Avalor waits, doing some work on her pocket everything.

Eventually, they return. 

"What my colleague meant to say is," Chloe says, "it sounds like the situation of your reds has some parallels in our history, some of which are particularly sensitive to Cascadians as a people. It is difficult to say what our policy will be at this point, but there is a strong likelihood that we may wish to fund research into robotics that can automate red jobs, then allow the reds to live among Cascadians, who will not find them disgusting. However, since Cascadia is a small country and Amenta is very large, we may decide against making a choice that would change our country so radically."

Lev clearly does not consider this to be an accurate summary of his position.

"Unfortunately, attempts at researching robotics tend to cause the reds to kill all the roboticists. Perhaps if the research is done in Cascadia it can be pursued safely."

"...why do the reds kill all the roboticists?"

"They do not want their jobs to be automated."

"Robots can automate purple jobs, purples aren't killing roboticists."

"There exist purple jobs less vulnerable to automation and purples are less violent as a class, although if reds weren't doing it for them I suppose it is possible they would also object."

Lev is very very suspicious of this explanation.

He is also being glared at by Chloe.

He shuts up. 

"I think we would be very interested in getting a chance to talk to some reds," Chloe says. "Privately. If that could be arranged."

"I do not think it would be particularly tractable."

Well, that isn't suspicious at all.

"I think we've explored this topic as far as we can," Chloe says. "You were saying, about what Commander Waterford has told you about us?"

"Gileadite theologians appear to be sympathetic to the idea that God is telling us to avoid polluted things, and he speculated that if this became known in Cascadia, Cascadians would pollute things to be contrary."

"...That would be abominably stupid. I realize we just had a discussion about how I'm not allowed to set policy but I am allowed to call things abominably stupid and then in general the parliament does not enact abominably stupid policies."

"I am relieved to hear it. - Reds are polluted, so not desiring to deliberately pollute your country will inhibit your ability to harbor any even if we didn't have the right ratio of them at the moment."

"Even in the event that we accepted red immigrants, you could rely on us not polluting trade goods or falsely advertising areas as clean when they were not."

"I appreciate the distinction, thank you. However, I do not believe we have an excess of reds. We currently have more purples and fewer yellows than would be ideal and plan to use the colonies as an opportunity to address the imbalance, since unlike credit countries we can't just twiddle the numbers down."

"Is there any particular reason Cascadia should enforce the caste system on any Amentan immigrants we should happen to get?"

"I'd recommend you talk to my theologian about that but my guess is that you will not find her reasons compelling except insofar as you will have to contain any reds you receive in order to avoid Amentan outrage."

"Is there anything else we should talk about?"

"Do you think you have a useful perspective on Mexico and Canada I will not receive from their own representatives or Gilead?"

"It's not super-likely but the Canadian government might be lax in enforcing population controls if the population views it as a violation of women's right to bodily autonomy. You will never, ever, ever get population controls enforced in Mexico and they will riot if they discover you give people abortions. --In theory I was hired to work on population policy, so I know more about that."

"Commander Waterford touched on the trouble with Mexico but not the potential issue with Canada. Population laws are not differentially enforced except insofar as the biology of pregnancy makes it practically necessary."

"I'm not positive about how Canada will respond, but they are slow-motion imploding because they don't want, uh, three- and four-year-olds to have babies, so there is a precedent for them holding to stupid policies out of principle."