"And then, what, set up a civilization there?"

"There's arcologies, in my world, because nobody ever let me talk so I couldn't offer to properly terraform it."

"That sounds useful and safer than having you on Earth. You can send us care packages."

"Yeah. Maybe eventually if you find somebody who could harmlessly cast the Imperius on a daeva they can be ferried by drone to Mars and get a nicely bound fairy to try it on whose summoner is safely elsewhere ready to dismiss the fairy if it goes wrong."

"I feel much better about that approach. Also circumvents some of the political problems I'm anticipating if people can immigrate to Mars."

"Howso?"

"Uh, if the church declares we're evil or something - I don't know much about the Muggle church but Muggles definitely listen to it about that sort of thing - we can still make stuff available to anyone who wants to emigrate, we don't have to overthrow any existing governments or convince them to go along..."

"People get more secular but I'm not sure how to speed it up. Starting a polity from the ground up on Mars sounds fun."

"Doesn't it? I still want to do some things on Earth because most people won't move but a new polity on Mars would be significantly easier to get right - you probably don't want any wizards in it, that obviates the safety benefits of having you all the way over there..."

"Depends on the results of the fairy test, but assuming I can't presume immunity, yes."

"You'll still get some, Muggles have wizarding children occasionally. But it should be feasible to ensure they don't have access to any mind control spells."

"Should it? How are spells invented?"

"Mostly trial and error. If someone causes half your subjects brain damage that'd be a sign they're trying to invent mind control and you might want to stop them."

"My -?"

" - who were you imagining running the place -"

"Somebody who hasn't holed any planets lately!"

"I don't know any Muggles that well but I can probably find someone halfway competent if you prefer that - or we can look at who distinguished themselves historically -"

"I mean, maybe I'm again holding 1802's ethical zeitgeist to too high a standard - goodness knows monarchs committing atrocities on smaller scales have never been that hard to come by - but eventually it won't be 1802 anymore -"

"And once Muggle Britain stops handing out death sentences for theft or adultery or blasphemy and conducting the trials in Latin, and once the slave trade is abolished, and once the colonies stop picking wars with the natives because they want their land - then maybe people will want someone else in charge of Mars, yeah."

"But in the meantime you're among very few people who even thinks any of those things are a problem. If you don't want the job, that's one thing, if you're just worried that eventually we'll grow up far enough to be upset about it and not far enough to agree it was right -"

"Suppose I could prioritize training a successor."

"Sounds good to me."

Sigh.

"Sorry."

"I'm trying to imagine sourcing an Elf for it but I don't think that would work particularly well either..."

"Oh?"

"I like Elves fine but they would have some trouble trying to govern humans. Maybe it'd work after a steep learning curve."

"If we can't get immortality sorted a steep learning curve with an Elf might be more convenient than having to figure out not just a successor but a succession procedure."

"If summoning can be made to work in your world that might sort immortality on its own. In mine you skip Limbo and become a daeva if you summon while alive."

"Huh. - we should probably check that before we make many plans, it affects a lot of them..."

"Find some dying people and have them summon, then."

"If summoning works at all."

"Have them try," Cam amends.

"Alright. Can you show me what the circle's supposed to look like?"

"They vary. Bindings? Intricate enough that if you drop your notes it'd be hard to reproduce?"

"I can enchant my notes so no one else can read them, that part shouldn't be a risk. If we do it without bindings we might accidentally get a bunch of people killed, yes?"

"Circles can summon random people or specific people; if you wanted an example of the latter I could just make it specify someone I know, although on general principle you should have some basics on there anyway."

"I would love to grab someone you know, that sounds easiest by far."

"If it's a demon they'll be pleasantly surprised by any binding that doesn't include a gag, even."

"You mentioned earlier that people didn't let you talk. I would like to note that that's appalling. No gag."

"They think we'll talk them out of their souls." Summoning circle drawn mini on a piece of paper.

"Can you?"

"Talk them into offering, sometimes, collect, no."

"There're spells that supposedly affect souls but no one's sure."

"To supposedly do what?"

"Uh, one way of attaining immortality purportedly works by ripping your soul in half and putting one half in an object and hiding it, so you don't die unless the object's destroyed. But there are other explanations for how that could work."

"Quendi chips are colloquially 'souls' but they work in a supposedly physicalist way."

"Those demons can presumably steal just fine, right?"

"I assume so but it's possible we couldn't take them back to Hell, same way we can bring hamsters but not people."

"-huh. Why's that?"

