Lady Alys frowned irritatedly at Miles, as if it were somehow all his fault.

"Who ought to have given you that report?" Miles pushed on.

"General Diamant, I suppose. Komarran Affairs chief before Allegre, you remember him? Died just two years after he retired, the poor sod. Miles, I really can't . . . I would surely have been reminded before this, if it were in here!" He clutched his head in frustration. Lady Alys recaptured his hand, and stroked it soothingly.

"Does your friend Captain Galeni have any ideas?" Illyan went on more calmly. "He might have some inside track. It was his father's plot, after all."

Miles smiled unhappily.

Illyan's eyes narrowed. "You know he's going to turn up on your short list, as soon as it's generated."

"Yes."

"Did you tell Haroche?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"It would have been redundant. Duv will be checked along with everyone else. And . . . I've done him enough bad turns lately."

"Aren't you . . . prejudging your data—my Lord Auditor?"

"You know Galeni."

"Not so well as you do."

"Just so. I'm not judging data at all, here. I'm judging the man's character. Motivations, if you like."

"Hm," said Illyan. "Just watch your own motivations there, old son."

"Yes, yes, I know. I not only have to be impartial, I have to appear so. You taught me that one," he added rather nastily. "In a way I'm not likely to forget."

"I did? When?"

"Never mind." He pressed the bridge of his nose. He was not only exhausted, he was getting a fatigue headache. It was time to quit for the night, or he'd be unable to function properly on the next round.

"All right," he sighed. "Last thing. Do you remember, at any time in the last four months, anyone ever giving you a small brown capsule to swallow?"

"No."

"There's two missing. He might have taken one himself at the same time, right along with you." Whoever he was.

"No." Illyan sounded more certain than usual. "I haven't taken any medication in the past thirty years except what my personal physician gives me with his own hands."

Miles recalled Haroche's more-than-one-man theory. "It might even have been your own physician. It's the small brown capsule I'm trying to track."

Illyan shook his head.

Miles levered himself up, and made polite farewells, and staggered off to bed.

He woke in the midafternoon, and spent a futile half-hour trying to return to sleep, while his mind worried his new problems. He gave up, rose, and checked in with Haroche by comconsole; the systems analysis team had not yet offered their report. A call to Weddell in the ImpSec clinic labs elicited mostly snarls at the interruption, but also a promise of more information soon. Soon, but not yet.