"And even if they notice, there's not much to make of the observation all by itself. Tell your lawyer that they may have other clients who went through the same thing, I'm looking."

"Will do."

"Is there anything else I can do for you, Kitty, Susanna -"

"I'm not really upset about the sterilization part for myself. I didn't want children," says Kitty. "But it wasn't okay that they were just going to keep me."

"I really really hope that once you could talk they'd have contacted family, but we're auditing for that too, and will make sure there's a searchable list online of everyone we've detained for any reason so their families can find them."

"What if I couldn't talk ever? Some people can't."

"The site can have pictures too, though they won't be easily searchable."

"Descriptions," says Isama. "Time, place, coloring, discernible impairments, age, sex, that sort of thing."

Nod. "That'd narrow it down enough you only had a page of pictures to look at, at least."

"Yep."

"Is this just going to keep happening -"

"This in particular, no. Bad things that were each individually preventable - I hope not. A billion people is a lot of ways things can go wrong. There's nothing else in the pipeline which I expect to hurt people."

"The pipeline?" asks Susanna.

"We're planning and gradually rolling out legal changes, new infrastructure, new job integration, more colonists, the electrical grid, things like that."

"More colonists, joy."

"I actually expect you to get along with the ones who don't work for me better than the ones who do. The ones who work for me can go around wrongfully institutionalizing people, the ones who are just coming here to live are going to want to get a job and buy your things."

"I like some of 'em fine on an individual basis. They're fine as a market. Your presence is encouraging us to dismantle our own infrastructure and knowhow because you can skip steps for us and if we ever break with you we'll be the poorer for your having ever been here, and none of that was our doing."

"With some things like the internet we've skipped steps, but the railroads and sewers and docks and schools are all supposed to be maintainable on this planet's own industrial base, and the seeds will bear you next harvest's seeds even if Timothy made us all leave today. What are you dismantling that you think you'd want back?"

"People aren't taking apprentices in anything there's obviously industrial processes for, now, tanning and brewing and such. It spooks me when you buy up farmland and the farmers move to the city and work for you, it spooks me when something's only accessible if you can figure out a computer."

Nod. "We can probably have local and locally staffed tanning and brewing and so on within the next year or so, not relying on anything imported."

"Wouldn't hurt."

"Been trying to make yourselves harder to shoo?"

"No, I think shooing us would be indefensible on humanitarian grounds no matter what I do and so if you do it it's unlikely to be the result of a calculus that could be altered by how maintainable the local infrastructure is."

"Doesn't mean there'll be population controls, there are some ways to not do population controls and not have a bunch of refugees. Timothy could take over but not make everyone leave, for example, or he could go to Amenta and convincingly tell them to leave Earth be, or there could be enough data that we can stave off pressure to even try and then he won't have to tip his hand at all."