And Lintalai's fathers will put her to bed.

And their little blue will sleep.

"Other places are thinking about it."

"After how badly Biyan is going?"

"They're thinking 'well, if our reds riot, we'd better have something planned to take over the work'. Only, once they do have something planned..."

"I wanted more time."

"Can you do it now, though."

"I don't know."

Lintalai goes to school as normal the next day.

Lintalai's classmates are slower than her at reading but some can hold their own in urban planning cardgames! No one talks about international politics!

Well. Urban planning cardgames are fun.

Other small blues think so! Urban planning cardgame has a more complicated ruleset for older kids in which you can break tenants' rights laws and bribe judges and collect blackmail cards which get you in trouble if overturned.

Those seem like bad habits to be in but it is just a game after all.

Her classmates are bribing and blackmailing with no concern for bad habits!

Does the game make that a good strategy?

If you're good at it it's better than playing fair but if you slip up you'll lose much faster.

Hmmm. She will play with these mechanics but conservatively.

Then she can cheat her tenants just a little bit and not get in trouble for it and defeat her classmates who cheat more flagrantly and dig themselves into trouble.

Good.

Her parents quickly figure out a schedule that lets them pick their little blue up after school instead of relying on grandparents. They're still working late.

Telkam leaves on a trip and Aitim is documentedly busy all the time but not stressed at all - totally relaxed, actually. "It's the baby. Amazing what a difference it makes," he tells his secretary when she asks, and after that he is precisely the usual amount of stressed, not one iota more or less.

"You could bring me back to work with you after school," Lintalai says.

"Lots of secret things these days. I guess you could read a book when I'm in secret meetings."

"Yeah. I'm too big to be near secrets now?"