fermata

[isthisart]

Linya sees Dr. Cheung onto a ship other than the Ariel, which agrees to tote him to Komarr very, very slowly, knocking him out for each jump and having someone look after him when he comes around green in the gills. It's not going to be a fun trip for him, but it's better than trying to collaborate with a multi-week conversational turnaround time. It's pricey - the ship has nonperishable cargo with no deadline at its destination and already employs a medtech, but still - but she thinks it's worth it.

Her business on Earth concluded, she examines the list of tourist attractions she didn't get around to, determines that none of them are worth sticking around for, and gets on a much faster vessel and goes all the way home. The first thing she does when there is go looking for whichever of the Count or Countess is easiest to find.

Comments

[isthisart]

"My personal opinion? Everyone ought to have a pen. Pens are lovely. But if you don't my existing contact information for you will be within date." Woggle. "There. Anyway, we continued to be kidnapped. Mark extracted Miles for a conversation, and then me - I was not considered safe to usher at stunner-point through the house so they just shot me and I woke up tied to a chair again. Mark - has been badly brought up, but is not intrinsically motivated to hostile behavior. I did not manage anything as dramatic as talking him into letting us all go, though. Back into the cell I went."

[as_i_remember]

"Hm. And?"

[isthisart]

"And there I sat until I was stunned again and woke up tied up on a garage floor while Miles, who had conned the guards into maybe letting me go provided I didn't make any dramatic declarations of Barryaran loyalty, was pretending to divorce me. He drew this out until a small contingent of Dendarii who'd been sent to find Captain Galeni burst in and rescued us. I left under my own power once I had my pen back and made it to my hotel without further incident and didn't bother with any of the business at hand again until Commander Quinn called me to come 'be haut at' Cetagandan assassins who were after Naismith. I was extremely haut at them. They packed up and went home."

[as_i_remember]

"Miles mentioned the pretend divorce in his report, briefly. It sounded like... a spectacle."

[isthisart]

"It was certainly that. I don't actually know if he has the authority to imbue himself with the necessary power to undo the ceremony with the groats, but he has no such power over the Cetagandan arrangement, anyway. And if they'd let me go - I'd convinced them to give my pen back first. In a block of ice so I couldn't call the police on them soon enough to matter, supposedly - they thought to ask if it was waterproof but not if it was strong enough to withstand me simply breaking through the ice, but I didn't get that far into my contingency plans. Oh, and," she adds, "while I was being haut at Cetagandans, Mark was pretending to be Miles for reasons of costuming and disparate amounts of time having practiced each role - they later found it expedient to appear together. And in the end Mark was released into the tubeway with a pocketful of cash and a reminder that he has a family if he wants one."

[as_i_remember]

"Mark... is a problem whose solution is not yet apparent to me. But having him quietly followed for the rest of his natural life seems like a decent start."

[isthisart]

"You can tell him apart from Miles with a medical scanner if he reverts to the level of his training," she says. "I plan to do this routinely once Miles is home again. I don't pretend that I can stop you from having Mark stalked on top of that, but I decline to conversationally endorse it."

[as_i_remember]

"If he reverts to the level of his training there are many things he could do which a medical scanner would not adequately solve."

[isthisart]

"Such as?"

[as_i_remember]

"Of ways to carry out his creators' ultimate agenda, 'impersonate Miles' is but one, and it wouldn't necessarily be the most effective one even if telling them apart were much more difficult than it is. What worries me is not so much the prospect of a substitute Miles as the prospect of someone with Miles's potential and Miles's drive and a relationship to Barrayar with the same depth and complexity as Miles's, but considerably less positive and devoid of loyalty."

[isthisart]

"I do not think that you can improve the positivity and loyalty situation by having him followed, but again, I can hardly stop you."

[as_i_remember]

He shrugs.

"So. And is there any other insight you can offer me into Miles's motivations?"

[isthisart]

"I think I will omit some of his colorful descriptions thereof for the remote possibility that he thinks better of them before he gets here to talk to you in person. But he is no longer willing to enshroud himself in secrecy because you think my positivity and loyalty with respect to Barrayar is suspect. And he wishes Mark all the best, although it's possible he will disagree with me about the following - he will know better than I on two counts if it can be done discreetly enough to avoid antagonizing Mark."

[as_i_remember]

"His feelings about Mark were... strongly hinted at in his report."

[isthisart]

"He seems inclined to go all-in on the 'brother' interpretation."

[as_i_remember]

"So I gathered. In a document in which not a single military rank went unabbreviated, he wrote out 'Lord Mark Pierre Vorkosigan' in full. Twice."

[isthisart]

"It doesn't surprise me a bit."

[as_i_remember]

"Which? The brotherly affection, or the ways he chose to express it?"

[isthisart]

"Either. I imagine there are ways Mark could have sabotaged the fledgeling brotherly affection, but he didn't. He even apologized before he shot me."

[as_i_remember]

"How... incongruously polite of him."

[isthisart]

"A bit, yes. He wanted to know later during the part where I was tied to a chair if I was angry at him. I told him I was a little frustrated but not angry."

[as_i_remember]

"Hm."

[isthisart]

"Oh - nigh-unrelatedly - when I was being haut at Cetagandan assassins I suggested that I could also choose to be offended if they killed my husband's clone, on the grounds that the haut-wife ceremony is principally about genetics. I don't know how much that will slow them down, of course."

[as_i_remember]

"I imagine it will slow them down at least a little bit. Thank you."

[isthisart]

"You're welcome."