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"Good morning, Vennie; I didn't expect to see you, somehow," Miles greeted him cordially. He was oddly glad the fellow hadn't been one of Soudha's. "Hello, Colonel. I'm Vorkosigan. Sorry for dragging you out on such short notice."

"My Lord Auditor. I am at your disposal." Gibbs stood, formally, and took Miles's proffered hand for a dry handshake. Gibbs was a delight to Miles's eye; a spare, middle-aged man with graying hair and a meticulous manner who despite his Imperial undress greens looke7d every bit an accountant. Even having held his new rank for almost three whole months, it still felt odd to Miles to accept the older man's deference.

"I trust Captain Tuomonen has briefed you, and passed on the interesting data packet we acquired last night."

Gibbs, drawing up a chair for the Lord Auditor, nodded. Venier took the opportunity to excuse himself, and fled without further prompting at Gibbs' wave of permission. They seated themselves, and Miles went on, "How are you doing so far?" He glanced at the stacks of flimsies the comconsole desk had already acquired.

Gibbs gave him a faint smile. "For the first three hours work, I am reasonably pleased. We have managed to sort out most of Waste Heat Management's fictitious employees. I expect tracking their false accounts to go quickly. Your Madame Foscol's report on the late Administrator Vorsoisson's receipts is very clear. Verifying its truth should not present a serious problem."

"Be very cautious about any data which may have passed through her hands," Miles warned.

"Oh, yes. She's quite good. I suspect I am going to find it a pleasure and a privilege to work with her, if you take my meaning, my lord." Gibb's eyes glinted.

So nice to meet a man who loves his job. Well, he'd asked Solstice HQ to send him their best. "Don't speak too soon about Foscol. I have what promises to be a tedious request for you."

"Ah?"

"In addition to fictitious employees, I have reason to believe Waste Heat made a lot of fictitious equipment purchases. Phony invoices and the like."

"Yes. I've turned up three dummy companies they appear to have used for them."

"Already? That was quick. How?"

"I ran a data match of all invoices paid by the Terraforming Project with a list of all real companies in the tax registry of the Empire. Not, you understand, routine for in-house audits, though I believe I'll forward a suggestion that it should be added to the list of procedures in future. There were three companies left over. My field people are checking them out. I should have confirmation for you by the end of today. It is, I believe, not excessively optimistic to hope we may track every missing mark in a week."

"My most urgent concern is not actually the money." Gibb's brows rose at this; Miles forged on. "Soudha and his coconspirators also left with a large amount of equipment. It has crossed my mind that if we had a reliable list of Waste Heat's equipment and supply purchases, and subtracted from it the current physical inventory of what's out there at their experiment station, the remainder ought to include everything they took with them."

"So it should." Gibbs eyed him with approval.

"It's a brute-force approach," Miles said apologetically. "And not, alas, quite as simple as a data match."

"That," murmured Gibbs, "is why enlisted men were invented."

They smiled at each other in pleased understanding. Miles continued, "This will only work if the supply list is truly accurate. I want you to hunt particularly for phony invoices covering real, but nonstandard, nonaccounted equipment purchases. I want to know if Soudha smuggled in anything . . . odd."

Gibbs's head tilted in interest; his eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "Easy enough for them to have used their dummy companies also to launder those."

"If you find anything like that, red-flag it and notify myself or Lord Auditor Vorthys at once. And especially if you turn up any matches with the equipment Vorthys's probable-cause crew are