"Yeah, they can stay in their horrible war-torn world and we can stay here in the Hari Empire! And someday we won't even enslave people who could look after themselves."

Nick will just sigh and go back to reading about electronics now, then.

It's a long flight but it does eventually end.

Their destination is the northern part of a frigid southern hemisphere continent. It's winter. It's near the antarctic circle. A dozen large tents have been set up but not much else yet.

"...Well, I can see why you need buildings, Valanda. Do you have proper maps yet?"

"Yeah, there's one hanging in the tent I'm running the government from. We're not done figuring out where the hazards are yet and we don't really have any idea what most of the continent is like but we have the shape of the coastline."

"I have books on arctic survival in my tablet. The wildlife might not all be the same, but the general principles should be workable. I can also test what sort of crops will grow here, unless you have an interested farmer already doing that. Or perhaps I can show you how to properly use greenhouses, heat mages could pull one off... Fishing might work better. You have to be careful with arctic fisheries but it can work."

"Why do you have to be careful?"

"They're a lot easier to overfish or drive the fish to adaptations you don't want because they usually regrow slowly."

"That's good to know. And how do greenhouses work?"

"You make a building nice and warm and fill it with planters of fertile soil and glass roofs to let sunlight in, or just artificial light that has the same components as real sunlight, and you can grow plants in there. They're probably expensive compared to just plowing some land, but with this kind of weather and this far south a year-round food supply is probably a good thing."

"Ah, yeah, those shouldn't be too hard. We'll have to use illusions for the lights, I guess. Here, come in out of the cold and see the map." Valanda holds open a tent flap as if there's absolutely no chance he'll let the cold in.

"Just remember it has to be sunlight, not just light. Also some plants care about the schedule of the light, use it to figure out when to flower and so on."

He follows.

"I could probably make a snowmobile and other big engines. Get a heat mage to do this, got up a Stirling engine... Hmm. Works best with bigger ones. Is waterborne shipping done around here?"

"Nothing is done around here yet. Or do you mean in the whole empire? It happens, yeah, but flying gets you more places. There's the map."

It's a rag with an illusion on it. Their location is marked. Everything about the map is very approximate.

"A whole new world. Okay. For proper city planning you could use a surveyor's map. Precise and showing elevation lines and flood potentials and so on... I can use some of my gear as survey tools. Back home it takes big teams months or years to survey places, but vampires are fast. And I would also note down interesting resources or dangers. Or I could work on the calculator. Or I could help your force mage dig a foundation and basement for a nice building and show someone how to make concrete - concrete is a great building material - and get you something more permanent and inspiring and comfortable than a bunch of tents.  How much are you charging for hunting rights, exactly?"

"Depends on where! If something wanders into camp you do what you want with it, assuming no one else gets to it first. We're thinking of saving these areas undisturbed." He points them out. "Especially since, here, this orange dot? It's a volcano, we think inactive. ...If you've learned that word I'll be amazed, it's the thing where a mountain spits out hot melted rocks. We think we're a safe distance and we have force mages but still. We could use a more detailed map, especially if you can figure out where will be good places to build things. When we know where they should go we'll start on buildings. Concrete would be great, I heard about it in Milliways, it sounds really useful. Let's see, what materials do you need for a survey that you don't have yet?"

"Ooh, a volcano! I want to go take samples. Maybe set up a - earth shaking monitor - when I get the chance."

He describes a few things that will make good surveying tools. He doesn't have computers and lasers, but the Romans did it with little more than levels and measuring sticks and he can improve on that. Oh, and paper, he'll need a fair bit of paper and ink.

"What kind of samples and monitor? Are they for guessing what it'll do? And I can get you all those things, there's paper here."

"It can predict earthquakes and volcanoes some of the time! I'm not a seismologist, but there's probably a book on it in here, I have a whole freaking library. The samples and chemical analysis - I would use a knowledge mage - can tell you things about the history of the volcano. What level of detail should I survey the local area to? The rest of the place? And how much does this gig pay?"

"I want to know how suitable everywhere in a twelve-mile radius is for building on. I want to know if there are previously uncontacted people somewhere on the continent. I want to know if there are any dangers I'm likely to wander into or that are likely to come find us. I... don't know what else it'll be important to know, I want to know the things I should've asked about and didn't. I don't know how that translates to a level of detail. Does that sound like the kind of thing you'd do for... four thousand six hundred eight rings?"

"So a map with maybe two or three miles resolution for the continent will make me visit enough spots to be sufficiently sure I find any natives or particularly lurking dangers, I'll pick my favorite projection... A proper high-resolution survey of a twelve-mile radius from the camp would still take a very long time, but you don't need that high of a resolution to judge building suitability, only if you're actually about to build something on this particular spot..."

He does some quick mental math.

"If I stick to rough measurements and looking for building suitability for now I can do the camp area survey in two solid days. Twelve miles is big, I'm not that fast. I could cover an eight mile radius in a day. Exploration and a less rough mapping of the continent will take probably four or five days. I could speed that up but it risks missing something. Does four thousand six hundred eight rings for fast and skilled and mathematical work that still takes about a week sound fair to you?"

"It does but I can go higher. How much seems fair to you?"

"If you tried to get this surveying done any other way it would be far, far more expensive. Surveying a continent was a multi-decade project for the American government. But it will be helpful for building up, later. For the continental exploration - 12960 for a three-mile one, 5184 for a six-mile one. Six-mile will still probably find any big dangers or natives. For the construction suitability survey, 3888 for eight mile radius or 7776 for a twelve mile radius. You will get multiple, carefully drawn, highly detailed maps that can be used for all manner of infrastructure planning. I can do only the northern part of the continent, or only a two or three mile radius construction survey, for far less and you can see how you like the results before shelling out that much."

"Of course it would, but it's less than a week's work for you. Can I get you to do the continent exploration for 5040 instead?"

"There's this thing called 'comparative advantage'. Exceptional skills and abilities demand exceptional price. Continental exploration at six-mile resolution for 5040 works fine, pay reduced for the conservation fee of whatever I feed on in that time. If you want to cut that in half and only have me survey the northern bit, say so now?"

"No, I expect if I ask for that it'll turn out the southern coast is home to polar animal-person tribes planning to go to war with us as soon as the weather warms up. The whole continent, please."