"Yes, she's been writing a memoir. I'll have the greys set up around your own guards."

I'll want to speak with her about her progress. And get her to come talk to all the other masters of the Enkindling art. 

Ah, the one called Partition is coming over. I shall introduce you. He's an Onyx Clan, a surveyor, also noted for resolving - land and natural resource ownership disputes, such as they are with us.

"I can get you Bloom's email address. Hello, Partition, it's good to meet you."

Hello! Amseli, the student of greetings, is how you are spoken of among Draak. Seeker likes the name a lot so I have good expectations. Your planet is very tidy at a glance. I have a hundred questions that I probably shouldn't rattle off all at once!

"It'd get a little hard to keep track of that many! What are the most important ones?"

Your satellites and computers are simply amazing for keeping track of things and I want ten. That's not a question. How can I get seafloor surveying data, how does government interact with land ownership, can non-blues own land and doesn't this give blues a lot of decision power that can't really be taken away, do you systematically map underground geography?

"If you'll be a little more specific about the seafloor data you want I can have it sent to you. Sometimes governments own land but usually they just enforce limitations on what landowning individuals can do on theirs. Non-blues can own land, what they can't do is rent it - at scale; most countries allow some out-of-caste income, usually a percentage. Blues do have a lot of power but even though we're not a populous caste there are enough of us that it'd take some doing for us all to act as a coalition, and the other castes get to vote, too. There are some caves that have maps but we don't spend a lot of time in caves so I wouldn't call it systematic."

Contour maps would be fine! I made a few of my own to understand the concept but I want to buy a bunch of equipment for when I go home. Lasers and RADARs and telescopes and computers and things. Hopefully something I can do is worth money. Oh, and apparently I'm one of the 'Eyes of the Draak' and I'm going to be on the interplanetary exploration team. Once they figure out what's wrong with Shining Truth so it stops being so wobbly it's going to be - very fast. The idea is to get a list of possible Amenta-like planets within a few thousand light years and go have a look around.

"That's exciting! If you want money I'm sure there's some way to turn planetary exploration into lots of it, we're terribly eager to find more planets. I'll have contour maps sent to you once you have an email address."

I'll get one in a bit. Ah, but I want new toys now not whenever that happens! My two big sources of reputation are being an explorer who knows all the weird places on Newhome and being good at ending territory disputes with compromises and happy neighbors. I can't do the Songs of Healing, that's Elder-level Earth magic... I don't suppose your kind will pay to be flown around? It's fun. I have a few shiny things that I could part with if I really had to sell them, too.

"You could sell rides, if you'd like to, and artifacts."

Flying is great fun. Someone could probably sit just ahead of where my wings meet my body. As to underground exploration, I wonder if some of the diggy Draak might be able to help with that. They are pretty good at it - finding minerals and things in the ground, I mean.

"There are probably people who'd be excited to hire Draak for underground survey, I can make it known that that might be available."

How are land ownership disputes resolved here? What kind of government limitations are common? Is airspace or ocean or underground space owned?

"There are civil courts in situations where ownership is ambiguous. Governments have laws applying to landowners about things like allowing inspections, noise and other nuisances, passthrough requirements, and signage for any hazards the land might contain. Airspace is available to the landholder up to a realistic building height but is subject to passthrough requirements at plane height; same with underground but there passthrough has to do with subways. Ocean is governed at the federal level, not the individual."

Is the civil court decision superior to individuals? I wish I had something like that to fix disputes. But if I did I might not be as good at it. Everyone's kind of confused about how all the stuff we decided on will work so adding more things right away might be a bad idea. We mostly don't do passthrough rights. What about lakes and waterways, also federal?

"Lakes can be owned but sometimes aren't; riverfronts can be but the rivers themselves are public."

That makes sense. I got someone to give up a claim to the lake itself and just claim the west side lakefront, leaving the lake for nobody, in exchange for a concession by the other Draak once.

Do passthrough rights oblige the owner to build or maintain subways and so on or just to not get in the way of someone else who wants to build one?

"Just not get in the way. And if the construction's a nuisance the builder has to compensate the owner, though the owner can't jack up the price arbitrarily, that being not in the spirit of the passthrough right as a legal guarantee."

You must have the most fascinatingly complicated arguments and arbitrations and so on! I want to read about it. As soon as I learn to read Tapai or something. I only know our glyphs.

"I can get you a tutor if you'd like! And legal textbooks, once you've picked it up."

That would be interesting. Maybe I should teach some people glyphs and sigils instead? Not all Draak know how to read them but the important ones mostly do. I wonder what we'd call the language... Thoughtmarking? Or just 'Draak'?

"I can very easily find you a whole lot of people who'd love to learn to read and write in Draak."

A good use of time, probably. I'm not a teacher but I do read and write a lot. Can teaching be turned into a little bit of money?

"It can!"