"In order - presumably, yes, aaand - given blueprints or a couple weeks," says Cam, "no problem. Plants are easiest of those in terms of what I'd need template-wise to go off, since I've done plants before, but maybe too slow in the quantity you're looking for if the alarm's going off already. They'd be one at a time."

Adana has schematics. She produces them. "Would these do? Space station is the best bet, this place is a shoddy nightmare. You're absolutely right about the plants but I am not in the situation to be picky."

Cam looks at them. "Looks good - I'll have to make one of the shuttles first and putter out to where you want the station put, though, I can't make things from miles away and I don't think you want to wait for me to flap a million miles."

"Again, absolutely right," she agrees. "I'm not picky on where the station goes aside from 'in a stable orbit around Earth' and 'not going to hit anything or screw up any satellites.'"

"I'm not possessed of an up to date map of what-all space debris there is to avoid these days; do you have a candidate spot picked out or d'you mean for me to guess?"

"Several spots picked out, I have made charts." She produces the charts, and shows them. She points at the closest one. "Any is fine, that one one's closest but I like to have options. In case for some unknown reason the closest available location offends you."

"I'm pretty easygoing about where I construct space stations. All right, so, shuttle, fly thisaway, build that thing, populate with shuttles, that's the plan?"

"Done," he says, with sufficient finality that the circle ceases to confine him; he stretches a wing past its border. "All right, where's my takeoff point and are you coming along?"

"Yes, I'll show you there and go with you to see if there's any essentials I didn't think of that you could provide."

"Okay then." He steps out, tilts his head, waits to be shown the way. "Do you know how to fly the kind in the blueprint or should I make the first one something I know how to handle?"

Cam doesn't pay them any attention either. "Right then, console straight out of a thirty-year-old video game it is. I'm not going to crash the thing. Well, on purpose, anyhow."

"You do, here at least. Some countries will let you get away without one, but Bartalamos doesn't. Eighteen's the minimum age, you have to take a test, and there's a fee to pay. It's pretty annoying, actually."

"I think it's better that there are more summoners running around now, but yeah, it has some downsides. You should have seen me when I was fifteen and impatient, I kept wheedling my dad to move us to a place where I could practice before I was eighteen."

"So you were very excited about summoning demons to fly you around in shuttles and build you space stations, huh?"

She laughs, a little. "Not demons, you're the first one I've summoned. I was in a bit of a rush, pardon the terrible circle, please. I was excited about magic in general. Still am, actually."

"Oh, is that why the terrible circle. It's pardoned, it made my week, usually all I get to say is 'yes, summoner' or 'no, summoner', they don't even include an option for 'close but no cigar, summoner' or 'go fuck yourself, summoner'."

That makes her giggle. "What in Sol did they ask you to do that made you want to reply with that last one?"

"Oh, people want demons for all kinds of icky things, we get much weirder assignments than I'm led to believe angels do, although perhaps less idiosyncratic than fairies. I'm glad most of us don't know how to make pocket nukes, because there's some who wouldn't blink at it."

"Demons vary, summoner."

"Well, I'm sorry, but I've never summoned a demon before, and since you're usually constrained to two phrases it's not like there's much information on personality traits."

"So far no one's come up with a way to prevent me from rolling my eyes, which is something, although 'no talking' does apply to sign language including various rude gestures."

"... Okay, I know why the rule of no talking is in place, because apparently you can steal my soul, but I'm imagining you flipping someone the bird and stealing their soul that way and it's morbidly hilarious."

"How apparent is my ability to steal your soul? Have you ever met someone claiming to be missing theirs?"

"I thought they were the ones to teach in law school."

"People still make lawyer jokes, huh?"

She giggles. "Yeah. I'm a bit old-fashioned. Happens when you hang out with angels half of the time."

"I'm not going to steal your soul, anyway. I don't collect them. Nobody I'm friends with thinks it's fun."

"I hope that's not the only thing keeping you from stealing people's souls," Adana says archly. "I hear they need those."

"Enh, they could always be lawyers. Does lawyering still pay well or do they need soul-requiring second jobs as short order cooks?"

"It still pays well. So they could get by, somehow."

"There you go, souls nonessential for - keeping body and soul together. So to speak."

"I hear money doesn't buy happiness, so they could end up miserable because they really wanted to be a short order cook."

"It's true! So only law students should summon the soul-stealing kind of demon."

"...Oh, damn, I'm - okay I have no practice managing the stereotype because usually no one lets me talk, but in addition to not a soul-stealer, also not a rapist, okay? Calm down. I mean, those exist, they're commoner than the ones who will solicit souls, but I'm not one."

"You're insanely lucky you got me, actually."

