View Flat HTML
View Metadata
Search Post
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.
+ Show First Post
isthisart
thisvorlunatic
"Of all my complaints about Naismith, his competence has certainly never been one of them. Quite the opposite - I wouldn't be so bloody jealous if he wasn't good at his job. As far as I know, you run no more risk in going with a Dendarii ship than you do with any other bidder, and less than with the average unknown mercenary."
isthisart
"Right then." She sighs heavily. "Do you want me to stay or get out of your hair?"
thisvorlunatic
Miles sighs, too. "Much as I love you - I'd rather you went off to do Linya things while I stomp and yell and tear my hair out. There's no need for you to share my misery."
isthisart
"Okay. I love you."
She bends to kiss him on the forehead and give his hair a brief pet, and then leaves him be.
She bends to kiss him on the forehead and give his hair a brief pet, and then leaves him be.
thisvorlunatic
He does some stomping and some yelling. He paces. He finds a comconsole, fires off a sealed high-priority message to his mother on the subject of the new Naismith cover - although he expects Illyan to apprise her as soon as the information reaches Barrayar in any form, and he suspects any query Linya sends to her mother-in-law will pass under the all-seeing eye of ImpSec on the way - and starts poring through those records of local Komarrans again.
Nothing, nothing, nothing. Not a damn thing.
Nothing, nothing, nothing. Not a damn thing.
isthisart
Linya stays gone, except for a brief note to the effect that she thinks she has managed to deter the reporter.
spacetobreathe
And on day three, Elli calls in. "Captain Thorne," she reports, "has been offered a fascinating contract for the Dendarii, to the tune of a hundred thousand Betan dollars, cash, untraceable."
thisvorlunatic
"...Did I not tell you to stay away from illegal jobs? I distinctly recall telling you to stay away from illegal jobs. Did Thorne not get this memo?"
spacetobreathe
Elli giggles. "I think you'll like this one enough to make an exception, though. It's a kidnapping."
spacetobreathe
"But Miles," purrs Elli. "Our mysterious and wealthy strangers want to hire Admiral Naismith to kidnap Lord Miles Vorkosigan from the Barrayaran embassy."
thisvorlunatic
"All right," he says, "I think odds are high that someone is trying to set a trap for someone, somehow, and I would dearly love to know who, who, and why. So let's find out. Take the job. I'll work out the details."
thisvorlunatic
Miles gets Ivan. He explains the situation. He makes arrangements. A Dendarii uniform for Ivan, so he can come along without blowing Naismith's cover - scanners, transportation, miscellaneous widgetry.
And then he joins the expedition to deliver himself to the unknown buyer. If only he had a spare Miles around, so Naismith could be present for the operation - alas, he has to dress the part of Vorkosigan and then get his underlings to haul him to the rendezvous.
And then he joins the expedition to deliver himself to the unknown buyer. If only he had a spare Miles around, so Naismith could be present for the operation - alas, he has to dress the part of Vorkosigan and then get his underlings to haul him to the rendezvous.
middlingalong
"This has got to be a trap," frets Ivan. He looks rather fetching in his Dendarii outfit, twin to Elli who's sitting on Miles's other side.
thisvorlunatic
"Of course it's a trap. I thought I made that clear. The objective is to find out who set the trap, and who they are hoping to catch."
middlingalong
"You, I assume. Maybe they want to ransom you. Or it's Cetagandans who want to get Naismith in trouble with Barrayar in case we've got a better shot at snuffing the slippery little spook."
thisvorlunatic
"Slipperiest little spook around," Miles agrees cheerfully. "Maybe it's Galeni screwing around with me from wherever he ran off to with my money. Maybe it's you, trying to scrape me off your hands so you can go back to getting cultured in peace."
spacetobreathe
Elli looks sharply at the two of them, not familiar enough with the cousinly dynamic to confidently interpret that as a joke.
thisvorlunatic
Miles snickers, and makes a calming gesture at Elli.
"The only thing we can be sure of is that it's not a Cetagandan assassination attempt. If they think I'm two separate people, they don't expect the one they want to kill to show up at the rendezvous at all; if they don't, they would not for a planet made of solid gold pass up the opportunity to raise an enormous stink about what the Dendarii have been up to for the past seven years."
"The only thing we can be sure of is that it's not a Cetagandan assassination attempt. If they think I'm two separate people, they don't expect the one they want to kill to show up at the rendezvous at all; if they don't, they would not for a planet made of solid gold pass up the opportunity to raise an enormous stink about what the Dendarii have been up to for the past seven years."
middlingalong
"Yeah, I can see the pissed off ambassador strutting around now. 'We gave him a flower of the Cetagandan Empire and he turned around and did this!'"
thisvorlunatic
"Exactly," he says, less happily than he usually says things when his wife has been recently mentioned.