The doctor was frightened and furious; the corpsman, in his wake, merely frightened. He tried to impede his superior, plucking at his arm and hissing, "Sir, that's Security Chief Illyan!"

"I know who he is. I don't care if he's Emperor Dorca's ghost. I will not have him carrying on his … business, here." The doctor glared courageously at Illyan. "Your interrogation, or whatever, can take place in your own damned headquarters. I will not have that kind of thing going on in my hospital. This patient is not released to anybody yet!"

Illyan looked at first baffled, then outraged. "I was not …"

Miles considered, briefly, clutching artistically at certain nerve junctions in his body and screaming, except that he wasn't equipped to clutch at anything just at present. "Appearances can be so damning," he purred in Illyan's ear, sinking in Illyan's arms. He grinned evilly through clenched teeth. His body shook, shocky, the sheen of cold sweat on his forehead quite unfeigned.

Illyan frowned at him, but put him back to bed very carefully.

"It's all right," Miles wheezed to the doctor. "It's all right. I was merely . . . merely . . ." Upset didn't quite seem to cover it; he'd felt for a moment as if the top of his head had been about to blow off. "Never mind." He felt horribly unbalanced. To think that Illyan, whom he'd known all his life, whom he'd assumed trusted him implicitly or why else send him on a series of such distant, independent missions . . . He'd been proud to be so trusted, while still a young officer, with so little direct supervision in his covert ops . . . Could his whole career to date have been, not desperately needed Service to the Imperium, but just a ploy to get a dangerously clumsy Vor puppy out from underfoot? Toy soldiers . . . no, that made no sense. A peculator. Ugly word. What a profound slur upon his honor, and his wit; as if he did not know where Imperial funds came from, or at what cost.