Memory (48 page)

"Believe me, it makes you very conscious of things like air circulation systems."

Haroche's brows rose as Weddell began vigorously spraying around the vent. He rocked back in his station chair, as-if-casually. He sucked thoughtfully on his lower lip, and did not ask,
Have you considered my offer, Miles?
He was a cool hand, and patient, and perfectly capable of waiting for the answer to emerge. No reason for him to flinch yet; whether the filters here were jammed full of vector encapsulations or not, it would prove nothing. Lots of people went in and out of Illyan's office.

"No," said Weddell after a moment. "Take a look for yourselves, gentlemen." He passed the black light along to Ivan and General Allegre.

"You'd think it would be here," commented Allegre, peering over Ivan's shoulder.

Miles had given it about a twenty-five-percent chance, personally, though he'd upped the odds after finding Galeni's vent clear. That left one of the conference chambers, or . . .

"Find anything?" asked Haroche.

Miles made a small show of going over and borrowing the hand-light from Ivan. "Not in here, dammit. I was hoping it would be simple. If the prokaryote vectors are caught in the filters, they show up bright red, y'see. We tested one, downstairs."

"What are you going to do next?"

"There's nothing for it but to start at the top of the HQ building and check every filtered air vent till I get to the basement. Tedious, but I'll get there in the end. You know I said if I knew why, I'd know who. I've changed my mind. I now think if I know
where
, I'll know who."

"Oh, really. Have you tried Captain Galeni's office?"

"First place we looked. It's clear."

"Hm. Perhaps . . . one of the briefing rooms?"

"I'd give odds." Bite, Haroche. Bite my hook. Come on, come on. . . .

"Very good."

"If you want to save steps," put in Ivan, on cue, "you ought to start with the places Illyan went most, and work out from there. Rather than from the top down."

"Good thinking," said Miles. "Shall we start with the outer office? Then—excuse me, General Allegre, but I must be complete—the offices of the department heads. Then the briefing rooms, then
all
the affairs analysts' offices. We should probably have done the whole of Komarran Affairs while we were first down there. After that we'll see."

From the look on the forensics tech's face, he was mentally kissing his dinner good-bye, a regret perhaps blunted by his obvious fascination with the proceedings. Allegre nodded; they all straggled back out, and the colonel began the drill again with the grille in the outer office. Miles wondered if anyone had noticed yet that Weddell didn't have nearly enough chelation solution to check every air filter in ImpSec HQ. Illyan exchanged abstracted greetings with his old secretary. After a few moments, General Haroche excused himself. Illyan did not look up.

Miles watched out of the corner of his eye as Haroche exited into the corridor.
Hook set, yes, now the line plays out. . . .
He began counting in his head, timing out how a man in a suppressed panic might walk to one room, then another. He motioned Weddell to desist with his spray; when he reached one hundred, he spoke. "All right, gentlemen. If you will follow me one more time. Quietly, please."

He led them out into the corridor and turned left, and right again at the second intersection. In the middle of that hallway, he met the commodore who had taken over Domestic Affairs from Haroche.

"Oh, my Lord Auditor," the commodore hailed him. "How fortunate. General Haroche just sent me to get you."

"Where did he tell you to look for me?"

"He said you'd gone down to the Evidence Rooms. You've just saved me some steps."

"Oh, yes. Tell me, was Haroche carrying anything?"

"A flimsy-folder. Did you want it?"

"I rather think so. He's just in here, eh? Come along. . . ." Miles led the way back up the corridor and into the Domestic Affairs outer office. The door to Haroche's old inner office was locked. Miles over-rode its codes with his Auditor's seal. It hissed aside.

Haroche was crouched to the left of his old comconsole desk, just levering the vent grille out of the wall. In the opened flimsy-folder on the floor by his side lay another fiber filter. Miles laid a small bet with himself that they would find a disemboweled grille awaiting Haroche's return in one of the briefing rooms on a direct line between Illyan's old office and this one. A quick switch, very cool.
You think fast, General. But this time I had a head start.

"Timing," said Miles, "is everything."

