"That's quite all right," Avalor says. "What have you heard about Amenta so far?"

"We would prefer to have this conversation away from representatives of the Gileadite government."

"Totally understandable!" Fred says, exiting with a little wave.

"We understand that you are a species of aliens that, in lieu of some more conventional method such as spaceships, made contact via interdimensional bar in someone's bedroom. You have a caste system which is indicated by rainbow hair. You are all averse to touching disgusting things to a degree that would be pathological among humans. You are immune to bitoxiphosphene and intensely desire babies, which means that Amentan immigration may ameliorate the most pressing problems for both of our worlds."

"Those are the important high level facts, yes. What do you think we should know about Cascadia, and what would you like to know about Amenta in general and Voa in particular?"

"First, I think I should introduce Lev. I think he can be best understood as a green in your system? In Cascadia, the forecasting department predicts the outcomes of certain policies to allow the government to make informed decisions between them. For this reason, it's very important that our forecasters have accurate information. Lev will be specializing in Cascadia-Amenta relations. He is the highest ranked among Cascadian forecasters for accuracy."

"Second highest ranked. Asher is first. We decided against sending him because he's, like, a green-grey hybrid in your system? And we thought that might be offputting."

"We do expect aliens to be aliens - and green-grey hybrids exist on Amenta in a country called Ereith for historical reasons - but I appreciate the consideration."

"The most important fact for you to know about Cascadia is that, as a country, we are ideologically committed to taking in any immigrant who makes it to Cascadian soil. We will return children who our social workers believe are not being abused, but that is it. We will not compromise on this. From our point of view, this discussion is primarily to inform what laws we should make regarding any Amentans who immigrate to Cascadia."

"Commander Waterford was concerned that you wouldn't be able to maintain environments to Amentan standards of cleanliness, or might prefer not to."

"We understand that pollution laws are likely to be difficult for humans to abide by and enforcing them would involve a good deal of state involvement in private matters, which makes us leery about implementing them in Cascadia. Obviously, there are circumstances that could cause us to change this position, such as an ongoing refugee crisis which current state actors are incapable of handling appropriately without our involvement."

"I don't think we're dealing with a refugee crisis at the moment, but if you're planning to harbor Amentans you should have something set up for it before, not after, any you receive are accidentally tortured."

"If it turns out that no Amentans want to live in Cascadia, we do not object to that state of affairs, and we certainly have no intention of deceiving anyone about our pollution laws, whatever they shall turn out to be."

"I don't expect large-scale entry into Cascadia if you don't explicitly invite it. But in a large population there are always small irregularities. If I were committed to the equivalent refugee policy and I were initiating contact with analogously different aliens, I would set aside one empty medium-sized apartment building and one truck per likely popular entry site in conditions suited to them, pending increased demand."

"That seems like an excellent idea, although a medium-sized apartment building seems rather small, and it does still leave the problem of them accidentally becoming polluted walking around."

"How big is a medium-sized apartment building?" Lev asks Avalor. "For us it's maybe six units."

"- I was thinking approximately eighty units of four bedrooms each, thank you for the clarification. What is a small apartment building?"

"Like three units. We have a cultural aversion to density. That said, I don't see any reason we couldn't build a skyscraper somewhere safely far away from anything Gilead might be interested in nuking."

"A cultural aversion to density means that if there ever is a major crisis that has Amentans pouring into Cascadia, you will need to become overnight experts in population control."

"If that happens, we will figure something out. You guys don't mind density, we'd build a bunch of skyscrapers somewhere boring. --I don't suppose you happen to be immune to radiation in addition to bitoxiphosphene."

"We are not immune to radiation in general, but we haven't systematically investigated whether we're differentially sensitive - we do brown more efficiently under sunlight than you do."

"We have three cities' worth of land that is unlivable to humans due to radiation. If that's safe for Amentans to live, you could almost certainly get a law passed saying that Amentan pollution laws apply there. Especially if you have Cascadian-sympathetic poster children, which you will, because you're settling in Gilead."

The ambassador makes a face.

"--That's not a promise, that's a prediction, but I'm usually right."

"What about settling in Montana would have this result?"

"...So I have four people from Gilead who at least occasionally live in my house. Not a random sample, but reasonably representative of people who escape from Gilead to Cascadia. One of them watched five of her six children die; she couldn't use contraception because contraception is illegal in Gilead. One of them was sent to an institution to treat his same-sex attraction, where he was raped by the director. One of them had to flee the country because he hit on a guy who turned out to be a member of the secret police. One of them was forced into a pregnancy against her will and is currently raising her rapist's baby. I don't know what your sympathetic poster children will look like but you will have them."

"My impression is that they're happy to have Montana turned over to Amentan-style governance which would avoid most of those problems, but it does seem plausible there will be others given a large enough colony."