singing open the great gates

[middlingalong]

The following day, very little happens, except for Vorreedi mentioning that Yenaro has been arrested (by the civil police, for theft, on charges from a ghem-lord Miles has never heard of, as opposed to by Cetagandan security for treason).

Also, Ivan gets bored - with all the bodyguards Vorreedi now requires for them after the incident at the bioestheties exhibition, the possible spontaneity of going out with his ghem girlfriends is much reduced.

But the next day they get to attend the Singing Open of the Great Gates.

And oh, is there ever singing.

Comments

[middlingalong]

"There's - adorable and then there's -" Ivan shakes his head.

[thisvorlunatic]

"And then there's...?"

[middlingalong]

"There's girls who smile and they're completely elsewhere and there's ones who smile and mean it, and I can tell most of the time, with regular girls, and I have no idea about the standing-very-still-on-shrines kind."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Linya means it."

[middlingalong]

"And you know that she's not just a clever actress using you to abscond from her planet or worse because?"

[thisvorlunatic]

Miles sighs.

"Because she just - makes more sense this way. There's not much extra she's gaining by being adorable at me instead of, oh, asking for a ticket to Beta Colony on the next commercial jumpship. If she's running some kind of political long con, then I may as well hand in my silver eyes because I have been thoroughly fooled."

[middlingalong]

"Okay."

[thisvorlunatic]

Now Miles will go back to his room.

[isthisart]

Here is Linya, writing in white. "Hi."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Hi." Oh look, it's his wife.

[isthisart]

"Am I reading too much into things, or does your cousin act strange around me?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"He... acts moderately strange," Miles admits. "I think he's worried for me. Well, he sort of admitted he's worried for me. He's just worried for me in a very Ivan way."

[isthisart]

"...What does he think I'm going to do?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"I, er, think he's more worried about what you're not going to do. And also that you might be - that you might have some unexplained ulterior motive for being cute with me. Which I don't believe, for the record."

[isthisart]

"Good, if you believed that it would probably be awkward. 'Hi, Miles.' 'Hi, Linya, sent any interesting intelligence home to your celestial master today?'"

[thisvorlunatic]

...He giggles.

[isthisart]

"I wonder if it would be better all told if I looked for Barrayaran people to work with on the pen thing rather than going with the Escobaran fellow just because I have this extremely tenuous connection already. Would that look meaningfully less suspicious? Does Barrayar have reasonably sophisticated electrical engineering and allied industries?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"Um... I'm not sure what your standards are. We're up to galactic par, mostly, in some places. I think - if you found someone to work with on Barrayar, it would probably reflect well on you."

[isthisart]

"I'll sit on the message to Escobar, then, I may as well look into it. I built this one by myself in a workshop intended to let us make cunning electrical sculptures, I'm sure I can teach someone who knows the rudiments how to make more of them with cheaper materials."

[thisvorlunatic]

"I'm sure you can too."

[isthisart]

"What do you think of the form factor? I was making it a priority to have it come off as plausible jewelry on casual inspection, but I'm not sure if that's a positive or a neutral for the general case."

[thisvorlunatic]

"I think... if I have the option for mine, I'd like it to really look like an old-fashioned pen, if possible. I'm not sure of the size of the market for that aesthetic in the wormhole nexus at large."

[isthisart]

"For the projection to work right there does need to be something clear on each end. I suppose I could possibly make it look like a pen cap on the nib side," Linya muses, shuffling her screen around and switching back to full color to write this down.

[thisvorlunatic]

"Why not a, a glass nib?"

[isthisart]

"It has to - well, it's easiest to make it work if it's a hemisphere. I suppose I might be able to figure out enough optics to get it to behave in a nib shape." Note note.