Oh, the sun's coming up. ...weird for the sun to be coming up and not match felt dawn but probably the days are extremely wonky durations here.

"Happy dawn! I can help you uncover your room's windows if you'd like."

"Yes, thank you."

It's pretty straightforward.

"And this is how you use your curtains and blinds. You might want them for sleep. I use an eyeshade sometimes if it's bright enough and I'm sure we can rustle up one of those for you as well if you'd like."

"That may be useful, I've taken a night shift before but the fort didn't have windows."

"Sure thing."

The view outside Blai's window is nice, if you like buildings and snow.

The eyeshade is a bit like a blindfold, but instead of being a uniform strip of cloth that you tie every time, it has padded cloth in the front and a thin stretchy bit in the back.

He is not a huge fan of it after giving it a try.

In that case Kevin can give it back to the person whose spare eyeshade it was.

Chris would like another meeting with Blai at his convenience.

Of course.

"So, it seems likely that the archmages aren't going to pick you up for the convention."

"They are at minimum delayed and most likely have decided they can do without me," he agrees.

"You should probably plan as if you're going to be on or near Earth indefinitely, and I was thinking now might be a good time to talk about that."

"Yes. What sorts of planning strike you, an Earthling, as most urgent for me to do?"

"Thinking about the basics of an introduction to the global stage. Getting ready to fly in an airplane, children manage it but it's good to know what to expect. Taking advantage of your last chance to be around people whom nobody's had much opportunity to filter for you-related reasons. And probably some unknown unknowns."

"I have never previously been introduced to a global stage. What do you mean by unknown unknowns?"

"Things which we haven't thought of which will turn out to be important."

"Is there a way to prepare for those?"

"Probably not, but we can try? You can do exercises like imagining yourself next year and checking what problems you picture yourself having, occasionally that helps a bit."

"I do not know very much about what my life will be like next year."

"That makes sense. I mostly mentioned for completionism."

"So, the government has concluded that it's not possible to keep you secret in the long run given that you don't strongly prefer it, dozens of people who don't work for one of the parts of the government that's good at keeping secrets know about you, and such. We thus haven't been trying. People have pre-registered research about created water, people have discussed you on their blogs without your face or name, our government does know who you are and what you look like. The Acts aren't available to the general public yet."

"You could say 'well, I would like to only be more public about my existence once I have already gone to the United States, because doing a long bunch of international travel while being a celebrity sounds difficult'. You could also say 'I want to publicly announce my existence now, so that I can get started on accepting interviews from interested journalists and such, and get things done with faster'. You might want something else also."

"What does it mean to pre-register research about created water? - I have not interacted with journalism even on my own planet. And I don't know what international travel here is like without, let alone with, uh, celebrity status."

"They have not gotten to the point of formally publishing everything but they have told other scientists what they're thinking about, to make it harder for them to be dishonest in the future."

"International travel in this case will involve flying in an airplane from Scott-Amundsen station to McMurdo station, then from McMurdo to New Zealand, then from New Zealand to the United States. McMurdo station is a lot like this one, but larger and with more people and more buildings, and it's on the coast. You'll probably spend a few hours or days there. There's more stuff there, like hills, if you want to climb any for fun, but I get the impression you might not."

"An airplane is a large machine that flies hundreds of miles per hour. There will be a pilot and co-pilot, whose jobs are to operate the plane. You will get a chair to sit in, with a seatbelt, so that when the airplane shakes you don't get too shaken. When the plane takes off, it will move so quickly that you will feel like you are being pushed backwards a little bit, the way you feel pushed down most of the time. It's possible that the motion of the plane will make you want to vomit. There are drugs that can mitigate that, but they can make people feel sleepy. Some people also find that ginger helps, or looking out a window, or eating lighter meals before the flight. If you do need to vomit, there will be bags for vomiting into. On short flights, it's good to stay in your seat with your seatbelt on the whole time. On longer flights, there will be points where the pilot thinks the plane is moving smoothly enough that it's safe to get up if you need to. There will be a small toilet on the plane and those times are good for using it. If you are traveling with enough stuff, you won't be able to keep it all near you while you fly and the airplane operators will want to put it in a different section of the plane, but I don't know if you have enough stuff for that."

"When you get to New Zealand, you'll arrive at an airport, which is a place where airplanes take off and land. The government of New Zealand will probably ask for information on you being allowed to be there before you leave the airport, and whether you're carrying anything you aren't supposed to. The United States has gotten permission from New Zealand for you to be there for a bit and there are papers we'll show them about it. I don't think anything you came here with is stuff you're not allowed to bring to New Zealand, but we can go over that more when it's closer. If you want to carry your mace on your person that will require special permission, which you might be able to get."

"Once you leave the airport, it'll be green and warm and sunny. People will speak English, like you've been practicing. A lot of people spend some time in New Zealand before they go to the United States, and you could be one of them if you wanted to. You could possibly get permission to stay indefinitely, honestly, you're very special, but we'd prefer you come to the United States. If you wanted to do that, the United States government might offer you a hotel room, or they might prefer you stay somewhere else, I don't know. It would have more space then here. If you choose to spend some time in New Zealand, you could do things like go to local restaurants or warm beaches or forests or museums."

"When you leave New Zealand, it might be on a big commercial flight, or you might be offered a more private flight, I don't know. If they don't offer a private flight and you don't ask for one, then you'll go to a big airport, with a lot of people. Again, carrying your mace would require special permission. You'll go through more checkpoints where they check what stuff you're carrying and whether you have a ticket for the airplane and such. And then you'll be on a long airplane flight – you could have someone such as me accompany you for all this, probably, I'll be less busy once I'm not on Scott-Amundsen Station. The big commercial flight would probably have hundreds of people on it, and you'd probably get a special larger seat in the front of the airplane, and they'd serve meals. Once you arrive in the US, it'll be a different time of day than it is in New Zealand. The government officials at the airport will want to check that you have permission to enter the United States, and what stuff you have. And then you might have another flight to DC from wherever you arrive, but it would be much shorter and the time difference would be less significant."