"But it might solve the bind we're getting ourselves into and Aitim thinks he might eventually be in a position where he has some control over whether it would be tried and abandoned as hopeless. But he's not there yet, and things seem quite determined to happen now."

"I wonder if it would be better if you could tell by looking like I do with food."

"That'd be really good. People wouldn't have to wonder and it's mostly the wondering that's scary. And if we invented ways to clean then we'd know if they worked."

"But it'd mean you could never just decide things were okay and then go on like that."

"It would."

"So maybe it wouldn't be better."

"Well, if there isn't actually a way to clean reds then we wouldn't want to think there's a way to clean reds."

"But you can't even tell! If you thought there was..."

"There are people who think that if we agreed on some process being adequate then it just would be adequate, there's nothing else to it, but it's an extremely uncommon outlook to have on it and not one that inspires confidence in others."

"Oh."

"Hmmm?"

"If, um, if someone thought pretending would be fine, they would have to pretend they didn't think that, or they couldn't - pretend good enough at all."

"Yes. They would."

"They would have to pretend so hard."

"I think most people could not pretend well enough and should not try things that would depend on pretending."

Nod.

"But people do vary in how careful they think they can be."

"...say that differently?"

"I think there are some people who think pollution works that way and could pretend otherwise and be careful enough it was not a disaster. I think there are also people who think they could be that careful, and who are wrong. So saying 'be careful' isn't good enough advice but neither is saying 'no one could do it'."

Nod.

"Do you want to play a game?"

"Okay."

She gets some children's games off the shelf.

Lintalai picks one.

Oh good much more age-appropriate.