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Time goes by. Linya, who already quietly turned nineteen, turns twenty. She collects an accelerated master's degree in neuroscience and starts corresponding with various people on the subject.
Pens spread out; the next time Miles sees Elli he gets a white standard-model pen she bought him on Escobar. She has one too; it's silver. She loves it and thanks him for recommending it to her. (She has bought a whole boxful to unload at a markup on the next planet or station she comes to that doesn't have them yet, but doesn't explicitly mention this in case he objects to her cutting into Lady Vorkosigan's margins.)
Miles also has one actual courier mission in there, just escorting a diplomatic pouch from Pol back home, to pad his service record for the less-cleared eye.
There is a visit to a clinic to collect and mystically join gametes, and Linya collects the resulting assembly in data format for editing. She does the grey eyes first and estimates that if she doesn't particularly hurry she'll have a Little Aral What-the-Heck-Should-His-Middle-Name-Be all ready to put in a replicator in two or three years, though she can accelerate that considerably if something comes up urgently requiring the presence of Little Aral sooner rather than later.
And then Miles gets sent off again and is gone for a very long time.
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isthisart
isthisart
Linya continues to have not seen - or at least to not bring up - the news over the next four days, and then the courier is back from Tau Ceti again.
thisvorlunatic
Miles follows the courier to Galeni's office, waits in the hall, and then marches in as soon as the courier leaves.
"Sir?"
"Sir?"
"Yes, yes, Lieutenant, I know." Galeni is reading the communiqué.
His frown deepens; he offers Miles a look at the console himself.
His frown deepens; he offers Miles a look at the console himself.
thisvorlunatic
He scans the message, then reads it again more slowly.
"...Sir," he says, "there's nothing... here." He turns to face Galeni. "No credit chit, no orders, no explanation, no nothing! No reference to my affairs at all! We've waited here twenty fucking days for nothing - we could've walked to Tau Ceti and back in that time! Towing the bloody fleet on a rope! This is - is impossible!"
"...Sir," he says, "there's nothing... here." He turns to face Galeni. "No credit chit, no orders, no explanation, no nothing! No reference to my affairs at all! We've waited here twenty fucking days for nothing - we could've walked to Tau Ceti and back in that time! Towing the bloody fleet on a rope! This is - is impossible!"
"Hardly impossible. Bureaucratic screw-ups happen. Mis-addressed; put aside while waiting for someone to come back from leave; computer glitch."
"You are an arrogant little vorling, but you're probably right, that wouldn't normally happen to you. Anybody else, yes - not you. But there's a first time for everything."
thisvorlunatic
"Is there a second time for everything, too, sir? How many repetitions of everything are there?"
"At least two, it would seem, Lieutenant. I'll send again."
thisvorlunatic
"You tried that last time," Miles points out. Yeah, and what did happen to that first message? He saw the return message himself this time around, which means that either the response was intercepted... or the request was never sent. Shit.
"I can't pull your eighteen million marks out of my pocket, Lieutenant."
thisvorlunatic
"Evidently not," Miles agrees. Hell, fuck, and damn... if his eighteen million marks are currently residing in Galeni's pocket, Miles swears to himself, he will find that out and there will be no burrow in this nor any other galaxy sufficiently remote for Galeni to crawl into and escape his wrath. But in order to even think about starting such an investigation -
"Sir, I absolutely require at least a day with the Dendarii now. They're going to need me to sign for a loan to cover their immediate expenses, or they'll already be in the hole by the time the courier gets back from Tau Ceti again. And if I abandon them at this juncture..." He shakes his head.
"Sir, I absolutely require at least a day with the Dendarii now. They're going to need me to sign for a loan to cover their immediate expenses, or they'll already be in the hole by the time the courier gets back from Tau Ceti again. And if I abandon them at this juncture..." He shakes his head.
"I regard your personal security with the Dendarii as totally insufficient, Vorkosigan," says Galeni.
thisvorlunatic
"Add somebody from the embassy if you must, although I advise against it. Now that I've finally managed to come up with a story that makes sense of the division between Naismith and Vorkosigan, it would crumble rather quickly if Naismith was found to be going around with a Barrayaran security detail."
"The idiotic clone story," says Galeni, sounding very long-suffering.
thisvorlunatic
"The brilliant clone story!" defends Miles. "Completely compartmentalizing my identities at last! Of course Naismith looks exactly like Vorkosigan, he's a bloody clone-copy! It's perfect!"
"Well, at least you didn't announce you were positive the Cetagandans did it, they know they didn't, I'd imagine, and they're the ones who are trying to kill you... Very well. I'll have Barth assign you a security perimeter and you can have twenty-four hours' leave. But I want you to report in by secure commlink no less than every eight hours."
thisvorlunatic
Miles suppresses the urge to defend his ideas some more - yes, of course, that was the entire point of bringing up the Cetagandans in the first place, it seems less like a lie if it contains such a blatant mistake - and nods. "Thank you, sir." Now, to get the hell out of here before Galeni changes his mind.
middlingalong
Well, if he's going to stop back anywhere Ivan might spot him, Ivan's going to want to know where he's going, and -
"...What do I tell Linyabel if she calls looking for you while you're out, coz?"
