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

[pythbox]

"Perhaps the ground floor. Any higher, and I'd worry that the neighbourhood children might fall off the ladders. Children are not known for their unquestioning adherence to safety procedures," observes the professor.

[isthisart]

"Safety ropes," suggests Linya. "Whatever grav equipment is most easily resized for children."

[pythbox]

"Ah, but once you're using grav equipment you're back in the realm of expense."

[isthisart]

"Fair enough. I'm unaccustomed to the relevant habits of thought, although I've been taking economics lessons to fix that - the family business manager is helping me both with the academics and the practicalities, since I'm trying my hand at the electrical-and-software-engineering thing with more of an audience. Mass-producing these." She holds up her pen. It seems she always gets around to showing off her pen.

[pythbox]

"And what are these?" inquires Professor Vorthys.

[isthisart]

"I call them pens, although I'm going to need to come up with some sort of brand name to distinguish them from the sort that contains ink." She does her line-of-light-through-the-air demo. "They can handle most comconsole functions. But, obviously, are heavily miniaturized."

[pythbox]

"Fascinating," he says. "You designed this yourself? The calculations must have been incredible, to maintain a fixed projection from a freely moving source. How did you manage it?"

[isthisart]

"Lots of little hacks - and a lot of it inspired by others' work in other domains and a lot of it handled with machine learning rather than directly written code. It matters that there are projectors on both ends - Miles and his father both want versions that look like old fashioned fountain pens and that's been an interesting challenge - and that the pen can 'see' what it's doing from both ends too. But it also senses momentum and hand pressure and tilt directly, and people don't move nearly as fast as the pen can think. You could throw it off if you took it on a fast carnival ride of some kind, but it'll adapt to straight-line acceleration gentle enough that you wouldn't lose your grip on the thing in the first place."

[pythbox]

"If you succeed at the fountain pen version, I wouldn't mind one myself," he says. "Or even if you don't."

[isthisart]

"Well, there's a first batch of the ones that look more or less like this, in various colors and with the option of partially visible electronics, available already - Cordelia has one of those. The fountain pen version will probably not be ready to go for months yet, maybe longer, but I am fairly confident I can do it eventually."

[pythbox]

"I'll wait," he says. "The fountain pen version sounds charming."

[isthisart]

"That's three for three on Vor men who want their pens pointy. I wonder why."

[pythbox]

"Well, how many Barrayarans of other categories have you asked?" he inquires reasonably. "And how many of them have wanted pointy pens?"

[isthisart]

"Tsipis, the business manager I mentioned, accepted a plain one. With the silver casing. I suppose Cordelia might not count, depending on how much native-ness may be acquired over a couple decades' residence."

[pythbox]

"Well, let's increase our sample size," he says. "Just a moment."

He looks around, ambles off, and returns a moment later trailing a pair of unfamiliar faces.

"Lady Vorkosigan - Ekaterin Vorsoisson, my niece, and Tien Vorsoisson, her husband."

[first_loyalty]

Madame Vorsoisson offers a slightly nervous smile. "Pleased to meet you, Lady Vorkosigan."

[isthisart]

"Likewise. If you don't mind helping me with what you might term market research -" She draws another light-line. "If you acquired one of these to serve portable comconsole functions, would you want it to look about like this, perhaps in a different color, or more like an old-fashioned fountain pen?"

[first_loyalty]

"Oh - a fountain pen, I think," says Madame Vorsoisson, watching the trail of light. "Form echoing function."

[isthisart]

"Well, there goes my tidy pattern. And you?" she asks Vorsoisson.

"I don't see what the point of it having a nib would be. Does it write from the other end?" he asks.

"It could, but by default, no - gesture-recognition reasons," says Linya.

[first_loyalty]

"It seems useful," murmurs Madame Vorsoisson. "And lovely. But - how do you tell which of your ends is which?"

[isthisart]

"It's heavier on the writing end," says Linya. "The consumer version also has a little marking on the casing to indicate the drawing side."

"So you're selling these," says Tien.

"Yes. Well, the first batch is more or less being given away as part of the initial advertisement. You can have one, if you'll use it in front of people and tell them if they ask where to place orders. But we're out of one of the colors, so it'll have to be black or silver or white."

[first_loyalty]

"What colour are you out of?" wonders Madame Vorsoisson.

[isthisart]

"Blue. Like Cordelia's. I'm not sure if she has it on her today; she tends not to use the necklace and just secrets it away in pockets."

"I'll take a silver one if you're offering," says Tien.

"I'll let the manufacturer know and they'll send you one," Linya smiles, and she changes pen modes to send this message to the people in physical possession of the pen batch.

[first_loyalty]

"Are you planning to do a similar promotion for the fountain pen version?" asks Madame Vorsoisson diffidently.

[isthisart]

"Not on such a scale, but I wasn't planning to charge my husband or my father-in-law, and if they do well enough I need not charge my friends either."