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had his team assembled, and marched them all before him into Weapons Room IV.
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Weddell was still whining under his breath about being awakened so rudely in
the middle of the night; as long as he prudently kept his complaints sotto
voce
, Miles chose to ignore them. Neither he nor Ivan had gotten any sleep at all,
not that Miles was the least tired right now.
The forensics man was given first crack at the exterior of the little sealed
biocontainer.
"It s been moved a few times," he reported. "Some fingerprints, some smudges,
none very fresh..." He duly recorded them by laser-scan, for cross-match with
Evidence Rooms personnel, and the rest of the population of the Empire if
necessary. "The screamer-signal circuit to detect the container s removal from
the Evidence Rooms has never been activated. No hairs or fibers. I
wouldn t expect much dust, given the air filters here. That s all I can say.
It s all yours, gentlemen."
He stepped back; Ivan stepped forward, drew the box from its shelf, and
positioned it on the lighted examination board brought in for the purpose. The
box was sealed with the simplest of numeric code-locks, designed more to keep
it from popping open if accidentally dropped than for any real security - for
one thing, the access-code was listed right in the inventory description. Ivan
referred to the flimsy, and tapped in the sequence. The little lid swung up.
"Right," drawled Ivan, peering inside, and then at his inventory-flimsy again.
The box was lined with a shock-proof gel-pack, scored by six parallel slots.
Three slots were filled with tiny brown capsules, small enough for a child to
swallow. The other three were empty. "Six sealed vector-delivery units -
that s what they re called on here, anyway - to start with, one taken out for
examination five years ago and listed as destroyed. Five supposedly left -
only now there are three." He opened his hand with a flourish; the forensics
man again stepped forward, and bent over the box to begin checking the seal
from the inside.
Right, right
! Miles howled inwardly, with a small mental reservation for that one capsule
removed five years back.
That was going to complicate things, but perhaps the laboratory records would
help, once retrieved.
"You mean," moaned Weddell, "I racked my brains for a week reassembling that
damned crap, and a whole undamaged sample was sitting downstairs all that
time?"
"Yep." Miles grinned. "I hope you like irony."
"Not at this hour of the morning."
The forensics man looked up and reported, "The lock has never been forced."
"All right," Miles said. "The box goes to Forensics for a full examination.
Ivan, I want you to go with it. Don t let those weasels up there sneak it out
of your sight. Weddell, you take one of those samples for a molecular analysis
- I want you to confirm it the same crap you flushed out of Illyan s chip,
and I want to know anything else you can figure out about it. It and is you
don t leave the building - you can have the same lab in the clinic again, and
any supplies you care to requisition, but no one -
no one - but you is to touch the sample. You report to no one but me. The last
two units go back into the new box on the shelf, locked under my Auditor s
seal. I trust it will stay there this time."
Though I m beginning to think it would be safer in my pocket
.
Haroche, the rat, had gone home to sleep last night after the systems team was
assigned, an hour after midnight. While waiting for his return, Miles took a
break for breakfast in the ImpSec HQ cafeteria. This was a mistake, he
realized, catching himself dozing off into his coffee mug. He dared not stop.
Somehow, getting started again was a lot harder than it used to be.
He was yawning in Haroche s outer office when the ImpSec chief entered, also
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yawning. Haroche blearily swallowed his yawn, and motioned Miles to follow
into his inner sanctum. Miles pulled up a chair and sat as Haroche settled
behind his desk.
"So, Lord Vorkosigan. Any progress?"
"Oh, yes." Rapidly, Miles brought Haroche up to speed on the events of the
last hours. Haroche, hunching forward on the edge of his station chair, wasn t
yawning by the time he finished.
"Damn," Haroche breathed, leaning back again. "Damn. There goes the last hope
of this being anything other than an inside job."
"I m afraid so."
"So now we have another list. How many men could have known the samples were
down there?"
"Five years worth of Evidence Rooms inventory teams, for starters," Miles
said.
"The men who captured and delivered it," Haroche added.
"And anyone working here at the time who might have been close friends with
the men who captured and delivered it." Miles began to tick off the count on
his hands. He wondered if he was going to have enough fingers. "It was filed
under the seal of the
Komarran Affairs chief who preceded Allegre. Allegre himself was still working
on Komarr itself at that time, as the local section head. I checked. Also...
any Komarrans in those revolutionary groups who escaped capture at the time,
or who were imprisoned and have been recently released. People they might have
talked to in prison... That list had better be checked too, I suppose, though,
as you say... the comconsole tampering compels me to believe it s an inside
job too."
Haroche made a note. "Right. Not a short list yet, I m afraid, by any means."
"No. Though it s a lot shorter than the three planets full of people we
started with." Miles hesitated, then added reluctantly, "I
don t know if my brother Lord Mark - my clone, that is - knew about this stuff
or not. It will be necessary to check, I suppose."
Haroche s gaze rose to meet Miles s, his expression arrested. "Do you suppose
- "
"Not physically possible," Miles asserted. "Mark has spent the last six months
on Beta Colony. Been to school every day since the term began."
I hope
. "His whereabouts are eminently provable."
"Hm." Haroche reluctantly subsided.
"Do you remember anything about that period?"
"I was still assistant Domestic Affairs section-chief. It was just before my
last promotion. I remember the flurry of activity over Komarrans in Vorbarr
Sultana. The case that had riveted Domestic s attention right about then had
to do with an antigovernment group in Vorsmythe s District suspected of trying
to import proscribed weapons."
"Ah. Well, I hope your data boys can help triangulate this," Miles went on.
"Whoever did this must have had recent access to
ImpSec s internal systems, plus a lot of wit and nerve. The short list is
going to consist of the men who are on both lists."
"Why are you assuming it s only one man?" asked Haroche.
"Oh." Miles deflated. "Right. Thank you." Haroche, Miles reminded himself, was
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