"Good, glad to hear it." The Barrayaran Empire's record was better than the Sith Empire's, anyway. She can't judge.

"But I'm sure you can see why that's where Miles's mind jumped when you implied you might be in danger if he came to harm."

Snort. "Yes. I wasn't serious, merely indulging a black sense of humor."

"Understandable."

She smiles.

"... What phrase would you like me to use?" she wonders.

"Does it need to be any more complicated than 'wake up, Miles'?"

"No, that would be fine."

The tank arrives soon enough. There is a mild logistical commotion involved with getting it up to Miles's room, but they do manage it eventually. Luckily by the time they get it up there, Miles has been given wonderful, wonderful drugs to knock him out entirely, so he doesn't have to put up with this group of people making a fuss about what is essentially a giant tank of water with healing goop in it. Callida gets the chance to put Miles in his healing trance while he's being prepped for the tank itself. It doesn't take long, but it does require physically touching him, which might get a bit awkward in front of Barrayaran staff; but there isn't as much room in the room itself, and none of the native doctors have any idea how to prep someone for a kolto tank. And while Callida is not a trained medical professional, she has some experience here.

Putting someone in a healing trance is - well, it's tricky. It's like putting all of his non-essential systems on standby, one by one, in the correct order so as not to kill him, and then turning everything inward toward self-repair. She was being honest, when she said he wouldn't hallucinate or dream. Callida knows from experience that it's like being in the deepest, most restful sleep; there's nothing even really awake to dream. Which is useful, even somewhat pleasant, but also a bit terrifying for an unfamiliar subject. She just hopes he doesn't fight her. There are probably Force users that can put unwilling people under, but Callida's not that good at this. Or even sure she wants to be.

Trying to be as nonthreatening as possible, she touches his forehead, reaches out, and gently starts to put him under.

It feels -

He doesn't know what he was expecting, but it wasn't this. If she hadn't warned him he'd definitely panic. It's like falling, or being dragged out of the sky.

But at the same time, there's a sense of—intent, of personality. A deep sympathy, in the presence that's pulling him under. She didn't warn him about that either. It fits, though, it's - exactly what he'd expect to see, if he could somehow gaze into her soul. It feels like her. Which is reassuring enough to clear the last of his doubts. He'll be all right.

And then he's out until he's completely healed or woken up with the phrase, 'Wake up, Miles.'

He's put in the tank and left to float under Gelrath's enthusiastic supervision ("He's taking to it better than the projections estimated! He shouldn't be in there long at all!") with various monitoring equipment to make sure nothing's going to go horribly wrong.

Nothing goes horribly wrong.

Callida returns to handling various matters that are meant to be handled when one's in charge of a fleet and on a diplomatic mission on a foreign planet. She talks to people, she quietly looks for outlets to purchase various materials her fleet's projected to need, she starts attempting to learn English. Envee's attempts to figure out a system of data conversion march up the gentle slope of progress, until they can directly convert text formats. This isn't good enough for her, so she'll keep at it, but it does mean that Barrayar (and Cordelia) can have dossiers on some of the major planets in the Sith Empire's home galaxy. Everything that's sent is carefully edited by the fleet's (somewhat) pitiful Imperial Intelligence for anything that might be security relevant.

Dr. Gelrath finds not having appropriate medical terminology translated very annoying, and he has little to do while Miles floats unconscious in the tank. He wants, very badly, to exchange relevant medical information with all doctors ever. Callida - will allow this, though she will be monitoring him to make sure he doesn't say anything he's not supposed to. He happily shows relevant doctors how the kolto tank works (He asks for another one so he can demonstrably put other injured Barrayarans in; Callida says he can ask if he has any specific injured Barrayarans to put in a tank, but otherwise, he may not.) and how some of the less kolto-related equipment works, too. They're better at adapting to bizarre systems than native tech, and he starts requesting digital books for the doctors on the subject from Sith Imperial Intelligence. Sith Imperial Intelligence sighs heavily, checks everything over twice, has it approved by Callida, and grudgingly sends them where Dr. Gelrath wants them.

He persuades Envee to put her pet project down for a while to come translate for him, so he can be incredibly nerdy with more efficiency. Callida tentatively allows this, but mysteriously hovers nearby the protocol droid at all times while on the planet. Envee graciously puts up with the fascinated/horrified staring and awkward questions and the stammering with a grace usually reserved for trained diplomats. She answers appropriate questions with polite, phrased-for-Barrayaran-sensibility replies. She translates Dr. Gelrath's medical-themed technobabble with perfect acuity, and when she has free time she helps all Sith Imperials with English skills, including Callida.

Neither of them have much in the way of 'free time,' so these lessons tend to occur anytime and anywhere, when they're both free enough. In the groundcar, in hallways, in waiting rooms - nowhere is safe. Sith are notoriously difficult to ambush, but Envee tries her best. Callida finds this amusing, usually, and plays along with unexpected syntax lessons. She improves, slowly.

