LMB Quote Game

[SPetty]

I ran across it looking for the carnivorous flower quote (thinking it could be the picture of the prokayote).


Next quote:

"Possession is rather more than nine points of the law, here."

What book?
Who is speaking?
To whom?
Where is "here"?

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

"Possession is rather more than nine points of the law, here."

OK, just off the top of my head, or maybe more accurately, off the bottom of my bottom:
What book? Labyrinth
Who is speaking? Bel Thorne
To whom? Admiral Naismith
Where is "here"? Jackson's Whole (though Miles and Bel are chatting aboard Fell station)

[SPetty]

The book is correct, as is the location, but the rest is not.

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

"Possession is rather more than nine points of the law, here."

Thanks for the location confirmation.

The solution is:
What book? Labyrinth
Who is speaking? Baron Ryoval
To whom? Bel Thorne
Where is "here"? Jackson's Whole (though Miles, Bel, Ryoval and Fell are chatting aboard Fell station)

[SPetty]

Correct, of course. You're up!

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

Something has been bothering me about the haut women's hair.

Miles' observations when confronted with the Star Crèche Council:

... Their beauty was varied; three were as silver-haired as the ghem-general's wife, one was copper-tressed, one was dark-skinned and hawk-nosed, with masses of blue-black ringlets tumbling down around her like a cloak. Two were blonde, his guide with the golden weave and another with hair as pale as oat straw in the sun, and as straight to the floor. One dark-eyed woman had chocolate-brown hair like the haut Vio ...

In the cabin where haut Nadina was restrained:

... The effects of a century or so of gravity were enough to sag even her [haut Nadina's] haut body; ... Her silver hair was clamped, half a meter from its end, in a device ... the length of the rest of her hair still left her nearly two meters of turning room ... "Haut women never cut their hair!" said Nadina.

Miles' attention should have been drawn to (and eliciting some thoughts about) something he would never miss noticing when confronted with several haut women of varying age.

What should Miles have noticed and silently commented about?

Hint:
I assume haut women's hair grows at the same rate as regular human hair: 15 cm per year, though the haut hair may be stronger and grow a longer time before the individual hairs fall out and are replaced by new hairs.

[JKCade]

I am going to guess (and it's ONLY a guess) that Miles should have noticed that all the haut women had thick, luxurious hair, despite their difference in age. Perhaps the haut Nadina or Pel should have had thinning hair?

Of course, in the process of "improving" the human (Cetagandan) genome, maybe their predecessors had simply tweaked their DNA to make sure their always desendants always had thick, wavy hair. Matter of fact, didn't Miles notice that Kety(?) had colored his hair to avoid looking too young?

James

[voralfred]

Well, the Haut women of the Star Crèche were of very different ages. But as you mentioned, individual hair eventually fall and are replaced. One can assume they keep being replaced even at some advanced age, so the older ones could still have hair as luxuriant as the younger ones, not thinning hair contrary to James's assumption. Indeed, even for us ordinary human, though many, but not all, men start not replacing falling hair long before they are completely white, it is not unusual to see rather older women with completely white but still luxuriant hair.
No, I think what EPS has in mind is the uniformity in length and thickness: Nadina's hair was about 3.5 meters long: one half beyond the clamp, and if the had two meters of turning room and was of average height, Pythagora's theorem implies almost 3 meters more. At 15 cm per year we neesd more than 20 years for the longest strands. But assuming the hair fall at a regular rate and are replaced at the same rate, that would mean that only about one seventh of them should reach to half a meter from the end. So what? That could be well enough to clamp them. And Miles did not say the hair was of uniform thickness till the end. Also who says that they fall after 20 years or so? Maybe Haut tweaked their genomes so that each individual hair lasts much longer than 20 years. But of course they must still occasionally break (near their end) before they fall, or else Nadine's hair would be more like 15 meters long. So if the hair breaks beyond a certain length (so each individual hair breaks several times, if its lifespan before falling is many decades) that would account for the thickness of the tress to be reasonably uniform almost to the end. I believe that breaking, rather than individual hair falling, is what limits the length of the hair of 'ordinary' women who grow their hair very long.
Another question would be uniformity of color. Hair takes time to grow white, so if some of the older individual hairs are 20 years old, some Haut women should have hair that are white near the skull and still colored far from it. Or a mixture of hairs that are still growing colored and some who have started to grow white. But then, only three of them had silver hair, and one could easily imagine all three of them were old enough that the transition to white was several decades ago, so any colored hair would have had time to fall even though they have lasted more than 20 years.
So even though all Haut women would have to undergo a period with bicolored hair, all these three could have long passed this awkward time. And even if they never cut their hair, who say they don't dye them (keep their original color for a dozen years or so after the appearance of the first white, then bleach them all silver, even the ends that would still have thier natural pigments)?
Did I touch the point that bothers you, EPS?

