calligraphy

[isthisart]

Linya is working on a massive flowchart-like diagram of a planned software project for Dr. Cheung. It's laid out in every color and in three dimensions with sprawl of its little writing that takes up most of her office and keeps fading out at the edges and in her shadow when she moves around, but reappears when she turns or approaches.

Comments

[thisvorlunatic]

Miles braids her hair! The arrangement he chooses is rather aggressively gorgeous.

[isthisart]

And he gets a kiss for his trouble.

[thisvorlunatic]

Ooh, a kiss. How delightful. He also missed those.

[isthisart]

So did she!

"It was a very welcome change to know loosely what was going on, but I'm still glad you're home."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Well. Good." Snuggle.

[isthisart]

It's some weeks later when pan-galactic (for a value of pan-galactic that invites representatives from only about half of the nexus's inhabited planets, Barrayar excluded) trade talks that could substantially alter the landscape of inter-system commerce are announced. They're to be held in orbit around Tau Ceti, and while the only invited guests are governmental representatives, there is reason to have lobbyists in the vicinity - they can't be systematically excluded from the station, let alone comm range thereof, unless they're more like assassins than like people with nonviolent political agendas.

Linya doesn't have a lobbyist, but she has an export agent, with family just a short hop away from the neighborhood; she suggests that her agent take a vacation at home so as to be in the area when delegates arrive and talks start (months later; some people have long trips to make) and keep Linya up to date on how this will affect pens and certain other items Linya might have an interest in moving around the nexus.

[thisvorlunatic]

A couple of days after she does that, Miles wanders into her office one afternoon and asks, "What do you know about Lairouba?"

[isthisart]

"Not much, why?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"Because I'm headed out there for a job, and Illyan's mission briefings occasionally leave something to be desired. The Lairouban delegation to those trade talks on Tau Ceti wants bodyguards to defend them from Toraniran assassins; apparently there's some history there. Several hundred years of it. I hope nobody's secretly related to anybody this time around."

[isthisart]

"I did know that Lairouba and Toranira were unfriendly - I suppose my standard of 'not much' might not be a useful one and I should say what the not much is. They speak, I believe, their own language that was originally a pidgin of Urdu and Indonesian with smatterings of other influences, as well as unpidgined dialects of both of those plus Arabic and Farsi and Amharic. Predominantly Islamic colonists but there has been some perturbation since; I believe they're still nominally mostly Muslims but with some unique subsects. Cold climate but not as cold as Jackson's Whole."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Yeah. And the Lairoubans and Toranirans have nearly identical source populations but they politely hate each other for obscure reasons, and one of their favourite tricks is assassinating each other's diplomats and then loudly protesting innocence. Which is what I am about to go prevent, assuming the Lairoubans accept the Dendarii bid, which they had better. Goodbye kiss? I have time for plenty of goodbye kisses, my ship to Escobar won't be ready for another three hours."

[isthisart]

"Well then." Kiss. It's not a very goodbye-ish kiss because she doesn't let him go immediately afterwards, though.

[thisvorlunatic]

Not-very-goodbye-ish kisses are fully acceptable here. They have three hours, after all.

[isthisart]

She does let him go after three hours.

[thisvorlunatic]

And off he goes. Taking into account travel times and the likelihood of the trade talks dragging on past their three-week projected span, he estimates he will be at least two months out there. But at least this time she can pester Illyan for news.

[isthisart]

Which she does, although not until Illyan could be expected to have heard things besides, say, "en route to Komarr".

[as_i_remember]

Illyan informs her of his own accord when he hears that the Lairoubans accepted the Ariel's bid for their guard contract, shortly after Miles made rendezvous with the fleet at Escobar.

[isthisart]

If he keeps preempting her pestering like that she may not have to do any at all.

[as_i_remember]

He sends further voluntary updates when he gets word that Miles has met with the delegation on Lairouba; then that the Ariel and the Lairouban ship have arrived in Tau Ceti orbit and docked at the station where the talks are to be held; then, halfway into the talks, that Miles has actually deigned to send a report.

Even if he had not explicitly told me everything was going fine, he writes with that last one, I would know it from the fact that he sent a report at all. Miles detests sending reports mid-action; if I hear from him directly, it's because he is feeling dutiful and conscientious and very, very bored.

[isthisart]

That's adorable and very Milesly.

I appreciate the notification that he is bored. It is superior to some of the alternatives.

And early the following week, Linya gets a report from her agent.

One paragraph sticks out:

I wasn't expecting to have a chance to talk to any of the delegates unless I ran into one at total random while wandering the station, but I got a sudden invitation from the Toraniran delegates to meet them for dinner. So I quickly read up on Toranira's position on the issues under discussion and went. They didn't seem to have known who I work for, and there weren't any other business representatives there, so I almost think it was some kind of mistake, but they talked to me anyway and I think at least a couple of them are slightly more sympathetic to the nuances of software intellectual property you sent me earlier - I didn't get a chance to bring up anything about the hardware but you did say that was lower priority.

Linya forwards this paragraph to Illyan: Does this look bizarre and possibly relevant to you?

[as_i_remember]

Yes and yes. Neither Miles nor any of my observers in the area have mentioned it to me, but that doesn't rule out his being involved somehow. Thank you for this datum; I will add it to my collection.

[isthisart]

That's all Linya hears from her agent that isn't perfectly ordinary check-ins about the agenting she's doing.

[as_i_remember]

Illyan, on the other hand...

Before I say anything else: Miles is on his way home, injured but in stable condition and fully repairable.

The facts, as I understand them, are these:

The Lairouban delegation turned out to be a front for an assassination attempt on the Toranirans. Miles conceived a suspicion somehow, and in the course of investigating further before alerting his subordinates, he was captured by the Lairoubans and held captive on their ship. For reasons that remained obscure at the time this report was written, the Lairoubans gave him fast-penta; he sustained the majority of his injuries when they took exception to his idiosyncratic response. His Dendarii noticed that his wristcom's tracker had been partially disabled but was still locatable, and mounted a rescue operation, which succeeded with no further casualties. The Lairouban delegates have been turned over to local law enforcement, the Dendarii have terminated their contract early but kept the remainder of their pay as a penalty to the Lairoubans for kidnapping their commanding officer, and Miles should be home within ten days.

[isthisart]

Linya winces.

Thank you for letting me know.

And now she has lots of unpleasant mental images so she is going to go play worried piano for several hours.

[greatcomposure]

At some point during those several hours, she acquires a quiet audience.