"All right." Cam pulls out his computer and writes up dumbed-down technical specs for the dam and the water pump. They require no routine maintenance; absent deliberate sabotage, severe earthquake, or similar magnitude of destructive force, they won't even need non-routine maintenance for about fifty years. Anyone who is not really stupidly determined to tamper with the things will find them harmless. They will produce, at peak capacity, a (comprehensible) volume of water and an (incomprehensible) amount of electricity. The terms under which their use is offered to Opri boils down to "no upfront fee, water's free, electricity's very very cheap, modest installation charges for things that use the electricity and any of Cam's time spent on teaching other people about it, and all of these prices are subject to change at any time depending on what Cam's doing with his valuable time and how friendly he is feeling towards Opri's representatives that day".

He describes his ability to make things as a non-transferable form of magic. He lists the real limits that will make sense in context (things cannot appear in motion, he can't appear things he knows nothing about) and asserts that he can't make anything complicated without design input into it (that should stop them from trying to sneak anything past him he doesn't like).

He lists some things electricity can do. With appropriate infrastructure - unmanned, low- to zero-maintenance, nonexpert-controllable light, heat, transport, communication and computing technology, household appliances, industrial processing - he stops short of talking about electric string instruments. Just won't have the right impact without a demo.

He shows it to Steel in its draft form on his computer screen. "How's this look?"