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]

"Yes. It seems like... any amount of thought could have improved the situation. The definition of thoughtlessness, I suppose."

[isthisart]

"Exactly."

[first_loyalty]

"How would you improve that situation, if you could?"

[isthisart]

"If you put me in charge of haut social structures and we assumed everyone would go along with my plan? Well, then I'd want to think about it considerably more and talk to some people, but off the top of my head - I'd have an option for haut of either sex to demote themselves at will to ghem. No marriage required, you'd have to work out what clan to count them as belonging to or whether to count them as having clans at all but something could be worked out. Ghem are often motivated by things that keep them in more or less approved order - they want status and positions and advantageous marriages and so on - but they have none of the restrictions on their movement that were so annoying to me. They can emigrate or take up some economically productive activity if they want, they can associate with haut who want them around and with proles if they care to.

"If I'd been allowed to do that, I would probably have waited until I was a little older - no sense turning down the education and resources before I needed to trade them in for freedom of movement if the possibility would still be waiting for me when I was twenty-three or what have you. And then I'd have sold pens or opened a commercial genomics consultation clinic on Illyrica or performed music for audiences larger than whichever fifty haut were invited to this or that party. Or all of the above and then some. Without having to marry someone who - I've been very lucky, I love my husband, but I didn't exactly know Miles well when I seized on the idea of running off with him."

[first_loyalty]

"Hmm," says Ekaterin. "Not a solution I ever would have imagined, and I can't help thinking there would be trouble if someone tried it... but maybe it would be better for everyone if they had designed it that way from the start. Since the Cetagandans seem to design everything anyway."

[isthisart]

"Yes. Unfortunately, 'let's design the haut to like being haut in exactly the way we have arranged for being haut to be' is a strategy with a non-negligible failure rate."

[first_loyalty]

"I don't think people are quite that designable."

[isthisart]

"Not quite. Although there have been amazing strides made, complex psychological targets keep having side effects and confounding factors. I am technically a psychological design experiment."

[first_loyalty]

"...Um? What were you - if it's not a rude question - what were you... for?"

[isthisart]

"It's not rude," laughs Linya. "I'm an attempt to eliminate akrasia. It basically worked, even. When I've decided how it would be best to spend my time that's what I do. I just didn't decide it would be best to spend my time pursuing traditional haut life."

[first_loyalty]

"Oh. Congratulations...? I suppose those would be more appropriately directed to your - designer. Although I can still congratulate you for deciding to go and do useful things with your... ability to... do things."

[isthisart]

"I'm very pleased with my designer's work, but it's also socially acceptable to compliment successful experiments directly regardless. And thank you."

[first_loyalty]

"Well, good, then. And you're welcome."

[isthisart]

"I do sort of wonder if she's going to make any more children. Lisbet seemed impressed enough by me that she might ask for some, especially since I personally am no longer available for most practical purposes."

[first_loyalty]

"I suppose you aren't, yes... what was your designer's name, do you know?"

[isthisart]

"Sathanne Niari. I did meet her. We had one long conversation and then that seemed to suffice. I don't know if she's heard about my departure yet, although certainly someone will tell her eventually."

[first_loyalty]

"I wonder what she'll think of it... if the Empress is likely to ask her for more of you, I suppose she won't feel too bad."

[isthisart]

"Oh, yes. Getting to make haut children instead of just ba experiments or none at all is a coup; getting to do it more than once a bigger coup; an express commission from the Empress the biggest of all."

[first_loyalty]

"What an... odd arrangement."

[isthisart]

"Is it? How so?"

[first_loyalty]

"Well - competing for who gets to design the next generation."

[isthisart]

"Everyone does that, just - clumsily. Someone who gets themselves killed before they have any children, or simply can't convince anyone to cooperate with the project, will not be participating in the next generation. The haut way has its disadvantages, but it's much quicker at getting results once one has results in mind, and less bloody."

[first_loyalty]

"...I'm not sure that's what I meant. Of course ideally no one would get themselves killed. That's a separate issue from whether or not one should have to win a design competition in order to - well - surely if everyone had a free choice, there would be some people who'd choose to reproduce the old-fashioned way. And their design skills wouldn't matter to the, um, project at all."

[isthisart]

"That's - all true, yes. I mean, a lot of haut have children made from their genes without having personally designed them - my constellation selector wasn't a geneticist at all and here I am, about thirty-four percent him, because my designer was impressed with how he conformed to her project vision. It's not entirely about design skill even when it's all done by design."

[first_loyalty]

"But design skill determines who creates, even if it doesn't determine who... serves as material."