Haroche jerked upright, on his knees. "My Lord Auditor," he began quickly, and stopped. His eye took in the small army of ImpSec men crowding into the doorway behind Miles. Even then, Miles thought, Haroche might have been capable of some brilliantly extemporized explanation, to Miles, to the whole damned mob, but then Illyan shouldered forward. Miles fancied he could almost see the glib lies turning to clotted ashes on Haroche's tongue, though the only outward sign was a little twitch at the corner of his mouth.

Haroche had avoided facing his victims, Miles had noticed. He'd never once visited Illyan in ImpSec's own clinic, had tried unsuccessfully to avoid Miles back when he'd doubtless been planning the original version of the frame-up, and had been careful to enter the Imperial Residence only after Galeni had been arrested and removed. He was not, perhaps, an evil man, but only an ordinary smart man tempted to one evil act, and then overwhelmed when its consequences proliferated beyond control.
When you chose an act, you chose the consequences of that act.

"Hello, Lucas," Illyan said. His eyes were amazingly cold.

"Sir . . ." Haroche scrambled up, and stood, empty-handed.

"Colonel, Dr. Weddell, if you please . . ." Miles waved them forward, and motioned the forensics tech in their immediate wake. He himself stood back a little, on the other side of the group from where Haroche stood. When he looked up, their eyes accidentally met, and both looked quickly away, avoiding an unfortunate intimacy.
This is my moment of triumph. Why isn't it more fun?

The motions were all as choreographed and practiced as a dance, by now. The colonel finished dislodging the grille, Weddell sprayed. An excruciating few seconds' wait. Then the red fluorescence glowed, bright and malicious, as the black light transmuted the invisible into something resembling blood.

"General Allegre," Miles sighed, "you are now the acting chief of ImpSec, pending Emperor Gregor's approval. I am sorry to inform you that your first duty is the arrest of your predecessor, General Haroche. By my order as an Imperial Auditor, on the serious charge of . . ." What? Sabotage? Treason? Stupidity?
The criminal secretly wants to get caught
, so ran the popular wisdom. Not true, Miles thought; the criminal just wants to get away. It was the sinner who sought to be brought to light, on the long crawl back through confession, to absolution and some sort of grace, however shattered. Was Haroche a criminal or a sinner?

"On the capital charge of treason," Miles finished. Half the men in the room flinched at that last word.

"Not treason," Haroche whispered hoarsely. "Never treason."

Miles opened his hand. "But . . . if he is willing to confess and cooperate, possibly a lesser charge of assault on a superior officer. A court-martial, a year in prison, a simple dishonorable discharge. I think . . . I will let the Service court sort that one out."

By the looks on their faces, both Haroche and Allegre caught the nuances of
that
speech. Allegre was Galeni's superior, after all, and doubtless had been following the case against his subordinate in detail. Haroche's jaw tightened; Allegre smiled in acid appreciation.

"May I suggest," Miles went on to Allegre, "that you march him downstairs and have him trade places with your top analyst, for the moment, while you play catchup."

"Yes, my Lord Auditor." Allegre's voice was firm and determined, though he had a moment's pause when he realized he had no husky sergeants to do the official hands-on arresting. Miles thought eight-to-one was odds enough, but he forbore making suggestions. It was Allegre's job now.

Allegre, after a quick glance at Illyan gave him no clues, solved his problem by drafting Ivan—what
was
it about Ivan?—the colonel, and the commodore. "Lucas, are you going to give me any trouble?"

"I think . . . not," sighed Haroche. His eyes surveyed the room, but there were no handy high windows inviting a quick resolution, four floors headfirst to the pavement. "I'm too old to be that athletic anymore."

"Good. Me too." Allegre escorted him out.

Illyan watched them go. He remarked in an undertone to Miles, "This is a damned sad business. ImpSec really needs to start some new traditions for changing its chiefs. Assassination and retribution is so disruptive to the organization."

Miles could only shrug agreement. He led the way for a quick survey of nearby briefing rooms, and found the opened vent, missing its filter, in the second they tried. He oversaw the forensics tech's careful bagging and documenting of the last pieces of evidence, and sealed the whole set with his Auditor's seal, and sent them down to wait in the Evidence Rooms for whatever aftermaths eventually unfolded.

