Haroche locked his office door behind Miles, and courteously pulled up a chair for the Imperial Auditor, close to his comconsole desk. "Have you had any second thoughts since last night, my lord?" Haroche inquired.

"Not really. Weddell has identified the sample, all right. You'll probably want to make a copy of this."

He handed Weddell's data card across to Haroche, who nodded and ran it through his comconsole's read-slot. "Thank you." He handed the original back to Miles and went on, "I've been taking a closer look at the other four senior Komarran Affairs analysts in Allegre's department. None were as well positioned as Galeni to know of the existence of the Komarran sample, and two can be eliminated outright by that very test. The other two lack any motivation that I can uncover."

"The perfect crime," muttered Miles.

"Almost. The truly perfect crime is the one which is never discovered at all; this came very close. Your frame, now, was by all indications a backup plan of some kind, and necessarily less than perfect."

"I never rammed a perfect tactical plan through to reality in my whole time with the Dendarii Mercenaries," Miles sighed. "The best I ever did was good enough."

"You can be assured, Domestic Affairs never did much better," Haroche admitted.

"This is all very circumstantial, without a confession."

"Yes. And I'm not sure how to elicit one. Fast-penta is out. I wondered . . . if you might be able to help in that regard. Given your knowledge of the man. Use your noted powers of persuasion on him."

"I might," said Miles, "if I thought Galeni was guilty."

Haroche shook his head. "We may want more evidence, but I'm not optimistic that we're going to get more. You often must proceed with the imperfect, because you must proceed. You can't stop."

"Let the juggernaut roll on, regardless of what gets squashed underneath?" Miles's brows rose. "How are you planning to proceed?"

"A court-martial, probably. The case must be closed properly. As you pointed out, this one can't be left hanging."

What would a court-martial make of this, with ImpSec breathing down its neck urging swift decision? Guilty? Not guilty? Or a more foggy, Not proven? He must find a top military attorney, to evaluate the case. . . . "No, dammit. I don't want a panel of military judges guessing, and then going home to dinner. If the outcome is to be guessed, I can guess myself, all day long. I want to know. You have to keep looking. We can't just stop with Galeni."

Haroche blew out his breath, and rubbed his chin. "Miles, you're asking me to unleash a witch-hunt, here. Potentially very damaging to my organization. You'd have me turn ImpSec upside down, and for what? If the Komarran is guilty—and I'm provisionally convinced he is—you'll have to go very far indeed to produce a suspect more to your taste. Where will you stop?"