Captain Vorpatril's alliance

When the first wormhole jump came up, Ivan took a break to warn the ladies, which was when he discovered that both were susceptible to jump‑sickness, Rish far more than Tej. He then pulled off the world’s easiest heroics by popping to the infirmary and collecting jump medication‑the admiral’s ship carried the good stuff‑and hand‑delivering it, though Tej had to forcibly excavate the whimpering Rish from her bedding to administer her dose. “Five jumps in five days, why did I agree to this?” she moaned. But within twenty minutes she was sitting up blinking in agreeable surprise, reconciled once more with her inner ears, her stomach, her vision, and, apparently, her hearing‑unpleasant auditory hallucinations from jump sickness were a new one to Ivan. All he ever experienced was a brief twinge of nausea and having everything appear to turn green, requiring him to remember to use caution in interpreting indicator lights for about a minute.

He returned to work, intensely aware that mere meters away, a pocket paradise awaited.

At the end of the shift, Desplains cordially invited Ivan and his female entourage to join him for dinner, which was laid on privately, just the four of them, in the little observation lounge. While ship food was not elaborate‑Desplains was an indifferent gourmet‑Ivan detected the hand of his loyal crew in fresh produce picked up before they’d left Komarr, and Ivan himself had long ago made sure that the admiral’s all‑Barrayaran wines were something to be proud of. And the batman’s service was impeccable.

Observation lounge proved an apt description, as Ivan quickly became aware that Desplains was using the opportunity to study Ivan’s new bride and her companion. Well, evaluating personnel was one of the man’s jobs, after all. Tej did quite well, Ivan thought. It occurred to him that a Jacksonian Great House might be not‑dissimilar to a District count’s household, with its demands for the regular entertainment of assorted business associates and odder guests, and a lot of potentially hazardous politics going on under the table. She certainly had the how‑to‑make‑small‑talk and which‑fork‑to‑use down smoothly.

Desplains drew her out on her recent flight, avoiding the most distressing parts because this was, after all, dinner. A few of her stories were unconsciously hair‑raising, but mostly they were neutral‑to‑opaque. Morozov might have done some groundwork, there, unconsciously supplying her with clues of what to say to Barrayarans, and she hadn’t missed the turns. Rish, more wary, spoke less.

In any case, Desplains seemed to have enjoyed the diversion and the company, for the invitation was repeated on succeeding evenings, with various of the ship’s crew gradually added in as shifts permitted‑the captain, the off‑duty pilots, the chief engineer, and Desplains’s physician, because the admiral traveled with his own as per Service regs. But by whatever mercy, Desplains did not let the meals stretch too far into the night, for which Ivan was intensely grateful.

During the dayshift hours when Ivan was closeted with Desplains, Tej seemed to be reasonably content reading and watching vids, or primping, or playing games with Rish. The crew of JP‑9 were among the more sophisticated fellows the Service could supply, and any comments they had to make on Rish’s boggling physical appearance they at least kept out of her keen hearing. Rish made heavy use of the exercise room, first alarming and then impressing some of the crewmen who shared it. She somehow discovered three more addicts of Komarran holovid dramas, and ganged up with them during their off‑duty time to obtain fresh episodes snuck in during slack periods in the tightbeaming.

At one of Admiral Desplains’s suggestions, Tej also discovered the on‑board language tutoring programs, and dipped into the Barrayaran dialects of Russian, French and Greek, none of which she claimed to have been taught before. Or plunged into, Ivan thought, when he ducked his head in to check her progress. So far from a trudge, she seemed to find the task tolerably amusing.

“Oh, languages aren’t work,” she explained cheerily. “They’re a game. Now, economics, that’s boring.” She made a face at some pedagogical memory Ivan couldn’t guess at.

For almost the first time, Ivan saw a glimpse in her of her haut genetic heritage, not only in the scary speed of her acquisition, but the purity of her accent, as she wandered around the ship to find bemused bilingual crewmen to practice upon. Her Komarran accent had certainly fooled him, and presumably the Komarrans as well. No question, she had a keen ear, and he wondered if she possessed perfect pitch, too, like a certain part‑ghem Barrayaran he knew.

The off‑shifts arranged themselves, though Ivan was beginning to think that even 26.7 hours was too short for a day, or rather, for a night.