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]

"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."

[thisvorlunatic]

"The clone's supposed to kill my father and Gregor," argues Miles. "At a bare minimum. My bones are not what I'd call an advantage in close combat."

[isthisart]

"Both of those people are, on occasion, unarmed in your presence," says Linya. "The bone condition doesn't affect your ability to hold a nerve disruptor."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Nor does it affect my ability to get one past Gregor's close security perimeter, who, trust me, don't grant exceptions for friends of the family."

[isthisart]

"I've watched the Emperor's security come into Vorkosigan House. They were professional, but - I don't think I'll elaborate on where in the house you could hide nerve disruptors while the ceiling is watching, come to think of it."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Good call. Fine. What's your take, Captain Galeni? Does my much-delayed twin brother have my bones, or no?"

[alicornucopia]

"He said he didn't, but again, could have easily lied. He didn't punch a wall, or offer to."

[thisvorlunatic]

"But then, he never tried to convince you he was me while you knew there was another option. Square one," sighs Miles.

[isthisart]

"His excuse for not picking up your pen involved a fractured metacarpal. I imagine this was fictitious whether that would have been easy to do or not."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Probably. Because, again, broken bones make it difficult to do things."

[isthisart]

"I'm still not completely ruling out the possibility that in addition to Mark there is some cohort of other clones with increasingly obscure ancestral designations," says Linya, "even if Naismith isn't among their number."

"He's...?"

"Informed me," Linya says dryly to Galeni, "that my husband is both lieutenant and admiral, simultaneously, and that what I picked up in the street the other day was a convincing act."

"He kept his cover after you picked him up? Literally picked him up?"

"Yes. Incompletely. I was suspicious but didn't think he'd have had his mercenary fleet answer my job bid; apparently that was done without his oversight at all."

"Ah."

"I assume you knew about the double identity."

"Yes, I suppose it doesn't matter if I confirm it now."

[thisvorlunatic]

"There isn't actually a strong custom for third and so on sons," Miles mentions. "Although I think I read somewhere that some families have been known to start going through the great-grandparents in various contrived orders."

[isthisart]

"Well, that will be good to know if we find ourselves free to go and I manage to confirm your identity and we decant a little Aral Adri only to find that parenthood agrees with us overwhelmingly well and we want six," she sighs.

[thisvorlunatic]

"Now I'm tempted to start listing great-grandparents... I don't know Mother's side off the top of my head, but Father's grandfathers were Xav Aral Vorbarra and Demyan Antoly Vorkosigan."

[isthisart]

"Xav is Ivan's middle name, seems unnecessary duplicatory. Demyan isn't bad, Antoly's already on the list for Son Two..."

[thisvorlunatic]

"And then, let's see... Prince Xav's wife was Betan again, can't go back from there, but his father was Dorca Vorbarra, obviously. Come to think of it I don't think I know Dorca the Just's middle name. Then Grandfather's grandfathers were Pierre Vorrutyer whose middle name I don't remember either, and Piotr Isidor Vorkosigan. You get a lot of duplicates with this method, I'm discovering. A distinct flaw."

[isthisart]

"Yes. We might have to get a baby name book."

Galeni appears entirely nonplussed to be bearing witness to this conversation.