a habit of returning from your mission assignments on a stretcher.""Now, now, this is only the second time that's happened. Besides, eventually I'll run out of unreplaced bones. By the time I'm thirty I could be entirely plastic." Glumly, Miles considered this possibility. If more than half of him became spare parts, could he be declared legally dead? Would he ever walk into a prosthetics manufacturing plant and cry, "Mother!"? Were the medical sedatives making him just a little spacey . . . ?"About your missions," said Illyan firmly.Ah. So this visit wasn't just an expression of personal concern, if Illyan had ever owned any personal concern. It was sometimes hard to tell. "You have my reports," said Miles warily."Your reports, as usual, are masterpieces of understatement and misdirection," said Illyan. He sounded perfectly serene about it."Well . . . anybody might read 'em. You can't tell.""Hardly 'anyone,' " said Illyan. "But just so.""So what's the problem?""Money. Specifically, accountability for same."Maybe it was the drugs he was stuffed with, but Miles could make no sense of this. "Don't you like my work?" he said rather plaintively."Apart from your injuries, the results of your latest mission are highly satisfactory," began Illyan."They'd by-God better be," Miles muttered grimly."—and your late, er, adventures on Earth, just prior to it, are still fully classified. We will discuss them later.""I've got to report to a couple of higher authorities first," Miles put in urgently.Illyan waved this aside. "So I understand. No. These charges date to the Dagoola affair, and before.""Charges?" Miles muttered in bewilderment.Illyan studied him thoughtfully. "I consider what the emperor spends to keep up your connection to
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