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Linya is working on a massive flowchart-like diagram of a planned software project for Dr. Cheung. It's laid out in every color and in three dimensions with sprawl of its little writing that takes up most of her office and keeps fading out at the edges and in her shadow when she moves around, but reappears when she turns or approaches.
as-i-remember
Results are back two days later. Apparently there is a sharp divide between the camp that is willing to trade any amount of storage to keep their pens light and the camp that is willing to trade any amount of weight to keep their storage the same, but the second camp is about twice as big as the first. Almost nobody is willing to give up any sturdiness. Illyan declines to mention where he personally falls on the weight versus storage question.
isthisart
So she whips up designs and sends them to the fabricators and has prototypes (in silver, both of them) sent to ImpSec for lucky beta testers.
thisvorlunatic
And then her husband comes home.
He pens ahead from the spaceport, with characteristic brevity: I'm home! I missed you! Job wasn't even that exciting, but we got it done.
He pens ahead from the spaceport, with characteristic brevity: I'm home! I missed you! Job wasn't even that exciting, but we got it done.
isthisart
And his wife is there to scoop him up and make sure that he did not omit any critical details about his job's excitingness or the condition it has left him in.
(And perform the obligatory discreet medscan. Beep!)
(And perform the obligatory discreet medscan. Beep!)
isthisart
"I am glad of both things." Kiss. "While you were gone I whipped up prototype versions, two of 'em, for pens up to Simon's standards."
isthisart
"Market disagreement about acceptable tradeoffs between weight and storage space. I had to add extra hardware for the heavy-duty security - the DNA scan feature on my pen is tiny but I did effectively steal it from float-chairs, didn't have to invent it from scratch, and it piggybacks on my being haut."
thisvorlunatic
"And people might get weird about it if their pens gene-scanned them. Barrayar," Miles says wryly. He hugs her some more. "Can I braid your hair? I missed braiding your hair."
isthisart
So did she!
"It was a very welcome change to know loosely what was going on, but I'm still glad you're home."
"It was a very welcome change to know loosely what was going on, but I'm still glad you're home."
isthisart
It's some weeks later when pan-galactic (for a value of pan-galactic that invites representatives from only about half of the nexus's inhabited planets, Barrayar excluded) trade talks that could substantially alter the landscape of inter-system commerce are announced. They're to be held in orbit around Tau Ceti, and while the only invited guests are governmental representatives, there is reason to have lobbyists in the vicinity - they can't be systematically excluded from the station, let alone comm range thereof, unless they're more like assassins than like people with nonviolent political agendas.
Linya doesn't have a lobbyist, but she has an export agent, with family just a short hop away from the neighborhood; she suggests that her agent take a vacation at home so as to be in the area when delegates arrive and talks start (months later; some people have long trips to make) and keep Linya up to date on how this will affect pens and certain other items Linya might have an interest in moving around the nexus.
thisvorlunatic
A couple of days after she does that, Miles wanders into her office one afternoon and asks, "What do you know about Lairouba?"
thisvorlunatic
"Because I'm headed out there for a job, and Illyan's mission briefings occasionally leave something to be desired. The Lairouban delegation to those trade talks on Tau Ceti wants bodyguards to defend them from Toraniran assassins; apparently there's some history there. Several hundred years of it. I hope nobody's secretly related to anybody this time around."
isthisart
"I did know that Lairouba and Toranira were unfriendly - I suppose my standard of 'not much' might not be a useful one and I should say what the not much is. They speak, I believe, their own language that was originally a pidgin of Urdu and Indonesian with smatterings of other influences, as well as unpidgined dialects of both of those plus Arabic and Farsi and Amharic. Predominantly Islamic colonists but there has been some perturbation since; I believe they're still nominally mostly Muslims but with some unique subsects. Cold climate but not as cold as Jackson's Whole."
thisvorlunatic
"Yeah. And the Lairoubans and Toranirans have nearly identical source populations but they politely hate each other for obscure reasons, and one of their favourite tricks is assassinating each other's diplomats and then loudly protesting innocence. Which is what I am about to go prevent, assuming the Lairoubans accept the Dendarii bid, which they had better. Goodbye kiss? I have time for plenty of goodbye kisses, my ship to Escobar won't be ready for another three hours."