"Yes," she agrees. "But I knew the risks. Lives are kind of more important."

"And you were in too much of a hurry to go through a few summons to find a helpful demon, I guess."

"Before I met you I didn't know that there were any helpful demons to be found," points out Adana. "Rampant stereotypes, and all."

She will follow him! Because she is curious, and this will be her space station, so she might as well be there for its creation. Besides, it is quite dramatic and she is trying not to make an 'eeeee' sound at it.

"... Is that particularly safe? If it is - gravity would be excellent."

"I have one under my house," he says. "I mean, it can't exactly kill me, but it hasn't even tried very hard. I can give you the fancy setup with the magnets and you can use it for garbage disposal."

"Okay," she agrees. "Safe for regular very mortal people, please, I like living."

"Believe me," says Cam, "I understand. You want Luna gravity or Earth or something else?"

"Luna gravity, please - though if you can vary it, I might want to try and make recreational areas for both. People will be living here, after all. It should be a nice place to live."

"Not via black hole, I can't, it's going to be one mass fits all - I guess I could nudge it a little closer to part of the ring, but not by much and not by enough to make the severalfold difference. Somebody who knows more engineering than I currently do would have to invent properly science-fictional artificial gravity first, then I could copy it."

"Then Luna gravity, it's what we're used to. It's been years since I've been in Earth gravity, I think I would have trouble just walking in it."

"Yes to all of those! As long as the carpeting is not tacky."

"I have excellent taste." He strolls with bouncy Luna-gravity steps towards the 'ponics, laying down soft navy-blue pile with subtle green vine patterns down behind him.

"Pleased to meet you," he says with a little wing-sweepy bow as he starts to stalk up and down the rows in the 'ponics with sprouts of various things following in his wake. "I'm Cam, I believe I mentioned."

"You have! Nice to meet you, too."

"Remember me for all of your demonic needs."

"I don't get summoned often enough, there's not much to do in Hell besides socialize and fly around and read and throw parts of my house into my black hole so I can replace 'em. All of these are fine activities but they aren't the sort of meaningful I like best." Plants plants plants plants. Many kinds. Labels accompany them: potatoes wheat tomatoes broccoli kale corn zucchini rosemary arugula -

"Entire parts of your house? Just pick up a living room and throw it into a black hole?"

"I can't, actually, pick up a whole living room. Some demons go in for enough body modification to be able to do that kind of thing but in my case it's more chainsaw it to bits a wall at a time and feed the bits to the pinhole and sweep up the debris and then I get to make a new one. I usually have a few layers of different sorts of wall treatment on a room before I get that bored with it, though. When my black hole gets inconveniently big I'm going to chuck the whole house at it and start again from a higher orbit."

"That sounds kind of strange, but also fun! Though it must be a pain to constantly destroy things you make."

"Yeah, the angels have one up on us for recycling. Hell rejoiced when the black hole was discovered. Incineration was the previous state of the art for decluttering. We're not pyromaniacs, we just don't want to have to abandon cities under heap of used crap every few decades. Although it's not like we have to wreck stuff, we could in theory even use human reclamation methods for the relatively garden-variety creations, just - it doesn't stay useful indefinitely and who wants to bother with a compost heap when you can just make perfect plants without the fertilizer step?"

"Incineration? That explains the fire stories. I hope you don't throw actual people into them? Or souls?"

"There are still a few traditional lakes of fire. They are empty of humans and human metaphysical parts."

"Also demons, angels, fairies, and their assorted metaphysical parts. I consider more than just humans people, I am a responsible summoner. Except when I freak out and make a terrible circle to summon a demon because I do not want people to die. Which reminds me! Have you made the comm, yet?"

"We can't really get visitors, there's no way to get an angel or a fairy into Hell. You guys get all the hosting privileges. No way to get a human into Hell either. If the comm was in your blueprints it is made -" He flips through the blueprints. "Yeah, all set."

Cam leaves off plantmaking to follow her in case she needs anything made.

"I don't care all that much if some random moon people respect my life choices," Cam remarks. "Are you going to want me to fly you back to the Moon in one of the shuttles so you can pick up a human pilot and so on and so on?"

"It still seems terribly rude!" declares Adana. "And yes, I will - but space station first, please. They need time to organize anyway, I just threw a wrench into their spreadsheets. Poor dears."

"I'll go finish your 'ponics, unless you've got a higher priority, then."

"Nope! Hydroponics is fine. Thank you for being helpful!"

"I cannot make you people. Anything else you do want made?"

"I was not expecting you to make me people! That would have worrying ethical problems. Uhh - aside from the shuttles, nothing I can think of."

"How many shuttles you want?"

