"Yes."

"Well, it's not our top priority and as we both learn more things perhaps we can revisit it lateer."

"Perhaps. ...The spells I know of rely on continuing to have the sample so if I had eyes on it from its extraction to its destruction that would do, if whatever you want to do with it is brief enough."

"Let me check..." Typing typing. Frown. "...Apparently 'how long does it take' is too complicated to answer immediately and succinctly. I'll talk to them later."

Nod. "I realize that there's no evident magic here, that's just not immediately a reason to discard basic precautions."

"Okay, next topic... What uses besides healing and combat do spells typically get used for? Or perhaps we could ask what spells you would use over the course of a normal month and assume those are reasonably common as a good baseline to consider synergies."

"The ones that get used most are orisons and cantrips, which are reusable - I can catch them again after I cast them. I generally prepare Guidance, which makes the target slightly better at something they expend it on in the next minute, like throwing off a spell or attempting an attack, though since it's effectively free I use it when I expect no such thing. I also usually have Create Water and often have Stabilize, which will prevent a dying person from getting any worse until they're disturbed one way or another, or Light. I can prepare four orisons in a day and the fourth might be Light or Resistance or Virtue, I have not for some years been unable to delegate Mending or Scrivener's Chant or Detect Magic or Detect Poison but they all see routine use, and some of these wizards can also do an arcane version. Most clerics do not, but I do, have one wizard cantrip, though I'm very bad at it due to not really having the Cunning for wizardry - it's Prestidigitation, which has many uses but is principally for cleaning and laundry, which I can't do. I mostly use it for creating small props as either chess pieces or strategic visualizations."

This very professional Intel spook absolutely wants all the details on orisons. And then every spell he can remember the existence of.

Scrying sounds useful. To peek on interiors of downed alien warships before trying to breach them, an activity that has always had the highest casualty rate.

He can't scry yet. It's fifth circle for clerics. Do they also want to know about spells that he can't cast because clerics don't get them or because clerics of Lawful Good gods don't?

They may as well learn about those, yes!

Are there any interesting spells that deal with temporary or permanent manipulation of physical matter? Like Stone Shape or Create Water? (Speaking of which, just how hot is Heat Metal? What counts as stone, exactly? Do metal ores count? Would a mass of rust count? Sand? Mud? Gemstones? Perhaps he could attempt it with samples of weird alien materials, though those are mostly technical metals, it would be useful if they could manipulate some of those.)

He doesn't know about most of these edge cases and does not come from a world with well-popularized temperature measurements. He suspects sand and mud do not count and gems would and honestly has no guess on rust or raw ore.

They would like him to try Stone Shaping some large alien debris they have. As a test. He, however, presumably has not prepared that today. So perhaps they can schedule it.

They are also making arrangements for a channel here in about an hour, and want to know if they can also make arrangements for a channel at another Xenonauts base about three hours of flight away.

Also, now is probably about time to talk about pay. They are totally willing to pay him - possibly a lot more than standard. The standard for Xenonauts soldiers is six thousand dollars per month, going up a payscale to twelve thousand depending on specialty and role. The scale for support staff is six to ten thousand. The scale for specialty staff like equipment manufacturing, research, and high-level command or intelligence starts at twelve thousand and goes up to thirty thousand dollars per month. They would like to offer him thirty thousand dollars per month as an irreplaceable magical asset.

Does this commit him to a full month?

It would. This would be official employment by the Xenonauts initiative, which would come with several other implications as well, since it is an organization largely thrown together as an emergency wartime measure and has a number of unresolved questions regarding its relationship with parent nations. And Blai, as not a legal citizen in any of the most prominent nations, might face some difficulties. Many nations would be well motivated to grant citizenship or at least some sort of refugee status to someone with healing magic, but it would be a whole thing. Joining the Xenonauts, meanwhile, would basically allow him to travel anywhere legally as long as it is part of his duties as a Xenonaut, but might cut off certain other options as some countries may become more suspicious of him or hesitant. It might be easier for everyone if they try to hammer a civilian contractor role together for him, with a per-day pay rate, but that would make the security precautions so much worse and he would still need to make arrangements with at least one country to open a bank account to receive his pay...

