"The thing we'd most like to be able to do," says the senator, "is travel to other planets, empty ones, and send people to live there. Is that something magic could help with?"

"...Probably? Why want?"

"Amenta is very crowded," he says.

"Oh. Magic..." she trails off. "Magic now." She holds her hands a certain distance apart. "Magic later." She brings her hands farther apart.

"Your magic is going to get - bigger -?"

Nod nod.

"Over how long - days months years -"

She makes a wobbly gesture. "Do not-bigger magic, magic gets bigger years, do bigger magic, magic gets bigger months."

"What sorts of things would be good for growing your magic?"

"Do magic."

"Yes, but what sorts of magic are best to do for it?"

"...Bigger magic?"

"I don't know what things are bigger when done with magic," explains the senator. "For example, with computers, it turns out they find math very easy, and identifying birds very hard, even though people find identifying birds easier than doing math."

"Computers? Everything?"

"Pocket everythings are a kind of portable computer."

Nod. "Genosha doesn't computer. Uh--know things magic bigger, not know words."

"Can you do the illusions for vocabulary some more?" suggests Cadra.

Illusion! Herself, holding a piece of metal that seems to be growing more metal.

"Making more - metal of some kind - out of existing metal, growing it? -"

Nod. She dismisses the illusion and does one with a piece of metal changing shape in her hands.

"Changing the shape of the metal."

"Making more thing bigger magic changing the shape of the thing."

"So making new material is a bigger deal than just molding something. All right. What can you do in general terms - I'm wondering if you can season the rainforest -"

"Season?"

"The places on Amenta where people like to live have four seasons every year. The equator and the poles don't. If people try to live there, their hormones do unpleasant things."