"Unknown. Probably not related to the can't-make-minds thing since that cuts off at roughly 'snail', not 'hamster', but I don't know what it is instead."

"It sounds sort of - friendly - like whatever made your magic system did not actually want the daeva realms to be horrible -"

"They could've had more of a care for the Limboites."

"- I guess without magic that'd be pretty unpleasant, yeah."

"We send them care packages."

"If you can take magic items back to Hell with you we could send magic plants or automatically refilling goblets or something."

"I don't know if I can or not but that'd be great."

"Who has the next corcordance with Limbo?"

"Heaven, unfortunately, and they don't have functional correspondence with Hell."

"I can step into your world and summon one, though, right?"

"Given certain assumptions yes."

"If I can't, then maybe wizards can't summon and we do need a Muggle to test whether summoning works back home. Possible but less likely summoning only works for people from certain worlds and Elves or your-Earth humans could do summoning even in my world, if I can't summon in the world you've been working in - we need to name these places - and Muggles can't summon back home we should at least try to get an Elf to try it in my world -"

"The world with the war in it is called Arda. Let's call my home Earth - uh, Revelation."

"For the book in the Bible? Okay."

"At one remove. The existence of daeva becoming common knowledge was called that."

"When did that happen?"

"March 2007."

Raised eyebrow.

"Daeva became public knowledge? Just like that?"

"Yes everyone woke up one morning surprisingly well-informed it was amazing."

"When I first worked out how long it'd take me to repeal the Statute I was quite satisfied at the thought of accomplishing that at 23."

Sigh. "I did literally find a book on summoning in an abandoned house by sheer luck."

"Is gloating considered unseemly by 2179 or something because I think you should be doing more of it."

"I was anonymous for safety, which did not work, and have stayed that way because there was no productive way to deanonymize afterwards and no reason to unproductively do so, and now I feel like it would come off as trying to compensate for the thing where I holed a planet so I'm just privately deriving some comfort from being net positive in lives saved."

"It sounds like the Arda decision was that all by itself. But - well, congratulations anyway, I would personally be very annoyed about having to do the most important things anyone had ever done anonymously."

"Thanks."

"Should we check if summoning works now, or did you want to read the rest of the magic books first?"

"Whichever."

"I kind of want to know so I can meaningfully start planning."

"Sure. I will be happy to make most of a circle for you. How conspicuously weird looking is your hallway..."

"Not weird, I don't think." He opens the door. 

It is obviously the inside of a large and old stone building, but it could easily be a museum or cathedral or just a fancy estate. Except for the fact that the people in the portraits move and gawk curiously at them.

"The paintings," Cam observes neutrally.

" - oh, right. In that case we might as well go all the way off-grounds, reduce the potential for interference - Minor, will you hold the door -"

Minor scoots doorward without looking up from his book.

"I am reluctant to go away from the door while there are Elves I have not put back."

"Fair. I can do it myself if you give me notes -"

"...You're also dressed funny."

"...how do people in 2179 dress?"

Cam hands him an outfit.

"Uh, Bar, is there somewhere I can change -"

You may rent a room, or the restroom is available to your right.

"I will probably eventually get a room, we're going to have lots to do - Cam, do you mind paying for it, I might want to spend my money on projects and counterfeit won't do for those -"

"Yeah, no problem." He drops a sack on Bar. It clinks, then vanishes. She provides a key and a napkin reading Room 5688.

And after some bewilderment at pants he comes downstairs looking not especially remarkable for 2179. "You will also have to tell me what to say, I can copy your mannerisms and maybe your accent if mine're suspect but I don't know what the conventional requests would be -"

"Don't disguise your accent, she'll get your dialect anyway and might notice if you aren't using it. It's not that far off. Tell her you got her name off Davidson's Demons List, take this," he hands him a little chip, "don't show it to her in advance or indicate that it's on your person, tell her you've got a song you guarantee isn't in circulation and you want a - pick something she could reasonably make you?"

"- do books even still exist - magic things probably won't go -"

"Magic things won't go. Books are not unheard of and that's actually even a reasonable thing to ask for since physical books are kind of niche in 2179. It'd have to be something you'd have a plausible reason to want in book form even if you assume you can get the contents trivially off the extranet though."

"If I asked for, like, a replica of the throne room of King George the III, because I am a historical enthusiast - that'd also let us tell whether conjuring makes things from your world or from mine by default, because ours has a point of contact with the wizarding minister -"

"Yes, that works. Specify a scale and how you want it boxed or whatever, I don't think she'd hurt you even sans binding but she might think it was funny to make it full size in the middle of whatever nowhere you use."