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

[spacetobreathe]

"Well - he fooled me. We were camped out listening for Galeni's voiceprint, and I figured if you were dramatically pretending to divorce your wife you needed collecting regardless of the local authorities' opinions on breaking and entering but I could hold out for a cue. I didn't know how the hell you'd gotten here, but I suppose I do now."

[thisvorlunatic]

"For future reference," says Miles to Galeni, "when I am working my ass off to delay and distract the enemy, the thing to do is not look at me as though I have transformed myself into a polka-dotted toad, it's to find a way to exploit the distraction. Sir. Now - what's ImpSec want to do about this? Call in the local authorities - or clean out these guys' comconsoles, nip back to the embassy, quietly arrest Mark, and put this bunch under surveillance like the rest of Earth's crop of Komarran expatriates?"

[alicornucopia]

Galeni rolls his eyes. "They're guilty of a crime here on Earth, now, the local authorities can break up their entire splinter group. What's the proposed advantage of keeping it quiet?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"Security. Naismith's cover depends on my clone story. This clone story would muddy those waters considerably, if it got out, which it inevitably would. Better to just slap a lid on the whole thing and thereby keep control of exactly what mixture of truth and lies becomes attached to Mark's official public existence, if he gets one. Not to mention avoiding the enormous publicity we'd inevitably get if the police and the news media started digging into this whole sordid business."

[alicornucopia]

Galeni looks away. "I... don't know."

[thisvorlunatic]

"I do," says Miles. "Sergeant," he picks out a nearby Dendarii, "take a couple of techs through the house, suck dry any comconsole you find - while you're at it, look around for a handful of anti-personnel-scan devices, probably stored somewhere. Very small, very cutting-edge. Take them to Commodore Jesek and tell him they're a present from the Admiral and I want to know everything he can find out about them. Also, any stray pieces of our clothing that you find, and a little electronic object about yea big that looks like a black rod with clear caps at both ends, to be returned undamaged and uncracked to this lady here," he gestures the length of the pen and indicates Linya. "As soon as you all-clear the place, we're out of here."

[isthisart]

"Separately?" inquires Linya.

[thisvorlunatic]

"You can go where you like. Captain Galeni and I are headed for the embassy, where we hope to find Mark."

[spacetobreathe]

"Diddling their consoles and taking their things is illegal," Elli feels compelled to point out.

[thisvorlunatic]

"And they're going to, what, complain to the police? Ha," says Miles. "By the way, to head off further confusion - my clone has normal bones. Mine are full of old break patterns. A close medical scan should have no trouble telling the difference, except in the long bones of our legs, which are synthetics in both cases. When in doubt, scan."

[spacetobreathe]

"Yes, sir," says Elli, and she goes off to order Dendarii around on these errands.

[isthisart]

Linya's pen is turned up in short order and returned to her, necklace and all.

She hesitates, then decides not to exacerbate the cracks in Miles's cover. "Call me," she murmurs to him under her breath, and she goes out the open garage door to find out where she is and how to get somewhere she'd rather be.

[middlingalong]

Meanwhile at the embassy, Ivan, all unawares, is sitting with Mark and picking his way through the day's statistical discrepancy-checking.

"Sylveth broke it off," he mentions morosely. "How is it that I only know how to get girls in the first place and you're the one who figured out how to keep one?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"Having a scarcer supply gives me greater motivation to hang on for dear life," he suggests.

[middlingalong]

"Can't be it," says Ivan. "I don't believe for a second she likes you 'cause you're clingy. You aren't even."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Well, that's just it. She doesn't like clingy, therefore I am not clingy."

[middlingalong]

Ivan snorts. "Right, but at some point in there you had to figure out what she liked and do it right on the first try. Meanwhile I thought Sylveth liked me but apparently not enough to suffer her weirdly political friends' opinions about Barrayaran culture. Do I seem like a patriarchal misogynist to you, Miles? Me personally, I mean."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Not especially, no."

[middlingalong]

"I don't think so either, but. I'd say it was easier back home but it's not like I've got a long-term girlfriend waiting for me there, is it, or there'd've been no Sylveth in the first place. How is Linyabel anyway?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"Elsewhere. Buttering up her neuroscientist, at last word. He sure takes a lot of buttering."

[middlingalong]

"Does he get breadcrumbs too?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"Cannibalism is frowned upon in most jurisdictions, Ivan, even if you bake them first."

[middlingalong]

Ivan giggles. "What's she even going to do with him if she hauls him to Komarr?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"Neuro...science? I honestly wasn't completely clear. But besides the holo-pens I think her main research interest is life extension, so he's probably related to that."

[middlingalong]

"Isn't she probably going to live to be two hundred anyway?"