"One dozen on top of videogame-controls shuttle, coming right up." Off he goes, tail swishing.

Cam places twelve neatly arranged identical shuttles with non-videogame controls in the bay, and then he goes back to the comm room.

Adana smiles at him, when he comes in. "All done?"

"Unless you have more stuff you want made."

"You know the minute after I say, 'Nope, go be free' is when I will think of a ton of great things for you to add. Right now, I can only think of an array of computers for my employees to use."

"I can do computers, but if you want particularly recent models you will need to be more specific. And tell me where you want 'em. You can always resummon me if you think of a new shopping list."

Cam deposits computers where she wants them in the model specified, whistling.

"Yeah, I made 'em all topped off. Shall I fly you to the moon?"

"Yes please!"

"...You look terrified. Please don't be terrified? I just want a booklist."

"I mean, this was huge, so as large a list of books that exist as nicely organized as possible, but there shouldn't be any need to spend more than an hour or two collecting it and putting it on a datastick for me. Please don't be scared." He drops into a sort of nonthreatening squat, wings folded, tail still.

"...I'm really tempted to hug you but that seems like it might do the opposite of helping. Considering."

He hugs her. Wings and all; he was deemphasizing them a moment ago but after you've had wings for more than a century leaving them out of a hug seems neglectful.

Hug. It's a nice hug, at least.

"I'm not going to hurt you," he promises.

"Okay," she says quietly. "I'm scared, anyway, because I don't typically - do things that are - this high stakes."

"Well, next time you summon me you can do it in a nice tidy circle and lay out all of what you want and what I can have for it in advance, if you like. Though I'd appreciate it if you went on letting me talk."

She laughs a little. "Sure. It feels mean, to - not let you talk ever and just be 'Yes, summoner,' or 'No, summoner.'"

"Plus, when you get an at least minimally nice demon, it's not even safer, because it means I can't ask questions about any details you don't mention. Or suggest additions like the pinhole for gravity."

"Mostly," she agrees. "Sorry for um - the waterworks."

"Hey, it's okay. I probably would've been spooked too."

The summoner laughs a little. "I mean, at least now I know that I am perfectly functional in - this sort of exact situation. So that's nice to know."

"Mm-hm."

"Thanks!"

Cam's where he left her, reading a book that he presumably made.

"Hi," she says. "I have the book list, I think there's not literally everything ever on it, but there's - a lot. A lot a lot."

"A lot will do," he smiles. "Is it all in nice searchable plaintext?"

"It is! The document is huge, by the way, even if it's just a text file."

"That's all right, I have a stack of books already while my computer chews through this one looking for stuff I haven't read. Time for me to -" He coughs and looks maybe too pleased with himself as he concludes - "go to Hell?"

"One hundred and fifty years!"

More giggling. Helpless giggling. "And now, finally, you can say it!"

"Yes. I can check it off my list."

"You have a list? What else is on it?"

"I have lots of lists. That one is actually a very short list. I have plenty of opportunity to say 'damn it' in my day to day life so that got checked off pretty much on day one of demonhood."

"Okay, well, what other demon puns are on your list that are unmade?"

"Aw, I can't just tell you, that will ruin the impact if I ever get a good setup for one."

"Oh, fine," she snorts. "Go and be cagey, save your puns and use them as careful pun-scalpels."

"Tell you what, I'll tell you one that I have gotten to say, I have referred in real life to 'getting tail'."

"Yep. Tails aren't as universally popular as the wings, but they're certainly a done thing." Swish swish.

"Horns are less popular again than tails - they make it complicated to do anything with your hair and if you want to get rid of them they're particularly awful to saw off - even if you make them totally nerveless, your skull's not nerveless, it's unpleasant. Sometimes somebody will turn up at a party with barely-attached hollow 'costume' horns but I think a majority of demons don't have them as permanent accessories. And as you can see I haven't added a set. So I'm not itching to make the obvious jokes."

"Right. Tails and wings both are mostly soft bits, if you need to replace them you go through tendons not bones - what?"

"I just - realized that this entire time, you have been missing a shirt."

"...You just realized that? I hugged you."

"I-I was distracted! I mean I noticed but it was really not the time to say that I was - embarrassed or - or... Something!"

"Okay, what's my dress code for any future summonses you may issue?"

"I can make a shirt, if you want. No extra charge. If you're not just going to send me home in ten seconds."

"I mean I am honestly out of ideas for things for you to do! I was milking that like nobody's business, you have no idea."

"I have some idea."

"Okay, you have some idea," she snickers.

"Unless there was a period of several days in which I made you a small planet while unconscious somehow."

"... Don't tempt me, I want to do that now. The - planet thing, not the - making you unconscious part."