They seem very nice but he's not sure he's prepared to make a commitment to their organization for as long as month! He'd at least need an employment agreement to read over. They not only typically pay via account instead of in cash, they cannot do otherwise? They have... remarkably formalized citizenship to the point of obsoleting "show up somewhere and then there you are as long as there's not anybody super after you"?

"Of course we would have you go over employment agreements and anything else you need first. In terms of cash payment, we can, I suppose, just give you cash in United States Dollars. There may be tax implications, uh, we have run into several cases of that. But I got too caught up thinking about organizational integration steps. We don't have to do everything exactly by the book, the book wasn't written to deal with an alien invasion. Metaphorical book."

She closes her eyes for long enough to take a deep breath.

"We are - I have been assigned as your handler, meaning my primary job as far as the organization is concerned is understanding you, your capabilities, and ensuring that you and the Xenonauts can work together smoothly despite cultural and knowledge differences. Um... Most of the countries that are desirable to live in have formalized citizenship to that degree. There may be places where one can simply show up and not face legal consequences, but in general modern nations like to thoroughly document their people, when possible, and control who may enter their territory - to prevent espionage, criminal activity, or the entry of an undesired designated underclass. There is a lot of bureaucracy, education, and services - society has gotten more complex over time."

"If you're not accustomed to clerics you may not realize - if I falter in my alignment by too much, it can make it impossible for Iomedae to continue to grant me my spells. This even apart from my personal inclinations to Law means I have to be extremely careful about making agreements that might possibly come into any kind of conflict with commitments I have already made or with Her overarching instructions. Organizations on Golarion build in this kind of understanding into things like military service contracts because attempting to do otherwise is counterproductive but you may not have this available as a preexisting boilerplate."

"We are not accustomed to clerics. It sounds like we should not be trying to formalize anything at this time until I have a much better understanding of your constraints?"

"I'm willing to explain them. I don't think they are too terribly complicated. That's just why I'm balking at a month-long contract, I'd need to be confident I wouldn't find myself commanded to commit evil acts and that we have a cooperative understanding of illegal orders and so on first."

"I'll be able to get you a daily rate. War is rather full of acts that might be considered evil from some perspectives, but necessary by other ones. Is this some sort of... Objective measurement you are pointing to, or is it a subjective judgement?"

"Good and evil are objectively detectable as properties of people, but it is much more costly and difficult to assess for individual acts, which at any rate can vary depending on hidden factors of how the actor thinks about the matter, so there are guidelines about that. It is not impossible to conduct a just war in a Good fashion."

"I don't think conducting the war in a Good fashion is among our goals, because we have no idea what Good," at least it's a specific technical term in this language, "Is and if it comports to locally known standards of ethical behavior."

Not saying anything about the various Special Programs.

"Would anything you have heard or seen about how we conduct the war so far be not Good?"

"I have not seen anything that is unambiguously Evil particularly given the consideration that the hostiles are an invasion force with no prior grievance. May I have a brief gloss of local standards of ethical behavior?"

"The thing anyone will think of when asked for that and wants to - officialize it - is the Geneva Convention treaties on wartime law and the various addenda that have been agreed upon by international treaty over the years since. I would have to look up exactly which ones we have committed to. There is a concept of 'war crimes' - activities which are not permissible even in a war, because they are unusually cruel, or they cause undue collateral damage, or they damage the ability to de-escalate. Some examples of war crimes are forcing prisoners of war to do dangerous work, deliberately attacking civilian populations, use of some classes of weapons that are especially prone to collateral damage or that have long term lingering effects, torture of anyone, attacking medical personnel, impersonating medical personnel to gain a tactical advantage, perfidy, false surrender, failure to accept reasonable surrenders, failure to uphold standards of prisoner care such as food, water, and sufficient space... That's what I have off the top of my head."

"Those all sound promising... is there, should it prove necessary, a way to signal that I'm not claiming to be a noncombatant in occupying a healer's role?"