"I'm glad you enjoyed yourself. Hello, Miles. Hello, Cordelia."

"Hello, Gregor."

"I got to make the announcement," chirps Miles. "I'm proud of that announcement."

In trots Ivan. "Hi all." Down he plops.

"It was a nice announcement. Didn't contain hardly any 'we have unleashed a demon on your hapless planet', very nicely done."

"I understand Miles chose to be maximally mysterious about the exact source of the free terraforming, yes. That suits me fine. I have all the reports on projected economic impact and so on; I'm interested in hearing what people seemed to think of it. Any terraformers upset at being abruptly put out of a job?"

"They all seemed pretty happy about it to me. Moving into maintenance instead of long-term planning ahead of schedule."

"If anybody was upset about your new terraforming mechanism, they did not choose to take it out on your new terraforming mechanism."

"The infighting was surprisingly minimal," Miles contributes. "A couple of the ecosystem people almost came to blows over algae, but they achieved a peaceful resolution eventually."

"Glad to hear it," says Gregor. "Hopefully the wider population will handle the change with similar grace. Before Miles does any experiments with dismissing and resummoning you, Cam, how do you feel about making some inroads on Barrayar's topsoil problems? I have a list of Districts whose Counts were willing to let the imperial terraforming consultant do some landscaping. And another, somewhat less urgent list of miscellaneous items you could conjure - mostly things we would ordinarily have to import, or that we couldn't justify spending large amounts of money on but would be very grateful to get effectively for free."

"I did a little topsoil kind of haphazardly before I remodeled ImpSec, I am happy to do more of it less haphazardly and attack your shopping list."

"Thank you," he says. "And, speaking of 'effectively for free' - granted that you don't have nearly as much use for money as we mere mortals, how would you like to be legitimately employed by the government of Barrayar anyway? Assuming the resummoning experiment is successful."

"Money is still useful for some things, I'd imagine. Feel entirely free to put me on the payroll as long as this doesn't come with an obligation to ignore potential opportunities to be a useful demon elsewhere in the galaxy should they turn up."

"I have no inherent objection to you being a useful demon elsewhere in the galaxy. Of course I'm particularly keen on you being a useful demon in my part of the galaxy, but you've done plenty of that already. If I put you on the payroll, it will mostly be an acknowledgment of your continued usefulness."

"I will be delighted to continue my usefulness." Wag.

"Have you got a shopping list written up so I can make myself a copy and look it over for complications now, or should I await it? Also, topsoil in quantity is easiest to do when I can see a lot of the ground at once, which means flying," he waves a wing, "under my own power, although I can do it a bit slower from the ground, or reasonably well over specific areas from mountaintops or whatever, or from particularly detailed plans from a lightflyer that doesn't give me such an all-around clear view."

"The shopping list is written up, yes. I brought a copy, but if you'd rather make your own in whatever format you prefer, feel free. I'm afraid it would be a very bad idea to let you fly around miscellaneous parts of Barrayar under your own power, but if you want a vehicle that gives you a clear view of the ground without giving the ground a clear view of you, I'm sure that can be arranged."

"I could make a one-way-glass-bottomed lightflyer, but I couldn't stare out the floor if I were piloting it myself, so I'd need company. What format's your copy in?"

"Sounds like fun."

Cam takes the data disc. "Yeah, I'm going to have to convert this to read it on my computer - local computers are all extremely unportable." He puts the disc down on the table and makes one that will go in his own device, and puts it in his device. "No obvious wrinkles except I need to know where you want everything put."