"They don't move fast. I'd have to wander into the dead end that has a lot of them and then not get out of there in a hurry."

"How comforting," snorts Stalas.

"Isn't it just? Anyway, how long are we going to stand around in this cave?"

Miles glances at Stalas, and answers, "Probably a while. You don't need to stand around in the cave with me, though."

"Right, off I go." He saves his game and puts his pen in his pocket and heads back for the bar.

Mark continues to be sitting in a corner reading.

Linya is reading too, at the bar, but looks up when Ivan comes in. "Bored?" she asks.

"Utterly. Considering going back to the party, but if I understand right I'd just get about a step or two down the hallway and then somebody would stick their head out, and more likely than not that would be for reasons more like 'Ivan, come do a thing' or 'emergency, everybody run for your lives, the giant squid's gone mad' or something than anything conducive to me actually getting down the stairs and talking to people and necking with my girlfriend. So."

"It'd still let you skip some amount of boredom between now and then," says Mark from his corner.

"Yes, but I'm not bored enough to want to step directly into the emergency without the nice buffer of warning that I usually get in the form of 'oh, look, Miles has an idea.' What're you reading?"

He holds up the book to display the title - A Sherlock Holmes Omnibus.

"Huh, don't think I'm familiar."

"The most popular recent adaptation was the Tau Ceti animated series Polecat and Vole, but it was aimed at Greek-speaking young children, so whether you've encountered it I couldn't say."

"I have been in the same room as half an episode of Polecat and Vole. Last girlfriend was a Greekie with little nephews."

"I prefer the original," says Mark. "Set in London, eleven centuries ago. They've got multiple museums dedicated to the character."

"Is Sherlock Holmes Polecat or Vole?"

"Polecat."

"I must have missed these museums while I was there."

"I've been to one."

"When did you have time for tourism?"

"Unofficially, of course."

"Of course."

Mark giggles.

"You, what, watched some while you were studying Greek?"

"It was actually quite good for vocabulary in context, because Polecat uses advanced terminology and then Vole breathlessly deciphers what he must mean while action scenes ensue."