I've got a list of names | Glowfic Constellation

Afen is disappointed in the universe. He bounds back and forth across his room explaining why to his wife, his infant granddaughter, the end table, and a reporter flabbergasted by her good luck and cringing silently against the wall in the hopes he won't remember she's there.

"There is no reason to suppose that a species evolving independently of Amentans, with their own evolutionary history and living mammalian species likely related to theirs, would end up looking like us. None. Every explanation every scientist has ventured to the press has been unimaginative and unconvincing retroactive refitting of bad models to baffling data. Aliens shouldn't look like us but with different hair colors. Aliens that are not made out of carbon at all would be unsurprising; aliens with only as much physiological dissimilarity as exists between us and animal species on our planet would be mildly surprising; aliens with opposable thumbs would be truly remarkable. This is not remarkable and biologically enlightening; this is just inconsistent with everything we understand about the universe. It doesn't teach us new things about evolution; it should make us rethink evolution. - don't quote that part, they'll take it out of context."

Reporter nods rapidly.

"All of that said, I've picked up three of the languages and I'm working on building a good machine translator, it's a challenge with as little as they've produced in the way of electronic records. I'm absolutely going there to meet them as soon as the politicians figure out what to do with themselves."

"Do you have any predictions about that?"

"About politics? Why would I have predictions about politics? They deliberately obscure relevant information, for one thing, and for another it's deathly boring."

"- I mean, sir, surely you hear from your son about -"

"I have seven children and some of them are very dense indeed but not quite dense enough to try to interest me in politics."

"I was referring to -"

"I know who you were referring to. If you want a statement from Aitim go bother Aitim."

"Thank you for your time."

"I did not alter my activities in response to your presence and therefore you can't yet be said to have wasted any of my time though you should go before you do."

...out skitters the reporter.

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"I noticed."

"How was your day -"

"Long. We don't all get lucky on spring, you know -"

"We can have two more now, if you want, I think their mothers would be delighted and we've plenty to leave them. Thank you for reviewing the next round of communications for me -"

"I wish those were more universalizable, it'd save so much time to approve one thing instead of two hundred-something."

"Someday. We get to announce schools, next week, that's more exciting than announcing rules. They're mostly doing okay - someone forwarded an analysis arguing that we've already halved the death rate everywhere we've finished infrastructure -"

"I am looking forward to ending slavery."

"End of the month, want the resources to reunite families and the local governments insist we should expect violence -"

"From the ex-slaves or against them?"

"From them - I don't believe them but I figure if we're cautious wherever the humans insist on being cautious the price is an extra month to abolish slavery and an extra year before we do population controls and an extra day before executions proceed normally, if we aren't - well, eventually we're going to step on something important."

"The executions thing is important."

"It's such a horribly unhealthy religion, I hope they abandon it once they have good educations and lower infant mortality and so on. But yeah, important for now."

"I think the kids should wait. Maybe I will get Isel and her baby to visit or something - it just makes more sense to wait until we're slightly less busy -"

"Well, until we're nine months away from being slightly less busy. Honestly, it's going about as well as could have been expected, I think we might be nine to twelve away from schools everywhere and decent infrastructure and internet and then things can coast until the scientists think they have birth control good enough it makes sense to impose controls.

"....so babies now?"

"I love you. Yeah, I think we could go ahead and start now if it'll help. And Isel and Almin can still come visit."

"-do you want to be related to the babies - I know it's my turn but if we're going to have more, you're the one who's nineteen -"

"One of each? I'd say 'and we don't even need to know' but with my luck one of them will have green hair, poor baby. And then both of the ones next year can be yours."

"Not poor baby, lucky baby, to have such wonderful green relatives who figured out planets for us. Lucky babies who will get lots of kids themselves."

Lean. Giggle. "They're vaguely optimistic they can figure out what the hormonal difference between people who permaspring here and people who don't is and come up with something that makes one likelier to not. But I like you like this."

"You are a terrible person, Aitim Neli."

"Ssshhhhh." Kiss. "Don't tell our billion new subjects."

Timothy Laurence Way

too-early-and-too-late

They get the memory charm down and the shield charm down and hover around London waiting for someone to break the aliens' rules.

Theodore Thowegood Way

"Think there's a way to be annoying enough to get dragged in front of a judge without getting executed?"

Timothy Laurence Way

too-early-and-too-late