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Over the next week, Isabella gets the alethiometer to tell her that the planets they looked at don't contain microorganisms that know what to do with a human body (although the one with the giant bugs has some multicellular parasites that might be able to make do with the foreign macro-scale features of a human body if they got the chance). "The present", it includes in one of its answer phrasings, which is kind of worrying. But Adarin makes enough progress with his scry in little enough time that it's worth the double-check.
Isabella also hires ticket-takers, gives them little pots of ink to verify the authenticity of the passes she handed out, and opens the Los Angeles - New York route for the employees of her three companies of choice and anyone who shells out a cool fifteen thousand dollars per round trip (ten K for a one-way). This is steep, but it's within an order of magnitude of what people sometimes pay for short-notice first-class cross-country flights - with less novelty and more hassle. Albeit she doesn't supply inflight meals. She expects to have to raise the price when more people hear about it in response to volume and then be able to drop it again.
By the time the thing has been open for a few days she's fired and replaced one ticket-taker and the others have settled into a routine that she's willing to try out leaving unsupervised for awhile.
If Adarin's up for some up close and personal planet shopping and his results suggest it'll go well, anyway.
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dark_light
dark_light
"Very noble, very ancient, predates the abacus," giggles Isabella. She goes back to browsing the captioned images.
prodigal_miser
"There is a pun I could make here but I shall spare you," he says loftily. He browses, too, but focuses more on the dry literature.
prodigal_miser
Adarin looks at her and sighs. "Oh, fine. If you truly want to know."
He clears his throat, working up the proper punning energy. "Counting on your fingers is handy," he says in an absolute deadpan.
He clears his throat, working up the proper punning energy. "Counting on your fingers is handy," he says in an absolute deadpan.
dark_light
"Pffft. And to think not long ago you'd never even heard of English."
prodigal_miser
He giggles. "I try to be a quick study with things! Also, translation spell. If for some reason I removed it I think I'd be okay and mess up several words, but I able to get by."
dark_light
"Are you saying you deliberately designed your translation spell to allow puns? Why would you do such a thing?"
prodigal_miser
"Because sometimes I like to pretend I'm witty," he teases. "Rare occasions, mind you."
Actually the translation spell wasn't designed to help with puns, but sometimes if he pokes it for a translation of a word it'll give multiple translations. Thus, it helps with puns anyway.
Actually the translation spell wasn't designed to help with puns, but sometimes if he pokes it for a translation of a word it'll give multiple translations. Thus, it helps with puns anyway.
dark_light
And so they continue reading the dead aliens' computer files while Wisteria lurks in the corner.
"Do you think you can design a translation spell that will do programming languages?" she asks when she's temporarily set aside the intel in favor of starting to carefully read the robots' code.
"Do you think you can design a translation spell that will do programming languages?" she asks when she's temporarily set aside the intel in favor of starting to carefully read the robots' code.
prodigal_miser
"Hmmm... Maybe? I think I'd need to learn some kind of programming language first, but uh - possibly? There's absolutely no precedent for it, but I can always give it a shot."
dark_light
"Okay, I think I want to know more about what I'm looking at before I touch any of this. Besides, the robots seem pretty keen to do what I want just on the grounds of my being the senior equipment maintenance specialist."
prodigal_miser
"Yes, but we have to use the unpronounceable language of abused vocal chords to tell them things. If that's fixable it would make me happy."
dark_light
"That's true. Although I don't want to manually input an English dictionary in here, either."
prodigal_miser
"Fair point. That would be annoying and tedious, English has lots of words."
dark_light
"Yeah. Wisteria, do you guys already speak any languages besides this one?"
"YES"
"Please utter one sentence in each of them."
Wisteria complies: unpronounceable gibberish that fades into "- sentence", unpronounceable gibberish that fades into "- is", unpronounceable gibberish that fades into "- sample", slightly less unpronounceable gibberish "- this."
"Testing, testing," says Isabella in the fourth language. "This one is easier to pronounce. Not perfect, but decent. Who used it?"
"THE RRRWEN" says Wisteria, continuing in their language, "OUR WORTHY NEUTRAL MEDIATORS"
"YES"
"Please utter one sentence in each of them."
Wisteria complies: unpronounceable gibberish that fades into "- sentence", unpronounceable gibberish that fades into "- is", unpronounceable gibberish that fades into "- sample", slightly less unpronounceable gibberish "- this."
"Testing, testing," says Isabella in the fourth language. "This one is easier to pronounce. Not perfect, but decent. Who used it?"
"THE RRRWEN" says Wisteria, continuing in their language, "OUR WORTHY NEUTRAL MEDIATORS"
prodigal_miser
"... I love you. You're amazing," says Adarin. "Did I say that? I think I said that. My throat is saved."
prodigal_miser
Adarin smiles at her affectionately, then goes back to reading things. It's kind of dry, but he can deal with it.
prodigal_miser
He notes this, and informs Isabella.
"Ready to go now, or would you like to stick around for a little while longer?"
"Ready to go now, or would you like to stick around for a little while longer?"
dark_light
"Mmm, lemme finish this one paragraph-equivalent... okay, done, let's leave a portal marker and get out of here."
prodigal_miser
"Yup! Any place you want it to go, or should I just pick an openish area with a big wall?"