"The three being enough with no controls," she says.

"Yeah. But liking kids and being happy with three isn't the same as not liking kids."

"I suppose."

"And some people do have, you know, eight, fifteen, just it's not common."

She sighs with distant envy.

"I hope you all get as many as you want."

"Oh, I'm too old now, but thank you."

Tourists are agreeable and pose for pictures and leave in the evening and come back the next day.

Some Calador hotel operators grumble but everyone else is fine with this.

Some tourists will do overnights once they've had enough uneventful beach trips. 

Meanwhile, an Amentan in her early thirties with dove grey hair is touring member planets of Vanda Nossëo.

Some of them have customs at the border and ask about the duration and purpose of your stay; some don't. Some have shuttles every five minutes and some they are hourly.

She is planning to stay in most places for a day or two. She is a tourist. She brought a pocket everything with books on it and does not mind waiting for shuttles.

This planet has nocturnal humanoids with prehensile tails who complain about the weather (it's been cloudy, they miss the stars) and the elections (he talks like he's never bought his own groceries; she has the tact of a drunk toddler) and the tunnelcars (they shrank the seats again, you have to pay extra for legroom).

How long have they been Vanda Nossëo members? Can she find anyone who remembers the vote clearly?

Ten local years, which are shorter than Amentan ones, so plenty of people remember the vote. "Didn't you guys just join up? I think I saw something about it on the news. The actual vote was a breeze, for us - the tricky part was the courts ruled we had to modify our Constitution to meet some of the requirements, and that requires a three-fourths vote and that one almost didn't pass. Once it did, though, I think it was something like eighty-three percent favoring membership. They give out all that stuff, you know."

"What modifications did they want?"

"It was the rule about equality under the law - we had a Constitutional provision mandating special protections for historically disadvantaged groups. Vanda Nossëo was going to let us keep it with - I might not be remembering the details right - but various subpopulations had to be in favor? But our courts said that we couldn't join an organization with different laws until we modified ours."

"Protections for disadvantaged groups?"

"Like, ten percent of the population is Ulegers and they had to be ten percent of the workforce anywhere that got a government contract, women used to not be allowed to run for office and now they had to be forty-five percent of Congress or higher..."

"Ulegers?"

"There's a visual distinction. It's obvious to us but aliens can't seem to tell the difference. Different face shape and fur tone."

"I see."

"And a long time ago they weren't allowed to work prestigious kinds of jobs and so the rule was in place, making up for it, making sure they had a fair shot now. People were worried the percentage of them would go down once we changed the law but they just funnelled tons of money into scholarships and it's been fine."

"Why is it they weren't allowed?"