"I'm the only immortal human I know of. The only immortal person in general. I haven't aged in centuries."

"How - I mean, is it genetic or have you got magic in your world too, like Stalas's...?"

"We don't really have - mmmm - Okay, if you only have humans, you might consider psi magic, but it's not conventional to refer to it that way. Some species, Vulcans included, have more or less telepathic abilities. Mine only works at touch range, although I can block scans from stronger users. But Lalita's modifications are nonpsychic in nature."

"Genetic," he says, "yes. Deliberately so. And our society has some problems with that concept too. There were wars over it, around the time I was made."

"And now it's illegal in the largest pan-species political unit, although said political unit has considerable other advantages."

"Can I - It's not illegal anywhere in our world, not outright. Can I get a sample? If I can figure it out - I'm not the galaxy's best geneticist but with an example to work from -"

"That's... an idea," he says. "Kind of an instinctively terrifying idea, but I don't have a reason as such to turn you down..."

"I'm working on a baby," she murmurs.

"Immortal Little Aral Adri. Immortal Little Half-Haut Aral Adri Vorkosigan, terror of two planets."

...Lalita giggles.

"There's context for that, I'm not just assuming that he's going to grow up and terrorize things."

"He's going to be my son," Miles points out. "I think 'terror of two planets' might not be giving him enough credit. Although, yes, some planets will be more terrified than others."

"Two planets will be terrified of him before he accidentally acquires a small army as part of his coming-of-age story."

"I'm very curious about this context you speak of."

"Miles's family, whence both the name 'Aral' and 'Vorkosigan', has a bad reputation on the planet Komarr, for historical reasons undeserved by the original name holder and still more undeserved by his descendants; genetic engineering generally and Cetagandans generally, and most especially the intersection of the haut, have a bad reputation for reasons aforementioned on Barrayar, which sits sovereign over Komarr and a more recent colony. I go around with a bodyguard when I'm in public on Barrayar and sometimes omit my married name on Komarr."

"Anyway," says Lalita, "yes, you can take a gene sample. Far be it from me to get in the way of terrorizing planets."

Linya asks the bar for a suitable extraction and preservation mechanism - then thinks better of the preservation option and just gets a small sequencer. "Let me see your hand?"

He gives her his hand.

"What is that?"

"Sequencer - expensive, but - oh, you mean the pen? The pen is why I can get expensive things from the bar. I invented it." She dismisses the sequencer-data-eating to the pen's background processes and does her light-drawing demo.

"Pretty," says Lalita.

"They're pretty great. I can give you guys a set of plans to take home and 'invent' - I suppose you might have to do a lot of work to integrate them with a different underlying network and software environment, hm -"

"You're a geneticist and an engineer?"

"Among other things. What do you do?"