"Computer science is, relevantly, the instructions we use to program our communications devices for the network that keeps coming up."

"Oh. Well, if those things are programmed then it's entirely possible that it's similar. Will your own notes be legible when you take them out? You could copy the index of shine commands and my inventions."

"Yeah, I've been copying some stuff down." She brandishes some more paper she had solicited from Bar. "I'm just well aware that there's a difference between that and the years of study people in your world who work with these things get."

"I mean, I'm only seventeen, don't remember most of my first two rounds of servantmaking education, and had to learn the other four servant kinds too, two of which don't require programming at all and the other two of which are different in general limitations and applications, so I don't want you to think this is more complicated than it is. For the flat kind, anyway."

Worlds with histories resembling yours that have advanced farther into the field of study exist. However, their results are contradictory and I have no obvious way to distinguish between the underlying models they found in your particular case.

"Dang. It briefly occurred to me that maybe Bar had some way to duplicate my S-Factor into you, but apparently that's a bust."

"I'm sure I would have thought of that sooner rather than later, but copying mine was the first thought I had," she shrugs.

"I appreciate the thought."

"Oh well, it was worth a shot. I expect whatever it is that lets people in her universe do the servant thing is likewise non-transmissible."

To the best of my understanding, yes.

Lu finishes wiping apple off the shine that cut up her hapless fruit and scoots it over to her. "There, I'm not actively holding it there right now."

"Yeah. ...It occurs to me that you probably never ever want these to move at top speed. Regular shines can't hurt anything that way, but they're ludicrously fast and I don't know how far away you'd have to be to make that safe to watch if they even went through the air that fast, let alone hit anything."

"...How fast is ludicrously fast, because it occurred to me to wonder whether there was a reason for normal shines to have a speed ceiling other than 'the speed of light'."

"...If light normally has a speed, I suspect it's that. You can't see them move and there's no detectable delay if you send them across the world, except however long it takes them to do whatever they're supposed to do when they get there."

"The speed of light is...you and I probably don't use the same measurement system. If I say 'three point zero times ten to the eighth meters per second' does that get converted automatically or do we have to figure out what the conversion is?"

"I think technically that's the speed of light in a vacuum. In air it's a tiny bit slower but totally negligible for most practical purposes."

"Huh. Shines can go underwater too..."

"Bit slower than that. That's why if you stick your finger in a glass of water it looks funny, actually, the light bends as it slows down and speeds up."

"Huh!"

"Not if it hits it straight on, but if it goes at an angle then one edge slows down or speeds up before the rest and that makes it bend. And it's all but impossible to get a straight angle on a round glass of water."