I'll ask him to come on over. How far out are you?

Far out?

When can we expect you?

I'll be the rest of the way over in a medium-sized lump of minutes.

...clocks. Clocks are definitely going on the list.

Then I won't ask him to abandon the greenhouses quite yet. Mind if I sit in? I don't know which end of a chisel to hold but the engineers all imagine their supplies appear magically on their doorstep and their labor is perpetually hanging around waiting to be in demand.

Not at all.

The other thing you should know, the Dwarves' society is as far as I can tell powered entirely by economics. Not useless at all.

Oooh. We'll have to send emissaries.

Definitely. And don't make the mistake Doriath did, where it looks like they only care about gold and are less persons for it.

The emissaries will also find out about some copiable and very conspicuous technology I sold. Just don't have people start making it here or deploying it against the Enemy.

There are a lot of really good reasons to have currency and we're not going to conclude that the things people want from us are the things they want, period. No worries. And I was assuming you wouldn't share anything anywhere that you really don't want us to know? I do in fact have a pretty competent intelligence division.

Steam in particular I'm not hiding from you. Pretty confident you'd agree about it being obvious and copiable before it becomes very useful.

Let us know if you're planning a trip out to the major Dwarven population centers; them we could send a palantir. 

I'll make sure to tell you if it turns out to be before you've sent people.

Thanks. How are my cousins doing?

About as well as we could expect, if slower without the oaths. Getting settled in. They've got actual borders already, I think they'd count as a country now.

I'm very glad.

Did you ever standardize on safe phrasings for the oaths, by the way? If it goes too long with people swearing whatever they think they need, someone's going to say the wrong thing eventually. May as well minimize the risk.

We did, yes. We've also backed off the pace a little now that a lot of the required work is intellectual and harder to do stressed and sleep-deprived.

Good. On both counts.

Over the not-currently-measurable minutes she approaches Feanorian territory and walks the last stretch.

And is escorted into a workshop. Amber, Maitimo says, my brother Curufinwë.

I am told not to be curious where you learned this, he says, and I find not being curious hard, so you should distract me by going ahead.

Nod. Pleased to meet you, Curufinwë.

Electricity! Light bulbs! Something that is probably much too vague to actually be a radio transmitter because really, who knows that one! Steam power with an explanation of the secrecy thing, and no mention of guns. Lenses, since that came up as a thing Elves don't have on hand and it might not be because they don't have a use for them! She runs through whatever comes to mind as explicable from a world full of black boxes.

(And clocks.)

He asks a lot of questions. How people with this technology copy books, how people with this technology do mining, how people with this technology do refining, how about agriculture...

Some of the questions have clear answers, more of them get generalities or an "I have no idea," the agriculture one she has to dance around the fact that there's usually a sun involved...

Weaponry we can't use unless we can disguise it as something we already have, but we should probably be prepared for the Enemy to have it - how does this society fight wars -

If you mean what kinds of things do the weapons do, specialized versions can kill people given only a straight line to point it at them. If you mean how do they work, the Enemy is much less likely to get it if I don't spread that around than if I do. And he'd get more use out of it than we would.

He looks at Maitimo for a few minutes, who is looking neutrally back.

All right.