"My specialty is the theology of caste - I didn't have time to grab a copy of my book, unfortunately - but I teach introductory theology classes so I know the basics of theology of pollution, theology of family, and theology of care. Castes are - my summary indicated you didn't have castes, is that an oversimplification or is that really so?"

"We do not limit occupations based on anything other than innate aptitude and, of course, gender."

"Gender?" blinks the theologian. "- oh, that's probably about your fertility crisis, of course you probably have a public interest in keeping anyone with a working uterus away from the military or logging or whatever."

"While men and women are of course equal, they were created with different and complementary personalities and aptitudes. Men lead, provide, and protect; women nurture, care, and submit."

"I... see. Last word has... odd connotations... anyway, our castes are blue, green, yellow, orange, grey, purple, and red. Blues, like Avalor, manage land, make policy, and judge court cases; greens, like me, do research, study, art, and music; yellows, like the Secretary, do finance, computer, and clerical work; oranges, of whom there aren't any examples on hand, do medicine, nursing, childcare, and teaching; greys, like the guard at the door, do police, military, and sex work, plus -"

"Sex work? Do you mean to tell me you have a caste of prostitutes?"

"- plus modeling, athletics, and dance? They're not all prostitutes."

"If I may?" says the science fiction writer. "First, Amentans do not know God or His teachings, they have no way to know that prostitution is wrong. No doubt to them it is like buying or selling any other service. Second, as I've explored in my writings, sexual morality is likely to be different for alien species. A cat is not sinning when she has promiscuous sex, nor is a fish sinning when he abandons his children. No two snowflakes are alike, why would two species be alike? Prostitution might not actually be sinful for Amentans."

"But they are buying and selling women's and children's bodies, trafficking people into sex slavery, and she puts it in a sentence next to modeling as if that's okay--"

"- not children! Women and men four and up, adults. And slavery is illegal in Voa - in most parts of the world in fact - it's a voluntary occupation -"

"You can't get people to voluntarily be prostitutes, even if they say they're consenting it's probably because they have low self-esteem and don't believe they can find love any other way and want to turn themselves into objects," the theologian says heatedly.

"Humans. You can't get humans to voluntarily be prostitutes," the science fiction writer says.

"- Excuse me," the green says to Anda. "Are you related to any prostitutes?"

"...Uh, my grandpa, in the off-season... why?" she says.

"Does he like his job?"

"Yeah, he's going to go full time when he ages out of skiing...?"

"Thank you."

"If it turns out we need a prostitute for first contact please don't call my grandpa, at least not while I'm here, that would be so awkward."

"Of course not," the green assures her.

"Your grandfather is a homosexual prostitute?!"

"He's not homosexual," says Anda, bewildered. "He's straight. If we need a homosexual grey for some reason I'd have to call my aunt."

"We don't need a homosexual grey," says the green theologian. "I think. What's the issue exactly?"

"Among humans," the science fiction writer says, "the clients of prostitutes are almost always male, so we assume that a male prostitute is a homosexual."

"Women and men face different sexual temptations," the human theologian says. "Men are more visually stimulated, so they are tempted to hire prostitutes. Women have strong emotional longings, so they're tempted by, you know, romance novels and dressing immodestly and emotional affairs. --Wait, your family includes a prostitute and a homosexual? I'm so sorry, is there anything I can do to help--"

"...I'm confused," says Anda. "I'm a guard, not a, whatever I'd have to be to follow this - professor, do you know what -"

"I'm sorry, I don't know why he's offering to help either," apologizes the green. "She doesn't need any help. Her family isn't unusual or - troubled. Amentan men and women are pretty much alike, we don't have this difference you're talking about."

"Excuse me, can I talk with you privately for a moment?" the SF writer says to the human theologian.

When they're at a private table, she says, "do you think Jim Elliot would have evangelized the-- whoever he evangelized-- if he had spent the whole time being outraged about their sexual ethics?"

"I mean, no, but--"

"The Amentans have literally never heard of God," the SF writer says. "Of course they lust, they have no grace to do better. Their one chance of getting God's grace is you and you are screwing it up because of your self-righteousness."

"I don't think this is a very ladylike way to behave," the theologian says.

"And I don't think judging the Amentans for their sins is a very Christlike way to behave, and yet here we are," she says. "Do you want me to talk to Commander Waterford about this?"

"Young lady, I am a doctor of theology--"

"And I am a high school dropout who writes midlist science fiction," the SF writer says, "and yet I'm pretty sure I'd win this argument. Shape up." She returns to the table with the Amentans.

The administrative assistant, who was watching this conversation, takes a note. 

The green theologian blinks politely at them. "- did you have more questions about greys, or should I summarize the remaining castes?" she asks.

(The linguists have written down each other's alphabets and transliterated them, and then quickly run into diminishing returns associated with being unable to understand each other; they return to the bar to spell words for each other by pointing at their alphabet charts, which seems to work fine.)

"Please summarize the remaining castes," the SF writer says with a pleasing smile. 

The human theologian is grumpily silent. 

"Purples do farming, retail, factory work, cleaning, unskilled labor generally, construction - they have some of the most variety, which makes sense since they're more than half the population," the theologian says. "And there are reds, who most people don't talk about much because they make everyone uncomfortable; they handle polluted things, such as waste products, dead bodies, and each other. Accordingly they live in segregated districts, though they come out to work with appropriate barriers to contact with clean people, places, and things. I haven't wanted to be rude but one thing we do need to establish at some point is whether you're clean."

"I don't think we know what the words 'polluted' and 'clean' mean in this context," the SF writer says.

The green winces a little. Anda, still in earshot, stiffens slightly. "Well," the green says, "if you haven't been being careful, it might be that you're not, but unless any of you come from a long line of undertakers or sewer workers, that can be fixed with a shower, which we can tell you how to do to the international standard."

The theologian is now extremely confused and silent!

"Could you walk me through what pollution is, assuming that we know absolutely nothing about pollution?" the SF writer says.

"I can try," says the theologian. "I've met hyposensitives - there are Amentans who aren't as concerned with the concept as much as they ought to be, or at least don't come by it naturally - but I've never met someone who didn't know anything about it at all before, hyposensitives are sometimes even rather preoccupied with it after they've been to therapy and so on for the condition... do stop me to ask questions if I go too quickly or something. So - uh, will an evolutionary explanation make sense, or should I try to think of another way to explain where pollution sense comes from?"

The SF writer says, "Let's go with a non-evolutionary explanation, since as far as I know we were not created by evolution and until, uh, today thought that evolution was mathematically impossible."

"Mathem- okay. So... never mind how this happened, I suppose... Amentans have an innate concern with things that might be sources of contagion. Oh, do you have infectious diseases at all, since you were designed, should I grab one of the biologists -"