hell of a party

[middlingalong]

Ivan must be drunker than he thought he was. He could have sworn he knew his way around Vivienne's parents' house, since she wanted to introduce him last week and showed him the place, but maybe they have a... secret... upstairs... bar? where Vivienne's room is supposed to be? And most certainly was last time he checked? He's never going to find the sweater she sent him up looking for here, anyway. Why is there a secret upstairs bar in Vivienne's parents' house?

Comments

[warpfairy]

"Thank you," Isabella says to Ivan, and to Miles she says, "It's the - well, our - interstellar travel mechanism. I have the equations involved memorized but I'd have to look up how to actually build an engine. Why, how do you do it?"

[isthisart]

"Sublight travel to wormholes, and then certain gifted and highly trained individuals maneuver through same and pop out on the other end. It's five jumps between Barrayar and Komarr, for example."

[warpfairy]

"Oh. We don't have nearly enough wormholes for that to work. They crop up occasionally - but must be different, they don't require specialized piloting. I can give you the warp equations but I'm sort of concerned now that the underlying physics differ..."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Give it to us anyway," says Miles, "that's what physicists are for. We can check. And even if the physics aren't exactly the same, they might be close enough for what you know to be worth something."

[warpfairy]

"Sure. Um, how does this bar... work?"

[isthisart]

"The bar itself is a herself. She communicates via napkins and can produce almost any specified nonmagical medium-sized nonliving harmless object for reasonable currency-dependent prices, no arbitrage allowed."

[warpfairy]

"Oh, in that case, just get a copy of Jenna Verma's A History of Warp Drive."

[isthisart]

"Bar, I'll take one of those, please. Can you do disk format?"

The electronic formats available will not be compatible with your devices.

"...I'll take one of those anyway, and a hard copy."

And there is a book and a PADD-format book.

[thisvorlunatic]

"Great," says Miles.

[dream_me_up]

"You're very enthusiastic about warp drive," says Lalita.

[thisvorlunatic]

"Wormholes," he says, "close."

[isthisart]

"Not often, but when they do, if there isn't an alternate route, planets can be cut off. This is why Barrayar underwent its period of low technological access."

[warpfairy]

"Oh no. But it opened again?"

[middlingalong]

"Yeah, Komarr's our front gate. With a five-jump garden path."

[dream_me_up]

[middlingalong]

"This bar just loves throwing people at me who find me unexpectedly entertaining, doesn't it."

[dream_me_up]

"Do most people not find you entertaining? I think you're a riot."

[middlingalong]

"I mean, I get along! I am a popular guy, including with totally normal people who aren't elves or genetically engineered or anything. But you, and - and -"

Blink, blink.

"Uh, Bar. Do alts have to look the same? I mean, beyond things like elf ears and - height and stuff."

They do not.

"Ah-huh."

[dream_me_up]

"...What, do you know an alt of me?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"...Mark?" says Miles, incredulously. "I... oh God, I can actually see it. Sort of."

[isthisart]

"Bar, can you by any chance just tell about this sort of thing?"

They are not quite alts. But they're something very like it. If pressed I would say that Lalita is Mark's "half-alt".

"Ooookay."

[dream_me_up]

"And what is Mark up to at the moment?"

[isthisart]

"Things Ivan doesn't want to dwell on, with Miles's alt, Stalas."

[dream_me_up]

[middlingalong]

"Why is the concept of not wanting to dwell so difficult?"