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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Makel Alasi

" - I thought we, uh, ended slavery."

Michael Cyrus Way

" - it's really not like that."

too-early-and-too-late

"It's really not. If you ended it they'd be completely miserable."

Peka Atan

touchme

"Uh, how d'you figure."

too-early-and-too-late

" - you ask them?"

Makel Alasi

"People lie about that kind of thing."

too-early-and-too-late

"I would notice."

"If you wanted to."

too-early-and-too-late

"Wow."

Peka Atan

touchme

"Don't 'wow' him you have slaves."

too-early-and-too-late

" - look, you're really, really missing something important here."

Theodore Thowegood Way

"You actually are," says Theodore from where he is sprawled on the couch.

Peka Atan

touchme

"...okay, a Telkam I may actually take seriously on this, do tell."

Theodore Thowegood Way

Timothy looks annoyed.

"They have as many kids as there will be work for, because it'd be horrible for there to be a house-elf and no work for the house-elf to do. People threaten to free them as punishment, sometimes, and usually if you go through with it that's just, it, they - grieve forever - you can't even get anywhere with 'would you like your kids not to be born this way', they don't want kids if there's not enough work for them and they don't want kids who'd be - houseless - people are dicks to them and that's a problem, but it's not a problem you fix by freeing them while they grovel on the ground begging you to please just torture them as punishment instead."

"Wow," says Ana. "I'm gonna poach cousin Hala from whatever she's doing and make her do stuff here with me."

too-early-and-too-late

"Do what?"

"Oh," says Ana, "I'm going to move here and study magic - I know I can't do it at least until there's gene therapy or something but I can learn about it - but there is clearly too much stuff for one person and cousin Hala's an anthropology intern."

Makel Alasi

"Hala is Kantil's daughter - fourth in birth order -"

too-early-and-too-late

"Yeah, I got that - Aitim and I have been comparing people trying to figure out who matches and why - you're both welcome to come here and take notes on us if you want, though you can't publish them, we have laws about that."

"Not publicly," agrees Ana. "Although I was probably going to write fantasy novels or possibly scripts if this hadn't come up and might want to do some adaptations of stuff to account for my time if that's okay."

too-early-and-too-late

" - it's kind of a statute violation but I don't know if anyone will notice, that's probably fine."

"Statute violation?"

"The international statute of secrecy! Saying wizards have to keep quiet. It has its downsides, it's why Rebecca and I married in such a rush instead of, like, dating, but..."

Theodore Thowegood Way

"It's the reason we can take the Amentans now, so it's good."