Ivan must be drunker than he thought he was. He could have sworn he knew his way around Vivienne's parents' house, since she wanted to introduce him last week and showed him the place, but maybe they have a... secret... upstairs... bar? where Vivienne's room is supposed to be? And most certainly was last time he checked? He's never going to find the sweater she sent him up looking for here, anyway. Why is there a secret upstairs bar in Vivienne's parents' house?
Off he goes to a booth tucked away in one of the room's many corners, to read his book.
"Linyabel says Mark is peacefully reading a book waiting for the door to come back. And was annoyed with her for telling us he was coming."
"Even though we didn't actually find out until he was already here?" inquires Miles, possibly rhetorically.
"Do you like trying to figure him out?"
"I think he likes when I try to figure him out, actually," says Miles.
"You have the weirdest brother, I have the most depressing," says Stalas.
Ivan gets bored of his asteroid game and switches to one with mazes.
Stalas starts making navigational suggestions after watching for a minute or two.
"Linyabel will sell you one of these, you know," says Ivan. "Well, she'll probably give you one, considering." He accepts the navigational suggestions.
"I'll happily take one. That's a dead end. How hard is it to learn how to use them? It looks totally mystifying."
Ivan turns away from the dead end. "It's probably harder if you're not used to comconsoles to begin with, but you can teach it gestures if you don't like the ones it comes with."
"She'll have to do something to make it learn your alphabet if you want to write things, though. Whatever your alphabet is. Actually I don't know how we're going to handle talking to you once we leave here and we're still speaking English and you're speaking, wosscalled, your dwarf language. Maybe Linyabel will just park in the cave with you for two weeks and come out fluent and rig up a translation earbug."
"Yes," says Miles.
"You're very fond of your wife," says Stalas.
"Yes," says Miles.
"I bet you wouldn't do too badly with Mark, either, but we are not bringing him back with us," says Miles. "I like him, sort of, but that's a headache I do not need right now."
"Suits me."
"I now have a hilarious mental image of you two communicating in mime and by occasionally hopping up and down shouting at each other."
"I don't want ghostly me jumping up and down and shouting on command for all eternity," says Stalas.
"I am telling Linyabel how hilarious it would be and getting her to record it," amends Ivan.
"...This may not be a diplomatically wise decision," says Miles.