"Good. Watch closely." Miles rapped the black glass, and rose. Ivan scrambled up behind him.
In the corridor on their way downstairs to the HQ clinic, Ivan murmured, "I've never seen a general tap-dance sitting down, before."
"It feels like a minuet in a minefield, to me," Miles admitted.
"Watching you come the little Admiral at him was worth the price of admission, though."
"What?" He almost stumbled.
"Wasn't it on purpose? You're acting just like you do when you play Admiral Naismith, except without the Betan accent. Full tilt forward, no inhibitions, innocent bystanders scramble for their lives. I suppose you'll say terror is good for me, clears the arteries or something."
Were Admiral Naismith's decorations acting as some kind of magic talisman for him? Miles didn't even want to try to digest the implications of this right now. Instead he said lightly, "Do you consider yourself an innocent bystander?"
"God knows I try to be," sighed Ivan.
The air of the clinic, which along with the forensic laboratories occupied a whole floor of ImpSec HQ, was thick with familiar odors too, Miles thought as he entered: unpleasant medical ones. He'd spent all too many hours in here himself, over the years, from his very first visit with incipient pneumonia from hypothermia, to his most recent physical exam, the one that had returned him to the ill-fated duty of rescuing Lieutenant Vorberg. The smell of the place gave him the shivers.
All the four private rooms save one had been cleared of other patients, and stood dark and empty and open. A green-uniformed guard stood stolid duty outside the one closed door.
An ImpSec colonel with medical tags on his tunic popped up breathlessly at Miles's elbow as he entered. "My Lord Auditor. I'm Dr. Ruibal. How may I serve you?" Ruibal was a short, round-faced man with furry eyebrows, pinched together now in one crooked line of worry.
"Tell me about Illyan. No, take me to Illyan. We'll talk after."
"This way, my lord." The doctor gestured the guard aside, and led Miles into the windowless room.
Illyan lay faceup on the bed, half-covered by a sheet, his wrists and ankles bound with what the medics dubbed "soft restraints." He breathed heavily. Was he sedated? His eyes were open, glazed and unfocused. Heavy beard stubble shadowed his normally clean face. The warm room smelled of dried sweat, and worse organics. Miles had spent a week forcing his way in here, using some of the most extreme methods he'd ever dared attempt. Now all he wanted to do was turn tail and run out again.
"Why is this man naked?" he asked the colonel. "Is he incontinent?"
"No," said Ruibal. "Procedures."
Miles didn't see any tubes, probes, or machines. "What procedures?"
"Well, none at present. But he isn't easy to handle. Getting him in and out of clothes as well as the other . . . presents problems for my staff."
Indeed. The guard, now hovering inside the door, sported a maroon-purple black eye. And Ruibal's own mouth was bruised, his lower lip split. "I . . . see."
He forced himself nearer, and half-knelt by Illyan's head. "Simon?" he said uncertainly.
Illyan's face turned toward him. The glazed eyes flickered, focused. Lit with recognition. "Miles! Miles. Thank God you're here." His voice cracked with urgency. "Lord Vorvane's wife and children—did you get them out alive? Commodore Rivek at Sector Four is going frantic."
Miles recognized the mission. It was about five years old. He moistened his lips. "Yeah. It was all taken care of. We got them out, all right and tight." He'd been awarded a gold star for that one. It hung third from the left in its row on him now.
"Good. Good." Illyan sighed, lay back; his eyes closed. His stubbled lips moved. His eyes opened and lit, again, with recognition. "Miles! Thank God you're here." His hands moved, and came up short against their restraints. "What is this? Get me out of this."
"Simon. What day is this?"
"It's the Emperor's Birthday tomorrow. Or is it today? You're dressed for it . . . I have to be there."
"No," said Miles. "The Emperor's Birthday was weeks ago. Your memory chip is malfunctioning. You have to stay in here till they figure out what's wrong, and fix it."
"Oh." Four minutes later, Illyan turned his head back to Miles; his lips rippled in startlement. "Miles, what the hell are you doing here? I sent you to Tau Ceti. Why can't you ever obey an order?"
"Simon, your memory chip is malfunctioning."
Illyan hesitated. "What day is it? Where am I?"
Miles repeated the information.
"Dear God," whispered Illyan. "Now, that's a bitch." He lay listlessly, looking dismayed.
Five minutes later, Illyan looked up at him and said, "Miles! What the hell are you doing here?"
Shit. He had to stand up, and turn around for a minute. I don't know how much of this I can take. He became aware that Dr. Ruibal was watching him closely.
"Has it been this bad all week?" he asked.
Ruibal shook his head. "There has been a definite and measurable progression. His . . . how can I describe it. His moments of temporal confusion have been getting steadily closer together. The first day I thought I noted six perceptual jumps. Yesterday they were coming six an hour."
It was twice that now. Miles turned back. In a little while, Illyan looked up at him, and his face lit with recognition. "Miles. What the hell's going on?"
