hovering nearby.

Avakli and his tech headed for the door, hustling the dead chip off to the lab. Avakli paused and glanced back at Miles, as if they'd expected him to follow
it.
"Are you coming, my lord?" Avakli inquired.

"No. I'll see you later. Carry on, Admiral."

Miles was barely able to interpret what he was seeing on the monitors, but at least he could read Dr. Ruibal, attending to Illyan's physiological state alongside the surgeon; Ruibal was attentive but relaxed. No emergencies yet, then.

The surgeon fitted the sliver of skull back into its place with biotic glue, and closed the incision and cleaned it. Nothing but a neat, thin red line showed on the pale scalp; Zap the Cat had left gorier-looking scratches on human flesh than this.

The surgeon stood, and stretched. "That's it, then. He's all yours, Dr. Ruibal."

"That was . . . simpler than I had anticipated," Miles commented.

"Several orders of magnitude simpler than installing it must have been," agreed the surgeon. "I had a horrible few minutes, when I first looked at the map of the thing, thinking that I was going to have to go in and remove all those neural connectors from their other ends, throughout the brain, until I realized they could just be left
in situ
."