Vorkalloner smiled. "Old Vorsmythe," he noted, "used to turn in handwritten plastic flimsys. Never more than two pages. He insisted anything important could always be said in two pages."

"Illegibly handwritten," muttered Gregor.

"We used to have to go and squeeze the footnotes out of him in person. It became somewhat irritating," added Vorkalloner.

Vorhovis, with a gesture at the data case, went on to Miles, "You appear to have left the military prosecutor with very little to do."

"Nothing, in fact," said Gregor. "Allegre reported to me last night that Haroche has given up and is going to plead guilty, trying to reduce his sentence through cooperation. Well, he could hardly have confessed to Us and then turned around and tried to pretend innocence to a Service judge."

"I wouldn't have bet on that. He did have nerve," said Miles. "But I'm glad to hear it's not going to be dragged out."

"It was a truly bizarre case," Vorhovis went on. "I'd been worried something might be very wrong when I first heard that Illyan had gone down. But I could not have unraveled the events as you did, Lord Vorkosigan."

"I'm sure you would have unraveled them in your own way, sir," said Miles.

"No," said Vorhovis. He tapped the data case. "By my analysis, the critical juncture was when you brought in that galactic biochemist, Dr. Weddell. It was from that point that Haroche's plans began to go irretrievably wrong. I would not have known of Weddell's existence, and would have left the selection of the chip autopsy team entirely to Admiral Avakli."

"Avakli was good," Miles said, uncertain if this was a criticism. The biocyberneticist had done his best, certainly.

"We"—a circular wave of Vorhovis's finger indicated the Auditors there assembled—"do not often work directly together. But we do consult with one another. 'What resources do you know of that I don't, that might have a bearing on this problem?' It increases our access to odd knowledge fivefold."

"Five-fold? I thought there were seven of you."

Vorthys smiled faintly. "We think of General Vorparadijs as a sort of Auditor Emeritus. Respected, but we don't make him come to meetings anymore."

"In fact," muttered Vorgustafson under his breath, "we don't even mention them to him."

"And Admiral Valentine has been too frail for some years to actively participate," Vorhovis added. "I would have urged him to resign, but as long as the gap left by the death of General Vorsmythe was still unfilled, there seemed no need to beg his space."

Miles had been dimly aware of the loss two years ago of the eighth Auditor, the elderly Vorsmythe. The position of ninth Auditor, which Miles had lately held, was by tradition always left open for acting Auditors, men with particular expertise called up at the Imperium's need, and released again when their task was done.