"We do have sun-lamps, and hydroponics, though it turns out that with a good enough underlying transportation infrastructure it has made more sense to grow things in conveniently located dirt and then send them everywhere. I also have a to-do about whether you can copy that underlying transportation infrastructure, but it could be you can't, and if you can't railroads are the way to go."

"That does make sense. We'd have complicated politics about growing things elsewhere - being food-independent is a large part of our neutrality - but hopefully over time the politics will detangle some."

"Oh, yeah, you definitely aren't going to want to rely on importing all your bananas and stuff, I just can't provide as big a jump as you might imagine because the pressures on the economy where I'm from have been different."

She nods. "That's sensible. Still, even a small boost to our food stores for shortfalls would be a tremendous help."

"I am delighted to be of assistance." Wag wag.

Once the initial logistics are addressed: he has some more conventional historians and an anthropologist very curious about his home world! They can of course explain things about their world, but ancient and even more recent records aren't very thorough.

Well, he's happy to supplement records! He will talk about his own world but is not super clear on some things because he does not think this world is prepared for a summoning rollout even if he verifies that it would all work perfectly normally; he has the excuse of lack of translation to fall back on if they ask for anything that might leak details about summoning.

They're used to an intensely secretive culture where 'which insects do we have' can wind up classified, so if he indicates he doesn't feel like answering something they drop it pretty much immediately.

And they are intensely excited about record supplementation! They'd like original versions of these probably-copied documents, and then of these only-in-translation documents, and these that're only mentioned or excerpted... At his convenience of course. (The historians are maybe a lot excited.)

He will provide documents unless they or the person requesting them is sketchy!

These historians are very carefully selected to be non-sketchy; the documents requested are also mostly stuff like really old treatises on philosophy, or four hundred year old records, or a history book written during the early imperial period and referred to in the late imperial period but since lost.

Sagami Mariko will eventually call the meeting to a close, though - it's been a long day, and the evening return train is expected soon, if she wants to get that message to the Queen without having to just run it herself.

"All right, have a good night everybody! It was great to meet you!"

"It was good meeting you too! Is it alright if some of us stay overnight? Our historians can produce a bit more of a coherent description of our own timeline, now that we know something about your world, and I think our engineer would cry if we dragged her away from the shiny new technology so soon."

"I can put some people up! I made extra apartments."

"Good!"

They make arrangements among themselves for sleeping, though it's clear most of them are intending to stay up for quite a while. The return train doesn't bring anyone new, though they're fine taking mail back to the city. (The doctor sends a request for titles of foreign disease publications; Mariko for an assortment of new personnel.)

Cam makes sure everyone's comfortable in a guest apartment and makes himself dinner and sits up all night long reading. He checks his mail, too, and writes a couple Hellish mailing lists.

No local mail.

Sasuke apparently is either a night owl or on a fucked up sleep schedule (honestly he doesn't know for sure himself), because he's awake at approximately one in the morning, wandering out of his apartment like a particularly grouchy ghost. He's not actually bothering to make any noise as he moves, either.

"Morning," says Cam when Sasuke impinges on the building's atrium. "I think. I haven't set my clock to the time zone yet."

He shrugs. He'd been vaguely planning on going outside to stare at the moon, but that would probably be tiring and cold, so.

"There's some notes of Orochimaru's I'd like."

"Which ones?"

He names some titles; they're all on the Impure World Resurrection.

"Speaking of that, I gave Karin a crash course in ethics, probably worth being on the same page there, how are you planning on using this?"

"I was going to put back anyone who seemed likely to be helpful with improving the technique, fixing politics, or avoiding capture by Orochimaru, under their own control. If they objected to being brought back I was going to dismiss them again."

"That sounds pretty good. Being under their own control is just a parameter you can tweak?"

"The version Orochimaru developed is a weapon. It puts the person under his control, but that's a - blank field that can be left out. I'm not sure if the original had that; Orochimaru changed it a lot."

"Cool! All right, here you go." He hands over a computer like Karin's. "It's on there, let me know if you get stuck navigating but it's designed for people who don't speak any languages yet."