Ona knew she should shut up, but-just like the recursive calls in Ms. With their scaled skin, their heat-tolerant organs and vessels, their six-lobed lungs-all engineered based on models from the local fauna-the children’s bodies incorporated an alien biochemistry so that they could breathe the air outside the Dome and survive on this hot, poisonous planet. The way she said “you” let Ona know that she didn’t mean just her in particular, but all the children of the colony, Nova Pacifica. “We study classical languages to acquire the habits of mind of the ancients,” Ms. Coron’s naked face was particularly made up today, but her lips, painted bright red, almost disappeared into a thin line as she tried to maintain her smile. Apparently, instead of Obedient Ona, she had somehow called on Loudmouth Ona, who was always getting her in trouble. The heads of the other children in the classroom turned as one to look at her, the golden glint from the scales on their faces dazzling even through the two layers of glass in their and Ona’s helmets. “What’s the point of studying dead computer languages, anyway?” Ona said. That would free her up to focus on the mysterious alien civilization of Nova Pacifica, the long-dead original inhabitants of this planet. She imagined that nested inside her was Obedient Ona, who enjoyed diagramming Classical Computer Languages and studying prosody in Archaic English. ![]() Ona wished she could call on a smaller version of herself to solve her problems. To solve a bigger problem, a recursive function calls on itself to solve a smaller version of the same problem.” Coron went on, “A recursive function works like nesting dolls. The airtight heat-suit scraped over Ona’s scales, and the rustling noise reverberated loudly in her helmet. But she couldn’t help shivering at the sight. Intellectually, Ona understood that the frigid air in the classroom, cold enough to give her and the other children hypothermia even with brief exposure, was perfectly suited to the Teachers. Coron wore a dress that exposed the skin of her arms and legs in a way that she had taught the children was beautiful and natural. “Let’s diagram the call-graph for this classic LISP function, which computes the n-th Fibonacci number recursively.” ![]() Coron pointed to the screen-board, on which she had typed out a bit of code. Series: The Tales of Gorlen Vizenfirthe.Series: From the Lost Travelers’ Tour Guide.People of Colo(u)r Destroy Science Fiction!.
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