planetary

[dark_light]

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.

Comments

[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.

[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"

[prodigal_miser]

"... I love you. You're amazing," says Adarin. "Did I say that? I think I said that. My throat is saved."

[dark_light]

"I love you too."

[prodigal_miser]

Adarin smiles at her affectionately, then goes back to reading things. It's kind of dry, but he can deal with it.

[dark_light]

Time passes.

Battery fills.

[prodigal_miser]

He notes this, and informs Isabella.

"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?"

[dark_light]

"This room's good - that wall?"

[prodigal_miser]

"Sure," he says. Then he walks over to the wall in question, and pokes it. "Boop! Okay, done."

[dark_light]

"Boop!" giggles Isabella. She collects her cloud-pine, makes sure all her stuff is tied to it, and tucks herself under Adarin's chin for the largely imaginary improvement it might confer on his teleportation of her.

[prodigal_miser]

Adarin supports this. A lot. He hugs her, snuggling a little while he reviews required math and his magic cheat-sheet. Then - spell.

Utterly without incident, there they are, safely outside of their home.

"I should tell Ana she doesn't need to keep watch anymore. Also, successful return trip! Hurray!"

[dark_light]

"Robot army! Hurray! Dead civilization to study! Kind of tragic but hurray!"

[prodigal_miser]

"Yeah. I mean, maybe we can save some of their culture and put it in the history books or something, but it's still rather sad. On a completely separate note, may I borrow your pocket library so I can call my sister?"

[dark_light]

"Sure, but your sister doesn't have a phone so you're betting on her being nearish Ranata." Isabella hands over the pocket library.

[prodigal_miser]

"I can hope," he says. Then, fiddle, fiddle - oh look it's all convenient and labeled. Buttons are pressed, and Ranata is called.

(Pocket libraries are awesome.)

[kindestgarden]

"Hello?"

[prodigal_miser]

"Hello! Sorry to bother you, Ranata, but could you let my sister know we made it home all right? I don't want her to worry."

[kindestgarden]

"She's with Luzia, so I'm not necessarily sure she'd welcome an interruption."