“You think you can use the talent to create wealth, instead of moving it around?” Brill looked puzzled.

“Yes, that’s it exactly.” Miriam put her glass down. “A large gold nugget is no use to a man who’s dying of thirst in a desert. By the same token, a gold nugget may be worth a lot more to a jeweler, who can turn it into something valuable and salable, than it is to someone who just wants to melt it down and use it as coin. Jewelry usually sells for more than its own weight in raw materials, doesn’t it? That’s because of the labor invested in it. Or the scarcity of the end product, a unique work of art. The Clan seems to have gotten hung up on shipping raw materials around as a way of making money. I want to ship ideas around, instead, ideas that people can use to create value locally—in each world—actually create wealth rather than just cream off a commission for transporting it.”

“And you want to eventually turn my world into this one,” Brilliana said calmly.

“Yes.” Miriam looked back at her. “Is that a good thing or a bad thing, do you think?”

Brill gestured at the TV set. “Put one of those, showing that, in every peasant’s house? Are you kidding? I think it’s the most amazingly wonderful thing I’ve ever heard of!” She frowned. “My mother would say that’s typical of me, and my father would get angry and perhaps beat me for it. But I’m right, and they’re wrong.”

“Ah, the self-confidence of youth.” Miriam picked up her glass again.

“Doesn’t the idea of, like, completely wiping out the culture of your own people worry you? I mean, so much of what we’ve got here is such complete shit—” She stopped. Brill’s eyes were sparkling—with anger, not amusement.

“You really think so? Go live in a one-room hut for a couple of years, bearing illiterate brats half of whom will die before they’re five! Without a fancy toilet, or even a thunder-mug to piss in each morning. Go do that, where the only entertainment is once a week going to the temple where some fat stupid priest invokes the blessings of Sky Father and his court on your heads and prays that the harvest doesn’t fail again like it did five years ago, when two of your children starved to death in front of your eyes. Then tell me that your culture’s shit!”

Miriam tried to interrupt: “Hey, what about—”