The door opens. Small children go racing doorwards. Aitim comes back with both of them in his arms. "Thanks for coming," he says to Pelape. "How was it?"

"It was interesting, thanks for convincing me."

Dinner is three courses; the kids have already eaten and after about three minutes' discussion of taxes race off to go play. "Sorry for being late," he says. "I'd underestimated the inconvenience of having a polity span all the timezones. ...I am curious what you thought of them."

"Well, the entire conversation was rather colored by their resenting that we invaded their planet. - if you mean the humans, Kefin was quite pleasant once he no longer seemed like a random internet stalker. Minor seems weirdly vindictive and, uh, utopian? I mostly agree with Miranda about things. She said watching us talk was like watching her brain have a conversation with her perspective."

"The vindictiveness is a wizard thing, I think, it's an honor culture. You mostly agree with Miranda about things? Does she not want to shoo us?"

"She's not vindictive. She doesn't really want to shoo us either, she wants us to have Mars and do better research and be less burdensome to the humans but she, like, acknowledges the humanitarian costs."

"Not everyone suits their culture perfectly." Hair-touch. "I think they'll end up deciding against shooing us but the impulse is very strongly felt, at the moment."

"We're really alike and they coexist with a variety of bizarre magical native sapients just fine but we like babies too much."

"So I think it's part expecting that any balance of power which has Amentans on the planet results in overwhelming Amentan dominance soon enough, part knowing Muggles for whom our disappearance would be greeted with tremendous relief, part expecting that I'll be more creative about solving all their other complaints if they just happen to ratchet up the stakes as far as they can."

Sigh.

Sigh.

"They're really young. Timothy's still five."

"They were complaining about how you're young for your amount of power and older than non-magical humans often get. Well, Minor was complaining about that, Miranda didn't seem to think it warranted special concern."

"It is reason to expect no human would ever hold meaningful political power even if we blued some. I suppose whether that's a problem depends on one's perspective. I'm a bit surprised Miranda doesn't care, actually, it's among the better reasons not to try to do one government."

"She's not sure how much longer you could get nonmagical humans to live, is part of it."

"We're somewhat optimistic, their current conditions can't be good for them. Or just make most people wizards - they're so reluctant on that front but it'd be so useful -"

"I want magical hybrid children."

"I'm shocked, shocked. They wouldn't even be old enough to be a meaningful contributor to the current situation but I guess we might make progress on gene therapy off the results of that."

"I mean in general, not strategically."

"Oh, I know. I don't want them strategically, for us it'd be a war crime anyway, just. Magic! And they wouldn't spring badly!"

"Exactly!"

"So I'm sort of underresourced when it comes to wizard operations, anyone I tell is at risk of getting their memory altered and also I need to be sufficiently sure they won't be careless with it. This complicates handling them, a lot."

"Miranda's probably throttling their use of memory alteration. I mean, their little faction, I don't know about more formal avenues."

"I'm more worried about other channels, at this point, their faction has some drawbacks but thinks we're people. Though she's not throttling it entirely."

"They were pretty freaked out by planetary conquest but I think she was a factor in making it reversible."