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Time goes by. Linya, who already quietly turned nineteen, turns twenty. She collects an accelerated master's degree in neuroscience and starts corresponding with various people on the subject.
Pens spread out; the next time Miles sees Elli he gets a white standard-model pen she bought him on Escobar. She has one too; it's silver. She loves it and thanks him for recommending it to her. (She has bought a whole boxful to unload at a markup on the next planet or station she comes to that doesn't have them yet, but doesn't explicitly mention this in case he objects to her cutting into Lady Vorkosigan's margins.)
Miles also has one actual courier mission in there, just escorting a diplomatic pouch from Pol back home, to pad his service record for the less-cleared eye.
There is a visit to a clinic to collect and mystically join gametes, and Linya collects the resulting assembly in data format for editing. She does the grey eyes first and estimates that if she doesn't particularly hurry she'll have a Little Aral What-the-Heck-Should-His-Middle-Name-Be all ready to put in a replicator in two or three years, though she can accelerate that considerably if something comes up urgently requiring the presence of Little Aral sooner rather than later.
And then Miles gets sent off again and is gone for a very long time.
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isthisart
thisvorlunatic
Naismith smiles.
"Ha. Well then. I'm afraid I have an appointment in ten minutes, and some bodyguards to collect and berate before then. If you'll excuse me...?"
"Ha. Well then. I'm afraid I have an appointment in ten minutes, and some bodyguards to collect and berate before then. If you'll excuse me...?"
isthisart
"Of course. And I apologize."
Linya has never had much of the haut illegibility. At least not around Miles. Whether that was a choice or a matter of not having grown into it at her young age, it's creeping in around the edges now.
thisvorlunatic
"Don't worry about it," he says, and sketches a hasty, awkward bow totally unlike her husband's graceful courtesies, and goes off to berate his bodyguards.
The financial appointment goes... interestingly. Bone tries to rein him in a couple of times, but he exits the bank with a loan on terms generous enough to make hardened accountants weep, which the bank representative looked close to doing a couple of times during negotiations. Then he takes a shuttle up to the flagship again to run through some of Naismith's paperwork and see if he can't find a connection to Lady Linyabel Vorkosigan tucked away somewhere.
The financial appointment goes... interestingly. Bone tries to rein him in a couple of times, but he exits the bank with a loan on terms generous enough to make hardened accountants weep, which the bank representative looked close to doing a couple of times during negotiations. Then he takes a shuttle up to the flagship again to run through some of Naismith's paperwork and see if he can't find a connection to Lady Linyabel Vorkosigan tucked away somewhere.
It looks like the Ariel is accepting a token retainer simply to not wander off while an L. M. Vorkosigan attempts to convince a prospective passenger to get on it, and has been promised more if this convincing goes well, to take a very sluggish route from Earth to Komarr with a medtech aboard keeping its passenger knocked out during the jumps and as comfortable as can be after.
thisvorlunatic
...Well then.
Miles contemplates asking the Ariel's captain about this job. He contemplates it for about four seconds. Then he decides that if that accident of fate somehow managed to secure his cover with Linya (God fucking help him, not that he deserves it), he is not going to squander his good fortune by turning around and blowing it with Bel. If Bel hasn't managed to connect Miles with L. M. Vorkosigan's husband, drawing attention to that contract in particular is only going to make the connection more obvious.
He calls a staff meeting to explain the late payment, and is unsettled to observe that the Dendarii seem to have ultimate faith in his capacity to track down the money and pry it out of whatever hole it fell into. He leaves them all enthusiastically generating further ideas for short-term peacetime jobs to keep the fleet going while Admiral Naismith seeks out their lost contract payment.
Then he bunks on the Triumph, to take advantage of the lack of snoring roommates, and spends the following morning taking care of miscellaneous small troubles and generally being present for the troops, and cuts his twenty-four hours' leave about eight hours short. Quinn, by this time un-arrested, gets to accompany him planetside and see him through the utility tunnels to yet another secret-ish entrance.
Miles contemplates asking the Ariel's captain about this job. He contemplates it for about four seconds. Then he decides that if that accident of fate somehow managed to secure his cover with Linya (God fucking help him, not that he deserves it), he is not going to squander his good fortune by turning around and blowing it with Bel. If Bel hasn't managed to connect Miles with L. M. Vorkosigan's husband, drawing attention to that contract in particular is only going to make the connection more obvious.
