"All right, Miles, what's this all ab—good God." Gregor sat up, startled; his brows climbed as he began to take in the details. "I don't think I've ever seen you come the Vor lord with intent."

"At this point," said Miles, "intent should be steaming out both my ears. I would bet"—his catch-phrase used to be, I would bet my ImpSec silver eyes—"anything you please that there is a bigger mess with Illyan than Haroche has reported to you."

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?"