"If you have any ideas for evacuating--getting the people on Endore off it, or convincing humans to get off Earth so we can kill the summoner--I'd be overjoyed to hear them."

"Endorë's probably the easier target on convincing people but will, if your Melkor's like mine, be very hard to interfere with without catastrophic risk and escalation... Does the bomb react to the summoner's death? If you could figure out via model precisely where they are, a demon could kill them without having to dig so much as a well."

She checks. "It does."

"Ugh. - Are the lizard-kangaroos chipped?"

"Nope. And humans who aren't daeva can't be, it kills them, so I'm not confident that's changeable."

"If you could chip the lizard-kangaroo there's something that might work."

"The summoner or Melkor? Because it worked on me just fine."

"The summoner."

"Well, like I said, lethal to non-daeva humans. What good would it do if it worked?"

"I have been very careful about leaking some information to Hell for reasons, but this is kinda high-stakes. You good to keep infosec on it?"

"Shan't say a word to my own fork on it if you ask me not to."

"You have a fork? How'd you do that?"

"If a daeva chips themself the chip copies down their brain well enough that if you go back to Hell where Mandos doesn't get backups, dig the chip out, and make an Elf body around it--that's how I found out it doesn't work for mortal humans--you can fork yourself. And if they summon something and die they daeva-fy just fine."

"Okay. So. Secrets time. The inability to make minds is not absolute."

"You have my undivided attention!"

"If you make a chip the data is all there. It just magically doesn't work. But if you copy it - not with demon powers, just, you need a chip reading thing - and print it onto a blank - that works. If you can chip and fork the summoner the fork might be able to dismiss Melkor. I don't know if this would work."

"...Well. I'd want to try it on some other kangaroo-lizard first, since, if I try chipping the summoner and it kills them..."

"Yeah, exactly. And you would also have to be able to place a chip correctly without going deep enough to trigger the bomb."

"Even if that doesn't work, if I can finagle it right, this could be invaluable in saving Elf lives. Maitimo is alive because I happened to grab him before a Vala killed him and managed to drag what was left of his body back to Hell with me, which included his intact chip. Making me the first demon ever to actually steal someone's soul."

"Yeah.

Won't do anything for the humans or Dwarves on Endorë though."

"There aren't any humans on Endore."

"Aren't there? There were some, very new, when I arrived. Like, weeks old, orcs were teaching them to write. I guess maybe if your Valar are daeva your Eru can't just casually install species with lousy timing."

"There's tree-people, though. Who's Eru?"

"I haven't met the guy but reportedly he is to Valar as Valar are to Maiar - do you have Maiar?"

"...Maybe?"