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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She nods.

"I don't mind if Inlad knows but I think it would rightly cause widespread paranoia if it were generally known."

"I haven't told him so far. If he notices something is off I may."

Nod. "They have mind control powers that are detectable by a few means; they're scrounging one up for me. You could visit periodically or if anyone you know is behaving unusually."

"Perhaps we could come up to the city once every other week."

"I would find it reassuring. And once the new babies are a little older they'll be able to play together."

"That will be lovely. And Asame might want to play with Alatana and Notelle, she seems to like younger children as long as they're speaking in complete sentences."

"They are that! In six languages, my father's so disappointed."

"How many is it supposed to be?"

"He was hoping for nine, what with the two worlds they might end up straddling. I think he is ridiculous, and said so."

"Are they picking up anything local?"

"They have a little French. We're going to introduce Anitami everywhere pretty soon, they'll be okay even if they season well here and want to stay."

"English is very irregular and hard to pronounce but I'm mostly managing."

"How do you find the work?"

"It's less intellectually stimulating than yellow criminal, which is part of why I'm studying the language, but that will improve when we add more laws than 'don't attack Amentans' that can be violated more creatively."

"Soon. Kan is on that. Trying to make sure the laws will make sense to everyone and not be too drastic a departure from what's expected while also, you know, not being stupid. Did you know that England has the death penalty for sex between men?"

"...why?"

"Religious reasons. We're trying to figure out how upset people would actually be if we changed it - someone suggested a while ago that whenever they say 'it's sinful' we imagine they're saying 'it's unclean', and if they were saying that we'd be more - sympathetic, even though we'd still think they were wrong, we wouldn't just go 'well, now it's legal'..."

"Is there some procedure to fix it?"

"Confession, I think, is supposed to do that, only that's more about your soul being clean and I don't think obviates the criminal penalties."

"Well, that's not very navigable."

"Yeah. Obviously if we can't make it work we will have to just go 'well, that's stupid', but Kan's talking to people."