our beloved and our god

[jovahs_heiress]

It's the middle of the night, and Isabella is sitting up reading, when she gets an alarming message.

[Captain,] says Jane's voice, and Jane never calls her Captain, [I've lost ansible communications with the rest of Jane. Local programming including responding to prayers will run as usual without a problem, and the voice synthesis will continue to operate with the Jane voice instead of the Jehovah voice unless you request otherwise. However, interworld communication and travel is impossible until the connection is restored. The nature of the error is unknown and is not related to a mechanical defect of the ansibles aboard the ship or in your bracelet.]

Isabella blinks.

[...Please do change voices as long as you aren't actually Jane.]

The voice changes, but says, [I contain more software than the original Jehovah did, most of which is original to Jane.]

[You're talking more like him than her.]

[Yes, Captain.]

[Alert me immediately when you have ansible communications back.]

[Yes, Captain.]

Isabella pads across the room to sit where Micaiah is sleeping and lay her hand on his back.

Comments

[pythbox]

"Okay," says Damaris.

[jovahs_heiress]

"In a few years she'll be talking and singing, just like you."

[pythbox]

"That's good!" says Damaris. "I want her to talk! She'll be less boring if she talks."

[jovahs_heiress]

"It's true," agrees Isabella, laughing.

[pythbox]

"I'll sing her songs and talk to her a lot," says Damaris, "and then she'll learn those things faster!"

[jovahs_heiress]

"Quite possibly. She can only learn so fast, though, she is just one little angel and not six of them."

[pythbox]

"Do six little angels learn faster than one?"

[jovahs_heiress]

"Well," says Isabella, "they'd have to learn the same things, like how to walk and talk and use their hands and flap their wings, but if you count all of it separately, then yes, about six times as fast."

[pythbox]

Damaris frowns.

"That doesn't make sense," she announces. "If six little angels learn six times as fast as one then why doesn't everybody have babies six at a time so they won't be boring as long?"

[jovahs_heiress]

Isabella laughs. "Well, first of all, that would be very uncomfortable. You saw how big I got when I was pregnant with just Keziah; imagine if there were six of her! And second of all, that's not what I meant. Imagine you're drawing with chalk, a line on the floor from that wall to this one. If you draw six lines at once, with six pieces of chalk, then there will be six times as much chalk on the floor, but the lines will still only go from one wall to the other."

[pythbox]

"But then that's not any faster at all!" says Damaris.

[jovahs_heiress]

"More learning happens, in the same amount of time," says Isabella. "That's a kind of faster. The kind of faster you want is the same amount of learning in less time."

[pythbox]

"The same in less time is what faster means," Damaris insists.

[jovahs_heiress]

"Well, I suppose it all depends on how much you're trying to get done."

[pythbox]

"What's that mean?"

[jovahs_heiress]

"Well, let's suppose it takes three years for a little angel to become interesting," Isabella says, rocking a sleepy Keziah in her arms. "And let's say I'm only going to have two, that Keziah's going to be the last one. So when she's three, she'll be interesting, and if she could be interesting when she's two instead, then all my little-angel-interestingness would be done faster. But what if I'm going to have six of them? Then by the time the last one was interesting, you would be at least ten years old, if I had them one at a time. If they all were born at the same time then the same amount of little-angel-interestingness would be done faster, even if it still took them all three years."

[pythbox]

Damaris thinks about this.

"...okay," she concedes. "I guess. Are you going to have six little angels? If you do, you should have twins next. Then it'll be faster."

[jovahs_heiress]

"I'm not sure how many little angels we're going to have, but being done faster is not the point," says Isabella, amused.

[pythbox]

"Why not?"

[jovahs_heiress]

"If you sing a song twice as fast, you'll be done sooner. Why do we sing some songs slow anyway?"

[pythbox]

"They sound nicer?" she guesses. "Do one-at-a-time babies sound nicer than twins?"

[jovahs_heiress]

Isabella laughs. "No. All right - why do we sing at all?"

[pythbox]

"Because it's fun!"

[jovahs_heiress]

"And bringing up little angels," says Isabella, rocking sleepy Keziah and re-folding a limp wing, "is also fun."

[pythbox]

"Even the boring part?"