overture

[isthisart]

Nine days into their fourteen-day trip, the courier ship arrives in the Komarr system. Five more jumps to go. Miles is not yet capable of peeling himself off a willing Linya before he passes out (and willingness is in no short supply), and the resulting peculiar sleep schedule causes Ivan no end of giggling. Linya draws him diagrams of more complicated braids as aspirational goals (getting five and a half feet of slidy-soft hair to be in even the simplest braid properly is a little tricky), which induces Miles to spend most of a day fascinatedly braiding and rebraiding her hair in various configurations. She, meanwhile, writes pen software that eats standard comconsole software and renders it for pen-ability in what she thinks is a user-friendly manner, and works on Russian.

When they reach the Komarr system, there's a message squirt, bounced at lightspeed from the little ships that do nothing but dance back and forth from side to side of the intervening wormholes collecting and broadcasting data. It says that Captain Illyan invites Miles to supplement his mission report by bringing his wife along.

Comments

[thisvorlunatic]

"That does sound handy."

[isthisart]

"It is!"



Despite Linya's willingness to show up to an interview with Illyan, Miles does not make a reply to his boss during the remaining five days of the trip. He does, however, braid and rebraid her hair about sixty times over several sittings, and eventually learn to suggest adjourning marital relations for lunch or other concerns before he falls asleep on Linya some of the time.

Five jumps from Komarr to Barrayar. Hop, hop, hop, hop, hop.

[thisvorlunatic]

After the final jump, as they make their approach to Barrayar, Miles is only a tiny bit nervous. He decants his written report to Illyan onto a cipher disk, wipes it from the courier vessel's system, double-checks that all his luggage is properly packed, and then flomps onto the cabin's bed to wait out the last hour or so.

[isthisart]

Linya sits beside him and pets him. In Russian, she says, "Are you all right?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"I'm fine, I'm fine," he replies in the same language, snuggling up. "Waiting is one of my least favourite activities. I'll live."

[isthisart]

"You probably have time to braid my hair another four or five times, if you want."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Ooh. What an excellent plan." He sits up.

[isthisart]

Linya giggles and calls up the most recent project - French herringbone! whee! - with her pen and puts it where he can see it over her shoulder.

[thisvorlunatic]

Ooh. Goals. Miles does love a nice moderately impossible goal.

[isthisart]

He'd need about twice as many hands to find some of these braids easy as opposed to "maybe someday doable".

Linya contently studies Russian until the ship gets where it's going.

[thisvorlunatic]

Miles manages the French herringbone on the third try, then unravels it and does it again more neatly, then unravels it again and produces a version in which his eyes can detect no flaw.

And scant minutes later, they make orbit. There is a certain amount of bustle involved in loading themselves and their belongings onto a shuttle, then offloading them again once they reach the spaceport. Miles is an old hand, and cheerfully capable of overseeing not only his meager pair of luggage cases but also all thirty of Linya's - he retrieves a large float pallet once they're on the ground, making the load possible if unwieldy for Linya to cart around without help. Then, after navigating them through the spaceport, he checks outside the front gate to see if the family has sent a groundcar.

[as_i_remember]

They haven't.

Someone else is waiting there, however.

"Lieutenant Vorkosigan," he says pleasantly. "I hope you don't mind, but I was afraid something might have happened to my message. Such as you ignoring it."

[thisvorlunatic]

"...Good afternoon, sir," says Miles. "This is my wife, Lady haut Linyabel Miriat Vorkosigan—" an on-the-spot arrangement of her unprecedented combination of titles, which he feels rolls nicely off the tongue. "Linya, this is Captain Simon Illyan."

[isthisart]

"Hello," says Linya politely.

[as_i_remember]

"Congratulations," Illyan says, somewhat dryly. "I would love to hear just how this happy event came to occur. Perhaps you'd like to send your luggage to Vorkosigan House and come into my office for a... chat. On reflection, I'm not going to promise a quick one."

[thisvorlunatic]

"I have no objections on my own behalf," says Miles. "By the way, did you know fast-penta doesn't work on haut women?"

[as_i_remember]

"Mm," says Illyan.

[isthisart]

"As an immunity, not an allergy, so if you care to test it I will not be liable to expire."

[as_i_remember]

"I wasn't intending to try it without your permission, and I see no reason to change that plan now that you've told me it wouldn't work," he says. "But thank you for the clarification, Lady Vorkosigan. And what are your feelings on coming to my office to discuss your recent marriage?"

[isthisart]

"I don't object."

[as_i_remember]

"I'm pleased to hear it."

Miles makes arrangements for the luggage. Illyan offers them a ride to ImpSec headquarters in the groundcar he has waiting.

ImpSec headquarters is a phenomenally ugly building. Tallish, squat, windowless, and 'decorated' (to use the term loosely) with a tangle of ugly relief sculptures of various fantastic creatures.

[isthisart]

Linya has never seen anything that offensively ugly in her life. She stares at it.

[as_i_remember]

"I apologize most sincerely for the architecture," he says as he escorts them inside. No one tries to stop them or administer any intrusive security measures, although they definitely pass through at least two separate scanners as they enter the building.

[isthisart]

Linya is unarmed, and the only thing of electronic interest on her is the pen. She sticks close to Miles.

[as_i_remember]

He leads them through a maze of labyrinthine corridors to a smallish, minimally decorated, exquisitely tidy office, where he takes a seat behind the desk and gestures the wedded couple into the two chairs in front.

"Now," he says, looking contemplatively at Linyabel. "I would like to hear, from your own point of view, in as much detail as you feel is relevant, with as little editorial commentary from your husband as possible, just how the two of you came to be married."