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]

"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."

[first_loyalty]

"Oh." She smiles.

[isthisart]

"The optics are fantastically complicated, though. I'm talking to a consultant with holo engineering experience and we think it's doable, but it's still months off."

"Can't it just draw out of the other end?"

"I think that might defeat the purpose of having it shaped like a fountain pen, and anyway it does need to be able to project from both sides regardless."

[first_loyalty]

(Madame Vorsoisson smiles and nods slightly at 'might defeat the purpose'.)

[isthisart]

"The fountain version will probably come in other colors, too. Maybe a wood-like finish, or a few choices of same."

[first_loyalty]

"Very appropriate."

[isthisart]

"So," says Vorsoisson, "it does whatever a comconsole does?"

"More or less. It comes with a program that can translate most standard comconsole software into pen inputs, and it comes with a basic package already installed. But it won't produce sound except through earbugs - not included because so many people already have a compatible set - and of course comconsoles can't do the freehand drawing and don't network with each other as cooperatively."

[first_loyalty]

"'Of course' they don't network with each other as cooperatively? How cooperatively do your pens do it?"

[isthisart]

"The pens are all the same, and dozens of people make comconsoles - if I have competitors later then this will presumably be less true, but for the time being the pens can securely talk to each other as much as their operators want without the setup rigmarole of consoles. If Cordelia has her pen on her person - or if it's upstairs, even - then I can send her a 3D drawing or whatever else I like without having to do anything more complicated than identify who I want it to go to. Getting the pen to talk to the household network so I could do things like talk to my manufacturer about Vorsoisson's pen was more complicated."

[first_loyalty]

"I see..."

[isthisart]

"One eventual possibility is that people who live in rural areas and are unconvinced of the point of other technology will find a handful of pens per village useful partly for that reason - they may not want to talk to Vorbarr Sultana, let alone Beta Colony, but they might want to take pictures of their children to show their neighbors."

[first_loyalty]

"That would be ... nice," she says.

[isthisart]

"I think so. It depends on being able to drop the price point, but I'm optimistic."