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

<pulling my hair> Voralfred made this post obsolete. But I've spent so much time composing it that I'd hate wasting it. So I post it anyway.

I am going to guess (and it's ONLY a guess) that Miles should have noticed that all the haut women had thick, luxurious hair, despite their difference in age. Perhaps the haut Nadina or Pel should have had thinning hair?

No, I don't think that would be so particularly noticeable, because there's too much variation (my mom at 88 had much long hair with little gray in it, though she'd had me to raise).

... didn't Miles notice that [Ilsum] Kety had colored his hair [at the temples] to avoid looking too young?

Yes, because at Kety's age he should have had little or no gray hair. But the three silver-haired (presumably eldest) consorts felt no need to dye their hair, which isn't especially noteworthy.

Hints:
Each scalp hair of a haut woman grows to a maximum length of almost 2.5 meters (if Nadina's hair had kept growing limitlessly, it would have been 15 meters long at her age) , then it falls out and is replaced by a new hair. This does not happen to all hairs simultaneously, but there is a kind of turnover (otherwise they would moult).

Does a hair turn gray while it's growing? Or do only new hairs, replacing fallen out hairs, grow out gray?

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

... Another question would be uniformity of color. Hair takes time to grow white, so if some of the older individual hairs are 20 years old, some Haut women should have hair that are white near the skull and still colored far from it. Or a mixture of hairs that are still growing colored and some who have started to grow white. But then, only three of them had silver hair, and one could easily imagine all three of them were old enough that the transition to white was several decades ago, so any colored hair would have had time to fall even though they have lasted more than 20 years.
...
Did I touch the point that bothers you, EPS?

YES!
That's exactly what I mean. I was wondering why did Miles NOT silently comment on bicolored hair, which would be extraordinarily noticeable.

Your score increments once again and the next quote or question is yours.

[voralfred]

"The key of strategy, XXX," YYY explained kindly, "is not to choose a path to victory, but to choose so that all paths lead to a victory."

Book?
Who is XXX?
Who is YYY?

This can be answered by memory, without checking.

For 1/2 point bonus, give the exact expressions used in the text (but this bonus is a one time offer, to be answered simultaneously with the correct answer)

[jetta-e_rus]

"The key of strategy, XXX," YYY explained kindly, "is not to choose a path to victory, but to choose so that all paths lead to a victory."

Book?
Who is XXX?
Who is YYY?

This can be answered by memory, without checking.

For 1/2 point bonus, give the exact expressions used in the text (but this bonus is a one time offer, to be answered simultaneously with the correct answer)

"The key of strategy, little Vor," she explained kindly, "is not to choose a path to victory, but to choose so that all paths lead to a victory."

YYY is Commander Cavilo, XXX is Ensign Lord Miles Vorkosigan, of course. This is a quote from The Vor Game.

[voralfred]

Perfect!
One and a half and the next quote.

[jetta-e_rus]

Perfect!

I adore this quote, BTW .

My next riddle is:

"YYY sat at a wrought-iron table in the North Gardens, which were famous for having been designed by XXX. "

Who is this XXX, a prominent landscape designer?
Who is (or are) YYY?
What book is this quote from?

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

"YYY sat at a wrought-iron table in the North Gardens, which were famous for having been designed by XXX. "

Who is this XXX, a prominent landscape designer?
Who is (or are) YYY?
What book is this quote from?

In "The Vor Game": "They [Gregor and Miles] sat at a wrought-iron table in the North Gardens, which were famous for having been designed by Emperor Ezar, Gregor's grandfather."

I was actually disappointed when Gregor didn't execute his cream torte threat. (this reminds me of Bill Gates visiting Brussels )

[jetta-e_rus]

"YYY sat at a wrought-iron table in the North Gardens, which were famous for having been designed by XXX. "
Who is this XXX, a prominent landscape designer?
Who is (or are) YYY?
What book is this quote from?

In "The Vor Game": "They [Gregor and Miles] sat at a wrought-iron table in the North Gardens, which were famous for having been designed by Emperor Ezar, Gregor's grandfather."

You are right, and now it's your move.
(PS I was always amazed that Ezar wasn't only a creator of Barrayaran political policy but a skilled landscape designer... at his free time. )

I was actually disappointed when Gregor didn't execute his cream torte threat. (this reminds me of Bill Gates visiting Brussels )

Miles is a very small, mobile target, and it would be difficult to hit him.

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

My height doesn't matter when we're lying down.