"A planet would take a really long time, longer if you want it to be more than a ball of rock. I have no idea how the demon who made the ridiculous plane of gold didn't realize at some point during the process that it was a horrible tacky idea."

"There's a ridiculous plane of gold? Why?"

"At some point, some demon - I do not actually know who, though presumably he or she is still kicking around - made a very large, very thick plane of gold. It has roughly sixteen times the surface area of the Earth and it's thick enough to give it Earthlike gravity and then some. It's convenient to have something like that, but the fact that it is made of solid gold is incredibly stupid. Most of the populated areas have layers of more usefully malleable things like dirt and water and so on, you know, planet stuff, on top, a mile or two thick."

"Are there truly no rumors about Hell being paved with gold? The lakes of fire, everyone knows the lakes of fire, but you don't know the huge tacky plane of gold even these days? Well, you must tell everyone, make up for this lack."

"I haven't heard any rumors about it being paved with gold! But I'll tell everyone, don't worry."

"Well, yes, but selling created gold from demons is actually illegal now. Along with like - fabricated money, jewels, that kind of thing. You can sell services provided by things created or changed, but not the thing itself."

"Economically sensible. Anyhow, the plane of gold is demon-made," Cam points out. "So sending miners to carry bits of it away, via highway or otherwise, would hardly get around that."

"Yes but they could bask in it. Or something. I don't know what people with vast amounts of a soft shiny metal do with it, they might just sit around and look at it."

"What demons do with it is we bury it under heaps of soil and large lakes and try to ignore it."

Adana giggles. "More sensible than letting it be tacky."

"Rather, yes."

"But it still sounds incredibly tacky regardless. So very, very tacky."

"Intensely so. But by now there's all these cities on it. Getting rid of it would inconvenience a lot of demons and nobody's had much success making more tasteful masses and getting them populated by more than a handful of demons. I live well above a city on it."

"So the tacky golden plane is there to stay. Not because it was the best, but because it was the first, and won over the hearts of demons everywhere. With the urge to stifle it utterly."

"I'm being quietly a little worried that right before I put you back you grow huge fangs and are like, 'Bwuahahaha, you have fallen into my clever trap!' But there's also the charisma."

"Fangs are even less popular than horns. What if you want them gone? It's like pulling teeth. ...I didn't have that one saved up, that was on the fly."

She snorts with laughter. "I am impressed and awed!"

"You should be. But if you're still scared - and I wish you wouldn't be - why haven't you poofed me gone? I have my data stick, I cannot crawl out of Hell to haunt you unsummoned."

"Because it seems really rude to just poof you back without permission. And I mean - yes I'm still scared but I'm... Less scared, now, and as far as I can tell you have been exceptionally nice to me, so it's - wrong of me to be rude to you just because I am scared."

"I'm used to it, you know. I've been answering summons for a hundred fifty years when I could get them, and you're the politest summoner I've ever had. If you want my express permission to send me home you may have it whenever you want; I don't prefer to overstay my welcome in your space station."

She smiles at him. "I'm sorry you haven't had any polite summoners! I think it's because I'm used to angels and it's all - floofy little clouds and changing minor things for the benefit of all and such. Thank you, for taking my preferences into account."

"You're welcome. I know angel culture principally by reputation - I'm not friends with any, so I don't try to beat my way past throngs of demons who are - or the larger throngs of demons who think we should all shun them permanently - when we get a concordance with Heaven. Are they really that - twee?"

"... Kind of twee? I mean they have personalities and there was one who was incredibly unpleasant to work with, but overall they are helpful people. At least the ones I work with, anyway. I have a few angel friends, I'd introduce you but I'm pretty sure they would be upset with me for summoning you, letting you talk, and not putting you back at the first opportunity."

"So you have racist angel friends."

"Kind of?" she winces. "Sorry!"

"It's okay. I'm not that bothered. I know why the reputation exists."

"I will tell them that I met a nice demon who built me a space station?" offers Adana.

"I can't tell if you're joking or not and that worries me!"

"Sorry, sorry, I don't have your soul, I promise, I couldn't resist!"

"Meanie."

"I'm very nice. I am the nicest of demons. I do not have your soul, I will not take your soul."

"Thank you very much," she says. "For leaving my soul where it is. Ostensibly. Whatever it does."

"You are welcome."

"... Well. Is there anything you would like to do while you're here, or should I return you?"

"... Friend of yours?" she asks gently.

"Not exactly, but I would've wanted to get on a phone. Or possibly an airplane. They're dead now though."

"I believe you. I'm all right."

"You may. It has been lovely to meet you." He tucks the data stick into the pocket of those ludicrously perfect-fitting jeans.

Yup! No more demon.