[ open post: miles ]

[forwardmomentum]

	That's because I've got forward momentum. There's no virtue in it. It's just a balancing act. I don't dare stop.
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[forwardmomentum]

"Not at all — " Miles starts to say in response before the Castle functionary very pointedly ensures that everyone is seated. Oh, god, and she's sitting next to him. At least he'd just barely managed not to drop his reader — he is holding onto it with rather a death grip, hoping his return smile doesn't look too much like a rictus grin.

Miles's desperate desire to look like anything but an awkwardly fumbling teen in front of his father only intensifies as another person gets added to that most distinguished of categories. At least his father's attention is too locked in on the proceedings to pay his teenage awkwardness much mind. An example he ought to be following. Focus. He needs to focus.

And with focus, occasionally comes clarity. This particular topic might be new to Miles, but he's seen his father in the midst of countless troublesome little battles with the Council like this over the years, and underneath his politely masked impatience is...patience, like Count Vorkosigan is the one waging a quiet war of attrition and not the stuffy old conservatives. Miles's attention sharpens and locks on, his hideous embarrassment forgotten almost entirely in his intent concentration.

Count Vorkalloner does the Professora the most basic courtesy of letting her finish her opening statement before saying, "While the...depth of your research is quite impressive, unless you are here to present to us a wholly amended curriculum, this is a waste of everyone's valuable time — including yours."

His tone turns almost gentle, no less firm but couching his words as though talking to a child. Or, Miles thinks, if you're a particular kind of old Vor, a woman. His gaze moves to the Professora to see how she reacts while Vorkalloner keeps on, opening one hand in a conciliatory gesture.

"I'm sure you see us as uncompromising old curmudgeons unwilling to budge on such a simple issue, but at the end of the day, we represent a consensus. Do you think those of us on the Council of Counts are the only objection to this distinctly galactic agenda? What about the families of those young men whose minds and careers have been entrusted to the Imperial Service Academy?" Vorkalloner waves that hand, then closes it and brings it to his chest. "Dr. Vorthys, it is not your competency or your intelligence that we doubt, but the suitability of your pedagogical theory to this particular student body. Were this vote up to the Academy instructors and not the Council of Counts, you would certainly receive the same response. It is precisely because we value your academic reputation that we are having these discussions within the confines of the Council."

Just a slightly more diplomatic way of saying that the conservatives think they're sparing the Professora considerable public embarrassment by shutting her down in private. Her composure must indeed be legendary, to bear all of that without giving in to the impulse to pop old Vorkalloner in the eye. But Count Vorkosigan, most curiously, only smiles.