"...What do I tell Linyabel if she calls looking for you while you're out, coz?"
thisvorlunatic
"Tell her... aw, hell. Tell her I had an osteo-inflammatory episode and I'm passed out drunk, unconsciousness being preferable to pain, but I should be fine by tomorrow. Which flows nicely into an excuse for me not to take visitors tomorrow due to atrocious hangover, if I'm still with the Dendarii by then."
middlingalong
"Okay. But I hope she doesn't call, she gets all worried over you."
middlingalong
"Maybe she'll be busy all day," Ivan says hopefully. "Or she'll call when I'm working and I can just not answer..."
Sergeant Barth is made available to Miles as obligatory Barrayaran bodyguard, civvies and all, and Galeni makes no attempt to retract his offer of leave on their way out.
Sergeant Barth is made available to Miles as obligatory Barrayaran bodyguard, civvies and all, and Galeni makes no attempt to retract his offer of leave on their way out.
thisvorlunatic
So off Miles goes to the shuttleport, and he makes the long, long trek across the tarmac to the very last hardstand on the landing field. It is of course completely reasonable on multiple levels for the Dendarii to have chosen that one - impossible for anyone to sneak up on them across the wide swaths of vacant ground; no innocent bystanders around if somebody tries something anyway - but alas, logic makes the walk no shorter.
He tries to pace himself, reasoning that a quick but measured stride will draw less attention than a demented scurry, and thinks about security and concealment and lies and regrets.
Concealment... yes, if you wanted to assassinate someone on this bare flat featureless expanse, wouldn't that maintenance vehicle over there be the perfect weapon? The float truck sports a prominent shuttleport logo and drab colouring, and looks exactly like the half-dozen-odd others he's seen since he got here, whisking busily from place to place; his eye is tempted to pass unseeing over its looming bulk, until he consciously considers the strategic possibilities.
The float truck alters its course - an interception vector - Barth draws his stunner; Miles draws his - they suffer a moment's tangled choreography, Miles looking for a clear shot while Barth looks to shield him. It doesn't matter. The float truck is not interested in competing on their level. It rises into the air like an enormous boot, and understanding crystallizes abruptly in Miles's mind. Brilliant. Elegant. Terrifying. He turns and flees, as fast as his short legs will carry him, jamming his stunner back into its holster without particular care for whether or not it stays there. The float truck descends, its antigrav cut. He dives at the last second, feels a sudden wind shoving at his back, hears a crashing boom that jars his fragile bones, or maybe that's his impact with the ground - and here he is, intact, safe, a mere hand's breadth from the truck's skirt.
He leaps up in a burst of inspiration and grabs onto the handholds on the truck's side, hanging on for dear life. It lifts and drops again, but he's foiled it now - can't stomp the bug that climbs your shoe - except that one of the successive impacts shakes him loose. He hits the ground and rolls awkwardly - no time to stop and figure out if this pain is bruises or broken bones - up, up, run, run, where's the shuttle? There. He bolts for it.
He tries to pace himself, reasoning that a quick but measured stride will draw less attention than a demented scurry, and thinks about security and concealment and lies and regrets.
Concealment... yes, if you wanted to assassinate someone on this bare flat featureless expanse, wouldn't that maintenance vehicle over there be the perfect weapon? The float truck sports a prominent shuttleport logo and drab colouring, and looks exactly like the half-dozen-odd others he's seen since he got here, whisking busily from place to place; his eye is tempted to pass unseeing over its looming bulk, until he consciously considers the strategic possibilities.
The float truck alters its course - an interception vector - Barth draws his stunner; Miles draws his - they suffer a moment's tangled choreography, Miles looking for a clear shot while Barth looks to shield him. It doesn't matter. The float truck is not interested in competing on their level. It rises into the air like an enormous boot, and understanding crystallizes abruptly in Miles's mind. Brilliant. Elegant. Terrifying. He turns and flees, as fast as his short legs will carry him, jamming his stunner back into its holster without particular care for whether or not it stays there. The float truck descends, its antigrav cut. He dives at the last second, feels a sudden wind shoving at his back, hears a crashing boom that jars his fragile bones, or maybe that's his impact with the ground - and here he is, intact, safe, a mere hand's breadth from the truck's skirt.
He leaps up in a burst of inspiration and grabs onto the handholds on the truck's side, hanging on for dear life. It lifts and drops again, but he's foiled it now - can't stomp the bug that climbs your shoe - except that one of the successive impacts shakes him loose. He hits the ground and rolls awkwardly - no time to stop and figure out if this pain is bruises or broken bones - up, up, run, run, where's the shuttle? There. He bolts for it.
spacetobreathe
The pursuing float-truck explodes dramatically, bits of debris going in every direction and the blast strongly suggesting that anyone upright in its range drop flat to the ground; a piece of something caromes off the back of Miles's skull. Three Dendarii pour out of the shuttle and break into a run.