He glanced at the label on the cognac bottle, then poured them each a generous shot.
He slid one of the glasses across toward Oleksei.
It had been a low-key day at the base, and they had spent it auditing in their offices. No confrontations, no demands, no interviews, no threats. No visitors, unexpected or otherwise.
It seemed that everyone else had done likewise.
Lasha didn't mind. Paperwork had suited his recovering mien just fine, and if he still didn't acknowledge Anya's existence when she brought in their tea, he was happy to see the tea itself on such a grey afternoon.
"We were very efficient today. Pleased me a good deal."
Halfway through the day, in the interest of fairness, Ilarion had traded Liadov's neatly rendered reports to Taras in exchange for Lieutenant Rakitin's unintelligible madhand. Oleksei had been dealing with Rakitin's reports the entire trip thus far, which was surely making his head hurt; not only were they messy, dense and scrawling, but self-referential in a way that was difficult to decipher were you not, say, sitting catbird in Rakitin's cerebellum. In addition to that, as forensic reports, they were heavily specialized. Taras had applied himself manfully to sorting the jumbled stack and then dutifully to reviewing them, but after almost a week Ilarion had taken pity on him.
Ilarion caught up the glass in his hand and motioned vaguely to Oleksei.
He crossed back to the pair of chairs that sat before the ceramic stove and sank into one of them, nursing his drink to his lips.
"At this rate, our business here will be concluded in no time. Then we can return to Leningrad."
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2009-08-06 07:00 pm (UTC)He glanced at the label on the cognac bottle, then poured them each a generous shot.
He slid one of the glasses across toward Oleksei.
It had been a low-key day at the base, and they had spent it auditing in their offices. No confrontations, no demands, no interviews, no threats. No visitors, unexpected or otherwise.
It seemed that everyone else had done likewise.
Lasha didn't mind. Paperwork had suited his recovering mien just fine, and if he still didn't acknowledge Anya's existence when she brought in their tea, he was happy to see the tea itself on such a grey afternoon.
"We were very efficient today. Pleased me a good deal."
Halfway through the day, in the interest of fairness, Ilarion had traded Liadov's neatly rendered reports to Taras in exchange for Lieutenant Rakitin's unintelligible madhand. Oleksei had been dealing with Rakitin's reports the entire trip thus far, which was surely making his head hurt; not only were they messy, dense and scrawling, but self-referential in a way that was difficult to decipher were you not, say, sitting catbird in Rakitin's cerebellum. In addition to that, as forensic reports, they were heavily specialized. Taras had applied himself manfully to sorting the jumbled stack and then dutifully to reviewing them, but after almost a week Ilarion had taken pity on him.
Ilarion caught up the glass in his hand and motioned vaguely to Oleksei.
He crossed back to the pair of chairs that sat before the ceramic stove and sank into one of them, nursing his drink to his lips.
"At this rate, our business here will be concluded in no time. Then we can return to Leningrad."