landscape

[isthisart]

Linya avoids haring off to do things much while Miles's arms are unusable. Once he can feed himself comfortably enough to prefer to do so, though, she makes plans with Ekaterin to go with her and little Nikki on a hike in some nice woods of mixed-origin fauna. She packs a picnic and takes the lightflyer and flies out to pick up the relevant subset of Vorsoissons.

Comments

[as_i_remember]

"Yes. I restrained myself from suggesting that he make bean stew."

[thisvorlunatic]

Miles snickers.

[isthisart]

Linya chuckles. "I did recommend that you not have him followed, but at least he's expressing his displeasure gently."

[as_i_remember]

"You did make that suggestion."

[thisvorlunatic]

"But you were too paranoid to seriously consider it."

[as_i_remember]

"Just so."

[isthisart]

"I am a little worried that the beans are not necessarily the extent of his modus operandi. If he escalates in the hope that it will get him left alone... or possibly in the hope that it will get him killed..."

[as_i_remember]

"The beans seem calibrated to imply an... eccentric kind of harmlessness. He at least would not like me to think the scenario you describe is likely."

[thisvorlunatic]

"I think... hmm, how do I put this," says Miles. "He seemed to exhibit a certain very specialized kind of honesty, during that escapade on Earth. I mean, yes, he tried to impersonate me - pulled it off unsettlingly well, too - but he apologized before he shot Linya, he practically begged me to psychoanalyze him while he had me tied to a chair, when we met up with Linya under the seawall he pointed at me and said 'that one's your husband', and when he picked my pocket for the money I was going to give him he gave me back my grandfather's knife. I'd interpret the beans incident in the same vein. He's telling us 'no hard feelings, but kindly fuck off'. I don't think he'll escalate quickly after a message like that."

[isthisart]

"Yet he does seem inclined to communicate that if things did escalate, he has the sort of people following him thoroughly outclassed."

[thisvorlunatic]

"True. I don't know, though."

[as_i_remember]

"What do you think, Cordelia?"

[greatcomposure]

"I think Mark sounds like a deeply confused individual," she says. "But one who possesses... call it a sense of fairness. If he outclasses these agents so badly, all the more reason he won't try to harm them."

[isthisart]

"Which would be an argument against sending a variety of agent he's less likely to shake."

[as_i_remember]

"What a conundrum," Simon says dryly.

[isthisart]

"I suppose ceasing to follow him is totally out of the question."

[as_i_remember]

"Then," he says reasonably, "I wouldn't know where he was."

[thisvorlunatic]

"You don't know where he is half the time anyway."

[as_i_remember]

"I usually have a good idea of how far away."

[isthisart]

"I don't know how this works - does the same person find him again after losing him or does the trail get picked up by other people on other planets?"

[as_i_remember]

"The latter more than the former, but both have happened."

[isthisart]

"How many times has he been lost and relocated since Earth?"

[as_i_remember]

"Fourteen, counting only times when he dropped off the radar for a solid week or more. Many more than that if you count him losing a tail or disposing of a tracking device only to be spotted again some number of hours later, which seems to be a daily occurence when someone does have him in their sights."

[isthisart]

"He's apparently being calmer about it than I would if someone I objected to following me were doing it anyway and they kept re-finding me that frequently. I'm impressed."

[as_i_remember]

"All things considered, so am I."