"The bits that aren't rubble. You're not going to hurt our feelings. Walking down the streets and counting the gold stars on the doors, that hurts my feelings. President's extricated, let's go meet him."

"Gold stars?" Cam asks, following her.

"That house lost someone. Silver means they have someone serving. Two gold, three silver, that's a typical house - we had big families, before the war..."

Why couldn't everyone be conveniently fucking resurrectable why why why

"I'm sorry."

"We were not expecting any better of the Valar."

"They do not seem," says Cam, "to be very good at their jobs."

"Depends how you construe their jobs, I guess, but I thought keeping him far away from things that he could murder was at least part of it." They enter an office. It is richly appointed and has a distracting view of the sea. "Mr. President, Cam. He has a translator device -"

"My Quenya's not that rusty," says the man. He's the first Elf Cam's encountered who looks older than a mid-twenties human. 

"Hi there. My name is Cam. I am a magical being from another dimension. I can make stuff."

"Welcome to the Falas. What kind of stuff?"

"Not antimatter."

"Giant wall between us and the orcs with little guns at the top to shoot anything that flies over it?"

"Yes, although I am a newcomer to the situation and a little leery of supplying weapons. I'm going to investigate more closely, of course, and I have no qualms whatever about solving your food shortage."

"How do we most easily accomplish that?"

"...which, weapons supplies or fixing your food shortage?"

"Fixing the food storage. Is it easiest for you to dump things at distribution sites, to designate your own distribution site - it'd be nice if it were somewhere we have roads -"

"I need to know where to put stuff to a high level of precision or I may put it intersected with something, which is annoying if it's a wall and a serious problem if it's a person. So if you want stuff in multiple places I pretty much have to go there, though I brought a little shuttle and can get anywhere on the planet in hours tops."

"We have good supply lines, I can have a field cleared for you outside town if that's most convenient. 

We will be much in your debt. You'll forgive me for wondering what that entails exactly."

"Oh, I don't need anything. When I need stuff I just make it," Cam says. "Don't worry about it."

"My experience of Powers hasn't been that their demands are much constrained by that, but all right. Meril, will you pick a location for distribution of food."

She nods.

"I hear you're on gasoline rations too, I can do gas - anything else like that?"

"We're on everything rations. We don't have the resources to hold out, here. But gas we use to fuel bombers, scrap metal we're reclaiming from peoples' kitchens for tanks - at that point your time would be better spent deciding whether you want to help us with the war."

"I probably want to help you win the war and am willing to err in that direction somewhat, although now that you mention it I also made a planet and you could go live on my planet if you like."

He laughs heartily. "Heard that offer before, as you may have been told."

"Yes, well. I suck less than the Valar and this planet has a bad case of the Enemy."

"You will forgive us for hesitating to take your word for it, but we'll keep it in mind. You have the means to get sixty million to your planet? Are our backups still going to be in Valinor?"