"She dyes it. This is genuinely a big deal, if you mention it to the wrong people they will kill her and her daughter and Telkam and possibly Makel."

"If your world doesn't have one and you have to import one," clarifies Cam. "Could be anything. Big multiverse."

"I guess. Even if she's lovely I'm not super inclined to introduce Makarial to people who might get him killed."

"Anyway, I have the story now, you want it now or later?"

"Is Cam going to flee?"

"I'll go sit on the couch and read."

"Okay. Sure, now works."

Cam goes and sits on the couch near Cricket and reads.

Thanks to the miracles of time dilation Cam has already given Iobel a chiplocked computer whereon she has taken notes. She relates the story of the war.

He leans against her and sighs. "Well. Doesn't sound like anyone could have done better."

"Yeah. So now he's hanging out waiting for someone who can resurrect the Maiar."

"Makes sense. Might be a while."

"He's immortal."

"Must be nice."

"Reportedly yes!"

"We should go ask Nechar if he can give us better working memory."

"We stopped there so he could patch any problems with giving me brain surgery, asked then, he can't."

Sigh. "There might be somebody. Not that we can wait forever if there isn't."

"Yeah."

"Maybe we can plan to spend a month here figuring out all the technology and what we want to do with it, and then head back but keep a hold of the door somehow, get to implementation..."

Cam meanders back over. He is carrying Cricket. "Keeping the door available is as simple as having someone from your world in here at all times. They have to hold it open for time to run in your world though."

"That's really inconvenient."

"Yep."

"I'm sure we could find someone who'd love the job description 'live in a luxurious hotel, meet aliens, check on the door holder every day or two', the real annoyance is not being able to run time in multiple worlds at once."

"Yeah. If more show up with everyone taking turns that's not much time for new people to wander in."