She is delighted to study this for the rest of the day, if Miles isn't going to get bored.

Miles is pretty delighted to spend the rest of the day teaching his two native dialects of English and their associated alphabets out of the Survey Handbook, translating things into Thindarin for practice whenever he remembers.

They attract a few other people as well.

Even better.

It's the middle of the night before Maglor asks them to disperse. "I'm happy to see so many people productively employed learning the star-languages, but my understanding is that you'll have time to pick them up on your way to the relevant stars."

"Oh," says Miles, glancing up at the night sky. "Time passed without my noticing. How dare it. Sorry."

"I usually answer that by saying 'in the long Ages of the earth you'll catch back up with it and give it a good talking to' but I suppose I can't say that. I am sorry."

Miles laughs. "We've got someone working on that, don't we? Anyway. I'll go get some sleep. See you later."

"We do indeed. Good night."

"Goodnight."

And he traipses back to his shuttle and sleeps and wakes up and eats a rat bar and tromps back to shore. Any disasters awaiting him today?

No disasters seem pending.

Lovely! In that case he can pass the morning talking electronics with Ténië and then head across the lake to see how they're doing.

They're working, mostly. The camp is still subdued.

Well, all right. The top two items on his priority list are 'talk to Tyelcormo about the plasma arc incident' - how do you even have a casual private conversation among Elves, this isn't an occasion for dragging him an hour's walk out of his way but neither does Miles yearn for the complication of an audience - and 'see if Maitimo is up for more stories'.

Tyelcormo and Huan are working on construction by a riverbank on the east end of camp. Maitimo he'd have to ask about.

Well, then, Tyelcormo it is. "Hello."

"Morning. We're going to put a thing in the river to power Tyelperinquar's light-and-heat-from-metal artifact, but I'm not the person to talk to, I'm just building what's been described and I don't know how it all works."

"I'll find someone to ask if I want the technical details. Which I might; they're doing pretty well across the lake on the project to restore power to my shuttle, but that's no reason to stop helping."

He mostly isn't thinking about hydroelectric power, though; mostly he's thinking about military training. Specifically about how best to switch gears from 'dispense practical information on weapon handling as fast as possible in case I die' to an actually sensible training regimen that won't shame either his planet or his army with its inadequacy. It's not a trivial problem and it occupies quite a bit of attention.

"That sort of thing was prohibited in Valinor. Even scouting was frowned up. Father tried as soon as it was apparent we'd be in a war, but with nothing to work from you can only get so far."

He laughs. "Leaking again, am I? Yeah. I should have it comparatively easy, having two excellent examples to work from, but I'm getting hung up on the logistics. For one thing, on purely practical grounds the most efficient thing I could do would probably be to start recruiting people to a new branch of the Dendarii, but it seems like that approach might run into political complications."

"None of our people are going to jump fealties. At home, is that considered an acceptable thing to try to do?"

"Recruit for a mercenary company from among people with existing political ties? Depends where you try it. Anyway, I don't want anyone's fealty. I want to figure out how to get my expertise best placed to win the war. That definitely means training an army, but doesn't necessarily mean commanding one. It's just that I don't know how else to train an army. I'm sure I'll figure it out."

"Guess you can't just pick a King and ask him to give you a lot of latitude. Have you asked Nelyo what to do? He might have some ideas."

"I'll see if he's interested in discussing it. Thanks."

He idly imagines being made a general under whichever available King. Neither image is quite satisfying. The subsequent image of recruiting a bunch of people from both sides on loan into a provisional branch of the Dendarii without interfering with their existing loyalties, giving them years of the best training he can offer, arming them with railguns and reinvented nerve disruptors, unleashing them on Moringotto, and then politely relinquishing his temporary command, is enticing but impractical. ...Maybe that actually is his problem, though, maybe he can't figure out how to train an army without commanding it because he expects he will end up with de facto command of any army he trains simply because it has been his longstanding experience that that's just what happens around him and armies. The Dendarii, the prisoners at Dagoola...

"We have all known each other for centuries. You've commanded Men, before."