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One lovely afternoon Miles gets a rather urgent call from Ivan.
pen_is_wow
And Pen flomps into the nice big bed. She has nothing to change into so she just has to go to sleep in her leathers, oh well. Zzzz.
greatcomposure
The next morning, Cordelia provides breakfast, and asks Pen to please put Byerly Vorrutyer on the brainphone.
greatcomposure
"We want to find out whether the brainphone works well with people who are very far away, so we thought of someone we know who is very far away right now. If it does work well with people who are very far away, then we can use it to talk to people on other planets easily, instead of having to send them a letter and wait a week for them to get it and another week for them to send one back. And that would be very nice."
pen_is_wow
"How many people you wanting me put?" says Pen. "Is no magic world. Maybe shouldn't put too many."
greatcomposure
"Only one more right now, and probably only a few more after that," she says. "Because we aren't sure yet what the best way is to tell people about magic without upsetting them, so we're keeping it a secret for now, until we figure that out. Which might take a long time."
greatcomposure
Nod. "We'll think about it, and maybe we'll come up with some very clever ideas, but maybe we won't."
pen_is_wow
"Yeah." Pen noms breakfast, apparently having forgotten that she was supposed to put somebody.
greatcomposure
Cordelia lets her finish breakfast before asking again.
"Could you put Byerly on the brainphone, please?"
"Could you put Byerly on the brainphone, please?"
tearingup
[...Hi?] says Byerly, and then a few seconds later and sounding much less confused he adds, [Thanks.]
thisvorlunatic
With his mother to take care of the interdimensional eight-year-old, Miles resumes his usual routine.
His next mission is to Jackson's Whole, just over a week later, the day after his father and Gregor are added to the brainphone. He asks Illyan to agree to comm-silence-except-in-emergencies despite this amazing new technology, citing the difficulty of maintaining the Admiral Naismith cover with his ImpSec boss pestering him at all hours. Illyan acquiesces with only moderate sarcasm.
The mission is... one of the more harrowing he's had. He makes some enemies. On the other hand, his new recruit is amazing.
On the way back, the very day he parts ways from the fleet, he walks into his tiny cabin on the commercial passenger transport and, when he looks up from rubbing his eyes, discovers that he is not in a tiny cabin on a commercial passenger transport. Not at all.
'We found the bar' is on the list of pre-approved emergencies under which they are allowed to contact him by brainphone, so he knows they haven't. He also knows they were going to ask Pen for better contact information regarding her parents and their alts, when he left; they hadn't yet expanded the search offplanet, so it was not yet urgent to do so. Of course. And now he's found the bar, and - he checks his chrono and does a quick mental calculation - it's the middle of the night on Barrayar. Of course. While he could wake up his father, his mother, his boss, or his emperor - or that poor Byerly fellow he barely knows - and ask them for an update, that would be rather impolite, and also involve holding open a door to Milliways from a public corridor on a commercial passenger transport while he tries them all to see who hasn't put up a [sleeping] busy message.
He stands to one side of the closed door and mutters curses to himself in several languages and dialects.
His next mission is to Jackson's Whole, just over a week later, the day after his father and Gregor are added to the brainphone. He asks Illyan to agree to comm-silence-except-in-emergencies despite this amazing new technology, citing the difficulty of maintaining the Admiral Naismith cover with his ImpSec boss pestering him at all hours. Illyan acquiesces with only moderate sarcasm.
The mission is... one of the more harrowing he's had. He makes some enemies. On the other hand, his new recruit is amazing.
On the way back, the very day he parts ways from the fleet, he walks into his tiny cabin on the commercial passenger transport and, when he looks up from rubbing his eyes, discovers that he is not in a tiny cabin on a commercial passenger transport. Not at all.
'We found the bar' is on the list of pre-approved emergencies under which they are allowed to contact him by brainphone, so he knows they haven't. He also knows they were going to ask Pen for better contact information regarding her parents and their alts, when he left; they hadn't yet expanded the search offplanet, so it was not yet urgent to do so. Of course. And now he's found the bar, and - he checks his chrono and does a quick mental calculation - it's the middle of the night on Barrayar. Of course. While he could wake up his father, his mother, his boss, or his emperor - or that poor Byerly fellow he barely knows - and ask them for an update, that would be rather impolite, and also involve holding open a door to Milliways from a public corridor on a commercial passenger transport while he tries them all to see who hasn't put up a [sleeping] busy message.
He stands to one side of the closed door and mutters curses to himself in several languages and dialects.
she_sells_seashells
The door opens.
Someone with a passing resemblance to Pen and a crown walks in, then immediately turns around and tries the door again to reveal a really cluttered little room, then swears and closes it again.
Someone with a passing resemblance to Pen and a crown walks in, then immediately turns around and tries the door again to reveal a really cluttered little room, then swears and closes it again.
thisvorlunatic
"I, ah - are you looking for something?" he asks.
It would be a ridiculous coincidence - or maybe it wouldn't; after all, if he remembers right they do have someone who can do just that to doors, and it would be the first thing they'd try the moment they noticed her missing, and if he interpreted the weird time bullshit correctly then the moment they noticed her missing would tend to fall right around the next time someone from his universe encountered the bar.
thisvorlunatic
"Yeah. She's currently staying with my mother on my home planet, safe and sound." ('Something happened to Pen' was also on the list of acceptable emergencies.)
she_sells_seashells
"Well, that's convenient. If you wouldn't mind holding the door for me I'll fetch her home to her family?"