dissonance

[isthisart]

Dr. Cheung's at a funeral all day, so Linya decides to go up to London and see if Miles is out of his Mood.

Security has decided to be deeply unhelpful today. She is currently showing them various forms of ID and repeating in a slow, patient voice that she has been here before, there is not more than one of her, and she promises she is not there to assassinate her husband or whatever fool thing has them skittish today. Perhaps she shouldn't drop in while the captain's missing; it seems to make them worse. But she got in before while he was missing...

Comments

[isthisart]

"How much do you think they value us having access to water?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"Point."

[isthisart]

"I could try to improvise something with the ropes, but they'd see me doing it and stun us both as soon as they open the door, I expect. And if we park over there," she gestures at the part of the room that is concealed by the door when the door is open, "they can tell we're doing it and, say, opt not to feed us or leave Galeni in a state to need confinement - this when I'm reasonably sure they didn't believe me when I told them how much I eat to begin with and am none too sure that they haven't already killed him." She eyes the half-plate of food that she left him. "It's going to take me a few hours to get hungry enough to eat that considering how poorly it's aged. I should've finished it but I've never seen you fast-penta hungover before and didn't know if you'd want it."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Well, thanks. But yeah, you can have it. I'll probably regain my appetite sometime in the next twenty-four hours."

[isthisart]

She nods.

She gets up and drinks some water and comes back and sits in her chair.

"So how do you have Macbeth memorized?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"I don't, ordinarily. I studied it once in school - chose it over Richard III, for reasons that are probably obvious if you've read Richard III."

[isthisart]

"I've read them all." Pause. "When I was five I was Second Witch."

[thisvorlunatic]

"I will cherish this mental image forever."

[isthisart]

That startles a smile out of her.

[thisvorlunatic]

[isthisart]

"I hope they haven't wrecked my pen. Taking it was obvious, but it's got several hours' work on it that isn't backed up in the charger."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Yeah," says Miles. "Well - I can't imagine what they'd get out of taking it apart, so there's that."

[isthisart]

"At least they can't use it unless they've cloned me too."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Which I find exceedingly unlikely."

[isthisart]

"Yes, quite. All the obvious ways to do it would have the clone still be very young and then she'd be unable to use the pen because her grip would be wrong."

[thisvorlunatic]

Miles falls thoughtfully silent.

[isthisart]

"If I start singing again is it going to make you cry?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"...Probably not."

[isthisart]

She starts singing.

She doesn't sing that one song again, just fills the quiet with meandering music.

[thisvorlunatic]

Miles curls up uncomfortably and listens.

He does not, in fact, cry again.

[alicornucopia]

Galeni is returned to them, giggling vacuously, after extremely prolonged interrogation.

"Pretty," he comments on the singing, and he flumphs onto his bench to listen and wait out the fast-penta.

[thisvorlunatic]

Miles refrains from asking Galeni any questions while the drug is still active.

[isthisart]

So does Linya; her song is wordless anyway.

Galeni eventually falls into a doze - Linya sings softer - and wakes up and staggers to the washroom himself.

"What did they want?" Linya asks when he comes out.

"Personal history, mostly," says Galeni morosely. "He's having a hard time believing that I mean what I say, that he can't just whistle and summon me like he could when I was fourteen. Like I put on this uniform for a joke or by accident or out of despair - anything but a reasonable, principled decision."

"He?"

"Vorkosigan didn't tell you? Our host is my father," says Galeni bitterly.

"It didn't come up. We have been trying to ascertain how I can be sure this is the one I'm accustomed to," she says.

"Have him punch a wall."

"It's been suggested."

[thisvorlunatic]

(Miles laughs, not entirely happily.)

[isthisart]

"And, what, you don't want him to break his hand if he's for real?"

"I suspect," says Linya, glancing at Miles, "that he breaks bones for worse reasons all the time and that the resulting discomfort is probably less significant to him than the fact that I don't know who the hell he is, or he wouldn't have proposed it, but there's also the fact that there could easily be, in some corner of medical science with which I am unfamiliar, a way to duplicate the original's osteological problems."

"Ah."