Nod.

There's a knock. "Is everything all right in there, Senator?" calls a voice.

"Everything's fine!" he calls.

"Read minds bad," she says, quietly but firmly. "--Think you talk, you touch trash, I talk you red."

"...would reading minds make you unclean somehow, that doesn't - seem to make sense -"

"Not unclean. Not all bad unclean."

"But you mentioned reds and that's the problem with them."

"...You not want I talk you red. I not want you talk I reading minds."

"- you don't want to discuss reading minds, all right."

"...No. Reading minds bad. Unclean bad. Different bad. Still bad."

"Don't want to be accused of it? Associated with it?" suggests Cadra.

Nod.

"All right."

"Magic aliens think I reading minds, I death."

"- so it's a crime, I see."

Nod. "Magic translation--close enough reading minds, don't when not-magic translation. Yellows don't know alien languages, Odette Illia don't know Amentan languages, need magic translation."

"The polymath -" begins Cadra.

"This is the biggest thing to happen in history," the senator tells her, "if it gets out the capital will be a kicked anthill, do not make me regret hiring you, Insho, I know where your brother works too -"

"Yes Senator."

"Kicked anthill?"

"Everyone will want to get you to do things and make it look like their idea," he says. "I'm not claiming to have nobler motives but I can't compete with myself in three hundred directions and the full Senate is more than capable of that. The polymath Cadra keeps mentioning is brilliant and not obviously disloyal but his sister is being cultivated by another senator's office."

"...Why Senators want?"

"- oh, that's how you secure a future for your children and grandchildren, you accomplish things, but it's all very zero-sum."

"..."

"Just means you can't go running around meeting the entire Senate," he says. "It's extremely lucky you landed with the Adaros."

"Accomplishment zero-sum, other Senators want you not accomplishment?"

"The rewards are zero-sum," he says. "There's only so much room. Everyone wants kids - I'm sure aliens want kids too, right, or where would new aliens come from? - but we can't sustain people having too many, so we have to earn permissions. Most castes earn their own - place in contests or something - purples have applications they can fill out for first children, there's too many to do it directly for every single one - but blues wind up in positions like the Senate past the time when we can still have children so we wind up paying it forward a few generations instead. I've got three kids and four grandkids to look out for and only one of those grandkids is shared with another senator so we've only got so much shared interest."

"Hm."