"With you? I could arrange some, yes."

"I'd appreciate that. Is there anything else I can show you? They're so useful, the cameras."

"I would love to know more about what the sky people are doing, of course."

"Hmmm. The city I suppose you can go and see yourself; most of Aitim's conversations are really very boring but maybe some aren't..." he shuffles through. "Talking with the human regional advisor for Denmark; talking with the Cenemi observers, talking with his generals, what kind of things are you interested in..."

"Cenemi observers? The generals may be interesting as well."

"Some other society of skypeople is keeping an eye on this one to make sure they follow skypeople law in handling the locals."

He plays it.

The observers have sent Aitim's department dedicated to transparency and accountability and so-on miscellaneous complaints, which Aitim's department has investigated and published responses to; the observers are unsatisfied with the responses in three cases and he meets with the relevant observers to discuss. 

One is very anxious about anti-birth-control religions and thinks he should be leaning on them harder; Aitim spends a while summarizing religious leadership structures with an eye to who would need to be influenced or removed and who would be appointed if they were removed. They go back and forth on other advantages of cooperation with the churches and he tries to pitch her on a program to delay marriage and childbirth which he's implemented in Mombasa and is very pleased with - "kind of thing that'll be much easier to do in Europe if they aren't angry with us and they'll be so angry if we have to crush their church. They only have until they're nine or ten and it looks very tractable to get them to wait until they're seven to start, and that's our best angle at the moment without reliable long-term birth control."

Another one wants to keep closer tabs on malcontent human factions; another disapproves of fraternization with locals in case of miscommunications - "it's a real risk, but it's also driving down birth rates and encouraging cultural integration, if you have suggestions for specific situations to avoid or specific changes to our guidance to settlers I'd be happy to take a look..."

He seems, if you pick up on that kind of thing, to take the observers more seriously than Minister Du.

"He seems more reasonable when dealing with them."

"I agree."

"Do you know why that might be?"

"I have some guesses."

"Do go on."

"They sent a written complaint which his people responded to, they found the response inadequate so they scheduled a meeting with him, he had read up on the complaint by the time of the meeting. Maybe he is unreasonable when people break into his house and easier to get along with if you schedule a meeting, or maybe he is more reasonable if he has been sent a complaint in advance so he can familiarize himself with it.

They presumably have real power, or he wouldn't be catering to them, but they did not make any threats, even very vague ones. Skypeople have a separate caste for people who fight; I think they consider willingness personally to resort to violence to be a low-class sort of thing, not one that real holders of power would require, and I think they issue threats rarely and carefully and in a very particular way. Aitim says to Du, 'if wizards give my subjects love potions, I will arrest them', that's an Amentan sort of threat. Du says 'if I decide to kill you all the records in the world won't bring you back', which is a very wizard sort of threat and is the sort of thing low-status Amentans might say to each other but that I think Amentan rulers go out of their way to avoid.

And finally, they are skypeople; we would find it very hard to respect a Muggle no matter how he conducted himself, and perhaps they correspondingly do not really see wizards as their equals."

"Minister Du did not open with threats."

"I have no objections to Minister Du's handling of the situation, just observations about what might contribute to the difference in reasonableness."

"Hm. Who did you want to meet -"

"You mentioned there were some people who wanted to talk with the Amentans?"

"Yes. Is that something you can arrange?"

"I could, yes."

"The Muggle Relations Officer, Long Yibei. And perhaps Ma Long, who works for Minister Du's office."

"What would be the best way to get in touch with them?"

"I can send them messages now, although I cannot guarantee that they will be available on short notice." She sets brushes to paper and the brushes paint their way along.

Timothy puts away the computer and he and Minor wait.

The messages roll themselves up and swoop out into the hall.

One of them comes back clutched in the hand of Long Yibei. "Yes?"

Minor translates this. 

"Hello. I've been observing the skypeople for a while and wanted to talk with you about options for working with them."

"Is this to do with that rabbit fellow?"