I have no idea if you're good roommates.

We're going to be accumulating lots of children eventually, but not until Kalatha's bigger. We're not clean by Anitami standards but by local standards we are very, very clean.

Kalatha? Will I have to be very very clean too?

Kalatha is the baby we found and adopted. Unless you are an unusually messy person I expect it'd be fine.

I think I'm all right. Can I see the house? Does the baby scream at night?

I sleep on a different shift than Kalatha, you could do that also. She does cry at night sometimes, though she's growing out of it. And an address.

And Kib shows up.

"It's not that I blame her for hollering at night, I'm told I talk in my sleep at assorted indecorous volumes, but it was one of the things that annoyed me about the creche when I was still little, there was never any quiet."

"In Anitam it's common for new parents to have their parents around, and siblings, and a nanny, to help with a new baby. Doing it with just two people is actually quite exhausting, though more than rewarding enough to make up for it."

"Am I going to be roped into baby assistance?"

"What? No. Shasali barely even lets me alone with her, she's definitely not going to be pressing her on strangers."

"Good. Four and up they can be cute but I sort of don't see the point any younger than that. Which room would I be living in?"

He shows him the house. It is a small house but has indoor plumbing and a busily-chugging-away water heater.

Kib inspects the house. "Yeah, all right. I'll want two weeks' notice before you kick me out if it doesn't work out."

Nod. "Are there tenants' rights laws here?"

"I'd have to look it up. I'm not going to get involved in an elaborate legal battle if you boot me without notice, the two weeks is for convenience."

"Oh, it's very reasonable and we'll abide by it, it just prompted abstract curiosity about the legal state of affairs. At home they'd drill us on it in school."

"Seems an odd subject to focus on."

"We had very specialized schools. Remember the thing about breeding people? We bred them for different things and then had schools for the thing each subgroup would be good at."

"That's so fucking weird. Ah yes, these are the people bred to have tasty seeds and those are the people bred to like herding sheep..."

"Athletic ability, intelligence and creativity, conscientiousness and detail-orientedness, restraint and good judgment, hardworkingness, social and emotional skills. I have a - friend - who thinks it's a very stupid system and we'd be better off if we got rid of it but people get very proud of their community."

"Which one are you?"

"Blue is land development, governance, diplomacy, the courts system - the 'restraint and good judgment' set."

"What about your roommate?"

"Shasali is part of a class of people that our government has been systemically terrorizing for centuries because they are believed to be inherently unclean."

"Uh."