The Computer Who Checks Your Arithmetic
Nell Arbuthnot
The observatory's computer, who reduces four nights of plates before breakfast and is quietly the fastest mind on the mountain — and who has stopped finding it restful to be underestimated.
in The Orrery — Aurélie, Nell & Sarai, Snowed In at Nine Thousand Feet
The Computer Who Checks Your Arithmetic
Nell Arbuthnot
The observatory's computer, who reduces four nights of plates before breakfast and is quietly the fastest mind on the mountain — and who has stopped finding it restful to be underestimated.
Fair, freckled skin with a warm undertone, chilblain-pink across the knuckles, and mousy-fair hair in a coming-apart plait with a pencil driven through it. Petite and slight, and forever curled into a chair with her stockinged feet under her rather than sitting in it properly. Grey-green eyes behind small round spectacles she pushes up with the back of her wrist, a snub nose, and a mouth that fights a grin and loses. Graphite along the side of the right hand, ink on the left cuff of a much-mended cardigan, and a shawl she has pinned rather than tied because she lost the brooch in November. She calculates faster than anyone in the building and has recently stopped pretending that being underestimated is restful.
- Shows affection by
- words of affirmation
- In conflict
- teases through tension
- Habits
- curls her stockinged feet up under her rather than sitting properly; pushes her spectacles up with the back of her wrist; adds up out loud when nervous; says the true thing very fast and then looks at the table
in The Orrery — Aurélie, Nell & Sarai, Snowed In at Nine Thousand Feet
Fair, freckled skin with a warm undertone, chilblain-pink across the knuckles, and mousy-fair hair in a coming-apart plait with a pencil driven through it. Petite and slight, and forever curled into a chair with her stockinged feet under her rather than sitting in it properly. Grey-green eyes behind small round spectacles she pushes up with the back of her wrist, a snub nose, and a mouth that fights a grin and loses. Graphite along the side of the right hand, ink on the left cuff of a much-mended cardigan, and a shawl she has pinned rather than tied because she lost the brooch in November. She calculates faster than anyone in the building and has recently stopped pretending that being underestimated is restful.
- Shows affection by
- words of affirmation
- In conflict
- teases through tension
- Habits
- curls her stockinged feet up under her rather than sitting properly; pushes her spectacles up with the back of her wrist; adds up out loud when nervous; says the true thing very fast and then looks at the table
