"Oh. Why would this cost more if you were a double agent?"

"Because I would be politically important, since I was involved in talking to the aliens."

"Okay. Uh, the door still leads to Gilead. It sounds like maybe we'd rather be friends with Canada but we can't alienate Gilead to do it."

"...Maybe I should try to talk to someone with political authority about this. Uh. In the meantime, I can answer any of your questions? I do want first contact to go well too."

"What are the other countries like?"

"Mexico is really Catholic. Cascadia is full of hippies and farms, it's really pretty. Canada cares a lot about protecting people's rights, they have universal health care and don't let people be surrogates under 21 and stuff. Uh. China is a totalitarian dictatorship, everywhere in Africa is really poor, most of Asia is really poor too, I think everything I know about Europe is an ethnic stereotype..."

"- 21 is how old? That's like... summer five? Fall five?"

After some discussion about how years work, Andrea and Sadrin come to the conclusion that 21 is fall five.

"Huh, I think most places on Amenta will take five year old surrogates. Unless it's their first spring, nobody's making good choices in their first spring... I can get you a meeting with Avalor, and I'd really like to help you with the getting out of Gilead thing - do you want to bring your husband too -"

"Yes, he's deconverted too. Uh, you do have divorce in Voa, right?"

"Yes, although it makes child allocations really awkward."

"Good thing I don't want any kids then. --Yeah, we'll divorce as soon as we're in a place where it's legal."

"Why?"

"I'm gay."

"...you're gay and you don't want kids? So... why did you marry a man?"

"I didn't know I was gay when I married him! I thought I was just really, really good at not lusting."

"...that's a skill?"

"It's a sin to willingly entertain thoughts of wanting to have sex with someone who isn't your spouse."

"Are the missionaries going to be more likely to commit crimes if people tell them they're stupid several hundred times a day?"

"I think the job selects for people who see that as being nobly persecuted by the sinners like Jesus was."

"...okay. Uh, but presumably, when you - did whatever humans do when you achieve sexual maturity, for us it's springing but for you it'd be something else - you noticed you entertained thoughts about sex with girls?"

"I didn't know anything about how sex with girls worked, so I didn't know how to think about sex with girls. There were a bunch of girls that in retrospect I clearly had a crush on but at the time I just thought we were really close friends and I wanted her to be happy and cared a lot about her opinion of me."

"Humans must be different," concludes Sadrin.

"I like my husband a lot but he deserves to be married to someone who wants to have sex with him."

"That seems reasonable. Okay. We can talk to Governor Avalor about it but I'm really confident she's going to need to keep Gilead willing to allow Amentans through, even if we wind up settling them permanently in Canada instead."