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

[thisvorlunatic]

Miles giggles.

"I will consider myself scooped in spirit," he says. "Anyway. Then I had to come home because I was being accused of treason, which is a much less entertaining story, and I left Elena and Baz in charge of the fleet. And Elli Quinn got her face blown off in combat and I bought her a new one and left her with my grandmother on Beta Colony to recuperate - that's how she knows my identity. And, uh - Bothari died. During the war, but not in combat. Of... my stupidity, more or less." He sighs, good mood abruptly vanished.

[isthisart]

Linya pets his hair.

[thisvorlunatic]

"I can explain that, too, if you want."

[isthisart]

"I'd like to know, but I don't have to know now."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Now or later, it's all the same to me. See... growing up, Elena didn't know who her mother was. Bothari wouldn't talk about it. And when we were recruiting in Tau Verde local space, we happened to come across this woman, Elena Visconti, who looked just like my Elena. I imagined some story of - estrangement, perhaps, in any case of romance. The reality... well. I arranged an 'accidental' meeting, naively expecting some form of happiness to ensue, and Ms. Visconti happened to be armed at the time, and she walked into the room and shot Bothari in the chest with a needler. It was pretty ghastly. I'd known Bothari was a troubled soul, but not quite the full extent of the trouble. I still don't know exactly what he'd done, to provoke such an extreme reaction so many years later, but certainly his daughter was not the product of a romance."

[isthisart]

"Oh dear. What happened to Ms. Visconti after? I know from Simon that Elena Bothari-Jesek is still with the Dendarii..."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Left. Went back to Escobar, and as far as I know is still there."

[isthisart]

"How did Bothari wind up with custody of their daughter...?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"Oh... after the attempted Barrayaran invasion of Escobar, a bunch of uterine replicators with fetuses in them were sent from them to us. Probably all of unromantic origin. Seventeen, I think is the number. Mother later reused one of those very replicators to keep gestating me after they had to scoop me out."

[isthisart]

"What an unlovely chapter of history... but I'm glad there was a place to put you when you had to relocate."

[thisvorlunatic]

"So'm I."

[isthisart]

"Replicators are easier to get now, right? I was thinking of looking after Little Aral Adri myself for fine-tuned environmental monitoring, at least unless I find it unexpectedly necessary to make more business trips in spite of having delegated pen-sprinkling. It will probably be harder to get one to take home if there are only a handful on the entire planet."

[thisvorlunatic]

"In case you haven't noticed, my love, you are very, very rich. You could have your favourite model shipped here from Beta Colony if you felt like it. But yes, there are more replicators on Barrayar now than there were then."

[isthisart]

"I actually don't know much about standard-issue models. I should look into that in case it interacts with my previous education on incubation in some way and pick one out."

[thisvorlunatic]

"There you go, then. And then I suppose we decide when we want to start him... I confess I'm still nervous about the parenting aspect of this operation."

[isthisart]

"He'll be precocious; I don't know if that helps or does the very opposite."

[thisvorlunatic]

"I don't know either."

[isthisart]

"I've been taking notes from Ekaterin's example and I am not particularly intimidated, but there's no rush. Any halfway decent replicator can be bought well in advance and permitted to collect dust in a closet until you're good and ready."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Yeah. That sounds good to me."

[isthisart]

She kisses his forehead. "But he is going to be outrageously cute."

[thisvorlunatic]

"In the best family tradition."

[isthisart]

"With his dad's eyes and everything."

[thisvorlunatic]

[isthisart]

Time passes. They're at Vorkosigan Surleau, so when Linya isn't working or hand-feeding her husband she takes the lightflyer up to zoom around and think. She writes a song about nothing in particular.

She says to Miles, after a few more days:

"How's your war story supply?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"Nigh bottomless. Let's see. Would you like the story of why I'm never visiting Jackson's Whole again? Or the story of how the Dendarii pulled off the third biggest prisoner-of-war escape in history?"