"Personally I don't feel strongly about having kids at all but my husband has a spiteful streak and approximately doubled the number he wanted in response to the very idea of controls, there's that. Also my alt wheedled me into helping her have magic hybrid babies if those turn out to be a good idea."

"Because of the milder springs? And the magic? That'd be great, if it works that way."

"Yes, but it complicates casteing and population policy something awful."

"For mild springs they'll figure something out."

"Yeah. Uh, Hala permasprings on Earth but she just has a 'hookup app' and goes out a lot, she didn't really serve as a good example, but then one morning Ana was in Tiny Magic Ana's bed wrapped around her looking rather tormented and we sort of softened up after that."

Nod. "Suicide rate's really high in spring. It's - we needed planets very badly. Doesn't mean we're not obliged to make our exploring good for everyone else we run across, too, but."

"It's net good. But 'net' is a serious qualifier here."

"I mean, I don't really mind that slaveowners are having a worse time than they did."

"Not really what I meant."

"Amentans would trade almost anything for their children not dying, are humans different that way?"

"I think coping with a high infant mortality rate is psychologically very different from coping with aliens who don't understand you or what you want but may, if there have not been any miscommunications, have something to do with some of your children not having happened to get sick this year."

"That's reasonable but 'this is a tradeoff people would happily make if they were informed about it, there's just not much trust currently that this is the tradeoff they're getting and they're worried it's going to get worse' seems like a different kind of problem than 'this is a tradeoff that many people would actually prefer not to make', and an easier one to fix by continuing to deliver on things."

"There's some of both."

"What's an example of the second kind?"

"...parent of some kids feels the need to present as a good role model of their values to the kids, feels they'd be a bad parent if they knuckled under to alien demands that run counter thereto and a worse one if they admitted to themselves that they were not previously personally empowered to make sure all the kids grew up."

"It's not even 'not all' it was close to half."

"It wasn't evenly distributed. Death in childbirth rate's pretty high too, so you've probably got people who want to honor the mother of their children, who, being dead, can't evince an opinion, but they're sure she would have been horrified by all this, say."

"Which she would be alive to be."

"If they were taking advantage of your services. Do you know, uh, Klimati -"

"Isama Lalail's sister, yeah."

"Human her went to the alien dentist - couldn't talk, is illiterate, got stuck in a doorway and picked up by mental health people and sterilized even though that's not policy in her region. They're being quiet about population controls but everyone can kind of tell you don't want humans to have children."

"That one made the news here. They're in jail."

"It made the news because Aaron found her and complained to Aitim and I have no particular reason to believe anyone would have paid her a moment's attention otherwise."

"There should probably be people everywhere who humans know they can complain to."

"Human Isama did not even know that the aliens were responsible for her sister disappearing, since that's the kind of thing that may happen if you send someone who has that kind of problem around the block to the dentist. And we can tell that you don't want us to have children, so every point of contact with aliens is frightening, even if it's not policy, even if we believe you're not lying about policy, it feels like all the aliens are just waiting for an excuse to make it happen anyway."