silver

Yess - I like Bujold's understated descriptions of a lot of emotional stuff. There are some authors who would wallow for an entire book about the claustrophobia or something, but she doesn't. Reading between the lines though, no wonder Miles has to coax Ivan back into the pumping chamber.

I don't fault Miles for asking, but I do think this relationship falls into the "fundamentally incompatible" bucket because of what they want out of life. Miles sometimes is kind of a rich man's son. (And actually within that romance context he would be super eligible. His father's rank alone, lol.)
On the other hand I'm literally Elli's opposite because while space is very cool, living in it sounds horrible. horrible!!