Patiently, Miles explained again. It didn't matter if he repeated the wording, he realized. Illyan wasn't going to get tired of it. Or remember it, five minutes later.
On the next round, Illyan frowned across at him. "Who the devil are you?"
"Miles. Vorkosigan."
"Don't be absurd. Miles is five years old."
"Uncle Simon. Look at me."
Illyan stared earnestly at him, then whispered, "Watch out. Your grandfather wants to kill you. Trust Bothari."
"Oh, I do," sighed Miles.
Three minutes later: "Miles! What the hell's going on? Where am I?"
Miles repeated the drill.
The guard with the black eye remarked, "How come he believes you all the time? He only believes us about one time out of five. The other four times he tries to kill us."
"I don't know," said Miles, feeling harried beyond measure.
Again. "Miles! Vorberg found you!"
"Yes . . . yes?" Miles sat up straight. "Simon, what day is this?"
"God, I don't know. My damned chip is fucked up beyond repair. It's turning to snot inside my head. It's driving me crazy." He grasped Miles's hand, hard, and stared into his eyes with the uttermost urgency. "I can't stand this. If the thing can't be fixed . . . swear you'll cut my throat for me. Don't let it go on forever. I won't be able to do it for myself. Swear to me. Your word as Vorkosigan!"
"God, Simon, I can't promise that!"
"You have to. You can't abandon me to an eternity of this. Swear."
"I can't," Miles whispered. "Is this . . . what you sent Vorberg to get me for?"
Illyan's face changed again, the desperation unfocusing into bewilderment. "Who's Vorberg?" Then a sudden hard suspicion. "Who the hell are you?" Illyan shook free of his hand.
Miles went five more rounds, then walked out into the corridor. He leaned against the wall, head down till the nausea passed. His body shook, suppressed shudders that traveled from bottom to top. Dr. Ruibal hovered. Ivan too took the opportunity to step out, and breathe deeply.
"You see what we're up against," said Ruibal.
"This is . . . graceless." Miles's voice was a whisper, but Ruibal flinched. "Ruibal. You get him washed. Shaved. Give him some clothes back. There's a complete supply of civvies in his apartment downstairs, I know." Maybe if Illyan didn't look so much like an animal, they wouldn't treat him so much like one.
"My lord," said the colonel. "I'm reluctant to ask my corpsmen to risk losing more teeth. But if you'll stay for it, we'll try. You're the only person I've seen he hasn't tried to slug."
"Yes. Of course."
Miles saw the process
through. Having a familiar person present did seem to be a calming influence on Illyan. People he'd known for the longest time would be best; then whatever day and year he opened his eyes, every five minutes, he would see a known face, who could tell him a story he might trust. Clothed again, Illyan sat up in a chair, and ate from a tray a corpsman brought, apparently the first meal for a couple of days that he had not tried to turn into a projectile weapon.
An officer appeared at the door, and spoke to Ruibal.
"The briefing you requested has been prepared, my Lord Auditor," Ruibal told Miles. His obsequious tone wasn't just in honor of Miles's Auditor's menace, because he added wistfully, "Will you came back, afterwards?"
"Oh, yes. Meantime . . ." Miles's eye fell on Ivan.
"I would rather," stated Ivan quietly, "charge a laser-cannon site naked than be in here by myself."
"I'll keep it in mind," said Miles. "In the meanwhile—stay with him till I get back."
"Yeah." Ivan took over the chair at Illyan's elbow as Miles vacated it.
As Miles followed Ruibal out the door, he heard Illyan's voice, for a change more amiable than stressed: "Ivan, you idiot. What are you doing here?"
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The clinic's conference chamber bore a strong generic resemblance to every other ImpSec briefing room in which Miles had ever spent endless hours. A round black table featured a secured holovid projector with a control panel that looked like a jump-ship navcomp. Five station chairs were presently set closely around it, occupied by three men who rose hastily and stood at attention when Ruibal ushered Miles inside. When they were all assembled, there was no one in the room below the rank of colonel except Miles. This was not all that unusual for Vorbarr Sultana; at Imperial Service HQ across town where Ivan worked, the joke was that the colonels carried the coffee.
No: he was neither above nor below them in rank, Miles reminded himself. He was outside them altogether. It was apparent that however accustomed they might be to generals and admirals, this was their first close encounter with an Imperial Auditor. The last Imperial Audit ImpSec had suffered had been almost five years ago, and more traditionally financial in scope. Miles had brushed up against it on the opposite side that time, as the Auditor had choked on certain aspects of mercenary accounting. That investigation had had a dangerous political tinge, from which Illyan had insulated him.
Ruibal introduced the team. Ruibal himself was the neurologist. Next, or perhaps first, in importance was a rear admiral, Dr. Avakli, the biocyberneticist. Avakli was on loan from the medical group who did all the Imperial Service jumpship pilots' neural implants, the one neuroenhancement technology up and running on Barrayar with any resemblance to that which had produced Illyan's eidetic chip. Avakli, in nice contrast to the rounder Ruibal, was long, thin, intense, and balding. Miles hoped the last was a sign of a high intellectual temperature. The other two men were tech support assistants to Avakli.
