symphony

[isthisart]

The day of the party approaches. Linya learns a Barrayaran-original solo piano symphony, adds some flourishes of her own where the composer has marked that it may be played "freely", memorizes the whole thing, and arranges to be playing it on the grand piano when party guests file in on the day of. She smiles and nods at them and takes note of how they arrange themselves in the room; there are thirteen minutes in the piece unless she decides she needs an extra three (if there seem to be a lot of stragglers; if there isn't a good path to the people she wants to meet and around the people she wants to avoid) and takes the repeat at the end to prolong it.

She doesn't wind up taking the repeat; the end of the symphony without it has her playing the final chord when Lord Auditor Vorthys is nearer than anyone she's hoping to evade. She counts out the beats, holds for a moment longer, and then lifts her hands from the keyboard. She has decided that given her choice of titles she's going to address this particular guest as -

"Professor Vorthys."

Comments

[first_loyalty]

"About sixty years, I think."

[isthisart]

"I'm impressed that non-Earth-derived life forms even bonsai. Does it need a lot of maintenance?"

[first_loyalty]

"Some. But it's not hard once you know how."

[isthisart]

"Do skellytums flower?" wonders Linya.

[first_loyalty]

"Technically no. Barrayaran native plants don't produce anything we'd recognize as a flower. But it does do something similar."

[isthisart]

"Visibly?"

[first_loyalty]

"Yes."

[isthisart]

"Prettily, or just in such a way as to inconvenience people with allergies?" Linya glances at her husband.

[first_loyalty]

Madame Vorsoisson follows the glance.

[thisvorlunatic]

"I am violently allergic to an amazing variety of Barrayaran plants," he confirms.

[first_loyalty]

"Oh. Well, I don't know how pretty it is, but it's... visually striking. Very red."

[isthisart]

"Maybe I should look up pictures of skellytums. Or you could borrow your husband's pen and send me one of the bonsai, next time it does its nonflowering."

[first_loyalty]

"I'll try to remember to do that. How would I know where to send it...?"

[isthisart]

"Pens have numbers. Mine is 'one', and it'll happily take messages from any pens in the first batch since I want the user feedback but that will work just as well for pictures of plants."

[first_loyalty]

"Well, that seems simple enough."

[isthisart]

"When the pen starts up for the first time it'll offer the tutorial for all the basics that you won't have seen on a comconsole before, including the messaging between pens function, and you can get the tutorial back again if you're borrowing by going into the point-and-poke menu or by flailing the pen around confusedly in any non-drawing mode."

[first_loyalty]

...She giggles.

[isthisart]

"It seemed reasonable to have confused flailing produce the tutorial."

"What if you get stuck in drawing mode?" Vorsoisson asks.

"Put it back in the charger and it'll save your work and back up to the initial menu."

[first_loyalty]

"Very, what's the word, user-friendly," says Madame Vorsoisson.

[isthisart]

"Why does it save the - the confused flailing?" asks Vorsoisson.

"In case you meant to scribble violently all over the projection range for some reason. It will make some guesses about what you want, but conservative ones."

[first_loyalty]

"Friendly of it."

[isthisart]

"It's meant to be! I want people to like them."

[first_loyalty]

"That seems like it's going to work well."

[isthisart]

Vorsoisson pats his wife on the arm and says, "I'm off to find something to drink."

Miles and Professor Vorthys have already quietly disappeared, so this leaves Linya and Madame Vorsoisson alone - well, surrounded by people and a piano, but not in anyone else's immediate conversational sphere.

"I'm already looking for what's next after pens don't require much of my attention to continue being produced and distributed," Linya says. "After I've figured out the fountain pen version and hired a few people for maintenance sorts of programming."

[first_loyalty]

Madame Vorsoisson smiles after her husband, then returns her attention to Lady Vorkosigan.

"What are you thinking of doing next?"