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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"It might empty the place out fast enough that something would give."

insistence

"Ah huh." Sigh.

"Then again I guess it might not, but it'd - soften it - people'd get out when they turned eighteen with no kids and no patron."

insistence

Nod.

"I think they might rather Voan system on the whole though, if there were options."

insistence

"If you're allowing enough growth you could do Voan system with an auction on top, get some of the perks of both."

"Maybe. Wages are up here now but that's for everyone and I didn't start saving straight out of school, I'd have to marry rich or compete with people who had a head start - the planets maybe even it out. I'm not sure I'd make out better than I would if I went home and made nice, especially factoring in little cousins and niblings and siblings..."

insistence

"That's probably especially true for yellow, they save more." Sigh.

"Yeah. If the Senator's daughter wins her campaign next election I could probably get four or five and live in a building with a bunch more - we're renting most of a little apartment building together, got some walls knocked down, all set for the Senator's grandson to rent us the rest of it whenever we need it and the matching one next door too -"

insistence

"All you have to do is get along with grandma?"

"And marry somebody who does." Sigh.

insistence

Nod.

"My ex wasn't like - objectively a real catch or anything or I would have pushed back harder about dumping him, but -"

insistence

"If you really think you can get four or five it probably won't be hard to find someone who thinks - playing along - is a small price to pay. But yeah."

"It just makes everything so much more to keep track of."

insistence

"And it's the same thing for your kids."

"Yeah."

insistence

"I think I thought once we had planets all the coercing and finagling and fighting would just be over and - credits are barely up at all this year -"

"They're still cheaper because people expect them to get cheaper and are more willing to wait but - yeah - why is that?"

insistence

"No idea. The numbers reporters were circulating start of winter were about what you'd expect with the planet going well and the desperate labor shortages, and then the numbers actually released were - not. I heard a rumor that we're having no luck with birth control for humans and they are worried about a surge from the drop in human child mortality without population controls but I'd thought we'd accounted for that in the first place, no one should have been counting on our having safe reversible long-lasting birth control for an entirely different species inside a year."

"They're weirdly similar..."

insistence

"Very weirdly. They supposedly want kids less, not that the birth rates reflect that with no birth control. I guess maybe we were just optimistic about coming up with something good enough quickly and it's been hard enough that they're now thinking about what to do if it turns out impossible or something."

"Why couldn't it have been empty..."

insistence

"Well, then we'd never have gotten away with the whole thing to ourselves and Mars. I dearly hope all the next ones they stumble across are empty, though."