Everything from here on out was, thank God, beyond his mandate as an acting Imperial Auditor. His responsibilities ended with his report to Gregor, and the turning over of any evidence he'd accumulated to the proper prosecuting authorities, in this case, in all probability, the Service court.
I only have to find the truth. I don't have to figure out what to do with it.
Though, he supposed, any recommendations he made would bear weight.

Finished in the Office of Domestic Affairs, and unhurried at last, he and Illyan strolled side by side down the corridor after the tech. "I wonder how Haroche will try to play this?" Miles wondered aloud. "Hope to be assigned a good defender and try to tough it out? He spent so much time and effort himself doctoring the comconsole evidence—which was, I think, all that distracted him from thinking of those damned filters before I did—I thought he'd cry
Plant!
first thing. Or will he fall back on the Old Vorish solution? He looked . . . pretty pale, there at the end. He folded quicker than I thought he would."

"You hit him harder than you thought you had. You don't know your own strength, Miles. But no. I don't think suicide is Lucas's way," said Illyan. "And anyway, it's difficult to arrange without cooperation from his jailers."

"Do you believe . . . I ought to hint for such cooperation?" Miles asked delicately.

"Dying's easy." Illyan's drawn features grew distant. How much did he remember of his agonized pleading to Miles for an easy death, so few weeks ago? "Living's hard. Let the son of a bitch stand his court-martial. Every last eternal minute of it."

"Ah," breathed Miles.

The new ImpSec HQ detention area was a lot smaller than the old one, but shared the design of a single entrance and prisoner processing area. At the front comconsole desk they found Captain Galeni, Delia Koudelka by his side, just completing his exit documentation under the eye of General Allegre and the duty officer. Ivan looked on. Haroche, it appeared, had already been processed in; Miles hoped he'd been given Galeni's cell.

Galeni was still in the dress greens he'd worn to Gregor's reception, now very rumpled. He was unshaven, red-eyed, and pale from lack of sleep. A dangerous tension still hung about him, like a fog.

He swung on his heel to face Miles, as he and Illyan entered. "Goddammit, Vorkosigan, where were you all this time?"

"Ah . . ." Miles ticked his Auditor's chain, to remind Galeni he was still on duty.

Galeni snapped, "Goddammit, my Lord Auditor, where the
hell
were you all this time? You said last night you'd follow on. Thought you were going to let me out. Then I didn't know what the hell to think. I'm quitting this frigging paranoid
stupid
organization just as soon as I get out of this rat-tank. No more."

Allegre winced. Delia touched Galeni's hand; he grasped hers, and his roiling boil visibly settled to a milder simmer.

Well, I had this seizure, and then I had to sort through Haroche's misdirection with the comconsole report, and then I had to get Weddell from his lab at the Imperial Science Institute, and he took forever, and I didn't dare contact anyone by comconsole from Vorkosigan House, I had to go in person, and . . . "Yes. I'm sorry. I'm afraid it took me all day to assemble the evidence to clear you."

"Miles . . ." said Illyan, "it's only been five days since this was discovered to be sabotage. It's going to take you longer to assemble your Auditor's report than it did for you to solve the case."

"Reports," sighed Miles. "Yech. But Duv, see, it wasn't enough for me to order your release. I'd have been accused of favoritism."

"
That's
true," murmured Ivan.

"At first I thought Haroche was just being clumsy, to have you arrested at the Imperial Residence in front of so many people. Ha. Not him. It was beautifully choreographed to destroy your reputation. After that, neither release nor acquittal for insufficient evidence would have removed suspicion from most men's minds. I
had
to nail the real culprit. It was the only way."

"Ah . . ." Galeni's brows drew down. "Miles, just who was the real culprit?"

"Oh, didn't you tell him yet?" Miles asked Delia.

"You
told
me not to say anything about it till you were done," Delia protested. "We just now got out of that dreadful little cell."

"They aren't as dreadful as the
old
cells," Illyan objected mildly. "I remember those. Spent a month under arrest in 'em myself, thirteen years ago." He cast a slightly sour smile at Miles. "Something about the Lord Regent's son's private army, and a certain treason charge."

"With all the things you've forgotten, I could wish you'd have forgotten that," murmured Miles.

"No such luck," Illyan murmured back. "I had them converted to evidence storage and the new detention area built right after. Much upgraded. Just in case I ever ended up in them again."