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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
middlingalong
"Eh, I have a pokey data analysis job, you could help with that. Checking it out when the computer beeps confusedly about public statistics. Spy work of a sort, checking up on the few hundred people we want to track - Komarran rebel expatriates and that sort of thing. And for spare time - there's the gym. I usually go out in the evenings, but... well, I suppose I could stay in some nights and keep you company if Linyabel doesn't show up on a daily basis."
thisvorlunatic
"Thank you. I appreciate it."
Miles contemplates his boring immediate future and shakes his head. At least the courier will be back from Tau Ceti in ten days. The Dendarii can make it ten days, right?
Miles contemplates his boring immediate future and shakes his head. At least the courier will be back from Tau Ceti in ten days. The Dendarii can make it ten days, right?
middlingalong
"Oh, and we keep track of the other embassies, too," Ivan adds. "On top of the couple hundred individuals' comings and goings. Including the Cetagandans, couple klicks away - we wind up going to each others' parties a lot and playing I-know-you-know. I have not been able to get Linyabel to show up to one of those - the sort of people who handle the guest list aren't the sort of people who think it'd be funny, I suppose."
thisvorlunatic
"Ha," says Miles. Then he straightens up abruptly. "Wait, fuck! Ivan, those people are trying to kill me!"
middlingalong
"What? No they're not. They gave you a haut-wife and everything. Galeni's just paranoid."
thisvorlunatic
"Not me me, I mean me! Admiral Naismith! Who is just in from a long and occasionally bloody chase after he pulled an entire POW camp out from under some ghem-commander's nose at Dagoola and then turned around and delivered them to Marilac to start a rebellion! Actual teams of actual Cetagandan assassins have been after my blood for months - Galeni wasn't just being a paranoid freak. All of a sudden I'm much more thankful to be confined to the building."
middlingalong
"It might be more interesting than it's worth to have Linyabel show up a party at their embassy with you on her arm, then, mightn't it. I mean I suppose you could get her to - no you couldn't - damn. What the hell does Illyan think she's going to do?"
thisvorlunatic
"Believe me, I would dearly love to know," sighs Miles. "I don't even think he thinks she's going to do anything so much as that she is slightly more of a risk than average and he has no compelling reason to take that risk. And since I don't either, Linya must perforce remain ignorant."
middlingalong
"I think Cetagandan assassins after somebody whose wife is on a first name basis with the Cetagandan empress might be a reason? Possibly?"
thisvorlunatic
"Yes, Ivan, let's have Linya just call up Empress Lisbet on a public channel and ask her to please call the assassins off of oh wait we don't want to be at war with the Cetagandans over what I did at Dagoola, do we. Miles Naismith and Miles Vorkosigan must remain as separate as possible."
thisvorlunatic
"True," Miles admits. But then he shakes his head. "They must know Naismith's on the planet by now. I can't imagine they wouldn't have noticed, if they have anybody doing," he waves vaguely at Ivan, "your job."
middlingalong
"They have, I've met him. Ghem-lieutenant Tabor. But they don't have any better turnaround for orders from higher up than we do. And our security staff's bigger, what with Komarrans milling about. Theirs is a minor embassy, more than this one."
thisvorlunatic
"And there's not much I can do about it either way. Staying holed up in here until my fleet's money arrives is probably the best move I can make."
middlingalong
"Well, at least Galeni knows what your wife looks like now. Shoo me when you need to shoo me."
thisvorlunatic
From a wide array of possible responses, Miles selects, "Thank you, Ivan."
thisvorlunatic
So Miles stays holed up in the embassy.
After his first hour watching Ivan at work, he takes the data analysis job away from him and starts to blow through each day's work by noon, thereby gaining the afternoons as personal study time, to consume local history and galactic news and fascinating travelogues of places he isn't allowed to visit. He works out in the gym to fill the time in between all the brain-work. He receives daily reports from Elli on the status of the Dendarii fleet, thankfully doing just fine. Linya is in and out of town, dividing her time between her husband and her work. She brings him a plain black pen along with miscellaneous souvenirs. He uses it to call her at semi-random hours of his afternoons and evenings, often while pacing the halls of the embassy, and finds her talk of business and neuroscience immensely soothing.
Ten days after his arrival, the courier comes back from Sector HQ. Miles is pleased, and then after fifteen minutes slightly anxious, and then after half an hour slightly annoyed, and then after an hour practically climbing the walls. He paces tensely in the little room where he has been doing Ivan's job.
After his first hour watching Ivan at work, he takes the data analysis job away from him and starts to blow through each day's work by noon, thereby gaining the afternoons as personal study time, to consume local history and galactic news and fascinating travelogues of places he isn't allowed to visit. He works out in the gym to fill the time in between all the brain-work. He receives daily reports from Elli on the status of the Dendarii fleet, thankfully doing just fine. Linya is in and out of town, dividing her time between her husband and her work. She brings him a plain black pen along with miscellaneous souvenirs. He uses it to call her at semi-random hours of his afternoons and evenings, often while pacing the halls of the embassy, and finds her talk of business and neuroscience immensely soothing.
Ten days after his arrival, the courier comes back from Sector HQ. Miles is pleased, and then after fifteen minutes slightly anxious, and then after half an hour slightly annoyed, and then after an hour practically climbing the walls. He paces tensely in the little room where he has been doing Ivan's job.
middlingalong
"Calm down, Miles. Read something. Call your wife? Again? You can hold still for five minutes if you try."
middlingalong
"Well, then, do your anxious waiting from a sitting position. Come on, give the man time to get a cup of coffee and read his reports. People would be sad if their reports were never read."
thisvorlunatic
"Ugh." He circles the room one more time, then thumps into a chair. "It's been an hour! He can read the reports after he gives me my money!"
The comconsole blinks. Whether Galeni doesn't understand how to contact Miles by pen or simply doesn't trust the device is unclear.