"How is it that these things go, what constitutes sort of reasonable for Alteri?"

"Some of them are more or less arbitrary, more or less likely to take offense at things, more or less likely to listen to inferiors. Or to anyone, for that matter. My work crew leader will be able to tell you more about who's the most reasonable, I have opinions but I don't know as much about any of them as she does. Oh, uh, can you, uh - if you bring them all here at once without doing anything else then the Alteri will be able to start instantaneously killing people, you probably want to find a way to make them - not."

"Yes, that sounds worth avoiding if for some reason they'll react to being transported by murdering their innocent slaves. Perhaps we can put them to sleep or something."

"They, uh - even if you separate them, Liars have kill switches in them."

"What."

"They. Uh. All the Liars and all the Thieves - really virtually all, anyway - have implants in them that are connected to the central nervous system. If activated they can cause temporary paralysis, intense pain, or death, according to the decisions of whoever controls the, uh, controls." She bites her lip. "Sometimes their supervisors wear the controls. Um, so - if you're going to bring a bunch of Liars and Alteri here then you need to - make sure they can't activate those, somehow, I think."

"Yes. That will also go on the list very close to the top."

"If we set the Liars down somewhere with food and water and support staff, are there likely to be other urgent needs?"

"I don't think so? If there's, like, air, and there isn't hostile weather or anything. They'll be scared, but they shouldn't die or anything?"

"Can we improve on that with something relatively simple?"

"Um - having an explanation will help? Being met by other Liars and not just alien possibly-kidnappers might help? But if you're definitely going to run out of manpower and you just need to throw objects at them, uh - off the top of my head I would give them real food and some basic obvious medical supplies like bandages or something, and maybe some blankets and some toys and some simple musical instruments or something? Because that will - none of that is going to help very much in itself, but it'd make you the kind of people who might know what help looks like? If that makes any sense? I'm sorry if it - doesn't."

"I think that does make sense, thank you. Hopefully we'll be able to get some kind of rudimentary training to the first batch, get volunteers, exponentiate from there..."

She nods. "Some of them will be good at it. I can help with some. But there's only one of me, so - not very many of a trillion. But some."

"Some is much better than none."

"Do you know anything about what the other enslaved people might need? To communicate the same thing?"

"Um. Not as well. Off the top of my head I think - things to write with and on for the Thieves, definitely, especially if you have, like, wax tablets or soft stone or something? Sluggards would be - happy is the wrong word but music would help, though they can't play it themselves. Um - Sluggards don't have to eat but Thieves and Alteri eat different things than Liars, I'm not sure if you have anything suitable? Oh, uh, they also - they breathe different things, Alteri breathe methane and I don't even know what Thieves and Sluggards breathe, but if you're going to take them off their ships you need to have something prepared on that front. I - know that's not super helpful."

"Why wax tablets or soft stone? What do Thieves and Alteri eat, do you know?"

"They can write on them, they have claws. Thiefwords are only written, so if they don't have something to write with, they can't talk. They can use computer interfaces but that's probably more complicated to get right, and they can use paper but it won't read as something that was left specifically with them in mind. Thieves eat - um, these worm things and these fungus things, when they can get them, in practice they mostly eat nutrient paste. Alteri eat animals native to their planets and also, like, lichen and some kinds of mineral deposits. But their biochemistry is different than ours, it's not like any worm or lichen will do."

"We'll probably have to just have Valar duplicating existing food stores at first."

"Is it safe to hold the Alteri with other Alteri or will they attack each other?" Could Lórien do a whole planet of Lórien?

I think not without a gift basket but I'm not certain.

"It depends on the Alteri? Lots of them will be safe with each other, they live with each other fine most of the time, but I can't, like, guarantee that if they get dropped on a strange planet they're not going to get upset and freak out?"

"Some guess at the likely rate would help us allocate resources to responding if and when that happens."

"...they get along well enough under normal conditions but these wouldn't be normal conditions. Probably relatively unlikely to attack each other if they're with their families or coworkers or some other group they know? More likely if they're with strangers or a really large group. And more likely if they feel like they're being, um, overtly attacked. Or controlled. Or contained. Or - something like that. I - really don't think I should give numbers because they're going to be very wrong, but, uh, it'll be at least the same rate as, like, normal rates of violent crime, probably higher?"

"I don't think we can manage 'unobtrusive'. There's no good in making things overtly prison-y, and except insofar as it's necessary to keep them safe from each other there won't be call to micromanage them, and we should be able to keep them near whoever they are already with as a bare minimum, perhaps even in wherever they already were since they seem likely to be more attached to their homes than the slaves are?"