"Thank you, gentlemen," Miles said when introductions were complete. He sat; they sat, except for Ruibal, who was apparently elected spokes-goat.
"Where would you like me to begin, my Lord Auditor?" Ruibal asked Miles.
"Um . . . the beginning?"
Obediently, Ruibal began to rattle off a long list of neurological tests, illustrated with holovids of the data and results.
"Excuse me," said Miles after a few minutes of this. "I did not phrase myself well. You can skip all the negative data. Go directly to the positive results."
There was a short silence, then Ruibal said, "In summation, I did not find evidence of organic neurological damage. The physiological and psychological stress levels, which are quite dangerously high, I judge to be an effect rather than a cause of the biocybernetic breakdown."
"Do you agree with that assessment?" Miles asked Avakli, who nodded, though with a little judicious lip-pursing to indicate the ever-present possibility of human error. Avakli and Ruibal exchanged a nod, and Avakli took Ruibal's place at the holovid projector.
Avakli had a detailed holovid map of the chip's internal architecture, which he began to display. Miles was relieved. He'd been a little afraid they were going to tell him ImpSec Medical had lost the owner's manual in the intervening thirty-five years, but they appeared to have quite a lot of data. The chip itself was an immensely complex sandwich of organic and inorganic molecular layers about five by seven centimeters broad and half a centimeter thick, which rested in a vertical position between the two lobes of Illyan's brain. The number of neurological connections that ran from it made a jump-pilot's control headset look like a child's toy. The greatest complexity seemed to be in the information retrieval net, rather than the protein-based data storage, though both were not only fiendishly ornate, but largely unmapped—it had been an autolearning-style system which had assembled itself in a highly non-linear fashion after the chip had been installed.
"So is the . . . damage or deterioration we're seeing confined to the organic or the inorganic parts? Or both?" Miles asked Avakli.
"Organic," said Avakli. "Almost certainly."
Avakli was one of those scientists who never placed an unhedged bet, Miles realized.
"Unfortunately," Avakli went on, "it was never originally designed to be downloaded. There is no single equivalent of a data-port to connect to; just these thousands and thousands of neuronic leads going into and out of the thing all over its surface."
In view of the chip's history as Emperor Ezar's ultra-secure data dump, this made sense. Miles would not have been surprised to learn the thing had been customized to be especially nondownloadable.
"Now . . . I was under the impression the thing worked in parallel with Illyan's original cerebral memory. It doesn't actually replace it, does it?"
"That is correct, my lord. The neurological input is only split from the sensory nerves, not shunted aside altogether. The subjects apparently have dual memories of all their experiences. This appears to have been the major contributing factor to the high incidence of iatrogenic schizophrenia they later developed. A sort of inherent design defect, not of the chip so much as of the human brain."
Ruibal cleared his throat in polite theoretical, or perhaps theological, disagreement.
Illyan must have been a born spy. To hold more than one reality balanced in your mind until proof arrived, without going mad from the suspense, was surely the mark of a great investigator.
Avakli then went into a highly technical discussion of three projected ideas for extracting some kind of data download from the chip. They all sounded makeshift and uncertain of result; Avakli himself, describing them, didn't sound too happy or enthusiastic. Most of them seemed to involve long hours of delicate micro-neurosurgery. Ruibal winced a lot.
"So," Miles interrupted this at length, "what happens if you take the chip out?"
"To use layman's terminology," said Avakli, "it goes into shock and dies. It's evidently supposed to do so, apparently to prevent, um, theft."
Right. Miles pictured Illyan mugged by chip-spies, his head hacked open, left for dead . . . someone else had anticipated that picture too. They'd been a paranoid lot, in Ezar's generation.
"It was never designed to be removed intact from its organic electrical support matrix," Avakli continued. "The chance of any coherent data retrieval is vastly reduced, anyway."
"And if it's not taken out?"
"The protein chain arrays show no signs of slowing in their dissociation."
"Or, in scientists' language, the chip is turning to snot inside Illyan's head. One of you bright boys apparently used just that phrase in his hearing, by the way."
One of Avakli's assistants had the grace to look guilty.
"Admiral Avakli, what are your top theories as to what is causing the chip to break down?"
Avakli's brows narrowed. "In order of probability—senescence, that is, old age, triggering an autodestruction, or some sort of chemical or biological attack. I'd have to have it apart to prove the second hypothesis."
&nb
sp; "So . . . there is no question of removing the chip, repairing it, and reinstalling it."
"I hardly think so."
"And you can't repair it in situ without knowing the cause, which you can't determine without removing it for internal examination. Which would destroy it."
Avakli's lips compressed in dry acknowledgment of the inherent circularity of the problem. "Repair is out of the question, I'm afraid. I've been concentrating on trying to evolve a practical downloading scheme."
"As it happens," Miles went on, "you misunderstood my initial question. What happens to Illyan if the chip is removed?"