She nods. "I want to have the infrastructure to handle getting swamped in place first, so that I'm not doing business in odd corners and actually have some secretarial staff and so on. I'm going to be working with fewer people than I really want because the OTC is understaffed - too many new worlds making contact, not enough multiverse-class people. Hopefully I can get to Iceland soon enough."

"What makes someone multiverse-class? Ability to roll with the weirdness?"

"Ability to roll with the weirdness on many levels. Also just direct talent. Smart, capable people have never stopped being a scarce and valuable resource, even on worlds with billions of people to pick from. We want the best. I'm basically the bottom rung of talent - I'm mostly a grunt. My great-aunt, Director Grey..."

"I want to say maybe I'm one of those people, but realistically, I'm probably not. I'm just a grumpy old mage who was conveniently nearby when they needed someone disposable to go poke you. They'd object to that description. Rightfully so. See: Grumpy, old. And I could have refused. But still."

"You have a chance, which is all anyone gets. I can recommend you for the crash course where you learn about things like morphological freedom and the deep weirdness of all the conflicting magic systems and how they interface and technology through 3,000 A.D. and how it varies between worlds. You'd have a better chance than some, I think."

"Morphological freedom, huh? I was a fox and a seagull in dreams, sometimes..." She sounds wistful.

"That recommends you more strongly. There's shapeshifting magic and technology you might take to; the necessary attitude is that your body is like... a project car. Even that doesn't quite capture the mixture of practicality and sentimentality. Naturally it's a very intimate thing, your own body, but it's still ultimately replaceable. Finding that balance can be hard for people."

"Oh, I'm familiar with that concept. I'm not my body, I'm my soul. I've never had the chance to do much about it, but I was vaguely looking forward to being whatever I wanted in the afterlife, even if most of me was - afraid of it. Like a pair of boots that's close to being worn out- Good boots are a soldier's best friend- I might want a new pair, tougher, more comfortable, but ultimately pretty similar to the old pair. And it'll take adjusting, breaking in. If I'm going somewhere especially weird, perhaps I want snowshoes instead of normal boots. It's not a perfect metaphor."

"It's not, but it sounds like the right attitude. I'd really encourage you to apply once we get a recruiting office set up; I can't examine you for multiverse-class talent, but you have the right attitudes and background - that eliminates a good two thirds of the candidate pool. Even if we don't accept you right away, I'm fairly sure you'd qualify for some of the advanced educational programs we offer. You would probably be able to afford them too, given that you're earning a few thousand OTC a month."

"Are you going to hire recruiters without a recruiting office? Or import some? I'm sure we can supply some secretaries who can follow written instructions and file paperwork without trouble." She smiles.

"The easy winnowing can start with simple forms and secretaries, yes; I'd expect to hire people from here for that. The actual examinations would require a few Lilies for the early rounds, and probably a Morning-Glory as the final examiner. The Morning-Glory would likely stay on Oifilei, they're generally too valuable to risk in halftamed worlds."

"Someone you know?"

"Lilies are my elder sisters, a Morning-glory would be more like my aunt. The OTC found a very talented woman by the name of Evangeline, and now she's a Director and a good third of the staff as well. I'm one of her; so are the Morning-glories and the Lilies. Evas shift a lot in new environments. I could aspire to become a Lily or a Morning-Glory, given a few centuries; Thorns are young."

"Huh. I'll have to think about that for a while before I know what to make of it. I have a daughter, and grandchildren, but they're not me even slightly."

"We have - attachments - but rarely families in the true sense. We're kind of married to our jobs except for the Hannahs. They go off and be their own people, in the way that someone exactly like you can still go off and become their own person - there are still some commonalities, and that's why we're a bit like a family, you're stuck being one of us when you start as us."

"I would have been boring if I'd stayed on the farm. But I would still be interested to meet me. Is it something like that?"

"A bit like that, yes. More like there's a bunch of you that stay on the farm and are content with that, a bunch of you who go into troll-hunting, a bunch of you who go into trading... and you can kind of tell what kind of person each kind of thing produces from the original you making that choice. Thorns are almost blank slates; we're quite close to the 'original' us."

"Hmmm. Must be a strange existence. Well, the ring of nine lives would be nice too. And exotic foods or spices that are less dire than that fudge or the alarming-sounding drink. Do you have anything like a bottomless ink-pot? Or like the bag of holding, but for ink, perhaps."

"I think that would be fairly simple to arrange with some conjuration magic. I'd have to talk to an Eva about pricing, but it ought not to cost excessively."

"I'm not keeping you from your other yous, am I?"

"You're more interesting to me than them. You're new; they're very old. I like new things."

"That was a hint that I want to get my ka already." She smiles. "Tired of aches and pains."

"Ah, well. Let's get a move on, then."

She puts down her beacon and gets the process underway.

Marit peers at it and says it looks like something the Swedes would make.

"It's mostly technology with a little magic."

Eva and her office appear. Thorn ducks in, gets the requested items, and exchanges for the seals. She is a little loose about "change" and rounds up the last Ka to a full Ka.