"I believe Mark has already volunteered to go out Vivienne's window."

"In a sense, I suppose. I'll do it, anyway."

"There's a back staircase, leads to a door that goes out near the quail. I could show it to Stalas and he can meet Miles and Linyabel and the Armsman she brought after they go out the front, and then I can go up the back stair again, get Vivienne's sweater, and resume like nothing happened."

"The quail that aren't going to try to kill me? Those quail?" inquires Stalas.

"The very ones. The quail that will try to kill you are up in the attic."

...Stalas cracks up.

So does Mark.

So does Lalita.

"Killer quail are no joke, gentlemen."

This does not cause anyone to stop laughing.

Hee hee.

"Does this seem like a plan? Are people in a hurry to implement this plan?"

"I mean, we do have a a more or less complete accounting of all the obviously profitable exchanges between applicable worlds, or we wouldn't have sent the little ones home already, but I am concerned that the moment we step out, six more sets of alts with more fascinating trade goods are going to come in."

"Which logically implies you want to stay here literally forever," says Miles. "I'd rather not do that."

"Perhaps not literally forever, but I might want to wait for another week or another alt, whichever comes first."

"We can survive a week, I'm sure," Miles says agreeably.

"You know you don't have to wait for me, right? You can step out and I will be along presently regardless, because of the fascinating temporal properties at work."

"Yes, but there is not a hope in hell that I will actually do that."

"I know, just reminding you that I'm not in fact holding anyone hostage to my reluctance to leave."

"I won't consider myself to have missed anything interesting if we go home and never find out whether or not more alts came by afterward, but I sure as hell will if I go home and you pop out a few seconds later having actually met some."

"If I meet more while waiting I can open the door and tell you and you can come back in to have a look," she points out.

"And yet I'd still feel like I missed something."

"And the door might decide to vanish on you until they're gone out of pure spite," Mark contributes.

"Still, please do not hurry me out the door until I am good and done waiting."