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

[alicornucopia]

Galeni sighs.

[thisvorlunatic]

"From my point of view - well, I thought the only good reason not to suspect you'd made off with my money was that you had not, in fact, made off. And then you did."

[alicornucopia]

"Of course," says Galeni tiredly.

[thisvorlunatic]

"Sorry," says Miles. "If we get out of here it shouldn't be that hard to clear your name, but, well, if we don't you're going down in history as the Komarran who booked it with my money and then circled back to kill me as an afterthought."

[alicornucopia]

"All for nothing," breathes Galeni.

[thisvorlunatic]

"Yeah. Of course," his mind runs on, "it's possible that the substitution plot will work, in which case we will have an entirely different set of problems which, hearteningly, we will still be too dead to care about."

[alicornucopia]

"I am tremendously heartened," says Galeni in a dead voice.

[thisvorlunatic]

Miles quirks a humourless little smile. "Me too. Right, so, you went to meet this man - without taking a beeper or a backup...?"

[alicornucopia]

"Yes. And we had lunch and he attempted to suborn me."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Did he succeed?" inquires Miles.

[alicornucopia]

Galeni looks at Miles in utter confusion.

[thisvorlunatic]

"Making this entire conversation a play for my benefit," Miles elaborates.

[alicornucopia]

Galeni grimaces. "I told him," he says loudly in the general direction of the light fixture, "to get stuffed. But should have realized that he'd told me too much to dare let me go. But we exchanged guarantees and I turned my back on him and... let sentiment cloud my judgment. Which he did not. So here I am, until he gets over the surge of sentiment, eventually."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Hell of an old acquaintance."

[alicornucopia]

"Yes," says Galeni shortly, running his fingers tiredly through his hair.

[thisvorlunatic]

Miles eyes the haggard Galeni. "What have they been doing to you? Primitive interrogation?"

[alicornucopia]

"They have fast-penta. They know Embassy security backwards and forwards, now, I've been through it three, four times. The bruises are from trying to escape - yesterday or something like it. But the fellows I tried to go through look worse."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Happy to hear it," Miles says unhappily. "Couldn't you have pretended to cooperate? At least long enough to get away?"

[alicornucopia]

Galeni shakes his head emphatically. Then he amends that with, "I suppose I should have. Too late."

[thisvorlunatic]

"And I can hardly try it."

[alicornucopia]

Galeni makes an agreeable gesture.

[thisvorlunatic]

"If he is a clone... I can't imagine what horrors they must have put him through, to get him to turn out like this." Miles gestures at himself. "My genes by themselves would've made him six feet tall, healthy, with good bones. I can't imagine the resources it would take for them to poison a lot of fetuses and raise them all until they got one that looked just right... it must have been surgical alterations. God." He shudders. "No wonder he seemed to hate me so much. I would too..."

[alicornucopia]

Galeni winces, sympathetic but without much to contribute.

[thisvorlunatic]

Silence falls. Time passes.



"How long have you known your father wasn't blown up with that bomb?"

[alicornucopia]

Galeni fixes Miles with a look, but then says, "Five days." And: "How did you know?"