Gregor said slowly, "His reports are necessarily synopses."
"Ha. You've sensed it too, haven't you. Did Haroche ever once pass on the word that Illyan had requested to see me?"
"No . . . has he? And how do you know?"
"I had it from a, how shall I say it, a reliable anonymous source."
"How reliable?"
"To imagine he set me up with a false tale would be to attribute a mind bordering on the baroque to a person I judge to be almost painfully straightforward. And then there's the problem of motivation. Let's just say, reliable enough for practical purposes."
Gregor said slowly, "As I understand it, Illyan is at present . . . well, to be blunt, dangerously out of his mind. He's been demanding a lot of impractical things. A jump-ship raid on the Hegen Hub to turn back an imaginary invasion was mentioned to me."
"It was real once. You were there."
"Ten years ago. How do you know this isn't just more of the same hallucinatory raving?"
"That's just the point. I can't judge, because I haven't been permitted to see him. No one has. You heard from Lady Alys."
"Er, yes."
"Haroche has now blocked me twice. This morning he offered to have me stunned if I continued to make a pest of myself."
"How much of a pest were you?"
"You can doubtless request—I'd make that request and require, if I were you—a review of Haroche's comconsole recording of our last conversation. You might even find it entertaining. But Gregor—I have a right to see Illyan. Not as his ex-subordinate, but as my father's son. A Vor obligation that passes completely around ImpSec's military hierarchy and comes in through another door. To their dismay, no doubt, but that's their problem. I suspect … I don't know what I suspect. But I can't sit still till I figure it out."
"Do you think there's something smoky?"
"Not . . . necessarily," Miles said more slowly. "But stupidity can be just as bad as malice, sometimes. If this chip crash is anything like my cryo-amnesia, it has to be hell for Illyan. To lose yourself inside your own head … it was the loneliest I've ever been in my life. And nobody came for me, till Mark bulled through. At the very least, Haroche is mishandling this due to nerves and inexperience, and needs to be gentry, or maybe not so gently, straightened out. At the worst—the possibility of deliberate sabotage has to have crossed your mind, too. Even though you haven't talked about it much with me."
Gregor cleared his throat. "Haroche asked me not to."
Miles hesitated. "Finally read my files, has he?"
"I'm afraid so. Haroche has . . . rigorous standards of loyalty."
"Yeah, well . . . it's not his standards of loyalty I'm questioning. It's his judgment. I still want in."
"To see Illyan? I can order that, I suppose. It's getting to be time, in my estimation."
"No, more than that. I want to go over every scrap of raw data pertaining to the case, medical or otherwise. I want oversight."
"Haroche will not be pleased."
"Haroche will go mulish, I expect. And I can't be calling you every fifteen minutes to reiterate your backup. I want some real authority. I want you to assign me an Imperial Auditor."
"What?!"
"Even ImpSec has to bend and spread 'em for an Imperial Auditor. An Auditor can legally requisition anything, and all Haroche or anyone else can do is fume—and hand it over. An Auditor speaks with your Voice. They have to listen. You can't pretend this isn't important enough to justify an Auditors attentions."
"No, indeed, but . . . what would you be looking for?"
"If I knew already, I wouldn't have to look. All I know is that this thing has a . . ."—he spread his hands—"a wrong shape. The reasons may turn out to be trivial. Or not. Don't know. Gotta know."
"Which Auditor did you have in mind?"
"Um . . . can I have Vorhovis?"
"My top man."
"I know. I think I could work with him."
"Unfortunately, he's on his way to Komarr."
"Oh. Nothing too serious, I hope."
"Preventive maintenance. I sent him along with Lord and Lady Vorob'yev to help grease the arrangements with the Komarran oligarchy for announcing my upcoming marriage. He has considerable diplomatic talents."
"Hm." Miles hesitated. He'd really had Vorhovis in mind, when this inspiration had struck. "Vorlaisner, Valentine, and Vorkalloner are all a trifle . . . conservative."
"Afraid they'd side with Haroche against you?"
"Um."
Gregor's eyes glinted. "There's always General Vorparadijs."
"Oh, God. Spare me."
Gregor rubbed his chin, thoughtfully. "I foresee a problem here. Whatever Auditor I assign to you, there's about a fifty percent chance you'd be back here the following morning demanding another one to keep the first one under control. You don't really want an Auditor; you want an Auditor-shaped shield to cover your back while you do your very own investigating."
"Well . . . yes. I don't know. Maybe . . . maybe I could do something with Vorparadijs after all." His heart sank, contemplating this vision.
"An Auditor," said Gregor, "is not just my Voice. He's my eyes and ears, as well, very much in the original sense of the word. My listener. A probe, though most surely not a robot, to go places I can't, and report back with an absolutely independent angle of view. You"—Gregor's lip twisted up—"have the most independent angle of view of any man I've ever met."
Miles's heart seemed to stop. Surely Gregor couldn't be thinking of—
"I think," said Gregor, "it will save ever so many steps if I simply appoint you as an acting Imperial Auditor. With the usual broad limits on a Ninth Auditor's powers of course; whatever you do has to be at least dimly related to the event you are assigned to evaluate, in this case, Illyan's breakdown. You can't order executions, and in the unlikely event you direct any arrests . . . well, I would appreciate it if they came attached to sufficient evidence for successful prosecutions. One expects a certain, um, traditional decorum in an Imperial Auditors investigations, and due care."
"Anything worth doing," Miles quoted Countess Vorkosigan, "is worth doing well." He wondered if his eyes were starting to glow. They felt like embers.
Gregor recognized the source, and smiled. "Just so."
"But Gregor—Haroche will know it's a scam."
Gregor's voice went soft. "Then Haroche will be dangerously mistaken." He added, "I was not happy with the way events seemed to be progressing either, but short of going down there in person, I didn't see what to do. Now I do. Does that satisfy you—Lord Vorkosigan?"
"Oh, Gregor. You can't begin to guess how much. Working in the chain of command for the last thirteen years has been like trying to waltz with an elephant. Slow, lumbering, ready to step on you at any moment and reduce you to grease. D'you have any idea how nice it would be just once to be able to dance on top of the damned elephant, instead of under it?"
"I thought you'd like it."
"Like it? It'll be downright orgasmic."
"Don't get carried away," Gregor cautioned, his eyes crinkling.
"No." Miles caught his breath. "But … I think this will work just fine. Thank you. I accept your charge, my liege."
Gregor called in his majordomo, and sent him off to the Residence's vault for an Auditor's symbolic chain of office, and the very nonsymbolic electronic seal that went with it. While they were waiting for him to return, Miles ventured, "It's traditional for an Auditor to make his first visit unannounced." He added reflectively, "Probably a hell of a lot of fun for them, too."
"I have long suspected it," agreed Gregor.