"About that, Amenta does not have those and I suspect it was in some ways a superior period of history when we had not encountered the idea."

The ambassador blanches.

"...I'm so sorry."

"It might be that we're in a period of adequate peace that they need never fall on our planet. I am glad we did not encounter you a couple of years ago."

The ambassador looks like she is going to be sick. She takes a deep breath and says, "we too are glad. We-- are researching adequate defense mechanisms against nuclear weapons and if one is found we shall of course share it as widely as possible."

"I appreciate that.

"It will almost certainly be impossible to really contain the information considering the significance in Earth history, but slowing it down could matter."

"--I am not generally licensed to make promises but I can assure you that if the Cascadian people discovered that I were capable of taking steps to prevent a nuclear war and had not done so I would be stabbed twenty-seven times and the coroner would say I ran into a knife."

Avalor blinks at "coroner" but that's all.

Lev catches the blink.

"Do you not have coroners in Voa?"

"The word may be translating oddly."

"How does it translate?"

"There are reds who dissect the bodies of people who died under suspicious circumstances. They are not generally consulted for their opinions on the subjects; supervising oranges direct the autopsy and assess the results."

"That's strange. Why wouldn't the autopsy be directed by the people who are doing the autopsy?"

Chloe realizes they brought a forecaster for a reason, but really really doesn't think this line of questioning is the most important thing right now. They could be talking trade agreements instead of satisfying Lev's idle curiosity about the caste system. She compromises with herself by making an impatient face.

"The red is present as a buffer between the orange expert and the corpse, not for medical expertise."

"...why... don't you train the people who are doing autopsies... in medicine?"

"Medicine is orange. While there are procedures in place to handle it if a patient dies in the hospital, autopsies are predictable enough that a red may be enlisted instead."

"...what, exactly, is the social status of reds?"

"- I'm not sure exactly what you mean. They are the lowest status caste, though it is no longer fashionable to explicitly rank them all."

"Are red schools worse than other schools, what does the red life expectancy look like compared to the life expectancy of non-reds, do reds traditionally undergo some sort of painful body modification that other people don't, do reds typically have the same level of health care as nonreds, are reds more likely than nonreds to experience food insecurity, if a red is murdered will their killer be prosecuted..."

"The reds handle schooling internally, but it wouldn't surprise me if they were worse, since teaching is not a red occupation. I would need to look up life expectancy but pollution exposure is not known to be healthful. I don't think they practice any irregular body modification. The same is true of medicine as of education except insofar as we have to intervene to be certain they all have access to birth control and on-demand abortion because reds count as population. I would need to look up statistics on their food insecurity, though I am not sure any have been taken. Killing reds is illegal but it seems prima facie likely that we do not catch much red-on-red crime and policing is not a red occupation."

"I didn't mean red-on-red. What happens if a non-red murders a red?"

"It is illegal," she says, "but it's more likely to be noticed, since someone would have to enter and leave a red district, or account for their missing garbage collector. It does not carry a sentence of sterilization or execution; I do not have all our on-book criminal penalties memorized as I'm in the process of wrestling the entire country back onto its feet but that crime does not make the shortlist."

"--Okay, yeah, scratch that stuff we were saying before, we're going to take as many of your reds as you want to give to us."

"Excuse me," Chloe says, yanking Lev up by the shoulder, "we need to have a private conversation."

Snippets of their conversation can be heard by the Amentans: "not an elected official" and "do you really think it's okay" and "quintuple the population at least" and "overstretched social safety net" and "refugee camps" and "Canada."

It is not a very civil conversation.