"Because I have the report about your idiosyncratic reaction to truth drugs," said Illyan equably. "Unfortunate, that."

"You could twist my arm." There was a bitter taste in Miles's mouth.

Illyan's expression was dry and grim. "I thought about it. Then I decided to let the surgeons do it for me."

"You can be a real sonofabitch some days, Simon, do you know?"

"Yes." Illyan sat unmoved and unmoving. Waiting. Watching. "Your father cannot afford a scandal in his government this month. Not during this appropriations fight. This plot must be quashed regardless of its truth. What is said in this room will remain—must remain—between you and me alone. But I must know."

"Are you offering me an amnesty?" Miles's voice was low, dangerous. He could feel his heart begin to pound.

"If necessary." Illyan's voice was perfectly flat.

Miles couldn't clench or even feel his fists, but his toes curled. He found himself gulping for air in the pulsing waves of his rage; the room seemed to waver. "You . . . vile . . . bastard! You dare call me a thief. . . ." He rocked in the bed, kicking off tangling strangling covers. His medical monitor began to bleep alarms. His arms were useless weights hanging from his shoulders, flopping nervelessly. "As if I would steal from Barrayar. As if I would steal from my own dead …" He swung his feet out, pulled himself upright with a mighty wrench of abdominal muscles. Dizzied, half-blacking-out, he toppled forward precipitously with no hands to catch himself.

Illyan leapt to grab him before he smashed face-first on the matting. "What the hell do you think you're doing, boy?" Miles wasn't sure himself.

"What are you doing to my patient?" the white-faced military doctor cried, plunging through the door. "This man just had major surgery!"