He calls a staff meeting to explain the late payment, and is unsettled to observe that the Dendarii seem to have ultimate faith in his capacity to track down the money and pry it out of whatever hole it fell into. He leaves them all enthusiastically generating further ideas for short-term peacetime jobs to keep the fleet going while Admiral Naismith seeks out their lost contract payment.
Then he bunks on the Triumph, to take advantage of the lack of snoring roommates, and spends the following morning taking care of miscellaneous small troubles and generally being present for the troops, and cuts his twenty-four hours' leave about eight hours short. Quinn, by this time un-arrested, gets to accompany him planetside and see him through the utility tunnels to yet another secret-ish entrance.
thisvorlunatic
"Generating goodwill in case I need another day with the Dendarii anytime soon. I'm surprised Captain Galeni didn't send Barth right back out again to forcibly collect me after that incident at the shuttleport."
middlingalong
"That'd be because Galeni left the embassy about an hour after you did and hasn't been seen since."
middlingalong
"Also, Linyabel thinks you're currently drooling a fifty percent ethanol solution into your pillow, so don't do anything about it that's both public and not obviously hungover."
thisvorlunatic
Miles vents his frustration in a low growl.
Then he takes a deep breath. "All right. Fine. Let's get the ambassador. I would like a look at Galeni's desk console."
Then he takes a deep breath. "All right. Fine. Let's get the ambassador. I would like a look at Galeni's desk console."
middlingalong
The ambassador lets them in to have a look at the console. Ivan starts pulling routine files.
"Nothing here but the usual," he reports, throwing his hands into the air.
"Nothing here but the usual," he reports, throwing his hands into the air.
thisvorlunatic
"That's because you're not looking hard enough," says Miles. "Let me at it."
thisvorlunatic
Miles sits down in Galeni's swivel chair and starts opening financial records.
"Love these Earth Universal Credit Cards. So revealing," he mutters. "God, Ivan, I flirted with my wife..."
"Love these Earth Universal Credit Cards. So revealing," he mutters. "God, Ivan, I flirted with my wife..."
middlingalong
"You did what now?" asks Ivan. "This wasn't since I told her you were passed out drunk, was it? You are meant to still be passed out drunk."
thisvorlunatic
"As Naismith," he says. "She ran into me just outside the bank and—treated me very familiarly, and Naismith hasn't so much as seen a holo of Lady Vorkosigan! So it was all, 'Take me away to a tropical island, vision of human beauty - wait, shit, you're my sister-in-law'! I feel dirty. Dirty and very confused."
middlingalong
"I'm pretty sure she called me straight away after that. She didn't give me a lot of details, but..."
middlingalong
"Said, Ivan, where's Miles, I want to talk to him, and I gave her your story about drowning your osteoinflammation in beverages, and she asked if by any chance you had left her any messages, and I said no, and she asked if I was quite sure there was nothing you'd wanted to tell her, and I said I was sure you hadn't told me about it if there was, and she asked when she could come by to talk to you and I told her tomorrow morning would probably do."
thisvorlunatic
"So my wife is going to turn up any minute wanting to talk to her hung-over husband. Great," sighs Miles. "I'd better get cracking on this... looks like he hasn't been spending any money he didn't earn, not in the last few months, not detectably. Hmm." He pulls up a list of recent purchases, then lays a similar record of Ivan's beside it, for a baseline and to tweak his cousin's nose a little.
thisvorlunatic
"Point of comparison," he says. "Dowsing for secret vices. He's bought, let's see... about a third the volume of ethanol that you have... ah, but sixteen times the book-disks. A literature addict. See how easy that was? Also, that's a lovely lace nightgown."
thisvorlunatic
"And thus from one purchase I can deduce the presence of a woman in your life. Galeni, alas, doesn't seem to buy any presents at all. Let's dig into his Service record instead." Miles dismisses the finances and brings up new data. "A doctorate in history? That's surprising. I'm surprised." He scrolls further down. "Damn, look at this. The twenty-six-year-old Dr. Duv Galeni ditches his brand-new faculty position to go back to the Imperial Service Academy with a bunch of eighteen-year-olds, almost the very minute the ruling takes effect that Komarrans will be let in at all. This man's motivations are more complicated than money, that's for sure. And then his military career... a positively stellar trajectory, stuffed to the gills with extra training and prime opportunities. Shit."