"Someone might be squatting, but no, not this one. There's another station with real pumps at the top of the canyon a few more minutes up. That's where we get any river water we use these days."

"Okay." Cam makes a note to chase out any squatters in the old water station. "Where's the source of this river?"

"A series of springs forming tributaries in the highlands about two hundred mules north-east. Two cities draw from the springs, Lehr and Knip. Nobody else between Opri and the source draws from the river proper."

"Okay. I'm gonna go up high and get a topology snapshot - don't follow me, I'll be making my own air when it gets thin but it's hard to do that for someone else without tripping them up - and run some programs, see where it'll naturally drain if the river rises and if I need to change that by dynamiting something, etcetera. Forty-five minutes tops."

"I'll determine the presence or absence of our water station squatter, then fly circles around the bridge. See you in a bit."

Cam goes up. He takes pictures and lets his computer assemble them into a topographical map and proposes to a different program that he could put a dam here or there or wherever and plugs in Steel's figures for the water volume. He finds where it's going to drain, overflies the area edge to edge to edge and finds nothing more than wildflowers, and then goes to catch up with Steel - for higher confidence in his software results he needs to know how much it rains around here and upstream, but he's almost ready.

"There are no squatters in the old place. There were a few old files, but nothing important, I burned them. I'd say just let it flood. As to rainfall figures..." She digs through a notebook from her backpack. "Here we go. These are for the local area. Unfortunately I don't have any for prefecture 6, where the springs are."

"Would you expect it to be more than..." He plugs in the figures and his computer spits out results. "...fifteen percent greater per year or thirty in any given month?"

"Probably not... We both get the same weather patterns for the most part, there's no really major geography between here and there to change it up."

"All right, so, probably safe, but we could check, how hard would it be to check?"

"Author and title - is there a standardized title system for rainfall records?"

"In Opri, yes, but not between different cities. It's possible they're in your computer- I believe you appeared it with the entire Senatorial library, including the archives."

"Oh, yeah, good point. Should be all done processing the character sets after it had overnight to do it..." He searches the library archive for the relevant rainfall stats.

It's a bit of pain. The relevant information is in no less than nine different documents. But it turns out that the recorded rainfall in Lehr and Knip and surrounding areas is pretty much the same as in Opri.

"Okay, cool, we're well within tolerances. We could notify Nel as a courtesy, or I could just sit nearby and add water past the dam while it's filling up the canyon so they don't experience any interruption in supply, what do you think?"

"The latter. If you warn or apologize they will feel entitled to reparations and be annoying. If they never notice a problem at all they will not."

"All right. Anything else to investigate before I get started?"

"Yes. Where will you install the wire that goes between the dam and the city? What else is electricity good for than water pumping and heating? Will the things be dangerous by themselves? If tampered with? Whose property will it be?"

"Electricity is good for light, and moving stuff like elevators and kitchen appliances, and once you've all got used to it being everywhere you can attach all kinds of stuff to it - the computers need electricity, they just have some of it stored. I'm gonna make a big insulated wire with a plug on the end in the city - and I'm gonna give it a remote receiver so I can fiddle with its output from miles away - but I'm not gonna turn the turbines on and make it actually start generating anything until I have something for it to power, so there won't be any current. Once there's current, if someone gets through the insulation that's dangerous, but I'll make it real thick and bury most of it in earth and grass so it's not an attractive nuisance. The dam and its output are mine leased at the most generous possible terms to the city of Opri, so I can pay off anyone who decides to be obnoxious without having to counterfeit too much or find specific material goods they individually want; and Opri can buy it off me if they like, and if they really piss me off my lease terms will get less generous."

"Sounds good. You owning the thing will help reduce the amount of obnoxiousness you face, at least once you demonstrate its usefulness."

"Nobody claims to own this canyon or that field over there or anything, right?"

"If they do, they aren't using them for anything. Any complaints won't be very enforceable."

"It's one thing to see a shirt or gadget appear from nothingness... You could build mountains. You could build moons. I'm starting to wish I was a demon instead of a shaper."