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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
"How... tidy," says Miles. "Here's a question: do you think you could make a wormhole? If you test it, please do so very far away from any jump route people actually need."
thisvorlunatic
"Well, yes and no. Vor nepotism isn't like everyone else's. Do they have the phrase, 'the reward for a job well done is a bigger job', where you're from?"
from_scratch
"I've heard, 'don't pretty up your summoning products unless you want them knocking on your skull in the middle of a good dream'."
thisvorlunatic
"I'm not sure it's quite the same thing, but it sounds close. The implication around here is, if you're good at something, expect to be called upon to do it. If you're good at something and you make that fact known to the people in charge of making other people do the thing, expect to be called upon to do it a lot. 'Person in charge of making other people do the thing' is a pretty good description of Gregor."
thisvorlunatic
"If you like meaningful work, I think you'll enjoy being Gregor's favourite person quite a lot."
from_scratch
"I like meaningful work! It is why I show up to summons. Unfortunately it is hard to say 'summoners, please, I like meaningful work, I will just terraform the entirety of Mars for you for a recent copy of the Extranet Crawler Report' when they won't let me talk."
thisvorlunatic
"Happily, you have circumvented that problem here. Let's see... what else should I be giving you a crash course in? Have any questions been weighing on your mind since you got here?"
from_scratch
"I'm sort of curious about the two and a half dialects I got when I landed but that's hardly urgent... I found artificial gravity consistently enough in fiction I skimmed to suspect it's a real and nonmagical thing, can you confirm...? And why do people freak out so much about mutations here?"
thisvorlunatic
"Yes, we have artificial gravity. And we freak out about mutations because..."
He looks away, sighs, thinks, looks back.
"Right, so in the Time of Isolation, there was a lot of mutation going on. We haven't untangled all the causes for certain, but radiation from abandoned power sources breaking down, concentration effects from starting with a population of fifty thousand, and general wear and tear from living on a half-terraformed planet are the main theories. People became very upset about it, superstitious purity concerns and all that, and with the technology available in those days, about the only response they had was to practice widespread infanticide on any baby who came out looking insufficiently healthy and babylike. It's still done in some places. We're trying to get rid of the custom, but it's slow going. It hasn't even been a full century since we made contact with the wider galaxy again."
He looks away, sighs, thinks, looks back.
"Right, so in the Time of Isolation, there was a lot of mutation going on. We haven't untangled all the causes for certain, but radiation from abandoned power sources breaking down, concentration effects from starting with a population of fifty thousand, and general wear and tear from living on a half-terraformed planet are the main theories. People became very upset about it, superstitious purity concerns and all that, and with the technology available in those days, about the only response they had was to practice widespread infanticide on any baby who came out looking insufficiently healthy and babylike. It's still done in some places. We're trying to get rid of the custom, but it's slow going. It hasn't even been a full century since we made contact with the wider galaxy again."
thisvorlunatic
"I'm not a genetic mutant, not that that stops people throwing rotten food at me if I walk down the wrong street. Anyway, I'm pretty well patched to begin with. If it weren't for the miracles of modern medicine they'd have to carry me around in a bucket."
from_scratch
"Okay," shrugs Cam. "Between you and your doctor and any angels you conjure up, just thought I'd mention."
from_scratch
"Oh, daeva get languages of our summoners. Prevents translation difficulties. I already had English, but it's changed some in the several hundred years since the year and universe in which I learned it. I eavesdropped enough to use this one when I was talking to Barrayarans but I also have," he switches, "this other one, pretty well complete in vocabulary, and," he switches again, "a smattering of this thing."
thisvorlunatic
"'This other one' is standard Betan English. 'This thing' is Vorkosigan District hill dialect. I am very likely to be the only person on the planet who speaks those three in that proportion."
from_scratch
"Oh. Huh. And have you been drawing demon-summoning circles in pink and green chalk in a local park?"