Dr. Gelrath's enthusiasm is - somewhat warranted. Through some combination of a healing trance and what the doctor describes as a 'beneficial cascading effect,' Miles is given a clean bill of health and taken out of the tank. Gelrath assures everyone that kolto's soporific effect is well documented and that Vorkosigan's continued sleep is totally normal, actually, here, have the documents, they can just transfer the data now! ... After Sith Imperial Intelligence checks it over. (They are growing to quietly despise him.) Everyone is assured that he'll wake up soon enough, and actually, while Gelrath's at it, who wants to learn about how to properly use kolto medicinally, he bets the Barrayarans do, can he teach a class on it, he's so excited, they can dump more Barrayarans into the tank as way of demonstration!

(No. No he may not. Kolto is still non-renewable. He may instead send her a request if he has a specific person to put in the tank, but he is not allowed to just dump anyone he wants into it.)

Callida quietly finds opportunity to check up on Miles's health now that he's out of the tank, since she can detect things both sets of technology can't. From what she can tell, he's absolutely fine, the healing trance should end soon enough.

This is where her latest English ambush takes place.

"I'm better at reading it than speaking it," sighs Lord Callida in Basic, after failing to conjugate a verb correctly. "Or listening to it spoken."

"You've got more practice with dead languages than living ones," says Envee, in English. "Your comprehension's good, but it's going to take time for you to be good at putting your own sentences together, that's just to be expected. Complain at me in English."

There's a long pause as Callida tries to draft something that makes sense with her incomplete vocabulary.

"Stop worrying about getting it perfect. It's just me. Say things, mess up, figure out what you did wrong so you can do it better. Otherwise you'll just hover noncommittally forever, trying to make the perfect sentence, and never get any actual practice speaking."

The Sith Lord sighs. But she switches to English, and haltingly says, "It is - easier to understand. Than to speak."

"See!"

"No, listen," corrects Callida, dryly. In English.

And that causes Envee to get distracted snickering.

Somewhat ahead of schedule, Miles wakes up.

"Wow I feel fantastic," he announces, sitting up in his hospital bed. "Hi! Lord Callida! You're my favourite! Who's this?" He turns his beaming smile on Envee. "What's the joke?"

"Hello," says Envee, quicker on the verbal uptake than the Sith Lord. In English, of course. No translation module for her. "I'm N-V09, personal protocol and translation droid for Lord Callida. Nicknamed Envee by just about everyone. And Callida made a pun with limited vocabulary while I was helping her practice English."

Callida raises an eyebrow, looking faintly amused. She quickly types a message to Cordelia and Dr. Gelrath, informing the both of them that Miles is awake.

"Miles Naismith Vorkosigan. Delighted to meet you, Envee. Please, call me Miles." He turns the smile back in Callida's direction. It is a hell of a smile. "Of all the people who have ever claimed they were going to do something positive for my health, you stand out as by far the most impressive success. I think. It depends. Am I as cured as I feel, or is this one of my infamous side effects and in ten minutes I'm going to collapse?"

"That really depends on how cured you feel, but your injuries are all fixed up. You may or may not collapse in ten minutes."

"I feel extremely cured! Kind of frighteningly so in fact! I was mostly joking about collapsing in ten minutes, should I be concerned? I'm not sure I can be concerned at the moment but I can always give it a try."

"I wouldn't expect you to collapse in ten minutes after waking up, but I wouldn't have expected you to be so, ah. Energetic, either."

"You should see me on fast-penta. God no you shouldn't. Where's my mother?"

"I've already informed her you're awake, she should be here shortly." This is amusing.

"Oh good. Perhaps she can save me from myself."

"Yes. And perhaps the doctor can predict whether or not you need to worry about collapsing in ten minutes or not."

Speak his profession, and he appears! Here is Dr. Gelrath, beaming. "Good morning! How do you feel, you look well, no nausea, itching, distorted vision, lethargy?"

"I feel great! None of those things! Especially not lethargy, in fact very much the opposite of lethargy!"

"Really!" he says, sounding fascinated. "Physical hyperactivity, mania, or something else?"

"I'm not confident I can tell the difference!"

"Well! Hold still long enough for me to check you with my monitoring equipment, also can we talk about setting up a kolto tank schedule for you so I can fix your bones, Callida will probably let me?" He glances at her, giving her an attempt at puppy eyes. "Please?"

Callida looks at him dispassionately. "Ask me again if we figure out if kolto's vat-growable or not."

"Bah. Fine. No kolto tank schedule, yet, even if I have the calcium supplement strand all ready to go, it is very clever."

"I'll bet it is," says Miles. "Mother's got people working on vat-grown kolto, I'm sure you'll get your chance."

"If not then I'll just have to help them vat-grow bacta, and we'll see if you're allergic to that or not, and even if you are Callida will probably let me use the kolto to fix your bones if she's got other options available."