"Well... it makes opportunities for advancement easier to come by," she says. "Not for me, really, but for Tien - if there's a position to be had and the person in charge of filling it happens to know you already, he's likelier to consider you. And... if you have High Vor friends they might invite you to more High Vor parties where you... can meet more High Vor until you find one who'll give you nice favours? It sounds so mercenary when I put it like that."

"It makes much more sense as a mercenary operation than it does as a time-consuming purposeless hobby, anyway."

"I suppose maybe some people just like having highly placed friends the way some people just like collecting empty wine bottles, for that matter."

"...Is that a real hobby?"

"Yes. One of my brothers' friends does it, I think. Why?"

"I've never heard of it before. They don't strike me as particularly collectible, but I don't have the impulse to collect at all, so maybe my understanding of what does and does not please collectors when lined up in quantity on shelves is off."

"I don't either," she says with a little shrug. "I guess some of them are pretty? And some of them have history, if they're special kinds of wine, or something..."

"Wine's another thing I know nothing about, but I'm told it does come in varying specialness."

"Oh. It does," she confirms. "Very... varying."

"Apparently I will be missing out on an entire dimension of social interplay if I retain Cetagandan habits with respect to ethanol, but nothing about the stuff sounds appealing to me so thus far I've been circumspect. I haven't gotten around to trying authentic animal meat either."

"Authentic...? As, um, opposed to?"

"Vat meat. Which is often patterned after some sort of animal, but never has an attached creature that walks and squawks."

"Oh. I'm not sure I've ever had any that wasn't, um... squawk-derived."

"Nor I the reverse. Miles has had both and prefers the sort that at one point in its history had the power to wake the neighbors, but..." She shrugs. "It would, I think, feel a little like being offered a salad made with a carrot which the day previous had been able to tapdance."

Well, the image of a tapdancing carrot is hilarious, if Linya does burst into giggles likewise herself.

"Tap-dancing carrots!" she gasps. "It's - sort of unsettling but - tap-dancing carrots!"

"They would be very charming! People would keep them as pets. And I would not really like to eat them even if I were assured they were as bright as rocks."

"I wouldn't like to eat them either, but I have no problem with, oh, geese," says Madame Vorsoisson, finally recovering from her gigglefit. "Perfectly ordinary non-tap-dancing geese. All in what you're used to, I suppose."

"But geese can do a number of things that a vat of goose-inspired meat cannot. Hence the analogy with the charming carrot."

"...I think I'd be worried about eating the charming carrot for - different reasons."

"Oh?"

"Um... it would seem like... such an obviously strange kind of carrot, with who knows what bizarre modifications I couldn't possibly understand... might not be as healthy for human consumption as the sort you would find in an ordinary vegetable garden?"

Tentative smile.