<...I am leaning toward 'another planet' after all> Mhalir thinks to her. <In a different star system. If it were another plane, well, the gods ought either be able to hop across promptly or not at all. ...Perhaps they can communicate via hyperspace, but not travel, and they need to do that the slow ordinary way? I - am still rather confused by this but that seems the most likely interpretation.> 

He is, again, impressed by Carissa's ability to mostly dodge around and defuse suspicion while asking the questions they need to. This might be most of what they can learn, here? He's not sure, maybe she has ideas for more queries. 

"Does the King worry about relations with orcs in the future, once Melkor's back?"

"Well, I think it will take a long time for Melkor to satisfy everyone that he's changed."

- nod. "I think that's most of what I was curious about. Thank you."

"I enjoyed speaking to you. If you remain interested in this, you should let me know - there's lots to be done."

And it's a hard job to hire for, because even this man's very mild level of political acumen and caution about what he says is very very unusual in his society. It's sort of encouraging that it's not impossible, though. "Thank you."

And they can leave. 

<I like him> Mhalir thinks as they head out. <What did you think of it?>

I like him too. He seems - competent to think about things, if the orcs are gearing up for war I'd expect him to notice....maybe it's just that their farmers are all shaped very conciliatory and their nobles are much closer to normal, that'd be a perfectly reasonable way to define people if -

She has some kind of ideological objection she's having a hard time articulating, it feels that it would've been an injustice to her to make her like the Elves they met in the city and at the debate and on the road just because they didn't need that many people who were capable of suspicion, but really it's hard to say what the injustice would've been, assuming the leadership was competent, and you objectively don't need ideological creativity from your magic item makers and might reasonably prefer to design them with no curiosity at all for anything but magic - 

- sounds like the orcs don't get an afterlife, because they're not allowed in Valinor...

Mhalir also has some sort of hard-to-name discomfort about the Elves being the way they are. Though...he's not sure the difference between the diplomat they met, and the farmers, is necessarily about how they were made? Humans on Earth weren't made at all, and they vary a lot on traits like credulity and suspicion and then self-select into particular jobs based on it, or learn to have more of the skills they need with time and experience, he feels like this could perfectly well explain the differences they've seen. 

<...I noticed that. About the orcs. It is...upsetting... Just because they 'would not fit with the project of Valinor', whatever that even means...> 

Means that the orcs have free will. Or - they might use different vocabulary for it but I bet that's the core thing.

<Mmm. Maybe. Is there anything else you think we ought do in the city, before we go?>

I don't think so? There might be more here but I don't know where to look for it.

<Back to the ship, then? We should have data by now on the nearest neighbouring star systems, we could go see if Valinor is in fact a planet.> 

Sure. 

Mhalir follows instructions from the cloaked shuttle to head to an isolated-ish area, where they can get a ride back up to the ship in orbit. 

...He's feeling some sort of mild background frustration about the entire trip so far. The planet is a resource, obviously, worth exploring, but - also has its own complications, and he feels vaguely uneasy about the concept of interacting with it more. 

If you get a lot of Yeerks on the ground it'll be easier to tell if anything weird is up, and the orcs seem like they might go for it?

<True.> 

He asks his staff for a summary of the nearest stars that they've been mapping. 

Nearest star is 25 lightyears out; after that there's a couple that are 40 and a couple that are 70 and then lots past that.

Well, they can plan a hyperspace jump to the nearest one, then, at least as well as possible without having good charts of hyperspace in this region. 

It's a long way, though, if they're still assuming that even the gods don't have faster-than-light travel. Maybe they can also collect data from the hyperspace side, which sometimes has fluctuations that show where nearby masses are. It would seem surprising for there to be an invisible planet or star system, but - maybe not unimaginable, for very powerful alien gods. 

They get to work planning the jump. It'll take longer, because they have barely started with charting, but doing the charting will also let them make progress on finding invisible star systems, if there are any.

"There aren't any," his pilot says after a few hours of this. "Nearest star's actually a binary system, though. That presumably means it's not Valinor? I've never heard of a binary system having a habitable planet."

Mhalir waits. Reads through some of the photographed books a bit more while they're waiting. 

He nods. "Neither have I, but I would still like to swing by there first." 

"Sure thing. We can jump in half an hour."

We should be more careful in Valinor. I think if I use Disguise Self then I'll be relying less on everyone's obliviousness to pass for an Elf.

<That makes sense. And we can maybe do more cloaked aerial surveillance first, or send down small drones to get recordings. Not that the Elves speak out loud most of the time, which makes that less useful.> 

It is too bad that there's a peace treaty now and they can't just grab an Elf. Not that they should do that, because it's mean, but - she'd feel so much less uneasy if Mhalir had really gotten a good look at one of them.