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

[subtly_artistic]

She has a few hours until she's supposed to call Ranae back! Charter.

[lintamande]

The time passes quickly.

[subtly_artistic]

"Okay. Mom calling time."

[lintamande]

"Best wishes."

[subtly_artistic]

And Bella calls her mom again and finally reports, "Okay, she says I can summon her conditional on my actually being myself etcetera."

[lintamande]

"Lovely. Do we have a nice place for summoned people to arrive?"

[subtly_artistic]

"...I was just going to land her in my bungalow. She is not a Quendi and will not need to be overwhelmed by beauty to like the place."

[lintamande]

He laughs. "Okay. I'll leave you to your family reunion, then, call me in if for some reason it needs to be courteously interrupted with something important for you to look at."

[subtly_artistic]

"Will do. Thanks."

[lintamande]

And they leave her to summon her mother.

[subtly_artistic]

Which she does.



An hour and a half later she and a person who looks like an old version of her with much shorter hair emerge from the bungalow.

[lintamande]

"Hello," Rúmil says in Pax. "I'm Rúmil, I do some of the design and advisory work here. It's a pleasure to meet you."

[kindestgarden]

"Hi," says Ranae. "Do, uh -"

[subtly_artistic]

"Quendi."

[kindestgarden]

"Do Quendi shake hands?"

[lintamande]

"Some do," he says, and shakes her hand.

[kindestgarden]

Shake shake. "I'm Ranae. Ranae Swan. It's very nice to meet you."

[lintamande]

"Welcome to our city, which is yet unnamed, and its world, which is also unnamed."

[subtly_artistic]

"We should really name those. In at least one language."

[lintamande]

"Pax, probably, if it's going to be the main one spoken here."

[subtly_artistic]

"There's arguments for Pax and English and Davlian and Quenya. Not all humans in Materia speak Pax, not even a majority, although that's most of what we'll get if we start with my parents and go by word of mouth. English makes us an easier refuge for genetic engineers and other people who want to leave the Federation, which interests T'Mir. Davlian because by the numbers they're the most populous founding members of the Elendil. Quenya because we're sort of modeling it off Valinor Only Better."

[lintamande]

"Genetic engineering seems the most important of those considerations."

[subtly_artistic]

"And nothing says people can't speak whatever they want for miscellaneous purposes, but English for official business - with translations generated - seems like a strong contender."

[lintamande]

"What's a suitable English planet name? If we're playing up the refuge-for-engineers angle, perhaps?"

[subtly_artistic]

"I think English speakers don't like to name most things in English. Sometimes but not with common words. They like dead languages and stuff. Anyway, T'Mir would be a better generator of names than me, I'm still working on English."