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Cam is out flying. There's a decent cloud of atmosphere around the gold plane, now, millenia of demons making air around themselves for comfort and not sealing it up because why would you bother. There's a small forest, here - the effect is kind of ruined by the lamps it has to grow under, but it's still pretty.
He feels an open summons and lets it grab him -
Cam on Barrayar
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from_scratch
from_scratch
"Anyway, even racist angels can be useful, pay them in books and complicated electronics and kittens if they don't want to hear from me about their shopping lists, install them in hospitals if they know what they're doing - angels need a lot more expertise to do complex work than demons do, but plenty of the ones who like taking summons know enough to work medical miracles."
from_scratch
"On the other hand, angels are - on the level of the individual person - just as dangerous as demons. They can't destroy a whole planet, they'd need to actually have learned things about explosives to do any large-scale damage, but they can turn somebody into, say, water, as easily as they can shake your hand. Accordingly I will want to go over in painstaking detail how you do a binding - you can always loose the angel later if you want to trust them, but one you don't know will need to be neatly confined to circle during negotiations and attached to a well-specified task after. You can summon me under a binding, too, if you want, but I wouldn't really be thrilled about it and I think I've more than demonstrated that you don't need to. I also don't see any good reason to teach you how to gag any daeva."
from_scratch
"Fairies are less useful than angels and demons for most purposes, but if you have uses for them they're pretty cheap to hire. Fairies can also kill people pretty trivially, if not as dramatically as an angel can, so the bindings thing applies to them too." Cam materializes a book disk in the local format. "This is the best textbook I've run into on summoning, minus the chapter on gagging, but 'best' doesn't mean 'really good' - and while it's in English, it was written in 2122 and you may have dialect issues with it. Definitely work in your own native dialect rather than using book examples. If you ever want me to check over a circle for you I will be happy to; if you need to check one and I'm not handy, the most basic thing to remember is to consider what you'd do if you were the daeva and you were really pissed off and really creative and also a consummate actor. There's no obligation on a daeva's part to point out your loopholes before being released to a task..."
Cam goes on in this vein for a while. It is very informative. Occasionally he includes anecdotes from his own summoning days and from his previous tasks. He wraps up around when the food is dwindling.
Cam goes on in this vein for a while. It is very informative. Occasionally he includes anecdotes from his own summoning days and from his previous tasks. He wraps up around when the food is dwindling.
middlingalong
Ivan's kind of bored. He attempts to wander off during a break in the lecture, after he has had dessert.
greatcomposure
The boys stay to listen, but Cordelia excuses herself and follows Ivan.
middlingalong
"Oh, Miles has actually got lots better about melting at him, it used to be constant."
greatcomposure
"And yet, as far as I can tell, Cam hasn't noticed a thing."
She pauses, then adds, "Neither has Gregor."
She pauses, then adds, "Neither has Gregor."
middlingalong
"Yeah, I can't tell if he's oblivious or polite or what. Gregor hasn't noticed Miles melting?"
Please mean that, Aunt Cordelia.
Please mean that, Aunt Cordelia.
greatcomposure
"I would really like this situation to end with a minimum of heartbreak," she says. "But it's... tricky. I suppose it will all come to nothing if Cam vanishes never to be seen again."
middlingalong
"I mean, I suppose it would involve Miles disconsolately building Lego objects for a while, but I don't see a happy result elsewise either."
greatcomposure
"The way I see it," says Cordelia, "I have two options. I can sit back and let them all work it out themselves, in which case they probably won't, because Miles seems to be having an uncharacteristic attack of shyness and I don't think Gregor is going to realize how he feels anytime soon... or I can meddle. I am a meddler at heart." She shakes her head. "I'm not going to decide anything until Miles tries the resummoning experiment, though."
