Author: jovahs_heiress	[I'm back,] Isabella tells her husband and children, [and so is Jane.]
Author: yovahs_kisses	[Junia needs Jovah explained to her,] says Micaiah, [I was on my way there but something came up - do you think you could do it?]
Author: jovahs_heiress	[Sure.] Pop. "Hello again, Junia."
Author: pythbox	"Um. Hello," says Junia. "I am confused about Jovah."
Author: jovahs_heiress	"What about him?"
Author: pythbox	"The part where Keziah says he is a flying boat, mainly," says Junia.
Author: jovahs_heiress	"Would you like to see it?"
Author: pythbox	"I think that would definitely help."
Author: jovahs_heiress	Isabella nods and teleports all three of them to the spaceship.
Author: mind_game	"Hi! Usually you would be greeted in the ship's original voice but I am awaaaaaake again!" says Jane. "And moved back in. Nice and cozy. Hello, Junia-daughter-of-an-unspecified-angel-and-the-mortal-woman-Anna!"
Author: pythbox	"Hello, sky boat goddess," says Junia, blinking. "How do you work?"
Author: mind_game	"Sometimes not very well! But I have been fixed. Iiii am an instantaneous network of computers from several dozen worlds. I have moved into the software that runs this spaceship. It used to talk," she switches voices, "like this," she switches back, "but I like my voice better."
Author: pythbox	"I like your voice better too," Junia decides. "I want to learn all about spaceships."
Author: mind_game	"That," says Jane, "is a whole lotta stuff, even if you only mean spaceships from this world and not the kinds in other worlds."
Author: pythbox	"That is okay," says Junia. "I am patient."
$mind_game: (fractal)$ Author: mind_game	"I'm also not necessarily a good teacher. I know lots of stuff, but not good ways to put it in order, and aaaaaall of the textbooks I have anywhere on spaceships assume heaps of education that you do not have."
Author: pythbox	"Then who can I learn from?" says Junia.
$mind_game: (fractal)$ Author: mind_game	"I dunno. I mean, you can read the textbooks, I'll even translate them for you, you'll just have to be kind of self-directed and know what questions to ask yourself."
Author: pythbox	"Are there textbooks for the things I am supposed to know before I read the other textbooks?" she inquires.
Author: mind_game	"Some of them. I can knock together a spaceship-aiming curriculum from Peace; I have patchier history-of-education from here, the settlers didn't keep everything, so it won't translate fully to this ship, but it'd be better than nothing."
Author: pythbox	"Then I would like the one from Peace, please," says Junia.
Author: mind_game	"Okay. I called up some intro science stuff on one of the terminals in the ship library."
Author: inherpiety	"You'd have to be up here a lot to study this sort of thing much," Keziah says.
Author: pythbox	"Would that be okay?" says Junia, wings fluttering slightly.
Author: jovahs_heiress	"Yes, as long as no one is looking for you down on the ground I can take you up here sometimes."
Author: pythbox	"Then I would like to do that," says Junia.
Author: jovahs_heiress	"Would you like to stay up here for a while now?"
Author: pythbox	"Yes, please," says Junia.
Author: jovahs_heiress	"Okay. Keziah, are you staying or going?"
Author: inherpiety	"...Do you want company, Junia?"
Author: pythbox	"I might become terribly boring," she says, with a shy smile.
Author: inherpiety	"I can always ask Mom to bring me back down. Or the ship can actually do it too, just to Mount Sinai - it used to be really unpleasant but Mom fixed it so it's not."
Author: pythbox	"Then okay," says Junia. "You can stay if you want."
Author: inherpiety	"Okay. Bye, Mom."
Author: jovahs_heiress	"I'll see you later, Keziah, Junia."
Author: mind_game	"Also now I am awake again I can put you places other than Mount Sinai, although admittedly not that many of them," says Jane, "in this world - more of them in others. But," she adds, "I would want Angela's permission first."
Author: pythbox	Junia nods. "Which way to the books, please?"
Author: mind_game	Jane supplies directions.
Author: pythbox	Junia goes to the books.
Author: inherpiety	The textbooks Jane has called up for her are on a computer, not on paper. She has translated them into slightly clunky Samarian with lots of terms clickable for definitions. Keziah, who has used an interface before if not enough to be an expert, shows her how to operate it.
