"It's not that humans don't want children," the ambassador says, "it's just that, oh, you know, people focus on their careers, some people aren't sure they'd be good parents, people have trouble finding someone they want to have kids with, some people want to travel or have fun or get an education in their twenties and by the time they're ready for children they're infertile... And a surrogate is so expensive. A hundred and fifty thousand dollars is a lot of money, and a lot of people who don't have particularly good jobs can't afford it at all, and a lot of the ones who can would rather spend it on a nice house or something, or don't want to bring their children into the world if their children are going to be financially insecure..."

"To an Amentan," says Avalor, "this means that humans don't want children very much."

"Huh," the Canadian ambassador says. "I understand why population controls are important, then."

"Yes. It's a lesson we've learned over the last decade or so."

"I like the Gilead system where Amentan laws apply in some locations and human laws apply in some others and population controls apply to Amentans wherever they live," the Canadian ambassador says, "it seems like a reasonable compromise."

"I'm glad, I think it will work well. Do you also want to settle an unseasonable part of Voa to bring up little human girls there?"

"I believe there will be many applicants! Would you prefer to filter it yourselves or have us do it?"

"That depends on what protocols you want to have for interfacing between them and ordinary Voa. We're happy to have you do it provided we can enforce overarching laws we need to."

"We'd probably just end up doing a lottery on people who have no criminal record, if you have stronger preferences we'd be happy to accommodate them."

"If lotteries would be well received by your constituency I don't object. I'd like to refer you to some of my staff for discussing the legalities; they've already drawn up a proposal for the Gileadites about what sorts of Voan law will and will not apply in human enclaves. Inconveniently Voan law is not in a long term stable state right now due to some recent historical events, but our laws do come in categories and we think that we can understand them in those terms for this purpose without important loss of applicability when details are adjusted."

"That sounds excellent. Perhaps my staff should be in touch with your staff?"

"Yes, we've rented some rooms to serve as conference rooms here so we can confer without losing the translation effect, I believe the people you want to talk to will be in room 30449."

Then the Canadian ambassador and her staff will talk with Avalor's staff!

On the plane home to Cascadia Lev writes his reports. Population control is necessary for Amentans. A two-per system will cause thus-and-such increase in subjective welfare; a credit auction system will increase tax revenues by thus-and-such per Amentan; a permissions system appears to have no advantages but he puts such a probability on Avalor being lying or mistaken. Pollution controls can be expected to increase tourism and immigration by such-and-such amount. He is very uncertain of the welfare and economic effects of the caste system and expects the effects to be driven by e.g. whether particularly unusual Amentans will immigrate to Cascadia if they don't have a caste system. He is not very certain that he hasn't missed anything important about Amentans. 

Then he takes a deep breath, opens a new tab, and writes about Amentans. 

Abstract

The red caste deals with polluted objects, including sewage, trash, and other reds (epsilon). Amentans find the red caste disgusting and unpleasant to interact with (one in ten million). Amentans are bigoted against reds [see Appendix 1 on the role of disgust in oppression among human beings] (one in one million), including finding them unintelligent and evil and not worthy of moral consideration (one in one million). Structural mistreatment of reds is common (one in one million) and pervades the social work and criminal justice systems, as well as the market economy that interfaces with reds (one in a hundred thousand). Reds believe something bad will happen if their jobs are automated (one in a hundred thousand). The consequences of the automaton of red jobs may include genocide (73%). Higher certainty levels may be achieved if the Voan books about reds are translated (one in one million).

See Appendix 2 for summaries of representative stories about the mistreatment of reds. 

Then he goes home and hugs Sasha and cries into his shoulder and can't tell him why. 

If no one brings this report to the Voans' attention, they will announce to enormous fanfare the discovery of a magical portal to an underpopulated alien planet, and in the wake of this announcement they select two groups of three hundred people each who are willing to go camping on Earth for a few months, and prep them for expeditions to Sasaktchewan and Montana to see if any of them season there. The test groups don't include any reds, since they're going to be on campout protocol; they're mostly green, most of the rest purple, some orange and grey to handle the likely issues in groups of three hundred, and one blue per group to diplomacize their interacting-with-humans needs.

The Cascadian government keeps the report very very confidential. They make some concessions about trade and Gileadite border enforcement and obtain the services of a Voan-to-English translator. 

The early results from the books come in. Lev's report grows longer and his levels of uncertainty go down but his conclusions don't change. 

Special arrangements are made with the Gilead state news channel. It's hyped for days as a revelation that will change everything. (Most people think it's a minor change to population policy or the rules of exactly what is heretical.)

Fred, a Voan spokesyellow, and a human translator appear on stage.

The Voan spokesyellow could not really pass for human blonde; her hair looks like bee-fuzz. She smiles and waves at the cameras.

The interviewer shuffles some papers for dramatic effect. "Mr. Waterford, I think we're all excited to hear what brings you to our show tonight."

"Of course," Fred says. "I come to you today because God Himself has blessed us with a miracle."

"What sort of miracle?" the interviewer says.

"To be honest, I've been trying to figure out how to break the news gently, and I don't have anything, so I'll just say it straight," Fred says. "A few weeks ago, I opened the door to my closet, and I didn't find my coats. I found an interdimensional bar called Milliways. In the bar, I made first contact with a species of aliens called Amentans. One Amentan is present on this stage tonight."

"Hello!" says the Amentan in accented English, beaming. "We are so pleased to meet you!" She has memorized a few phrases phonetically.

"There are many exciting opportunities that first contact has brought us," Fred says, "and I'll talk about some of them later tonight. But the most exciting opportunity is the fact that Amentans have never heard of God. We're looking forward to this unparalleled opportunity for missionary work, for the glory of His Name."

"Is that true?" the journalist says. "You don't believe in God?"

After she's confirmed her translation of this with the human translator, she replies through him, "The concept is new to us! Amenta doesn't have any religion the way humans understand it."

"No religion at all?" the interviewer says. "You've never heard of God?"

"They're as innocent as an atheist in a Sunday-school-class conversion video," Fred says, to widespread laughter.

The Amentan smiles. "I was briefed before I came here, so I have heard of God, but not outside of the context of contact with Earth!"

"Is this what Amentans look like," the interviewer asks, "or have they taken a form with which we might be more comfortable?"