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Cam is out flying. There's a decent cloud of atmosphere around the gold plane, now, millenia of demons making air around themselves for comfort and not sealing it up because why would you bother. There's a small forest, here - the effect is kind of ruined by the lamps it has to grow under, but it's still pretty.
He feels an open summons and lets it grab him -
Cam on Barrayar
from_scratch
thisvorlunatic
"I don't suppose I can convince you through the expedient of, oh, volunteering to let you do the same to me?"
from_scratch
"No, not really. It's not so much that I don't think you're operating in good faith, I just have what I believe may be an unusual amount of a thing about mental privacy."
thisvorlunatic
"I do actually have some experience in the art of the extremely well-targeted fast-penta interview," says Miles. "But believe me when I say I understand your concerns."
thisvorlunatic
"Since there will be none of that, next I generate some goodwill by letting you know that 'fast-penta antagonist' is a substance that exists and does exactly what you'd expect from the name - fast-penta being the galactic truth drug of choice. And I suppose I extend a formal request on behalf of the government of Barrayar that you please not counterfeit our money, and offer to find you a place to sleep if magical demons from the year 2159 do that, and see if I can get into that comconsole to call Illyan and ask if he still wants to shake your hand."
from_scratch
"Thank you... I did have to counterfeit a few marks because a bookkeeper was shouting at me for loitering in his store and not buying anything and I got a random little girl the pop-up book she was looking at rather than continue being yelled at. I can sleep, I can not-sleep if I keep sucking down coffee indefinitely, I've been doing the second thing rather than try to find a place to nap."
thisvorlunatic
"Are you going to drown the planet in pee...? Do feel free not to answer that question unless the answer is pressingly yes," says Miles. "We can arrange a place for you to nap if you'd like one."
from_scratch
The answer not being pressingly yes, Cam doesn't answer the question. "That would be nice, thanks."
thisvorlunatic
"Right, just a minute."
He fires up the comconsole, which demands a login; he provides one. He calls Illyan.
He fires up the comconsole, which demands a login; he provides one. He calls Illyan.
as-i-remember
"Oh, I wouldn't dream of subjecting you to more walking around inside this building than is strictly necessary. I'll be there in just a minute."
from_scratch
"Cool."
Cam nibbles on his sandwich. Occasionally he sneaks in a thin layer of very hot cheese in the middle to keep it a pleasing grilled cheese temperature. Nom.
Cam nibbles on his sandwich. Occasionally he sneaks in a thin layer of very hot cheese in the middle to keep it a pleasing grilled cheese temperature. Nom.
as-i-remember
In just a minute, Simon Illyan walks in the door of the room.
"Hello," he says. "Thank you for prettying up my atrociously ugly building."
"Hello," he says. "Thank you for prettying up my atrociously ugly building."
as-i-remember
"And I think I'm going to suggest that you meet Gregor sooner rather than later. All evidence certainly seems to imply that you're the most helpful and benign magical demon we could have dreamed of."
from_scratch
"Demons don't as a species deserve all the bad press we get back in the mortal world I'm accustomed to, but the demons who answer summons aren't a nice subset, by and large. The usual arrangement is that you get a daeva in a circle and you offer them something in exchange for some magic. Demons are for obvious reasons hard to pay and the ones who show up looking for work instead of sitting around in Hell with interesting cocktails and going stuntflying are looking for intangibles of some kind. ...Are any of the people you intend on having me interacting with going to freak out if I get my wings and tail back? I miss them. Anyway, also the usual arrangement involves bindings preventing your summon from doing things besides the task you agree on. I did not have any of those in the circle that brought me here. So if you hadn't gotten me you'd have gotten some other demon who wants intangibles and was expecting constraints on their behavior and had a pleasant surprise."
as-i-remember
"...I wouldn't advise you to go out in public on Barrayar with wings and a tail," says Illyan, not looking at Miles. "I would in fact strongly advise you not to do that. But if you're more comfortable that way, and don't mind being strictly limited in who is allowed to see you or interact with you, well. Miles certainly won't object, and neither will Gregor, and neither will I, and that's all the Barrayarans you have to interact with directly if you want to do things along the lines of terraform Komarr. But you might want to wait until you are out of the second most intensely surveilled building on the planet before you acquire extra limbs."
from_scratch
"I mean, I can take them off whenever, it's just messy," shrugs Cam. "Maybe when I know more about my schedule over a few weeks or so."
thisvorlunatic
"Ick," says Miles. "All right. I assume I'm assigned to 'find lodgings for the nice time-travelling magical demon' duty, Captain?"