high-energy physics

[warpfairy]

Federation political prisons are not particularly uncomfortable. She's not going anywhere, but she can read, she's considering taking up an instrument, the only really awkward thing is that she doesn't particularly want to be supervised while she's sweating her way through her next pon farr one way or another but that's years off. That and she wishes she'd taken longer to get caught. But she was running out of the really low-hanging fruit anyway.

This is what she signed up for. She makes up imaginary profiles of people on the planets she got to, people who can live longer fuller lives with the stars in reach, one per day. One per day and she'll have loads of estimated impact left unused when she dies. Perfectly reasonable tradeoff and she can still read books.

Someone wants to interview her about Vulcan; they don't want to lose anything that anybody remembers; she gives the interview and then picks up some poetry.

Comments

[warpfairy]

I would be in a different jail if I had tortured people, this one's for nonviolent political prisoners.

[lintamande]

I think I object to jails for nonviolent political prisoners.

[warpfairy]

Well, if you can figure out how to get me to - let's say Davlia - I will be happy to be rescued from it, but you needn't consider it urgent.

[lintamande]

Do you want me to go build a house there and tell Rúmil and my Bella and everything, or should we just go now?

[warpfairy]

...I'm not sure why you'd need to build a house there, but I will cope if dropped off alone.

[lintamande]

We don't have any money yet. Bella's still getting used to not being small and Rúmil and I don't really understand the concept. And I'm not going to leave you alone! You haven't even met them!

[warpfairy]

This psychic child makes no sense. Davlia is reasonably likely to take me in as a refugee in spite of the fact that I'd have a hard time accessing my Federation accounts from there.

[lintamande]

And us? We're not really refugees, Bella's universe eats people and the Valar are scared of me but they didn't keep me in a jail or anything.

[warpfairy]

You I don't know about, but you can always teleport back to Federation space if Davlia doesn't care to have you as immigrants and the Federation will look after your basic needs. It's very good about that.

[lintamande]

Not as good as home, you can't eat the trees. We're developing a spell for that.

I'm going to go tell my Bella and Rúmil that we're taking you to Davlia.

[warpfairy]

Thank you.

[lintamande]

And he pops back and stops being invisible. One of them will have to do the rest of the planar shifts because he spent the morning doing research on the trees and he is out of mana. "Bella!" he says. "I met the other Bella and she's a nonviolent political prisoner and we're rescuing her and taking her to Davlia and I know you said we needed to think about this a lot first but that felt really time-slidey and anyway we can think about it on Davlia just as well."

[subtly_artistic]

"You - of course you did," sighs Bella. "I'm quite sure there is no time slide here. Do we know where Davlia is? Did she say what she was a nonviolent political prisoner for, it wasn't anywhere in the news and I'm not sure I want to go ask her mother?"

[lintamande]

"She didn't. I can't go ask her, it was two planar shifts each way and I'm out of mana. We can look up Davlia on the science ethernet."

[subtly_artistic]

So they look up Davlia on the science ethernet: recently postwarp, qualifies for Federation membership, declined invitation, populated by people with twirly horns and digitigrade hooves. It is over here, first visited when it registered a warp signature.

"Well, did it seem like she was in a hurry or do we have time to invent a more efficient teleport?"

[lintamande]

"She was not in a hurry at all," he says. "Maybe the moon is timeslid, though."

[subtly_artistic]

"I do not think any parts of this world are timeslid."

[lintamande]

"Maybe I'm still really impatient even when there's no time sliding. Let's invent a more efficient teleport. She looks exactly like you. She talks a lot like you too. Asks sensible questions."

[subtly_artistic]

"She doesn't look exactly like me, she's greenish and has pointy ears. But yes, it's uncanny. How hopelessly confused is she now?"

[lintamande]

"Well, yeah, but other than that, I mean. It's an even stronger resemblance than it looked like on the science ethernet. She might be kind of confused but she didn't seem mad or anything."

[subtly_artistic]

"That's good then. I wonder why there is a pointy greenish Isabella here in the first place, it's weird."

[lintamande]

"I searched the ethernet for Fëanáros and Rúmils but I didn't find any."

[subtly_artistic]

"Well, her name's not exactly like mine, maybe they're just too different to find searching like that. And not everybody can have copies or whatever she is; if everyone did, there would have been a me in Arda and I feel like someone would have noticed, and there would have to be the same number of people in every plane."

[lintamande]

"You could look if there are other people from your plane doubled here? And I also looked at all the places that had Kings and Queens, to see if any of them had a Miriel or similar, and then whether they had a son, but I didn't get all through them so I don't know for sure."

[subtly_artistic]

"It's possible that people's copies aren't always politically similar," she points out. "Anyway, I'm not sure who I'd check. Pointy Isabella's mother's name sounds like she might be one of my mother but her father doesn't have a science ethernet record I could find..."