we are an underrated tourist destination

[cross_and_bow]

Bella has just been to visit the Mikleeeeeeeee. It went well, after she flared aura and shouted abuse at the crown prince. (Demonstrating this form of "heedless confrontationalism", it was explained by a quarter-Mikleeeeeeeee girl James found for her to talk to, an essential part of the species' diplomatic process. This held up under lie-detection, but Bella found a few examples via pastwatching before actually doing it.) They have a treaty; they're going to get back to her with revisions they'd like made to their dimension and they're going to end the five hundred year "human season".

Now she's between tasks, hanging out in one of the Jarvises.

Comments

[cross_and_bow]

[Not technically magic! She's from a world called Peace, the local Bell there is Aegis, and they have instantaneous communication devices called ansibles - you build one, you break it in half, and then anything you do on one end is duplicated on the other across any distance - and, it turns out, between worlds. You know how people joke about the internet waking up? Peace's internet woke up. That's Jane, and she works for us. She can scoop people up into her mind and drop them, as long as she can see them on the one end and see where they're meant to end up. I carry a half-ansible around with me all the time.]

[newtimov]

[...I don't think we'd go for that,] says Ike. [Although it's completely fascinating.]

[cross_and_bow]

[If traveling by Jane is not for you, you will not be able to take standard transportation to Bellparties, although I guess you could go through Milliways instead if that's better.]

[newtimov]

[It's different,] Ike says firmly.

[cross_and_bow]

[What's different? Milliways and Jane? Jane to parties and Jane to Siathe?]

[newtimov]

[If Jane is the standard transportation to Bellparties then it's not a big deal to go to Bellparties that way,] he says. [But whether or not it's a big deal to Jane, it'd be a big deal to us to use her as our main way of getting between Earth and Siathe. And we'd have to have a stranger sitting in both our houses all the time, and it would be weird.]

[cross_and_bow]

[You can turn the ansible-halves off if you want. I turn mine off when I want privacy.]

[newtimov]

[It'd still be weird. But it'd be weird more in the way where nobody wants to be that person without a car who's always asking their friend for a ride.]

[cross_and_bow]

[There is one person who can bop around dimensions by himself, but no one else has picked up the trick yet. Jane doesn't mind being the peal's transit system. She has a few million levels of attention and it's literally instantaneous. She doesn't so much have a car as she has the ability to pass the salt - while simultaneously carrying on seven hundred conversations, resurrecting the dead, reading the complete works of every accessed civilization with networked electronics, and spying on me and my alts to see if we do anything interesting. But if it's weird, it's weird, I guess.]

[newtimov]

[It's weird,] he confirms.

[cross_and_bow]

[Well, Jane's on the brainphone if you're ever swayed by the desire for convenience and feel like getting to know her. Failing that, I am much better prepared to pay staff in magic than in, say, money, so that's on the table.]

[grabsthebutt]

[Paying me in magic sounds awesome,] says Val. [And: check it out.]

Up ahead, they're approaching another series of hills, these ones breaking apart like the top of a fresh muffin. The surface is covered with more of that scrubby multicoloured grass, but inside the cracks, the hills are made of stripes of sparkling rock in every shade between black and white. The effect is kind of amazing.

[cross_and_bow]

"Oh, cool rocks," marvels Bella. "Mercury is so going to have a section that looks like Siathe. This is the prettiest demon dimension I've visited, and I've been to ninety-three."

[newtimov]

"Just make sure if you copy it all directly, you warn people not to eat the grass," says Ike. "Siathe has way higher concentrations than Earth of a lot of things that tend to kill humans. Which is partly why everything's so colourful - chromium will do that."

[cross_and_bow]

"I'll make the grass nontoxic," says Bella, waving a hand.

[grabsthebutt]

"Make everything nontoxic," Val advises. "You wouldn't be too happy if you licked the rocks, either."

[cross_and_bow]

"I'm personally immune to all kinds of things, but sure, general non-toxicity."