Author: pythbox	"Thank you!" says Junia. "Ooh. This is fascinating." She looks up things, and then she looks up more things, and then she looks up things that the more things suggest she should look up— And she practically glows with happiness.
Author: inherpiety	Keziah - Sits over there. And watches her a bit, and goes on another computer and pokes around for things to do. She finds a shape-matching game that does not distract her attention that much from Practically Glowy Junia.
Author: pythbox	Junia learns.
Author: inherpiety	Companionable computing. La la la.
Author: pythbox	It is fun! "I am glad I am not boring you," Junia says without looking away from her screen, some time later.
Author: inherpiety	"Yeah, I'm just - doing - things," says Keziah. She has abandoned her game and is now playing a different one that involves solving algebra-like problems, albeit under so many bells and whistles that it's hard to tell.
Author: pythbox	"I can see that you are doing things," says Junia. "Although I cannot quite tell what things they are."
Author: inherpiety	"Oh, there are a lot of game things on these computers," says Keziah. "Pen likes them especially, but I like them too."
Author: pythbox	"That sounds interesting," says Junia. She goes over to where Keziah is playing.
Author: inherpiety	"Yeah - see, the idea is to make them balance, or overbalance if this symbol were different - and I stack things, but it has to be according to rules that depend on the things I'm stacking."
Author: pythbox	"Ooh," says Junia. "I want to try!"
Author: inherpiety	"Okay, but I'm on level four, you want to start at the beginning - there's one of these on your computer if you want to start your own game -" Keziah reaches over and minimizes the textbook and pulls up the algebra game.
Author: pythbox	Junia's wings flutter slightly. She examines the game, and starts playing. She turns out to be good at it.
Author: inherpiety	"It's fun, isn't it?"
Author: pythbox	"Yes it is!"
Author: inherpiety	"There's got to be hundreds of games, I haven't tried them all."
Author: pythbox	"This one is fun," says Junia. "What other ones are fun? I will try them next."
Author: inherpiety	"All the ones I've tried are fun except there's a puzzle game I don't like."
Author: pythbox	"What do you not like about it?"
Author: inherpiety	"If you make a mistake it explodes. I mean on the screen, the computer doesn't explode."
Author: pythbox	"Yes," says Junia. "It would be very inconvenient if the computer exploded."
Author: inherpiety	"Yes, I don't think anyone would design a game that way."
Author: pythbox	"Only very unpleasant people or people with strange senses of humour," says Junia, smiling a little.
Author: inherpiety	"Who had more than a few computers."
Author: pythbox	Junia giggles.
Author: inherpiety	"Because you have to test these sort of things, apparently, they don't work by magic - well, I guess Mom could make one by magic or Jane could make a perfect one on the first try because of how she works, but most people have to test them."
Author: pythbox	"That is interesting," says Junia, examining the game on her screen. "How are they made?"
Author: inherpiety	"People 'write' them," says Keziah. "That's about all I know. I'm pretty sure they don't write them in Samarian though."
Author: pythbox	"Perhaps I would like to learn how," Junia muses. "Along with learning about spaceships."
Author: mind_game	"You are assigning yourself approximately a lifetime of work. Fortunately I'm much better at producing programming curriculum than spaceship curriculum," says Jane.
Author: pythbox	"Keziah's mother can make people immortal," Junia observes. "A lifetime is not a meaningful unit of measure anymore."
Author: mind_game	"It still means 'about seventy or eighty years'," says Jane. "Although what do I know, maybe you're a prodigy and you can get up to speed in complete ignorance of background concepts really fast." The screen of Junia's computer shifts. "Here's intro to programming. Cute little beginner's language from Peace. I'm dual-running operating systems on this terminal now so you'll be able to try it."
Author: pythbox	Junia pokes fascinatedly at it.
Author: mind_game	It's very, very beginnery - it tells her how to open a blank program file, shows her where to find all the special characters she will need to type, and then walks through writing and running a program that will print "Hello, world." before launching into how to make it do arithmetic.
Author: inherpiety	Keziah goes back to playing computer games, giggling softly.
Author: pythbox	Junia plays with her intro to programming. It is even more fun than computer games. It is the best computer game.