'Priming' like that is a magical property, but not actively ongoing magic. If I somehow got another rock whose atoms were all identical, I think it would not be primed. Though there are mundane materials that better accept this or that Music. You can build echo chambers and tuned instruments, but it's not a common practice. Gold and silver are pretty good for this.

"Why gold and silver?"

I don't know, really. We don't have a thorough theoretical understanding of magic.

"Maybe someone'll figure it out sooner or later."

Maybe. What you have all done with theoretical understanding of other things is fairly amazing.

"I'm glad you think so! Personally I find it rather amazing how much individual Draak are able to figure out without building on infrastructure and formal education."

Hmm. Well, we have plenty of time. We have an extra sense and more natural ways to manipulate the world. We have informal education and a culture that prizes knowledge, inherited from the four hundred seventy eight who thought they could trust their lives to a golden egg/seed cast into the great black sea between the stars. Also, not all of us are equals of each other. Bloom knows not the music of thermodynamics, I would suspect the one called Sunwind who is such a physical champion has not learned calculus...

"It does make sense but is no less impressive for that."

Then I will accept the compliment.

...I am not thinking of anything else to talk about immediately. If you also aren't, I suppose now is when I ask if you could contact someone at the Gazette after all. I feel compelled to say again that I'd pay back a favor, if I had one you wanted and your job allowed it.

"It doesn't allow it but thank you anyway."

She emails, and some time later a yellow comes by.

Hello! Are you from the Gazette?

"I am! I hear you've got interesting news."

Good news, about space exploration. I find myself in a position to tell you all about it if paid. It will be very exciting! I have pictures. I'm not entirely sure how one converts exciting stories into money, but evidently you do, so it works, yes?

"Ooh, pictures. I'm going to up my initial offer if you throw in the pictures -" He names a figure.

Tail-swish...

...I can't truly tell if that is a good deal or not, but see no easy way to remedy that. Simply know that if I find it was a bad one later, I will tell other Draak about it. Also, please set aside half of the extra from the pictures to go to the photographer.

"The pictures aren't yours? All right, if that's your deal with them."

The one called River finds 'half split' to be a fair deal in almost all cases.

The starship Black Sea Dreamer found an uninhabited habitable planet. It has a functional hydrosphere, ten month seasons, breathable air, lots of non-equatorial non-polar land. It's comparatively warm. It's also dreadfully boring by Draak standards, with little life more complex than algae, moss, and lichens, so we don't really want it and the Senate is likely to give it to Amenta in some form.

"- that's amazing. How good are the pictures?"

She sends a mental image. The side of a barren mountain, sharp with scree, vast empty plain marked with dull splotches of green, ocean with breaking waves in the distance-

That is one. There are hundreds. I don't know what makes pictures good. I'll fetch the camera that has them in a bit.

"Marvelous. What else can you tell me?"

I'm not sure what you would want to know. One of the species of lichen produces chemicals that are toxic to Draak? This planet is closer to yours than ours, sort of - off to the side? The star is younger and brighter than yours? It'd be a twenty-two hour trip from here in Shining Truth, a bit longer in most other ships?

"Oh, I want to know everything, I can edit it down later. Are the lichen likely dangerous to Amentans?"

I didn't get a clear answer to that. We can tolerate a lot of things you can't and I haven't heard the reverse being true...

"Are they likely to give it to us for the asking, or -"

I am pretty sure someone will be willing to give you samples now that I've broken the news. I think the Senate wanted to decide whether to try to sell the planet or just go 'we don't want it' or what before they told any Amentans, but I don't work for them.