"Oh, I'm being friendly today, no charge. Hmm... I'm thinking something by Johnny Cash. Should I try to be quiet about it, or don't bother?"

"Oh, just be loud enough for me to hear you and quiet enough no one goes deaf."

"Well, it's got a guitar to it but I don't know the notation," he hums one loop of the central repeating guitar. "Missing some of the shakeups the original song does if you just repeat that, and it's meant for a guitar, but it'll do."

And then he sings "I Walk The Line" at a fairly low volume. It's a little bit of a love song, but not the kind that really hammers it in. He's not a great singer, but he gets the timing and tone right and tries to put some of that - subdued emotion - into it.

"That's very interesting. It's like the music is there to... decorate the talking. What does it mean?"

It loses the meter in Hari, but he says,

"I keep a close watch on this heart of mine

I keep my eyes wide open all the time

I keep the ends out for the tie that binds

Because you're mine, I walk the line."

"Johnny Cash has a very - low and even style of singing, yeah. That's just one singer, one genre, from when I was growing up. Rock music is something else entirely, for example. And classical. And pop. And electronic. Blues, jazz, country, disco, folk. There were a lot of people back home who came up with a lot of kinds of music. Though if you want talking-with-music I should try to remember a rap. Except I hate rap music, so, no."

"How many of those genres do you know at least one song in?"

"My tablet actually has a bunch of songs recorded on it. Just didn't bring it. Off the top of my head, rock, classical - at least the piano bits - pop, and something that's sort of a cross between electronic and pop. Classical takes a whole orchestra, dozens and dozens of players to execute correctly, and doesn't usually involve singing at all. And male voices aren't really ideal for pop but I could try. And rock loses something without enough instruments, but again, I can try."

"It'd be nice to hear your tablet, then. You didn't bring it to this continent or just not to game night?"

"Not to game night, I have it on the continent. You can't buy it - I could be convinced to play some songs off it for you for a few rings though."

Iramel smiles. "One ring for how many songs?"

"I don't want to let it out of my sight, so how about one per two songs but only as long as I'm talking computers with Lanisal and Seli?"

"What about one for four? It's not like you'd have any other use for it while you're having a conversation, would you?"

"Music while I'm trying to talk to someone is kind of annoying, and I have to pay attention to you using it so you don't look through my notes or something instead, and I'd have to interrupt you to show them anything off it if I wanted to. Two to one."

"Fine, have it your way, two to one and I'll pretend to be a morning person."

"Deal. The computers have a music-playing program too, by the way. The tablet is actually just an otherworldly computer, much faster and more advanced than ones I can make right now. If Lanisal only buys one it might get a bit monopolized, with such a big family, though."

"If it's any good I might just buy my own. - Is it? I don't know what they do besides show illusions and count."

He espouses the features of a computer! Word processors, spreadsheets, paint programs, games, clock and calculator, iffy quality music player, ability to use a bunch of peripherals he also sells, encryption and decryption, and all these other utility programs he's written, you just need to buy the chips for them. Soon(tm) computers will be able to send files and electronic mail to each other near-instantly. Also, ability to make new programs with some skill and effort.

"Yeah, she'll want one. And Seli and... yeah, a few of us will. What's wrong with the music player? Maybe I can fix it."

"The way the computer stores information is not ideally suited to music. Current models are just a bit too slow to read out saved music that sounds like it did when it was played."

"Does it help if the songs are slow? Or if you write them like they're faster than they are?"

"It's more about - how many different sounds are possible than how many you can play at once? My music encoding is pretty complicated, anyway. Maybe I'll see if Seli and you can improve it."

"Aha, so that's what you want with him. He'll be good at that kind of thing, shame you can't just take him to Ira Sani and have him work for you there."

"He's not the only programmer I'm recruiting. But yeah, the distance will slow things down. I can probably visit, or vice versa. I have to work with Lanisal to set up the media network too, and I can sell stuff and meet with other big businesses on those trips as well."

"You know, when you figure out how to make computer mail work, I bet she'll have ideas for that too."

"I was planning on selling the mail service and letting people figure out the rest."