Gregor begins quite rapidly to look forward to reading the intelligence dispatches. The ImpSec team valiantly attempting to describe Jedao's shenanigans in formal language often ends up hilarious, and once or twice he even laughs out loud. Simon has to fight off a grin or two.
He also takes personal reports from Alys, over video. She is more able to quantify threats and real dangers, while breezily describing Jedao's sillier moments with a perfectly apt tone of slight disdain.
Jedao is afraid of her, Gregor thinks, reading in between the lines. He asks Alys about this, when she makes a pertinent remark, with a slight rise of his eyebrows, and she nods, once, and continues on with her narrative.
Cordelia also speaks with Gregor -- more than once a day, at first, especially after the incident with the broken wrist, which causes Gregor great and immediate concern. Then every day, then every few days.
It takes up a lot of Gregor's time, but the gain from it could be immeasurable. That sort of technology... but still, none of it seems to work at all, not the way it's supposed to, even when the people poking through it are exquisitely careful. Turns out it pays to be polite to the servitors, too, which were mostly just hiding at first. Gregor does take one trip up to the ship to have a polite conversation with one, who seems starry-eyed (if a small mechanical snake could be starry-eyed) at the Emperor's presence. He gathers that it (she?) has been watching a lot of broadcast videos from Barrayar, including some rather romantic ideas about the Emperor's marriageable status.
He originally planned on arriving in two weeks at Vorkosigan Surleau, but the progress Jedao makes encourages him, and so he holds off for some time. It helps that he has to calm down some of the ambassadors to Barrayar -- they mostly just want to be sure that the people who arrived in the spacecraft weren't citizens of their planets.
He does charge Lady Alys with having Jedao provided with an appropriate wardrobe, things that fit, and he makes a couple remarks about pseudo-military cuts and structured jackets, without being particularly fancy. His instinct, upon seeing the ornate interior of that vessel, is to provide comfort emphatically without that sort of ostentation.
But, between three weeks and a month in, he shows up, fairly quietly (for an Emperor), and steps inside the house while his security team does a sweep over the immediate area. Colleagues assigned to Jedao confer with Gregor's ImpSec team and his personal Armsmen.
Gregor considers waiting for Jedao in Jedao's own room, but decides not to violate that boundary. He takes tea in a sitting room on the same floor, and catches up with Cordelia. Jedao, it seems, is on one of the hiking trails.
no subject
He also takes personal reports from Alys, over video. She is more able to quantify threats and real dangers, while breezily describing Jedao's sillier moments with a perfectly apt tone of slight disdain.
Jedao is afraid of her, Gregor thinks, reading in between the lines. He asks Alys about this, when she makes a pertinent remark, with a slight rise of his eyebrows, and she nods, once, and continues on with her narrative.
Cordelia also speaks with Gregor -- more than once a day, at first, especially after the incident with the broken wrist, which causes Gregor great and immediate concern. Then every day, then every few days.
It takes up a lot of Gregor's time, but the gain from it could be immeasurable. That sort of technology... but still, none of it seems to work at all, not the way it's supposed to, even when the people poking through it are exquisitely careful. Turns out it pays to be polite to the servitors, too, which were mostly just hiding at first. Gregor does take one trip up to the ship to have a polite conversation with one, who seems starry-eyed (if a small mechanical snake could be starry-eyed) at the Emperor's presence. He gathers that it (she?) has been watching a lot of broadcast videos from Barrayar, including some rather romantic ideas about the Emperor's marriageable status.
He originally planned on arriving in two weeks at Vorkosigan Surleau, but the progress Jedao makes encourages him, and so he holds off for some time. It helps that he has to calm down some of the ambassadors to Barrayar -- they mostly just want to be sure that the people who arrived in the spacecraft weren't citizens of their planets.
He does charge Lady Alys with having Jedao provided with an appropriate wardrobe, things that fit, and he makes a couple remarks about pseudo-military cuts and structured jackets, without being particularly fancy. His instinct, upon seeing the ornate interior of that vessel, is to provide comfort emphatically without that sort of ostentation.
But, between three weeks and a month in, he shows up, fairly quietly (for an Emperor), and steps inside the house while his security team does a sweep over the immediate area. Colleagues assigned to Jedao confer with Gregor's ImpSec team and his personal Armsmen.
Gregor considers waiting for Jedao in Jedao's own room, but decides not to violate that boundary. He takes tea in a sitting room on the same floor, and catches up with Cordelia. Jedao, it seems, is on one of the hiking trails.