Who are "we"?
Where are "we"? Pinpoint the location exactly, please.
In what story/book?

[voralfred]

My height doesn't matter when we're lying down.

(...)
Where are "we"? Pinpoint the location exactly, please.
(...)

In bed!

...and this should be better discussed in TVR...

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

My height doesn't matter when we're lying down.

Who are "we"?
Where are "we"? Pinpoint the location exactly, please.
In what story/book?

In bed!

No! That's wrong.
Well ... erm, you're not really wrong but you're not right either.
I'm expecting the nitpickingly exact astro/geographical location. As precise as can be deduced from the text.

Example: In the personnel pod docked at the second docking bay of the transfer station orbiting Eta Ceta IV of the Cetagandan Empire.

[SPetty]

What's funny about this is that for both of my initial guesses, the big answer to "where are we" is Jackson's Whole. Haven't gone checking them, but I think it's probably Miles in the Durona clinic on Jackson's whole with Rowan after his cryo-revival in Mirror Dance.

My first guess was Taura in Labyrinth, but upon reflection, it seems unlikely, since the quote didn't look to be dialogue.

[voralfred]

Since EPS has a habit of nitpicking, I'll do the nitpicking for him this time.
The quote does indeed appear when Miles is (in bed!!!) in the Durona clinic on Jackson's Whole with Rowan shortly after his revival. It was easy to find after Suzette mentioned it.
However when he says "My height doesn't matter when we're lying down" he is alluding to an earlier experience. Indeed the next sentence is

He'd known that, too.

But he is not referring to Taura either (and perforce not to Quinn, who only entered his life in"Brothers in Arms", after the Taura episode in "Labyrinth"). Indeed in Labyrinth he tells Taura:

Besides, I made the happy discovery some time back that height difference only matters when we're standing up. When we're lying down it's, ah, less of a problem....

So the knowledge he mentions was obtained "some time back". But we do not know exactly when or where or with whom! LMB never told us (just before the latter quote, there is some allusion that it happened when Miles was fifteen and it was probably on Beta Colony, but it is not conclusive, no pinpointing possible, and no info at all on the second person in "we")! So there is no answer to EPS's question!
Still, I think that Suzette deserves the and the next quote!

[SPetty]

Since EPS has a habit of nitpicking, I'll do the nitpicking for him this time.
The quote does indeed appear when Miles is (in bed!!!) in the Durona clinic on Jackson's Whole with Rowan shortly after his revival. It was easy to find after Suzette mentioned it.
However when he says "My height doesn't matter when we're lying down" he is alluding to an earlier experience.

Actually, I think grammatically, you could make an argument that the contraction "we're" refers to the present tense (since it goes with the "doesn't," which is present, not past tense). If it's "we are," it's present tense, and refers to Rowan. If it's past tense, there's no telling who it could refer to, and I'm not speculating out of canon. While Miles does refer to the past in the sentence after it, I submit that the quotation is present tense, and it's Rowan.

The rest of you, of course, are welcome to speculate all you like.

I blame the Taura thought on the fact that I haven't read that passage in a while. If it's not dialogue, it makes no sense for Taura (and since she's suspicious at that point, probably doesn't make sense as dialogue either), and wouldn't make sense for Miles in that circumstance either as dialogue (a bit too blunt), or as thought (he's certainly not discovering it for the first time at that point). Have I mentioned that one of the things I love about LMB's writing is that it makes sense? The only stuff that doesn't make sense is the stuff you haven't figured out yet. It does make figuring out the interesting-but-challenging quotes a little easier, but only if you're thinking in the right direction.

I'll wait for official confirmation to post the next quote.

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

... I'll wait for official confirmation to post the next quote.

I think your analysis is correct.

You omitted the exact location though:
When Miles is having the quoted thought, after having had therapeutic massage and exercise, he is in Rowan's bed in the bedroom of her personel suite located on a Duronas' residence-floor, two floors below Lilly Durona's apartment (one lift-tube level + presumably one spiral staircase level).

Still, the Sherlock and next quote are yours.

[voralfred]

Suzette, I hope you realized that I was pulling EPS's leg, not yours!
(I wouldn't dare do it if he were not retired, lest he pull my teeth in reprisal)
Of course you deserve the sherlock!

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

Suzette, I hope you realized that I was pulling EPS's leg, not yours!

Who said I have legs überhaupt? (Fortunately I have two extra long ones; someone pulled them repeatedly before you did . So please stop now.)

I wouldn't dare do it if he were not retired, lest he pull my teeth in reprisal)

Aw, I never retaliated on my difficult, annoying and exasperating patients. Except by raising my fees ...

Of course you deserve the sherlock!

My thought exactly!