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]

"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?"

[isthisart]

"It will depend on how much spending money the pens net me how fast. Probably a lot of - groundwork-laying. There are a lot of very long term projects I'd like to have running. A lot of things I'd like to learn about. I might take classes at the university - localize my genetics knowledge, pick up some neuroscience and whatever else looks good - and then go shopping for scientists to throw money at once I know how to distinguish the potentially useful ones from the others."

[first_loyalty]

"Genetics knowledge...?"

[isthisart]

"Learning a lot about genetics - human genetics - is standard for haut women. But I'm only eighteen, so I didn't have a complete education on the subject, and I'm sure it was riddled with lots of - local jargon, not to mention local underlying customs. I might as well test into some advanced class here and see what it's like."

[first_loyalty]

"And then do... what with it?"

[isthisart]

"Be able to converse intelligently on the subject? I don't really know what other affordances I might have to use it. I'm still getting used to - Barrayar. But one class wouldn't be that much of a time investment."

[first_loyalty]

"Well, but then what did you mean by long-term projects?"

[isthisart]

"Uploading. Sophisticated cryorevival. Wormhole generators. If it's ambitious and useful assume I'd like to be involved."

[first_loyalty]

"Wormhole generators? Is that even theoretically possible...?"

[isthisart]

"They happen - and for that matter cease to be - somehow. Artificially generating the conditions would obviously be complicated or we'd have managed it centuries ago, but there is probably no conceptual reason why the galaxy has to produce the things all by itself."

[first_loyalty]

"Well, I don't know anything about that."

[isthisart]

"Neither do I, yet. It would just be so nice if I managed it that I think it might be worth working on at some point."

[first_loyalty]

"True..."

[isthisart]

"Have you got long-term ambitions? Or does it become impossible to think about such things while mothering? - I wouldn't know, I don't even have a mother."

[first_loyalty]

...Madame Vorsoisson blinks in startlement. "Um?"